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Stallion Cabana posted:
Instead of asking if it applies in this situation, just explain why it applies in this situation. "As a demon haunter I've lurked in the bedrooms of a lot of demons, and so I know a thing or two about evil interior decorating. Is any of the furniture in this necromancer's lair out of place or unusual in some fashion, maybe hiding or otherwise indicating something important?" I'm gonna do a big dumb effort post sooner or later about how fail forward design means that "Batman +5" is a fine skill, but the long and the short of it is because the story keeps rolling on regardless, how competent your character is is really up to you. Stallion Cabana posted:I might be over thinking this, You're way overthinking this. If you can think of a good reason at the table, then it works. Otherwise it doesn't. Onwards towards adventure!
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Oct 9, 2013 05:40
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Stallion Cabana posted:I have a question that might sound odd, but I would request you guys finish reading because it'll make more sense. It's generally a good idea to try and attribute your background to a specific organization where your character was trained. Flesh them out a bit and try and figure out what kind of training your character might've gotten while studying there. Don't be afraid to stretch it a bit - your demon haunting background could've been an organisation where study took place entirely in the realm of dreams, while meditating in the harsh deserts of the Red Wastes, allowing one's mind to latch on to psychic echoes of the great extinction that once happened at the jaws of the Red Dragon. A five point background is something you put a lot of time into so feel free to give it a bit, important part of your character's backstory. Try and figure out what part of your training your character excelled at? What do you most want to get out of it? Was he particularly good at comprehending the ancient tongues in which his lessons were inscribed, or was did he simply have another agenda where he chose to study his companions in the hopes of one day betraying them and harvesting their talents to improve his own spiritual prowess? Often you'll have a harder time thinking of which ability score fits with a roll than picking a background, because if you know basically what your role was there, you know which one you can pick to fit best in any given circumstance. If you're concerned you might be going too general try to think about what your background wasn't. What did your character neglect in order to pursue that background? I know that my character working on theatre sets for a dwarven troupe gives him some expertise in dwarven customs and engineering. I also know that he stayed out of the spotlight, and is never going to be able to use his expertise to play to a crowd, no matter how many of them are dwarven. So if your monk's team was always well supplied with catered food, and spend most of their time training rather than setting up camp or cooking, then that's an interesting weakness for him to have. Similarly, his knowledge of demons might preclude knowledge of other monsters, or he might be an expert in the regions in which he fought, but unfamiliar to the ones in which he didn't. Remember, a specific organisation is generally going to focus on a certain location - your background probably won't be equally applicable to all regions and scenarios. Your knowledge of demonic magical items need not apply to conventionally enchanted items. When in doubt, try and build the world out because you'll naturally have to make certain decisions about just how much your background really applies. Conversely, if your background grants you an ability others might not expect then that's an interesting thing for your character to have. If your monk is super good at interpretative dance because that's how he practiced balancing and martial forms, then that's a totally legitimate thing to have. if you can justify a weird skill in an interesting way then you deserve the bonus you get for entertaining the group. And above all, don't worry about it. Give your background some interesting gimmicks or traditions that you can use to make your character fun and memorable. Perhaps it's very important that you bow before every fight or have a unique taunt that you always recite when facing certain types of enemy. Maybe you're really bad at following the code you're supposed to live by, but really good at thinking up excuses that sort of justify your behaviour. It's all good so long as the result is interesting, funny or and at least semi-plausible.
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Oct 9, 2013 05:54
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Right, so one repeating meme regarding 13th age is that the background system means some powerful backgrounds, like, say, "Batman +5," are universally applicable, while other backgrounds, like "Beach Volleyball +5," are not. We can argue all day about how Beach Volleyball experience can be surprisingly useful in a variety of situations, but it's basically irrefutable that Batman is useful in more of them, and the few gaps in batmanning can be made up for with the character's other background, "Billionaire Playboy +3." This is considered a bad thing. But "Fail Forwards" skill use (Page reference: 42) means that being more likely to succeed is not advantageous. Let's look at two theoretical parties. The first stars alpha player Wruce Bwane, who had the backgrounds, "Batman +5" and "Billionaire Playboy +3," is part of a team of PCs who all have similarly justice league themed backgrounds. They have powerful, universally applicable backgrounds that synergize well with their stats. The second team's alpha player is Kele the Bird, an elf who used to be a bird, who has the backgrounds "Bird +5," "Fortune loves an Idiot +1," and "Slept through his monastic training +2." He's good at perching on objects and cheating on tests and not much else--while you could say his background as a wild animal makes him perceptive he doesn't have a high wisdom so at the table there's not much he actually rolls a high number for. The rest of his party are musicians, chumps, and drunks. They are given similar premises for adventure. Wruce Bwane is very concerned that the Police Commissioner's daughter has been captured. By rolling Batman he finds the discarded crossbow bolt---most of them had been retrieved, but the head of one had broken off in a floorboard. His wizard buddy, the Emerald Lantern, uses his broadly defined arcane abilities to find the original forge the crossbow head was made in. It's in the private forge of the Badwrongfun Estate, a troublesome aristocratic family with a small army of guards and a ball later tonight. Fortunately a successful "Billionaire Playboy" roll gets Wruce and his personal servants invitations to the ball. Inside a few successful rolls (and one notable failure) gets them inside and in the basement, but tips off the head of security, who jumps the party in the basement, in a dramatic level 2 scuffle where everyone themes their actions to be as quiet as possible, occasionally making rolls to dive across the room and catch a falling vase so as not to disturb the party upstairs. Kele the Bird is very concerned that the Police Commissioner's daughter was stolen by grackles, even though the commissioner says no one knows who kidnapped her--it's always grackles! You can't trust them. He rolls against Bird to find the nearest Grackle Triad, which is apparently a thing that exists, and the GM says it's in the Badwrongfun Estate, a troublesome aristocratic family with a small army of guards and a ball later tonight. One of his allies tries to get them jobs in the catering group, but after getting in the party quickly flubs a series of catering related checks and are escorted to the back door to get thrown out on their asses. Furious, Kele knocks out the chefs as "miserable grackle allies" and the party is quickly set upon a group of house guards. A level 2 scuffle erupts, where everyone modifies their actions to toss guards into pots or to upend cakes on their heads. Meanwhile, Wruce Bwane finishes his fight--because they were silent, no other guards come running. In fact, no one knows there's trouble until he dangles the head of security out of an attic window with a rope tied around his foot and demands to know just what Lord Badwrongfun has to do with it. The guards say they had nothing to do with it--the crossbow bolt was probably taken by those lycanthrope bandits which attacked last week, a scurrilous bunch. A party member uses her background as an Amazon Princess to magically determine that the guards are telling the truth, and that the Badwrongfun Estate was not directly involved. Wruce leaves the head of security dangling out the window to draw attention as his team escapes out the window. A few Batman checks later and they've shaken down the local thugs and found out the gang of terrifying were-creatures is lurking in an abandoned temple. An icon roll of the priestess means the party knows a secret tunnel in and they ambush the creatures after spying on a ritual--some sort of foul prayer to a giant, monstrous, shapeshifting demiurge. And there's the captured daughter, on the dias and about to be sacrificed! The party leaps from the shadows and attacks. It's a desperate struggle against a level 3 fight, a series of fights against humanoids, each of whom turns into a different kind of animal! There's plenty of ritual urns to upturn and magical effects to accidentally trigger as they fight. Kele the Bird and company wins the fight against the guard, but dozens more of them are totes coming! The party runs for it, using their goofy backgrounds to blunder through the city streets, making "Drunk" rolls to burst through breweries, a negative relationship with the Elf Queen to steal an elvish horse from those rear end in a top hat elvish merchants, and a roll of "Arcane College Dropout" to quickly join and blend into a game of hackey-sack. Burning with fury, Kele starts talking with the birds around time, using his background to find out just what the grackles are up to. As per tradition, the GM gives the rest of the party no indication that Kele can (or can't) talk to birds, but people see him talking to animals and assume he's one of those dangerous lycanthropes. Word gets back to the thieves, and they investigate the new, unaffiliated were-bird. They approach the party, are disheartened to learn none of them are lyanthropes, and try to kill them to keep their secret. It's a desperate struggle against a level 3 fight, a series of fights against humanoids, each of whom turns into a different kind of animal! It's a ugly, messy fight in the muddy back alleys of the city, with a break every two rounds (lowering the escalation die each break) as everyone leans against a wall and whistles innocently whenever the city guard walk past. Back to Wruce Bwane, who corners the last remaining lycanthrope, a were-snake shaman. The shaman whips out a sacrificial knife and plunges it into his own chest--they may have stopped the ritual, but dark lord Horribus Unpronouncibliliux will arise nevertheless! The building crumbles as a huge shadowy presence bursts up from the ground, sundering walls as it grows. The party moves quickly to use their skills to evacuate the surrounding neighborhood, saving the lives of countless poor or dispossessed citizens before the monster solidifies into a terrifying mass of flesh and claw. It's time for the final showdown against a triple strength monster and his two remaining lycanthrope minions, and every round the demon turns into a different form, with different defenses, attacks, and special qualities. Can the party stay focused and execute a plan with the combat being completely different each round!? The city is at stake! Kele the Bird is enjoying considerably less success. They've fought off the lycanthropes, but a few escape. Chasing them, the party finds itself outside a small building, an abandoned church completely haunted by an enormous flock of grackles. Is this the source of the evil? The party makes a few rolls to try to sneak up on the building without attracting the attention of any avian foes, but their attempt is abruptly stopped when the building crumbles as a huge shadowy presence bursts up from the ground, sundering walls as it grows. The party moves quickly to use their skills to evacuate the surrounding neighborhood, saving the lives of countless poor or dispossessed citizens before the monster solidifies into a terrifying mass of flesh and claw. It's dark lord Horribus Unpronouncibliliux, dark lord of the grackles! It's time for the final showdown against a triple strength monster and his two remaining lycanthrope minions, and every round the demon turns into a different form, with different defenses, attacks, and special qualities. Can the party stay focused and execute a plan with the combat being completely different each round!? The city is at stake! Wruce Bwane and company defeats the were-demon, saving the girl and the city. He and his allies return to the captain of the guard in triumph, return the daughter to her loving father, and are buried in praise. They are given a level appropriate treasure with a quirk themed to the city guard and the key to the city. Everyone is super impressed with them because they're so rad and awesome. Kele the Bird and company defeats the grackle lord, saving the city. They find a level appropriate challenge in the claws of one of the lycanthrope minions of the grackle lord, presumably the leader of the foul grackle cult. It has some kind of wild beast quirk to it. Returning to the commissioner in triumph, they announce proudly that the Grackles have been defeated, one and all. "And my daughter?" the commisioner says, worried. "Oh, right, her." Kele looks sad. "I think grackles ate her!" "Get the hell out of my office." So we've got two parties. One of them passed nearly every background check with awesome backgrounds that do a lot, and one failed nearly every check with terrible background bad at nearly everything, and yet each of them had a level 2 fight, a level 3 fight, a level 3 fight with unusually few monsers, and a single treasure drop. The only real difference is that the player playing Batman went around looking cool and doing cool things, while the player playing a Bird went around looking dumb and doing goofy things. And a player who plays batman probably wants to look cool, and a player playing a bird probably wants to do goofy things. Which means the background mechanics are working as intended, and that players are empowered to choose the game they want to play. There's only two questions left. Is my background too powerful or useful? Only if it annoys the other players. Is my background too weak or useless? Only if it annoys the other players. Mystic Mongol fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 02:10
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Mystic Mongol posted:Basically the best post ever Thank you for this. This is more helpful and enlightening then you could ever imagine.
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Oct 10, 2013 04:02
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Man, I was enthralled while reading that. When does the next issue come out!?
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Oct 10, 2013 04:30
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Hell, I'm unemployed. What game mechanic do you need explained as a comparison between the world's greatest detective and a bird who turned into an elf?
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Oct 10, 2013 04:38
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I'm the horrible grognard who only has fun when he wins, preferably by curbstomping every challenge thrown our way.
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Oct 10, 2013 04:43
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P.d0t posted:I'm the horrible grognard who only has fun when he wins, preferably by curbstomping every challenge thrown our way. Have you considered taking a broad, universally applicable background, like "High Inquisitor of the Archmage +5"? A background that lets you bully people, detect lies, rub elbows with important people, investigate crimes and supernatural events, ride horses, command elite teams and small brigades of soldiers, identify poisons, illustrate illuminated manuals, have knowledge about a wide variety of arcane, religious, and civic concerns, and dress like a cathedral in a hot topic sounds like it would appeal to you!
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Oct 10, 2013 04:46
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What if I worship the power of swole and think magic is for posers?
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Oct 10, 2013 04:54
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P.d0t posted:What if I worship the power of swole and think magic is for posers? Key it in to your One Unique Thing: The High Inquisitor of the Archmage has no magical talents or weaknesses in order to keep him pure and incorruptible in the face of adversity. Everything that he does is through pure talent, raw strength, and indomitable force of will, though outsiders sometimes misinterpret his mastery of the natural world as magic. e: I should add that 'The Power of Swole' is basically what the Orc Lord in my campaign is going to have. S.J. fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 04:56
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Mystic Mongol posted:Hell, I'm unemployed. What game mechanic do you need explained as a comparison between the world's greatest detective and a bird who turned into an elf? Do one for Icon Relationships and one for Combat. I feel these will be entertaining as well. P.d0t posted:What if I worship the power of swole and think magic is for posers? One Unique Thing: Secretly Captain Carrot.
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Oct 10, 2013 04:59
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That was the most fantastic way I've seen backgrounds explained, and really made me take a look at how my own players approach their backgrounds. Our power-hungry Demon Mafia Sorcerer loves his +5 "Well-Connected" background, whereas our Frog-woman posing as a fat man with a walrus mustache Fighter equally divides her backgrounds between "Pit Fighter", "Glass-blower", "General Jerk", and "Disciple of Gordon Ramsey". It's a good party.
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Oct 10, 2013 07:05
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While I won't deny that that post was awesome, doesn't it basically boil down to your rolls not mattering? Which I'm totally okay with, because "nope you fail" is unfun, but it kinda seems like at that point why even roll instead of just freeforming Batman being Batman and Birdman being Birdman.
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Oct 10, 2013 10:27
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Because when Bwane needs to find out more about the mysterious new thieves guild, he can go straight to the Commish. When Kele needs the facts on CRIME GRACKLES (They're evolving!), not only is the chief of police gunning for him, half the people in town still think he's an evil lycanthrope. And there's the destruction of Noble's Property. And those hacky sack players are, like, so harsh about getting their mellow buzzed. When you fail forward, you progress the plot by ejecting more malevolent plot threads for later.
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Oct 10, 2013 11:12
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Mr. Maltose posted:Because when Bwane needs to find out more about the mysterious new thieves guild, he can go straight to the Commish. When Kele needs the facts on CRIME GRACKLES (They're evolving!), not only is the chief of police gunning for him, half the people in town still think he's an evil lycanthrope. And there's the destruction of Noble's Property. And those hacky sack players are, like, so harsh about getting their mellow buzzed. Right, but what part of that requires rolling? I guess what I don't get is someone who wants to play a bumbling character deliberately setting themselves up to fail within the mechanics rather than just straight up saying how they bumble. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 12:16
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Jack the Lad posted:While I won't deny that that post was awesome, doesn't it basically boil down to your rolls not mattering? It's not that the rolls don't matter, it's that 'fail forward' makes a point of separating events that must happen from events that can happen. If my party is climbing a cliff to invade Fort DemonSacrifice, I need to be able to get up the cliff. There Be Plot. If my failure means I a) drop some of my gear in the ocean below while trying to climb, b) don't climb fast enough to save the person I was intending to save or c) am too tired to sneak properly and draw all kinds of attention to our group, that's fine. Those failures don't stop play. In fact, now there's even more plot. Fights, journeys to replace my magic sword and regretfully telling the family of the departed that we couldn't get there in time are all possibilities in our future. It's just that not being able to climb the cliff would much more likely stop the advance of the story.
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Oct 10, 2013 12:32
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RyvenCedrylle posted:It's not that the rolls don't matter, it's that 'fail forward' makes a point of separating events that must happen from events that can happen. If my party is climbing a cliff to invade Fort DemonSacrifice, I need to be able to get up the cliff. There Be Plot. If my failure means I a) drop some of my gear in the ocean below while trying to climb, b) don't climb fast enough to save the person I was intending to save or c) am too tired to sneak properly and draw all kinds of attention to our group, that's fine. Those failures don't stop play. In fact, now there's even more plot. Fights, journeys to replace my magic sword and regretfully telling the family of the departed that we couldn't get there in time are all possibilities in our future. It's just that not being able to climb the cliff would much more likely stop the advance of the story. That's another thing, yeah. A plain old "you climb the cliff" is almost as dull as "you fail to climb the cliff". "You climb the cliff, but" is always going to be more interesting, which kinda means that in a situation where it can happen (fail forward rules) succeeding on a roll actually starts looking a bit unappealing by comparison. I'm struggling to wrap my head around how all this affects things.
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Oct 10, 2013 12:45
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You guys are making me very sad that my group is all about "no things that aren't 100% positive for the characters are allowed to happen, ever." With an unhealthy dose of "if they do the DM is bad."
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Oct 10, 2013 12:52
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My Lovely Horse posted:You guys are making me very sad that my group is all about "no things that aren't 100% positive for the characters are allowed to happen, ever." With an unhealthy dose of "if they do the DM is bad." Look, the PCs get to do horrible things to my NPCs, so returning the favor is fair. The way the game is set up, the PCs are pretty resilient so I don't feel too bad about roughing them up a bit. I have had players that get upset when things don't always go their way, but such is life.
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Oct 10, 2013 13:13
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I see fail toward as shifting the control of the situation from players to DM - the players roll well, things work out for them and they pull off their crazy stunt or whatever. Roll badly and the DM uses fail forward to take a little control. Better than 'the DM stops you from doing anything because you rolled a one' and it also stops players from just saying that of they need something to work, they'll do it again. I've also used backgrounds as occasional negative rolls - in the above example if Bwane wanted to merge with a group of homeless dwarves and share their pain, I'd use 'awesome background number one' as a negative to their roll - you try to use your extensive knowledge of billionaire playboy parties to infiltrate the hillbilly hoedown but your inability to play the jug means you stand out a mile off. One of my players invariably always has a 'sexy' stat somewhere in his characters that he uses to four outrageously with NPCs. Whenever he has an interaction with a non-gnome race I use it as a negative - your bizarre gnomish sexy dance has alienated these elves! They care not for the intricate rules of gnomish burlesque!
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Oct 10, 2013 13:16
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Those fuckers! Or un-fuckers, technically.
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Oct 10, 2013 13:39
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I haven't run many sessions of 13th Age yet, but one use I made of fail forward was an extra fight to wear down the PCs. The party wanted to stealthily approach a farming village by sneaking through the fields. Fair enough. They failed, so I had them stumble into a giant ant nest. In this particular situation, they still approached the town with stealth as the fight took place away from the village, and the only enemies in the town were busy performing a ritual.
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Oct 10, 2013 16:19
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Jack the Lad posted:While I won't deny that that post was awesome, doesn't it basically boil down to your rolls not mattering? Control over the narative, basically. A successful roll means things go the way you want them to--find the clues, investigate the guards, get a job in catering. An unsuccessful roll means things go a way you don't want them to--chased by guards through town, investigate a cult unsuccessfully, your dumb grackle theory doesn't pan out meaningfully. As for why people would care... well, hopefully the players at the table are involved in the story. The team that succeeded at their rolls succeeded at their objectives, while the team that failed their rolls failed the quest completely. Kele the Bird didn't rescue the child--if that doesn't matter to them, find an objective they care about. (Kele the Bird is a elf, not a birdelf or a birdman) Jack the Lad posted:That's another thing, yeah. A plain old "you climb the cliff" is almost as dull as "you fail to climb the cliff". This is a question you have to answer.... fooooooooooooooooor yourselllllf! Obviously my DMing advice is colored by my personal style, which is to show up at the table with a challenging number of fights and the outline of a plot. But while you can (and should!) use fail forwards as a way to introduce complications, like a fight with criminals in the back alleys where the escalation die keeps resetting because the fight stops whenever the cops wander past, if the players succeed that doesn't mean you should give them easy fights. It means you should give them different complications, like magical boobytraps strewn across the battlefield. Both fights are against shapeshifters with identical stats, but neither of them is needlessly easy by missing an element. So sure, if someone botches a climbing roll and you have their primary weapon fall into the sea, that's a painful complication that forces them to use a length of wood for a fight or two, as well as an implicit promise to give that player a magic weapon drop sooner rather than later, I mean come on. But if all the players make it up the cliff, you need to find something A quick warning: If you want something specific to happen, DON'T make it obvious it could have happened on the first chance. Spraying a player with rust beetles and destroying their weapon after they safely climbed a cliff is fine. Having them drop their sword halfway up a cliff after they managed to dodge a spray of rust beetles is a little ham-handed. Losing their sword after avoiding a big trap that practically has, "This is to remove swords," makes them wonder why they bothered to roll dice at all. (They rolled dice because rolling dice is fun.) Mystic Mongol fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 17:08
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Jack the Lad posted:That's another thing, yeah. A plain old "you climb the cliff" is almost as dull as "you fail to climb the cliff". It's just a matter of what the players find interesting. Being successful doesn't necessarily mean the players just do whatever they are doing. "Yes, but" is just part of the trio of "No, but," and most importantly "Yes, and." Provided the players haven't set up some scheme to pull off the cliff scaling and are dedicated to wanting a specific outcome from their rolls, yes anding allows for the GM to propel the plot in a manner parellel to yes butting. The difference being success allows for you to do something in the PCs favour. To continue with the cliff scaling example, having a PC success regularly (through the tiered success levels in 13th Age as a marker. 15, 20, 25 DC in adventurer tier, etc.) could simply mean they manage to get up the cliff successfully. On a strong success (20) they may manage to catch the patrols at the top of the cliff at a moment where the guards are neglecting the area, or during a guard shift switch. On a fantastic success (25) they might even find some hidden, empty guard post in the cliff itself, allowing for the group to climb over and sneak into the fortress or what-have-you completely without any trouble. Perhaps even picking up some information posted on the walls, left for the guards to inform themselves with of the nights itinerary, such as the time, and location of the executions taking place that night. Of course, you could 25 with 20, or wherever you feel it is appropriate. Similarly, if the PCs set out to, say, use the rope they are climbing with to swing straight up onto the top of the cliff and literally get a drop on the situation (through momentum or even just magical propulsion boosts,) they would be setting themselves up with a very hard challenge. Even if they fail you can say they do so, it just means the rope snaps at the swing's apex and alerts some guards, or maybe the PCs didn't judge things too well and landed too far/too short and ended up in a sticky situation while still succeeding in swinging. The purpose of failing forward is to ensure the continuous movement of action, for better or worse (as in, as a result for the PCs, not platers.) It should, above all else though, still be interesting. Kalsco fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 18:08
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Jack the Lad posted:While I won't deny that that post was awesome, doesn't it basically boil down to your rolls not mattering? Think of it in terms of the story that's being laid out. Skill rolls are there to move the story forward - there's no mechanical difference if your party decides to storm the corrupted Baron's tower by sneaking in through the front or by climbing the tower walls all the way to the roof, they'll be rolling a skill check just the same, you'll just be telling a different story depending on what they choose. What's important is that skill checks - fail or succeed - do not become mechanical road blocks to playing the game, only ficiontal road blocks for the PCs goals. If someone fails their skill check, 'fail forward' makes sure that the party is still playing the game, but wouldn't necessarily prevent them from being chased by guards, thrown into jail and interrogated, etc, etc. Basically, the game doesn't stop because someone rolled a 10 where they should've rolled an 11 (a mechanical road block) but what the PCs are trying to accomplish could absolutely be put on hold/stopped as a result via a campaign loss, or other fictional road block. In the above example, the dudes daughter got eaten. I would've made the consequences of the failure have more fictional significance but that's kind of dependent on the particular game/people playing. You don't have to fail forward into the story that you had already prepared, and I don't think that you should if failure is often/significant enough. Give skill failure a fictional significance and use failing forward as the way to make that happen. S.J. fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 18:20
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I am terrible as system tinkering, but a part of me wants to rip the Background thing out and marry it to a point buy descriptor/effect based system like Mutants & Masterminds. Or somehow mesh the two things together (icons, the defenses, etc)
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Oct 12, 2013 02:23
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So I've got kind of two issues going on: How do DM's usually deal with ranger's large pets as far as the roleplay goes? As a DM I really don't want to deal with crap all the time of "Where's your pet liger during all this?" and tracking where they are in combat, etc. Ideally I just want to farm out more bonuses to the more passive talent that just steals the wizard familiar, but going to that feels significantly weaker combat-wise since you're missing out on your buddy's attack. I was thinking of giving it the Scout ability for free, and then homebrew a few passive combat-focused bonuses for the ranger during combat. Problem is I'm in a rut of finding what would be too strong or too weak. So far I've got "Ferocious: Add twice the value of the escalation die to your damage. If the escalation die is at 0, add 1."
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Oct 12, 2013 10:33
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Pvt.Scott posted:Look, the PCs get to do horrible things to my NPCs, so returning the favor is fair. The way the game is set up, the PCs are pretty resilient so I don't feel too bad about roughing them up a bit. I have had players that get upset when things don't always go their way, but such is life. I used to have a DM who would get upset if we took his NPCs out too easily. In published adventures which he hadn't written.
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Oct 12, 2013 10:50
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13th Age backgrounds just don't lends themselves perfectly to powergamers, unfortunately. I'm still convinced its the best d20 skill system to date. And even the most overly broad backgrounds have traps if the DM (or hopefully the player themselves) wants them to. Batman+5 shouldn't be applied to anything done while not in costume or that could reveal his identity. Personally I've got a barbarian with Thug For Hire+5. Which I can easily justify pretty much most non-appraise checks for. I just can't/won't use the bonus for anything helping someone else unless Im getting played. Another of our players has Insanity+2 which has some amazing uses. He could justify most skill checks with it, but sometimes you don't want to inject that much madness into a situation.
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Oct 12, 2013 10:54
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My favorite broad use background is, "Fortune loves a fool," which you can add to anything that's a bad idea.
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Oct 12, 2013 15:46
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I speak for the ranger. You have to remember that the ranger spent a significant amount of his character creation resources on an animal companion. "That's the guy with the cool pet." is an important part of his character. Myrmidongs posted:So I've got kind of two issues going on: How do DM's usually deal with ranger's large pets as far as the roleplay goes? An animal companion has three basic states: - With the ranger and providing bonuses, This should be the default. In the dragon empire you should be able to take a large animal into most of the larger cities, and in the smaller cities there's really no one to stop you. In general, people's reactions will be mildly negative if they live in a city ("One of those hippies") and mildly positive or neutral in the country. If the ranger is making a skill check where the animal could help and the ranger rolls high, than the animal helps. If the ranger rolls low, the animal ignores him or does something silly instead. If the player is describing his own actions and not those of his companion try prompting him at the beginning of scenes. Don't ask "Where is your liger?" because that doesn't express your intent clearly enough, say "Don't forget to describe what your liger is doing sometimes." - Scouting (if the animal has scout) - Away from the ranger doing animal stuff like sleeping or hunting Remember this shouldn't happen very often because it robs the ranger of his bonuses and makes it harder for the animal to show up when combat breaks out. Myrmidongs posted:As a DM I really don't want to deal with crap all the time Animal companions don't have a unique initiative and they only get a basic attack. All you have to do is move one more thing around on the map. I get the sense that you might have a completely different problem than being too lazy to move a tiger token around. I would guess maybe the problem is either: You are having trouble handling the number of creatures in combat right now, and one more would be too much. Or Your players are not fulfilling their responsibility to understand their own character's abilities, which forces you to explain them way too often. Both of these are not a problem with the ranger's pet and you should address them separately.
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Oct 12, 2013 17:18
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Mystic Mongol posted:My favorite broad use background is, "Fortune loves a fool," which you can add to anything that's a bad idea. Similarly, someone in a group I occasionally run has the background "Not at smart man"- applicable to bad ideas and more outlandish things like ignoring rules or spells he doesn't understand.
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Oct 12, 2013 17:41
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Would "seriously has no regard for sentient life" be a valid or useful background? I was bored at work today, and that little nugget popped into my head.
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Oct 13, 2013 07:24
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P.d0t posted:Would "seriously has no regard for sentient life" be a valid or useful background? I was bored at work today, and that little nugget popped into my head. Rather than what they don't do, I'd suggest a background focus on what a character does.
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Oct 13, 2013 07:28
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P.d0t posted:Would "seriously has no regard for sentient life" be a valid or useful background? I was bored at work today, and that little nugget popped into my head. It would probably work better to have something your character does care about as a background. Something you don't care about is something you probably won't be rolling for very often. So if you have some reason not to care about sentient life - "Trained killer", "Nihilist philosopher" or "Ruthless survivor" are all backgrounds that could inform that opinion, as well as being more useful or character-defining.
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Oct 13, 2013 09:15
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P.d0t posted:Would "seriously has no regard for sentient life" be a valid or useful background? I was bored at work today, and that little nugget popped into my head. I'm pretty sure all adventurers come with that background for free at +5 already.
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Oct 13, 2013 09:30
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Looking through the Bestiary preview, I'm really intrigued by the Eidolon monsters - has anyone had any experience of running them? Does the addition of a Sanity stat have any interesting effects? I can see it becoming an irritating gimmick, but also could be really interesting. Not entirely sure.
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Oct 14, 2013 14:59
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They got dropped from the Bestiary, sadly. I liked them, but I suspect they got dropped because combat with them could get insanely complicated/annoying. "Okay, now this round the fighter is in a different plane of reality, the eidolon switches initiative with the Rogue, and it teleports the wizard and the paladin to each others' places and is now engaged with the wizard. Everyone who interacts with it, record Insanity points. Next round, you're all in a different plane of reality and can do nothing." In other news, thanks to everyone for werewolf help. I now have one PC who's infected and when I told him how the disease worked he came to the grim yet delighted realization that he was going to accidentally kill the rest of the party within a level or two.
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Oct 14, 2013 15:23
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That's what I figured might happen - it looks like it could be very cool though, so maybe I'll reign in some of the craziness (or maybe just keep the sanity effects) and see what happens.
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Oct 14, 2013 16:41
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FWIW, the zorigami seem to have taken over the time-related weirdness aspect. One of them has a power that drops a target's initiative, and if the initiative goes into the negatives the target gets thrown out of the fight entirely. The power is multi-target, so you could theoretically get into a fight with one only to find yourself reappearing several minutes in the future after it's already run away. It is basically amazing, is what I'm getting at here.
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Oct 14, 2013 17:03
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