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Spoilers Below posted:This thing which has been horrible in every other version of the game, and which caused cascading math problems for derived values in the most recent version when it was implemented, might be good this time, you really just have to wait and see! Guys, we just have to wait for a ~module ~ that'll fix everything.
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Jul 9, 2014 17:33
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Spoilers Below posted:This thing which has been horrible in every other version of the game, and which caused cascading math problems for derived values in the most recent version when it was implemented, might be good this time, you really just have to wait and see! No I just want to see if they are in basic at all.
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Jul 9, 2014 18:08
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RPZip posted:People who can do math usually decide to go into a field that will earn them actual money. Our group has an accountant, so bring it on.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:46
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The Hit Points entry specifically cites how to handle when "some effect" lowers your CON. Ability damage is already in Basic, we just don't know how frequently. And if play testers became confused and alarmed at damage on a miss, I don't know how they're expected to backsolve and recalculate each ability score-dependant number on their sheet every time it's inflicted, multiple times in a single combat. Better, faster, and simpler systems than ability damage exist. For instance 4e's Weakened condition affects only damage without cascading ripple effects to screw up your encumberance, feat prerequisites, movement rate (while encumbered), etc etc. 5e's own disadvantage system could be applied to swinging a sword while weakened, or even expanded to include damage rolls. It's a terrible mechanic.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:55
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zachol posted:Also "can do math" is actually, you know, one of the various skills involved in being a game designer. You Well, judging from the industry as a whole, I feel that ability is not held to a high enough standard at times. I'm sure most people in the industry can perform basic and, to some degree, higher level mathematics, but I feel they struggle at times with statistical analysis. In trpgs, that can be a major problem. It is also possible that many designers don't examine their math intensely enough. It could be an indev thing (some numbers are going to change so examining too heavily can be a waste of resources) or, maybe, pressure from management (you need it out by X so we can't examine everything). Regardless, math in a lot of trpgs does not seems as if it was intensely tested.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:14
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zachol posted:Also "can do math" is actually, you know, one of the various skills involved in being a game designer. You Personally I am obviously aware of this, however maybe they ought to consider it? It appears to be a recurring issue with D&D. The majority of mathematically competent designers are probably in electronic game design these days anyway. Covok posted:I feel they struggle at times with statistical analysis. In trpgs, that can be a major problem. this is probably the correct issue.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:21
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That's working under the assumption that the designers and fans care that games are actually balanced, instead of balanced by weird platitudes like "sure the casters have utility but the melee fighters can do a lot more damage! See, everyone gets something! Balance!" The former takes significantly more resources and hasn't been shown to move product, and the latter is so easy that all of us probably did it on miscellaneous forums a decade ago with no game design experience. Basically, ttrpgs are designed by, and I'd wager primarily for, people who are basically The Ideas Guy(s).
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Jul 9, 2014 20:25
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Covok posted:Well, judging from the industry as a whole, I feel that ability is not held to a high enough standard at times. I'm sure most people in the industry can perform basic and, to some degree, higher level mathematics, but I feel they struggle at times with statistical analysis. In trpgs, that can be a major problem. It is also possible that many designers don't examine their math intensely enough. It could be an indev thing (some numbers are going to change so examining too heavily can be a waste of resources) or, maybe, pressure from management (you need it out by X so we can't examine everything). Regardless, math in a lot of trpgs does not seems as if it was intensely tested. e: For example, Monte Cook, Bruce Cordell, and Richard Baker all have a bunch of novels under their belts. And that was just from a few minutes of searching.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:26
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I think the reluctance to actually look at a spreadsheet comes from misplaced reverence for the free-spirited seat-of-pants Wild West days of early RPG development. A creature had X Y and Z traits, because that's what it would have for real. Adjusting its hitpoints, capabilities, or damage to make it balanced is some kind of unmakable compromise. Medusas need to petrify to "feel" like a Medusa. Scary undead need to drain STR (or levels!) regardless of how much joy it sucks out of a session. We're at some kind of meta-level of nostalgia here, where people legitimately pine for bad game mechanics and quirky math. I suspect some of these people are game designers.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:33
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moths posted:I think the reluctance to actually look at a spreadsheet comes from misplaced reverence for the free-spirited seat-of-pants Wild West days of early RPG development. A creature had X Y and Z traits, because that's what it would have for real. Adjusting its hitpoints, capabilities, or damage to make it balanced is some kind of unmakable compromise. Medusas need to petrify to "feel" like a Medusa. Scary undead need to drain STR (or levels!) regardless of how much joy it sucks out of a session. Dealing with these people in real life is way worse than on the internet, though.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:57
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A medusa does need to petrify to feel like a medusa. That's like, it's defining characteristic. Personally, I don't see the need to "balance" out monsters. The PCs in my game know that random encounter rolls esp in the wilderness, and certain areas, are inherently dangerous and you'll probably die if you fight them. If you're going to play balanced combats with miniatures, just play heroclix or something.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:00
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Thalantos posted:A medusa does need to petrify to feel like a medusa. That's like, it's defining characteristic. You know you can have both, right? A fight with a medusa that petrifies people AND is a satisfying encounter that's not just "you see a medusa and die" or "you saved, it dies". The trick is in removing instant save-or-die type effects and replacing them with effects that do the same over a few rounds and have counter-tactics you can employ to get out of it. Fighting a giant slug whose slime is making you slower round-on-round until it sticks you in place and the slug eats you? Luckily the ranger knows strong alcohol dissolves the slime thanks to his knowledge check and frees the party to win the battle! Or I guess you could have, "There's a slug. Make a poison save. Failed? You're dead."
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Jul 9, 2014 21:09
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Thalantos posted:A medusa does need to petrify to feel like a medusa. That's like, it's defining characteristic. A defining characteristic of the myths from which medusas come is that the people the stories were about did not die from petrification from said medusa. They circumvented the problem using available resources and were more mighty for the achievement. Why the gently caress would I want to play a game where I'm the random schlub who *randomly* dies to a medusa? I want to be Perseus, not 'random petrified Spartan mercenary number 7'.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:12
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Thalantos posted:A medusa does need to petrify to feel like a medusa. That's like, it's defining characteristic. but what if i want to play balanced combats without miniatures also "balance"
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Jul 9, 2014 21:13
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Thalantos posted:Personally, I don't see the need to "balance" out monsters. The PCs in my game know that random encounter rolls esp in the wilderness, and certain areas, are inherently dangerous and you'll probably die if you fight them. The point of balancing monsters is to give tools to the GM to make encounters as easy or deadly as they want. So that you, as the GM, can actually know what areas are actually inherently dangerous, instead of just guessing. Well-balanced games do not somehow prevent or disallow imbalanced encounters. They enable purposefully imbalanced encounters just as much as they enable balanced encounters. But imbalanced games produce results that are hard to predict on either side of the table. quote:If you're going to play balanced combats with miniatures, just play heroclix or something. HeroClix isn't an RPG. What's wrong with having RPGs in which the game design is balanced such that balanced combats are easy to create when appropriate to the story/situation? And furthermore, what's wrong with wanting balanced minis-based combats (since balanced minis-based gameplay is fun) in the context of ongoing story and character advancement (since those are also fun)? Why isn't it valuable for Role-playing Games to have good gameplay?
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Jul 9, 2014 21:20
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That's why players should think outside the box. If you're going up against a medusa, you know you can't look at it's face or you'll get petrified, so get a shiny mirror to look at it, or buy some war dogs and set them on her, or work a trap up, or....something. PCs should be doing research on the creatures their face to know their abilities. I believe a good player skill is, among others, is realizing you're not going to win every fight and withdrawing, or even just avoiding the fight entirely. Most of the GM aids and guidelines for making balanced encounters I don't really grok, anywhoo. I usually play stuff by ear. Will agree on how ability damage is handled, though. Having to change all those adjustments on the fly is way too tedious esp since it's just temporary.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:39
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Thalantos posted:A medusa does need to petrify to feel like a medusa. That's like, it's defining characteristic. I think people have long derided combat balance without a clear understanding of what balance even is. Balanced monster design just means that when I'm the DM I know roughly how much threat I can spend to make an encounter easy, challenging, or deadly with regard to the pcs. It is perfectly possible to run a deadly game with balanced mechanics, but the opposite results in many accidental TPKs.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:43
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Thalantos posted:If you're going to play balanced combats with miniatures, just play heroclix or something. That's funny. You're a funny guy.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:44
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The problem with withdrawing in D&D is that the characters often have no idea what the hell they are actually fighting against. You basically have to know that you need to withdraw from the start of the combat. In the hypothetical medusa situation a player is probably already petrified/dead when they realize that withdrawing is the only realistic option.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:49
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Thalantos posted:That's why players should think outside the box. If you're going up against a medusa, you know you can't look at it's face or you'll get petrified, so get a shiny mirror to look at it, or buy some war dogs and set them on her, or work a trap up, or....something. PCs should be doing research on the creatures their face to know their abilities. The issue with this is that, mechanically, it isn't how D&D has operated in recent memory. With no concept of facing and the fact that petrification is something done *to* you (rather than something you simply avoid by looking the other way) like any other spell, inventive play on the part of the player in many instances doesn't matter. "Balance" is a bit of a misnomer, a better term might be "consistent" or "predictable" game/monster design. It's not about neutering the difficulty as much as making sure no one accidentally kills the party because that Ogre, which is *supposed* to be challenging, turned out to be impossible.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:54
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I've said this before but stuff like a medusa's petrification is exactly why a game, even a super gamey game like D&D, should have more generalized resolution mechanics and a more abstract damage / condition / consequence system. If you're facing a medusa, a single bad roll shouldn't mean "woops you looked at her face, now you're a statue," but instead mean that you're slowly being backed into a corner or you've lost your mirror or one of your hands needs to be occupied and can't be used to shield your vision or whatever, and all those things are represented the same way full-on wounds are in a "normal combat." You don't turn into a statue until all your consequences are full up, and at that point you could've been simply killed in a "normal combat," if those consequences were representing wounds and the like, so having the medusa turn you into a statue then is acceptable. A generalized consequence system lets the GM reframe what failure on the level of an individual roll means for each sort of battle, letting boss setpieces coexist with more typical multi-enemy fights, without necessarily weakening the boss on a blow-by-blow basis or granting it exceptional mechanics beyond the normal combat rules. Additionally it completely stops bullshit about "what do hp represent," since a consequence could always explicitly just be losing your footing or straining a muscle, with characters never actually suffering "real damage" within the fiction until they got several consequences in.
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Jul 9, 2014 22:10
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Thalantos posted:good player skill Reading the DM's mind +5 (+8 if, during the past week, I watched the same movie/TV show the DM has; +10 if I'm currently reading the same fantasy novel series the DM is crazy about) Bribing the DM with pizza +4 Telling the DM how ~*creative~* their LotR-esque railroad-y pile of clichés is +2
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Jul 9, 2014 22:12
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Andrast posted:The problem with withdrawing in D&D is that the characters often have no idea what the hell they are actually fighting against. You basically have to know that you need to withdraw from the start of the combat. In the hypothetical medusa situation a player is probably already petrified/dead when they realize that withdrawing is the only realistic option. And, of course, from a role playing perspective, have they made their relevant "monster lore" check? I, of course, being a seasoned mythology reader, know who Medusa is, common strategies for defeating her, etc., so the moment I see a woman with snakes for hair, I start tying on a blindfold or polishing my shield to use as a mirror, avoiding direct eye contact for insurance. But my character, on the other hand... Well, s/he might not know. Medusa is a unique creature, one of the three Gorgons -- there's only one of her, sequestered away in a catacomb. Her sisters may or may not turn you to stone; that particular ability was the result of Athena's curse. What's the DC for knowing all that? Or if it is such common knowledge, why bother with monster lore rolls at all, and just allow the players access to the monster manual? Or is that part of player skill, making sure to take ranks in "monster lore" so you can claim to know how to defeat the various beasts you encounter? And if so, why are decisions made at character creation and which cannot be undone later, when the player has more information about the game world and the style of play that the group has, such a sticking point for so many?
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Jul 9, 2014 22:17
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Not to mention there were monsters with insta-kill effects like the Bodak that basically leave no obvious signs like statues all over the place but will still kill you dead just by looking at you.
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Jul 9, 2014 22:21
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I think I've said it before, but I believe that completely bullshit monsters like the Medusa who turns you to stone just by looking at her can have a place in D&D, however that place should not be between Manticore and Minotaur. If you have a monster that breaks the core mechanic of the HP exchange that defines combat, you can no longer just assign it a level or CR or whatever and call it a day. It needs to have some huge disclaimer like THIS MONSTER IS BULLSHIT AND WILL gently caress UP YOUR PARTY, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK or something.
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Jul 9, 2014 22:46
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Basilisks and the Medusa is why henchmen should still be in the game. That way, the first target of the SOD is always the henchman who dies screaming, thus alerting the party to what kind of danger they're facing and giving them a chance to counter it.
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Jul 9, 2014 22:54
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zachol posted:I've said this before but stuff like a medusa's petrification is exactly why a game, even a super gamey game like D&D, should have more generalized resolution mechanics and a more abstract damage / condition / consequence system. If you're facing a medusa, a single bad roll shouldn't mean "woops you looked at her face, now you're a statue," but instead mean that you're slowly being backed into a corner or you've lost your mirror or one of your hands needs to be occupied and can't be used to shield your vision or whatever, and all those things are represented the same way full-on wounds are in a "normal combat." Rulebook Heavily posted:Basilisks and the Medusa is why henchmen should still be in the game. That way, the first target of the SOD is always the henchman who dies screaming, thus alerting the party to what kind of danger they're facing and giving them a chance to counter it. What if we combined these ideas? HP now represent how many henchman you have orbiting around you like a god drat electron cloud. "Oh man, Frank that orc just slashed like fifty of your henchmen down in one blow. We might want to think about retreating from this one."
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Jul 9, 2014 23:47
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copy posted:What if we combined these ideas? HP now represent how many henchman you have orbiting around you like a god drat electron cloud. "Oh man, Frank that orc just slashed like fifty of your henchmen down in one blow. We might want to think about retreating from this one." The cascading effect this has on healing spells and second wind is phenomenal.
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Jul 9, 2014 23:50
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Basilisks and the Medusa is why henchmen should still be in the game. That way, the first target of the SOD is always the henchman who dies screaming, thus alerting the party to what kind of danger they're facing and giving them a chance to counter it. That presses quite a few nostalgia buttons, so I can't see why it isn't in.
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Jul 9, 2014 23:54
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Basilisks and the Medusa is why henchmen should still be in the game. That way, the first target of the SOD is always the henchman who dies screaming, thus alerting the party to what kind of danger they're facing and giving them a chance to counter it. this is, narratively speaking, a beautiful thing
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Jul 9, 2014 23:58
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The problem with the Medusa - with ALL SoDs - is that they're treated as combat mechanics and not environmental dangers. Any monster that can insta-kill you should be something built up to, not something that just wanders up and whoops you're dead. Fighting the Medusa is something that should start before you even enter her lair. Also this idea of early D&D being a "wild west of anti-math" is pure revisionism. As has been stated numerous times OD&D and a fair amount of AD&D was rigorously playtested more then any other ttg has been. All of AD&D and Basic's math lines is perfectly to the d20. The problem is that, starting in mid-late 2e, "playtesting" because synonymous with "I dunno play it a few times with your buds," whereas with AD&D/OD&D it was "play this poo poo literally every day with the biggest group of cheating rear end in a top hat wargamers you can find." This idea of "playtesting doesn't REALLY matter" got engrained in 3e and cemented in with Pathfinder. But then hey 3.x fans re-writing the past whodathunk.
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Jul 10, 2014 00:09
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Well in next it sort of looks like you can fight Medusa with out being turned to stone just don't ever look at her. (Which gives you disadvantage but it's better then being stoned.)
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Jul 10, 2014 00:12
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"The monster you have disadvantage against" doesn't really do the Medusa justice, though. Zachol's got the right of it - a game that was actually about engaging and taking down terrifying monsters of myth would be one whose game mechanics tracked how close you were to succumbing to that monster's powers, such that running out of hit points against the medusa signals that you have been forced to look into her gaze and turned to stone.
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Jul 10, 2014 01:29
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It's still cool for enemy casters to cast flesh to stone on you though, right? Especially if they teleport in while invisible and flying.
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Jul 10, 2014 01:45
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In the Greek monsterhunter game, the closest thing to an "enemy spellcaster" is a long-term skill challenge against an enchantress. Seriously though enemies/NPCs should simply never be built the same as PCs*. The spellcaster's "flesh to stone" spell would be mechanically identical to the medusa, as a generalized boss enemy encounter. * Unless your game is explicitly set up for it like a moba.
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Jul 10, 2014 01:52
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mastershakeman posted:It's still cool for enemy casters to cast flesh to stone on you though, right? Especially if they teleport in while invisible and flying. Can't do that here.
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Jul 10, 2014 01:58
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MonsterEnvy posted:Can't do that here. No, you can't. In the basic rules they'd have to teleport in while invisible and Power Word: Kill you instead. But they can't be flying at the same time.
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Jul 10, 2014 02:08
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Ferrinus posted:"The monster you have disadvantage against" doesn't really do the Medusa justice, though. Zachol's got the right of it - a game that was actually about engaging and taking down terrifying monsters of myth would be one whose game mechanics tracked how close you were to succumbing to that monster's powers, such that running out of hit points against the medusa signals that you have been forced to look into her gaze and turned to stone. You could really use that formulation for any save-or-whatever. HP are narrative persistence. Everything deals HP damage and certain abilities have special effects if they reduce someone to 0 HP. So the Medusa does damage to anyone who isn't averting their gaze as well as her usual attacks. If someone actually dies from looking at her, they turn into stone. Same with charm person: Deal some nominal amount of damage (1d6?) and if it reduces them to 0 HP, they're charmed. Go nuts charming random dirt farmers but when push comes to shove, I wouldn't bet my life on it doing much help.
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Jul 10, 2014 02:13
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1337JiveTurkey posted:You could really use that formulation for any save-or-whatever. HP are narrative persistence. Everything deals HP damage and certain abilities have special effects if they reduce someone to 0 HP. So the Medusa does damage to anyone who isn't averting their gaze as well as her usual attacks. If someone actually dies from looking at her, they turn into stone. Same with charm person: Deal some nominal amount of damage (1d6?) and if it reduces them to 0 HP, they're charmed. Go nuts charming random dirt farmers but when push comes to shove, I wouldn't bet my life on it doing much help. Isn't HP not an abstraction in 5e? Like, I'm pretty sure it's literally how many liters of blood/unbroken bones/attached limbs you have. I thought that was the rationale for no martial healing; "You can't yell someone's blood back in their body," and whatnot.
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Jul 10, 2014 02:58
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Countblanc posted:Isn't HP not an abstraction in 5e? Like, I'm pretty sure it's literally how many liters of blood/unbroken bones/attached limbs you have. I thought that was the rationale for no martial healing; "You can't yell someone's blood back in their body," and whatnot. I have to assume not as Fighters do get martial healing. Since fighters get second wind, it can't literally be wounds, but instead an abstraction of your characters will to fight, stamina, and injuries. Like in all the other editions.
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Jul 10, 2014 03:01
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