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theironjef posted:The spell is in the game specifically and exclusively for the purpose of letting casters take long rests in dangerous areas. There's no other reason you'd need a force bubble that lasts as long as you sleep and houses your party. That means that the spell forces something I talk about a lot, the game of DM/Player Chicken. "Are you going to be an rear end in a top hat, DM? Or do I get to use the spell I spent resources on for its intended purpose?" There shouldn't be stuff in the game that puts players and DMs in that sort of adversarial position. There's just no need for it. You're missing your own point. The spell allows the party to avoid logistical problems like keeping watch, heat, cold, and exposure. It completely challenges a number of problems that a party could encounter while travelling, and is worthwhile in that regard. It does not allow the caster to demand that the party be full healed any time (s)he desires, any more than investing in craft skills in, say, Shadowrun allows the crafter to grind the plot to a halt and build as much C4 as (s)he wishes. The Gm should certainly allow players to use the capabilities they chose within reason, but that doesn't mean that you must allow player to blatantly abuse them.
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Jun 29, 2015 07:26
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Part of the problem with time pressure elements in any game is that unless the players are seriously emotionally invested in the plight of whatever kingdom or NPC is in peril that their number one priority is always going to be themselves, and so when it comes down to the whole "just because a player has a spell that gives them a magical 8 hour recovery force dome doesn't mean you have to allow them to abuse it" angle, in a practical sense more often than not it's going to come down to what theironjef correctly identifies as a game of chicken where the PC party is going "no, we're not going to press on because we don't feel like throwing our characters away stupidly when we have this resource to avoid that, and if the princess dies in the meantime then oh well, we'll get a diamond and find a Cleric or something." tl;dr I think it's really weird when a game even has this sort of quasi-antagonistic dynamic where the GM has to judge whether the players are trying to take advantage of things like recovery periods and then it becomes this whole metagame on top of everything else. It sounds exhausting to deal with.
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Jun 29, 2015 07:36
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fool_of_sound posted:You're missing your own point. The spell allows the party to avoid logistical problems like keeping watch, heat, cold, and exposure. It completely challenges a number of problems that a party could encounter while travelling, and is worthwhile in that regard. It does not allow the caster to demand that the party be full healed any time (s)he desires, any more than investing in craft skills in, say, Shadowrun allows the crafter to grind the plot to a halt and build as much C4 as (s)he wishes. The Gm should certainly allow players to use the capabilities they chose within reason, but that doesn't mean that you must allow player to blatantly abuse them. No, it sort of does. The party wizard gets a spell like Tiny Hut, or Rope Trick, or any of the other famous ones from older editions, like Polymorph Other. Then the player tries to use it for what the spell is for, generally something along the lines of "Casting all my spells again." The DM is then forced to say "Yeah, except a totally unexpected crazy trap occurs that specifically counters your gamebreaking spell, oh no guys, also this will happen like 80% of the time you try that" or he can just let the spell happen. I'm not saying the whole drat game is busted. I'm personally saying there are too many dumbass utility spell sacred cows in D&D. It's always been a problem for the line. There's a reason you never hear anyone complain about Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter, but Alarm? Rope Trick? Terrible ideas.
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Jun 29, 2015 07:46
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Kai Tave posted:Well it sucks coming and going because of course the GM shouldn't be expected to give the players unlimited free power recoveries on demand, no game really benefits from that, but what's the GM supposed to do when the spellcasters run out and are like "yeah okay, we'd like to get back the reason we're playing casters in the first place now?" Say "tough poo poo, learn to ration better you nerds?" Most even semi-decent GMs are going to want their players to have fun, and a spellcaster with no spells in a D&D where that sort of emphasis is heightened generally isn't going to be having a ton of fun if the current situation is demanding enough to have drained his spells in the first place. From a design perspective you see this even in games that use mana: telling the spellcaster that they can use Fireball until they run out of it, at which point they can start using Firebolt until they can regen some mana back, is just going to make the spellcaster feel like they need to increase their regeneration until they can cast Fireballs all the time.
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Jun 29, 2015 07:50
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Kai Tave posted:Part of the problem with time pressure elements in any game is that unless the players are seriously emotionally invested in the plight of whatever kingdom or NPC is in peril that their number one priority is always going to be themselves, and so when it comes down to the whole "just because a player has a spell that gives them a magical 8 hour recovery force dome doesn't mean you have to allow them to abuse it" angle, in a practical sense more often than not it's going to come down to what theironjef correctly identifies as a game of chicken where the PC party is going "no, we're not going to press on because we don't feel like throwing our characters away stupidly when we have this resource to avoid that, and if the princess dies in the meantime then oh well, we'll get a diamond and find a Cleric or something." So how is asking players to act as though their characters are invested any different that a Compel in FATE, and how is running out of powerful spells in DnD any different than losing your best spell on a bad die roll in DungeonWorld (which requires a resource to get back, no less)? For that matter, a time limitations make excellent Compels in FATE too. As for GMs adjudicating resources: that isn't an antagonistic relationship unless the GM isn't allowing the player to use the resources at all, even when it would make sense. Limits are inherent to the story/tensions/verisimilitude, even if they aren't explicitly codified in the mechanics. Even then, 5e makes it perfectly clear in the DMG that parties are supposed to go 2-4 encounters between Long Rests; it is part of the game design. If players are bullying their GM into allowing them to run roughshod over that design, that's their own fault. e: Again, not defending 5e's honor as a good game. I agree that it's flawed and pretty mediocre, but if you're want to play/your GM wants to run DnD, its serviceable. It's not really comparable to 4e; they're almost entirely different design-wise. vvvvv Said it better than I did. Tired. vvvvv fool of sound fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 07:52
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theironjef posted:The spell is in the game specifically and exclusively for the purpose of letting casters take long rests in dangerous areas. There's no other reason you'd need a force bubble that lasts as long as you sleep and houses your party. That means that the spell forces something I talk about a lot, the game of DM/Player Chicken. "Are you going to be an rear end in a top hat, DM? Or do I get to use the spell I spent resources on for its intended purpose?" There shouldn't be stuff in the game that puts players and DMs in that sort of adversarial position. There's just no need for it. My first thought on reading that spell is "We're going out into the woods. It sure would be great if we could bring a big house with us to live in each night so that a bear doesn't just wander into our campsite." The way that it's being talked about, though, sounds like players are going to just drop it in the middle of an adventure to the Plane of Uncalled-For Touches and assume their safety every time, time after time, and call the DM a dick for not going along with their own assumptions about what a single 3rd-level spell can accomplish. The spell has a use outside of abuse, and I think that it's incorrect to assume the extremely metagame usage of 'long rest every time' is the one intended by design. I'm a big System Mastery Fan and never thought I'd be arguing with you about Leomund's Tiny Hut, so I'm going to do my best to stop. I am going to say, though, that the spell itself isn't what puts DMs and players in an adversarial position- a player who wants to buck the intent of the rules (that short rests exist every couple of encounters to get back encounter-based abilities, and long rests exist to demarcate the end of an adventuring 'day') so they can get everything back between every encounter, has chosen to step outside of the game being played and attempt to force the table to play the game they envision. If the rest of the players agree that the pace should be changed and that the power level should be adjusted, then all of them should expect and accept that the DM will adjust the challenges they face to be in line with their enhanced abilities. I'm not talking about some kind of '90s-era player punishment, but a necessary shift in the NPC power dynamic to keep things interesting. If that's unacceptable to the players or the DM, then a different game system would be the answer. Every game has its limitations, and exists only as itself. Fake edit: Apparently I put way too much time into these posts, as there have been a half-dozen since I started typing this one 
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Jun 29, 2015 07:57
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fool_of_sound posted:...5e makes it perfectly clear in the DMG that parties are supposed to go 2-4 encounters between Long Rests; it is part of the game design.If players are bullying their GM into allowing them to run roughshod over that design, that's their own fault. This is what I was trying to get at, only much more succinctly!
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Jun 29, 2015 07:59
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fool_of_sound posted:So how is asking players to act as though their characters are invested any different that a Compel in FATE, and how is running out of powerful spells in DnD any different than losing your best spell on a bad die roll in DungeonWorld (which requires a resource to get back, no less)? For that matter, a time limitations make excellent Compels in FATE too. As for GMs adjudicating resources: that isn't an antagonistic relationship unless the GM isn't allowing the player to use the resources at all, even when it would make sense. Limits are inherent to the story/tensions/verisimilitude, even if they aren't explicitly codified in the mechanics. Even then, 5e makes it perfectly clear in the DMG that parties are supposed to go 2-4 encounters between Long Rests; it is part of the game design. If players are bullying their GM into allowing them to run roughshod over that design, that's their own fault. That's where the contradiction lies. If you have a spell that makes Long Rests possible at pretty much any random junction, and then your DM goes "hey you can't do that yet", then what's the spell for? You know and I know that it's better to just have this OOC conversation with the whole table about how an "adventuring day" is supposed to work, but newcomers to the hobby wouldn't, and it reflects badly on the designers that they created this spell that messes with the dynamic so much EDIT: without providing better guidance on how's it's supposed to be used without "breaking" the game.
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Jun 29, 2015 08:01
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fool_of_sound posted:5e makes it perfectly clear in the DMG that parties are supposed to go 2-4 encounters between Long Rests; it is part of the game design. If players are bullying their GM into allowing them to run roughshod over that design, that's their own fault. Which is weird, because they put in spells that specifically counter this intent. If players cast those spells, are they bullies? That seems like bad design to me instead of bad players. I mean, just now I went to go google around a little to see what spells still exist for this sort of thing in 5e. I figure Rope Trick for sure, but I was curious about Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion. So I find a forum with people asking about it and DMs saying stuff like "Oh yeah, if my party tried that Tiny Hut crap I'd have phase spiders ambush them! ;-] " Try what? Casting a third level spell that was in the core book? Also "I find it useful to point out that animals are terrified of force fields and extradimensional spaces and won't go in them under any circumstances, which will force my party to abandon those rest areas or split the ranger off on his own." What? If the DM hates the spell for its stated intent, shouldn't he just be getting rid of the spell instead of obtusely punishing the party Ranger? Why wait for the players to try it before telling them about weird houserules that make the spell way worse? This spell is causing DMs to plot ways that they will be dicks in the future. It's just a hindrance.
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Jun 29, 2015 08:04
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fool_of_sound posted:I absolutely agree here; my point was that 'casters have unlimited spells because 15 minute adventuring days' isn't and has never been true unless the GM is being painfully permissive. The tiny hut doesn't even have to enable 15 minute adventuring days to be a problem. Short rests take an hour; long rests take 8. And the relative length of time absolutely matters. If your party knows they have to clear 6 encounters before tomorrow morning, are they going to spend 5 hours taking a short rest after every encounter or take a long rest after 3 encounters? Are you going to secure a room 5 times without magical aid or once with a bubble of impervious sleep? That's well within the design intent of the rules, but it still fucks martial classes because now their encounter strength abilities are only recharging on a long rest just like the daily strength abilities of the spell-casters.
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Jun 29, 2015 08:10
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Just Dan Again posted:My first thought on reading that spell is "We're going out into the woods. It sure would be great if we could bring a big house with us to live in each night so that a bear doesn't just wander into our campsite." The way that it's being talked about, though, sounds like players are going to just drop it in the middle of an adventure to the Plane of Uncalled-For Touches and assume their safety every time, time after time, and call the DM a dick for not going along with their own assumptions about what a single 3rd-level spell can accomplish. The spell has a use outside of abuse, and I think that it's incorrect to assume the extremely metagame usage of 'long rest every time' is the one intended by design. It's all good. We aren't actually experts or anything, just players that are unusually loud about cheese. Plus this isn't an argument, it's a spirited discussion, especially after being so nice to my dumb show!  That being said, preventing harmless encounters is way below the purview of 3rd level spells. It's practically cosmetic at that point. Honestly I'd say that the wizard just saying "Hey guys, I'll draw a circle to ward the campsite against bears" is the sort of cool character touch that the party should be throwing around without investing any resources of any kind. Like if the ranger said "Hey guys, I'll ward the campsite against predators by scattering this wolf urine I brought along."Also I don't actually think that games of DM Chicken literally result in the players calling the DM a dick. Personally I think it rarely gets that far. At least at tables I play at, if I notice something that i think has that sort of problem interaction down the road, I bring it up right away instead of ferreting it away to use as a big gotcha later. It's also the reason I don't like Merit/Flaw systems for example, because I find trading something like "5 bonus character points and all I have to do is trust the DM to tell me I have to reroll one major success a day" such a bad deal. The DM doesn't want to do that, because it takes a good cool moment and makes it a terse adversarial one. That being said, System Mastery as the pair of us have done our best to stay out of edition wars. This isn't something I hate about 5e, or 3.X or whatever. It's something I recognize as a relatively common flaw in game design. Doesn't even mean a game is bad. I played the everloving crap out of 3.X back when it was the active edition and had fun like crazy. Like two years playing a Dwarven Hedge Wizard named Big Fat Stinky Pete, with his frog familiar, Little Fat Stinky Pete (yes, this was before Toy Story 2. Stupid Prospector). theironjef fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 08:13
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theironjef posted:It's also the reason I don't like Merit/Flaw systems for example, because I find trading something like "5 bonus character points and all I have to do is trust the DM to tell me I have to reroll one major success a day" such a bad deal. The DM doesn't want to do that, because it takes a good cool moment and makes it a terse adversarial one. This has always definitely been the case for me. I hate making players reroll something they've already hit and they're already excited about.
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Jun 29, 2015 08:16
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fool_of_sound posted:So how is asking players to act as though their characters are invested any different that a Compel in FATE...? In D&D, it's adversarial, because a "take 2 keep the better" is less advantageous than being able to declare a story detail, or reroll, or take +2 to a roll, or activate a Super Stunt.
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Jun 29, 2015 08:18
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fool_of_sound posted:So how is asking players to act as though their characters are invested any different that a Compel in FATE, and how is running out of powerful spells in DnD any different than losing your best spell on a bad die roll in DungeonWorld (which requires a resource to get back, no less)? For that matter, a time limitations make excellent Compels in FATE too. Compels are a more explicit dialogue between the player and GM than the weird unspoken dance that often happens between GMs and characters in D&D, and Compels can be straight-up refused. Also it's important to note that "you decided to press on and whoops, now you hosed up and died, roll a new character" is far less of a likely occurrence in FATE than it is in D&D. There are two very different dynamics in gameplay going on and they don't compare very well. quote:As for GMs adjudicating resources: that isn't an antagonistic relationship unless the GM isn't allowing the player to use the resources at all, even when it would make sense. And this is now another thing that the weird D&D resource/pacing mechanic requires GMs to play referee on, "is this player using this spell in the spirit it's intended based on what little I can glean from this spell writeup that doesn't really weigh in one way or the other or is he trying to abuse it and game the system?" I mean, when we're discussing players "bullying" the GM by using spells in a fairly obvious fashion, that sounds like a pretty antagonistic sort of relationship to me. edit; also some people say they like antagonistic or adversarial GM/player dynamics in a game, but the thing is that in a better designed game both the players and the GM could play hardball without having to constantly go "woah wait, back up, that doesn't make sense for you to use that spell that way" or worrying about one set of characters running out of juice first and forcing the rest into a negotiation over resting or whatever. Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 08:24
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gradenko_2000 posted:That's where the contradiction lies. If you have a spell that makes Long Rests possible at pretty much any random junction, and then your DM goes "hey you can't do that yet", then what's the spell for? This argument is going in circles, so I'm leaving it here and going to bed, but to reiterate: ---All the extra-dimensional space spells have clear and obvious utility outside of abusing the rest system. They allow the party to avoid ambushes and scouts, plus survive heat/cold and nasty weather without ill effect. This is the stated intent of the spell, not 'unlimited rests', like several posters seem to be insisting is the case. A GM who prevents players from using it to counter the listed challenges is being adversarial; one who is disallowing the party to ignore the encounter design is not, any more than telling them that no, a cantrip illusion of a pit isn't going to fool an archmage in his own tower, at least not for long. ---The GM can draw reasonable limit from the story, drama, and verisimilitude in any system, not just ones with explicit storygame rules. The GM should also be able to expect that players respond to situation in-character, and generally be invested in the story. This means that time pressures and story consequences should be expected and are not adversarial. If the players wipe out a party of goblin scouts, then rest for eight hours, time should not stand still; the goblins might wonder where the scout party has gone, and send out patrols to look for them. This doesn't mean that you have to ambush the party as soon as they pop out of the hut, but it does mean that a new challenge has presented itself because they decided to halt the story at a dramatically inappropriate time. This is no more adversarial than "I'm compelling 'Where's the Patrol?', you get a Fate Point and goblins show up, or you give me a Fate Point and they go to sleep instead." ---Specifically for 5e, the adventuring day is given as multiple encounters. The DMG has several bits of advice for establishing urgency and limiting rests to suit this requirement. If the GM is not following these guidelines they are not running the game as designed, and any problems arising from that are not the fault of the game. Playing referee with the game rules is literally half of the GMs job. e: I'll answer PMs in the morning if anyone wants to do that. fool of sound fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 08:27
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theironjef posted:That being said, System Mastery as the pair of us have done our best to stay out of edition wars. This isn't something I hate about 5e, or 3.X or whatever. It's something I recognize as a relatively common flaw in game design. Doesn't even mean a game is bad. I played the everloving crap out of 3.X back when it was the active edition and had fun like crazy. Like two years playing a Dwarven Hedge Wizard named Big Fat Stinky Pete, with his frog familiar, Little Fat Stinky Pete (yes, this was before Toy Story 2. Stupid Prospector). And more to the point, the reason it's an important design flaw is because Power Gamer is a legitimate gamer-type. There are people who derive at least part of their joy of play from finding and utilizing the most powerful play options, and not even from the munchkin or rules lawyer perspectives of deliberately and/or maliciously breaking the game. They're often totally cool people who otherwise play a great game, but become a problem when rules-as-written present issues like this.
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Jun 29, 2015 08:35
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fool_of_sound posted:---Specifically for 5e, the adventuring day is given as multiple encounters. The DMG has several bits of advice for establishing urgency and limiting rests to suit this requirement. If the GM is not following these guidelines they are not running the game as designed, and any problems arising from that are not the fault of the game. Playing referee with the game rules is literally half of the GMs job. That's not really an excuse for making it difficult to play referee. The spell could have easily included language to the tune of "Players are easily distracted in this thing, and can't rest enough to memorize spells if ambushers or wandering monsters encounter the bubble." Otherwise I think you're right that this is all going in circles, but it's more fun than editing Afterthought, I can tell you that.
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Jun 29, 2015 08:39
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theironjef posted:It's all good. We aren't actually experts or anything, just players that are unusually loud about cheese. Plus this isn't an argument, it's a spirited discussion, especially after being so nice to my dumb show! I'm probably just over-sensitive, since I've been GMing all weekend and would be super upset if one my players was actually mad at me. To be honest I'd probably be a-ok with one or two Rope Tricks if somebody sprang it on me at the table, but if it was throwing off the flow of the game I'd have a grown-up talk with the player about what we were looking for in the game long before I brought out phase spiders or little-known zoological 'force field phobia' held by all woodland creatures. No hesitation on sending bullettes under the bottom of the dome, but that's more due to my love for those goofy landsharks than for any other reason 
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Jun 29, 2015 08:42
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Just Dan Again posted:I'm probably just over-sensitive, since I've been GMing all weekend and would be super upset if one my players was actually mad at me. To be honest I'd probably be a-ok with one or two Rope Tricks if somebody sprang it on me at the table, but if it was throwing off the flow of the game I'd have a grown-up talk with the player about what we were looking for in the game long before I brought out phase spiders or little-known zoological 'force field phobia' held by all woodland creatures. Yeah see, right there is the keyword that makes you a good DM. Also Bullettes are rad. I always thought the game needed slightly smaller ones for hunter companions or exotic mounts.
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Jun 29, 2015 08:47
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LornMarkus posted:And more to the point, the reason it's an important design flaw is because Power Gamer is a legitimate gamer-type. There are people who derive at least part of their joy of play from finding and utilizing the most powerful play options, and not even from the munchkin or rules lawyer perspectives of deliberately and/or maliciously breaking the game. They're often totally cool people who otherwise play a great game, but become a problem when rules-as-written present issues like this. "This spell that creates a safe, restful area free of danger long enough for us to recharge our most useful resources, let's use it to do that" isn't even really power gaming in some "twisting the spirit of the law" sort of way, it's a fairly obvious conclusion to put two and two together and realize how useful a spell like that can be in a game where the ability to recharge your spells is considered so amazingly powerful that GMs are expected to try and keep you from doing so until it's deemed appropriate. It's generally not a good idea to create a game whose balance/pacing relies on things playing out a certain way and then sticking character resources in the game that break those rules unless you're sure you want your players exploiting them. It's like how so many games have combat that's balanced around the assumption of a certain set action economy but include some method for characters to gain extra actions through powers or fighting styles or something and suddenly things go off the rails. There's no sense blaming the players for taking advantage of stuff like that.
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Jun 29, 2015 08:49
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theironjef posted:Also Bullettes are rad. I always thought the game needed slightly smaller ones for hunter companions or exotic mounts. The Elemental Evil book for 5e let me down when it introduced bullette riders, then didn't include them as a player option. I'll write it up for somebody in a heartbeat if they want to play it, but it makes me wonder what I'm paying WotC for 
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Jun 29, 2015 08:57
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Kurieg posted:The shorter version is that the experience of the Martials, for good or for ill, is entirely up to the proficiency and temperament of the DM. Whereas Casters can just say "No, this happens" and it happens. fool_of_sound posted:Or, you know, have some semblance of life in your campaign world where bad things can happen if you decide to rest 8 hours after every battle. Monsters wander around the dungeon, goblins put up new defenses in response to patrols being killed, competing adventurers show up, ect. D&D 1st edition was heavily based on time constraints. It was assumed that you would keep track of time passing, because the passage of time meant supplies running out and the chance of encountering wandering monsters (which were a pure threat to the party, worth little XP and no treasure). But a rest up in an astral hotel spell specifically fucks it all up. I've certainly run Shadowrun games where the mission would be hosed in 8 hours, but not so much in D&D. Kai Tave posted:Part of the problem with time pressure elements in any game is that unless the players are seriously emotionally invested in the plight of whatever kingdom or NPC is in peril that their number one priority is always going to be themselves, and so when it comes down to the whole "just because a player has a spell that gives them a magical 8 hour recovery force dome doesn't mean you have to allow them to abuse it" angle, in a practical sense more often than not it's going to come down to what theironjef correctly identifies as a game of chicken where the PC party is going "no, we're not going to press on because we don't feel like throwing our characters away stupidly when we have this resource to avoid that, and if the princess dies in the meantime then oh well, we'll get a diamond and find a Cleric or something." Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 10:06
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Halloween Jack posted:There are plenty of objectives in games that aren't going to be spoiled if the party takes an extra half-day. And a dungeon-focused campaign, where it doesn't matter if the party spent a month underground as long as they're well-supplied, is not some bizarre caricature. For a long time it was the way to play D&D. In terns of goal-focused design that accomplishes what it set out to do, early edition D&D is one of the best examples there are. Early edition D&D isn't necessarily what I want out of a role-playing game, but few games are as tightly designed. It's a game about entering dungeons and stealing treasure. Stealing treasure gives you XP, which lets you level up so you can fight tougher things that guard more valuable treasure. Everything about the game is a treasure-looting-optimization problem. For example, encumbrance is one of the most integral components of loot-optimization. The more treasure you steal, the slower you move. The slower you move, the more time you spent travelling back and forth between the dungeon and a nearby city. This means more random encounters, which increases the risk of your character dying. You can also wear heavy armour, which decreases the risk from fighting monsters - but also means you can't carry as much treasure and have to fight more monsters which can end up killing you. You can hire people to kill and steal treasure for you - this lets you kill more monsters and carry more treasure, but on the other hand they have to be paid. Every Attribute in the game is a treasure-stealing Attribute. Strength lets you fight better and carry more treasure. Dexterity, Intelligence, or Wisdom lets Fighters, Magic-Users, and Clerics fight better, so they have more time to steal treasure before they have to get back to a safe city. Constitution lets you survive longer so you can steal more treasure. Charisma lets you hire more people to kill and steal treasure for you.
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Jun 29, 2015 12:09
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LatwPIAT posted:In terns of goal-focused design that accomplishes what it set out to do, early edition D&D is one of the best examples there are. Early edition D&D isn't necessarily what I want out of a role-playing game, but few games are as tightly designed. I was reading through the alignment system of early D&D and how it fit in with Language and Morale and Charisma and it's really quite elegant. Three alignments in D&D: Law, Neutrality, Chaos If you belong to the Law alignment, then you can speak the Law language, and every Lawful creature can also speak it, so you can always communicate with every creature of your own alignment. Every human knows the Common language, and 20% of other intelligent, non-human creatures can speak Common. Otherwise, an intelligent, non-human creature also speaks a language unique to their race, such as all Goblins speaking Goblinoid. If you encounter any other intelligent creature, and you attempt to communicate in your alignment's language, and they're also of that alignment, then you can understand each other, and being of the same alignment assumes that it's an automatic peaceful encounter. If you instead try to speak Law, and they are Neutral or Chaos, then they cannot understand you apart from the fact that they know it's the language of a different alignment, and they'll immediately turn hostile. If you instead try to speak in Common, and they cannot understand, well, the book doesn't really say, but at this point it feels like the right call would be to use the "reaction roll", perhaps at a penalty since any message you convey will only ever be rudimentary. Finally, if you know the creature's native language, and the rules will let you learn an additional native language for every 1 point of INT over 10, then you can parley with it straight up, and your CHA modifier will even improve the result of the reaction roll. Add in the hirelings that you mentioned as additional cannon fodder, and the fact that monsters are supposed to undergo morale checks upon taking losses, and early D&D does not seem to be the ultra-deadly meat grinder that it's usually portrayed as, if all these rules are implemented.
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Jun 29, 2015 12:45
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Warmachine Prime Mk. II Warmachine Prime Mk. II is the core for the second addition of Warmachine. It changed up rules, but for the moment it still used their rather unfortunate slogan, Play like you've got a pair. That changed later after some people criticized it as kind of misogynistic. Anyway, this is the half of Warmachine/Hordes that is all about technology and giant robots duking it out. I prefer Hordes because I like monsters better, but what can you do? We open up with some IC discussion of history by Rhupert Carvolo, an Ordic mercenary also known as the Piper of Sorrows. He is a tarveler with no real home, but he loves to write about all of the lands he visits in the realm of Caen, the name of the world, though he has mostly traveled the part known as western Immoren, which is where Warmachine tends to focus. In the north is frozen Khador, which recently declared itself an empire. The Khadorans have a long tradition of war and conquest, so this isn't a huge change. To the east of Khador, in the high mountains, is Rhul, the nation of dwarves, which predates all human civilizations. Politically, the Rhulic seem to be highly internal and uninterested in war, but recently several Rhulic mercenaries and adventurers have been seen on the battlefield. In the west is the small kingdom of Ord, hardy and tough but covered in foggy moors and hills and not much in the way of resources. The Ordic people primarily make their money in shopping and sea travel. To the northeast of Ord was once the rich land of Llael, famous for wine and merchants, but recently fallen to Khador conquest and turned itno a battlefield between Khador, KCygnar and Menoth. Some Llaelese resistance fight against these occupiers, though, in hopes of freedom. East of Llael is Ios, the elven land. The Iosans are even more insular than the Rhulfolk, and rarely seen outside their very strong borders, but some say their soldiers are beginning to march, and they have a great reputation for skill. To the south is the mighty kingdom of Cygnar, the traditional and hated foe of Khador. It is a large, rich kingdom and has the largest population and one of the strongest armies in Immoren, holding the entire southern peninsula and the largest stretch of shoreline. Its navy is nothing to sneeze at, either, though a lot of its land is full of the Wyrmwall mountains, never yet tamed. The Cygnarans are diverse and educated, but their leadership tend to become distracted by internal arguments and so they don't always commit very well. They are also surrounded by enemies and have been for years, fighting on all sides against Khador, Menoth and Cryx, and now dealing with the Bloodstone Marches, once a wasteland, that has begun to brim with a hostile race known as the skorne. Cryx stands apart from the other nations - it is barely a nation, really, lying southwest of Cygnar in the swampy Scharde Islands. It is overrun by immortal, unimaginably potent undead creatures, who rule over the mortal islanders. The dead walk among the living, and the land itself is tainted by the islands' ruler, a dragon who is worshipped as a god. Many of the people of Cryx become pirates and raiders, stealing from other lands and even sending armies onto the mainland these days. For some reason the author skips mentioning the Protectorate of Menoth in favor of jumping to ancient history. He talks about his time in Caspia, the Cty of Walls in Cygnar, one of the few places he still feels safe. Caspia has seen many, many wars, but even before that there was history. Once, he says, the Creator, Menoth, made humanity, and for an age it wandered in savage tribes without recorded history, for Menoth wanted to test the strength of man. After a time, they came together and formed civilizations. The first priests rose, chosen by Menoth to give forth law. Menoth is the first and eldest god, the Shaper of Man. It is a fact, as real as anmything, that Menoth once walked the lands of Caen, that his priests shaped the earliest villages. The city of Caspia was once Calacia, home to the priest-king Golivant, who built the great wall against the Molgur tribes and brought the first true order. This, the Warlord Era, was a time of endless battles, to test and strengthen the people. It was in Caspia that the Twins were born, originally mortals, but they transcended their flesh and became gods. Morrow and his isster Thamar, bright and dark, but they were joined in destiny. Morrow taught that there was more to life than battle and law. He claimed that a good man must think of others first. Thousands followed his teachings, looking inward for answers. He claimed that to live a good life, you must have the will to protect others, to fight injustice and to act honorably even in war. Morrow was a warrior-philosopher unlike any other, and even the priests of Menoth could not contain his ideas. His sister, Thamar, was as selfish as he was not, fascinated by the dark powers. She felt that true power was boundless, given from the strength to exert your will over others. She taught that morality was the prison of truth and freedom, seeking occult lore and dark secrets in pursuit of power. She ascended by freeing her mind from all shackles of conscience, becoming the goddess of temptation, indulgence and deception. This marked the start of the Thousand Cities Era, when the Twins ascended to Urcaen, the land of gods and the dead. Western Immoren fractured into city-states, each led by a warlord or king, with treaties and alliances lasting only long enough to raise an army. The wars of man extended to face the trollkin and ogrun tribes, and into the ancient lands of the Rhulic dwarves and Iosan elves, who pushed back just as fiercely, though they did not try to conquer in turn. The kingdoms began to expand and consolidate. Caspia grew, Thuria rose and was consumed by Tordor, and the Midlands unified. The Khardic Empire stretched from the north to absorb the Kos, Skirov, Umbrean and Ryn peoples. Caspia underwent a renaissance of reason, and the Khardic engineers invented the steam engine. However, it was cut short. Eight centuries ago, black ships landed on the shores: the Orgoth had arrived. The Orgoth hungered for death and slavery. They were human, but crueler and more manipulative than any humans of past centuries. The warlords of Immoren understood goals, codes and honor. The ORgoth were cruel beyond measure. Orgoth sank the navies of Tordor, spawning the Sea of a Thousand Souls, and they spilled onto the continent. The Thousand Cities united, but they were unable to stop the invasion. The Orgoth used infernal magic and terrible wqeapons. Menites and Morrowans alike called on the gods for aid, but it was not enough. The Orgoth subjugated Immoren, enslaving the land and defeating all armies, conquering every city by Caspia. For 400 years, the Orgoth ruled over Immoren. The eventual revolt was long and terrible, spanning two full centuries before it succeeded. And it could not have succeeded without Thamar, who gave humanity the Gift: sorcery. Before then, miracles had been the sole province of gods and those priests they chose to directly empower. The magic of the Gift of Thamar was more than that - the power to manipulate natural law solely by the will. It would be cventuries before anyone truly understood that power, if they really do, but it was a potent weapon for the Rebellion. Alchemy and the first guns were developed by the survivors of the Battle of the Hundred Wizards, but even that was not enough to tear down the Orgoth, who had their own wicked weapons and vicious warwitches. No - it was te development of mechanika, coupling engineering and magic, which provided the key to vicotry. The early workers built the first colossal - a fifty foot tall war-construct of gears and iron. It could not be done, though, without the aid of the Rhul, who admired humanity's resourcefulness. They had never fallen to the Orgoth, having failed to capture the great fortress Horgenhold, and so had ignored the Rhulfolk and left them to their mountains. Rhul did not send soldiers, but iron, steel and mechanical knowledge, allowing the colossals to be built. They were towering constructs wielding weapons even the gods would envy, but they relied on the control of those few warcasters who could master them. Shortly after the first was built, some wizards awakened to their potential communicate mentally with the cerebral matrices that served as the artificial minds of the colossals, guiding them in battle. This sharing of minds was something even the Orgoth could not match, and over the next few years, their fortresses fell, one by one. The Orgoth fled to the sea, razing cities, poisoning wells and salted the earth as they went, in a campaign remembered now as the Scourge. After the defeat of the Orgoth, the leaders of the victorious armies, known as the Council of Ten, met in Corvis, the Cygnaran City of Ghosts. They prepared a map of the new Iron Kingdoms, negotiating and devising the Corvis Treaties, which drew the borders of the kingdoms of Cygnar, Khador, ORd and Llael. Briefly, there was a time of peace, but it was not long before they were once more at each other's throats. The author recalls the Day of Markus, when he always tries to return to the city of Madfast. Khador attacked that Ordic city in the year 305 AR, and the soldier Markus ascended to join Morrow, sacrificing his life to buy time for reinforcements to arrive and proving that the few can defend against the many if they have courage. The author despises Khador, but he favors truth more, and attempts to keep his hatred to a minimum in his writings. The people of Khador are tough, proud and have endured much. They remember the ancient days, when strength and cruelty were all that kept them alive. They have ancient customs from the times of the barbaric horselords of the Khardic Empire and their Menite priests. They took to Morrow's message later and only in part - they liked his advice on nobility in battle, but not his condemnation of aggression. For five months each year, Khador is frozen solid. Only a harsh people could have survived, and the Khadorans are nothing if not harsh and strong, using immense warjacks and soldiers armed to the teeth. Their soldiers have always been conscripts - every adult male and any woman who wants to and is not pregnant serves at least one tour of duty. They are skilled with mechanika, nearly as much so as Cygnar, and are primarily Morrowan, but not the overhwleming majority that faith has in Cygnar, Ord and Llael. The Menite faith is stronger in Khador than anywhere outside the Protectorate. However, all Khadorans, Menite or Morrowan, love their ruler above all else. They are patriots, and that is why so many outsiders find them so obnoxious. Khador has never liked the compromises of the Corvis Treaties, longing for the glory days of the old Khardic Empire. Every generation, a new rulers takes the throne and decides it's time to reclaim 'stolen' lands. The Kossites and Skirov no longer remmeber their own kingdoms, only their service to the Khards, and the Khadorans are all devoted to the rebirth of their empire. Recent events have proven that they have the power to do it, too. After the occupation of Llael, Queen Aya Vanar named herself Empress of the Khadoran Empire, to the great approval of her subjects. She is likely to be unsatisfied until all of Immoren bows to her, and their conquest of Llael has been followed by war against Cygnar. Next time: Ord, Llael and Cygnar.
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Jun 29, 2015 15:32
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I do like how in that giant derail about 5e and caster supremacy, nobody noted the hilariously backwards 'fix' to caster supremacy being that most(IIRC all) martials get to cast spells relatively well if they go down a specific character path. Instead you guys got hung up on Tiny Hut of all loving things.  Since System Mastery never got around to doing the Returners game, I'll see if I can make some free time to do a write-up because it is a glorious mess, but no promises. Work's been real busy lately. 
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Jun 29, 2015 15:41
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Yeah do it! That book is way too big for our reading schedule.
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Jun 29, 2015 15:59
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Warmachine Prime Mk. II Ord, according to our author, is a tough nation which holds a solid and powerful core. It has little in the way of resources, to be sure, but it is a sailor's paradise, home to the best sailors in the world. Its army is not nearly so powerful, but its people are tough and courageous. They just lack, you know, modern weapons and engineering. Khador has come after them several times, but they've never fallen. Not like Llael did, anyway. Llael's great advantage, its sharing of borders with four kingdoms and its easy trade due to a lack of natural barriers, was also its weakness - it was easy for armies to move in. Llael was a land of merchants, serving as middlemen for all kinds of trade routes, but it was always a lucrative target. Cygnar allied with Llael three centuries back, and with that protection, Llael survived Khador's assaults...until 604 AR, when it was finally overrun. Though Ord was no friend of Llael, their fall has driven the Ordic people to a harsh and defensive mindset, fully aware of how vulnerable they really are now. Cygnar was the strongest and wealthiest nation after the Corvis Treaties, uniting the peoples of Caspia, the Midlands, Thuria and the Morridanes of the Thornwood, who descend fro mthe Morrdh. Cygnar is rich in resources - all kinds of resources - and often did not appreciate how much it truly had. It is on the cutting edge of technology, alchemy and particularly mechanikal engineering, with inventive and potent warjacks trained in the finest military academy in the world. They have bordered all four of the other nations, and until the Cygnaran Civil War they controlled the Bloodstone Marches. After the war, that land was used for the establishment of the Protectorate of Menoth, the newest of the Iron Kingdoms. The Cygnarans helped to defend Llalel, but proved unable to, and the loss of the Thornwood to Khador has seperated them from their Llaelese border. Cygnar, to the author, is preferable to Khador, but believes they are too eager to shove their head where it doesn't belong, and that their rivalry with Khador may set Immoren aflame, especially if both powers do not turn to focus on Cryx or keeping the Protectorate in check. Cygnar has recently endured much upheavel, as Leta Raelthorne ousted his tyrant brother, King Vinter IV, who managed to escape before trial, only to reappear from the Bloodstone Marches after nearly a decade, armed with strange and inhuman allies, the skorne. Since his return, these invaders have been a constant peril in the east, and even tried to seize Corvis in 603 AR. Leto has suffered quite a bit. Still, even diminished by the loss of Llael and the Thornwood, Cygnar is one of the mightiest powers of the region. They have suffered invasion of their capital by the Menites, but drove them out. Their borders have been compromised, but they remain ready to fight and die. They are stubborn beyond measure, and Khador may have underestimated them. So, what of the Protectorate of Menoth? They distrust outsiders, especially in the city of Sul, for all parts of their life are full of religious ritual. For years, scholars and politicians have pretended they were not a true nation due to the agreements after the cygnaran Civil War leaving them technically beholden to the Cygnaran crown. Gowever, time has proven those obligations to be a farce, and it's clear that the Protectorate of Menoth is a nation of its own, outlasting Llael and gaining great power. The capital of Caspia was divided after the War, with the eastern portion becoming Sul, then capital of the Protectorate. And that was a keg waiting to go off, to be sure. Sul-Menites are a strict religious group, believing that endless punishment awaits them if they do not obey the True Law. The terror of the clergy is instilled from an early age, and the people are taught to obey without question, to expect pain for any doubt. Nowhere but in Menoth are the priests obeyed so completely, as in the days of old. The Menite faith has been in slow decline for centuries, perhaps due to its harshness, and it was clear the ruling priests wanted some means to rise back to prominence. The spark came with the mergence of the Harbinger, a young woman from the fringe of the Protectorate who bears clear signs of miraculous divine contact - most notably, her feet will not touch the unclearn earth, and some say she communes directly with Menoth and speaks his words. There has always been the threat of violence between the Protectorate and Cygnar, but it only erupted into war after the fall of Llael. The leadership of Menoth took advantage of Cygnar's distraction to launch their great crusade, and the Harbinger's support of that campaign has driven the Sul-Menites to terrifying fervor and willingness to die for their cause. The violence has escalated even beyond the old Civil War. The Protectorate besieged Caspia in 605 AR but were repulsed, and Sul itself was breached. After a year of city fighting, the Protectorate drove Cygnar back and invaded Caspia, marching on Castle Raelthorne. Cygnar narrowly defeated them, and for a time the war was quieted, but that could change at any time. The war in Caspia and Sul is satelmated, but elsewhere, the Protectorate has been growing stronger, seizing Llaelese lands from Khador, including the fortress-city Leryn, a center of alchemical study and production. While the Protectorate is young, its divine favor gives it an unpredictable strength. But it is not the only danger. The Scharde island, now the heart of Cryx, is there as well. From it come the undying hordes and necromechanikal constructs of that terrifying nation. The Nightmare Empire is made of the Scharde Islands off the Broken Coast of southern Cygnar. Their capital is the city of Skell, a terrifying place where, sixteen centuries ago, the dragon Lord Turuk landed and claimed those islands. Turuk is the unquestioned ruler of Cryx, the father of all dragons, who has laid entire towns to waste. Cryxian raiders sail forth to hunt for plunder and blood, armed with terrifying bonejacks and helljacks. They enslave many, and then turn them into undead thralls, fusing them with mechanika or using their souls to feed the appetites of the Dragonfather's liches. The army of Cryx only grows with every victory. Their strength has long been underestimated, as for centuries their attacks were random and isolated pirate strikes. However, as war has erupted elsewhere, Cryx has begun striking even at those areas once believed safe. Cryxian soldiers nad necromancers have been seen deep in the mianland, emerging after the Llaelese conflict. No one knows what they want, but they clearly have interest in the politics of men and their wars. Maybe all they want is carnage, and they certainly have the tools for that, but perhaps what they want is even more terrifying. The Iron Kingdoms, technically, refer only to those of the Corvis Treaties and the Protectorate of Menoth, but in practice the term aslo refers to all of the adjoining lands as well. Ios, the eleven kingdom, lies in avast vallery between great mountain ranges that prevent the encroachment of the Bloodstone Marches. Even in friendlier times, no one truly understood the Iosans, for they seldom took visitors or conducted trade. Their borders have been utterly sealed for the entirety of the author's adult life, and he has never been there - those who violate the border do not return. Little is known of Iosan history, but it's said that they have potent magic and their own unique mechanika, quite unlike those of humans or the Rhulfolk. At one time, the Iosans sent ambassadors, but even then they went veiled, o hide their faces. The Rhulfolk say that in ancient times, Ios was uninhabited, and the Iosans have claimed to have traveled there from further east after some catastrophic upheaval that even the Rhul remember only as fire and smoke covering the eastern horizon. There has been death quite close to the Iosan border these days. Rhul, on the other hand, is a mountain nation ruled by a council of clan lords. On top of dwarves, it is also populated by a lot of towering ogrun with whom the Rhulfolk have long been allies. The dwarves of Rhul are an honorable people with a culture that has changed little over millenia. They are masters of stone, but have also erected immense castles, halls and towers. The Rhulfolk trace their heritage back to thirteen founding clans, and worship the clanfathers as gods. The Rhulfolk obey the Codex, a holy text and a summary of their complex laws. Unlike the Iosans, the Rhulfolk enjoy the company of humans. They defend themselves fiercely against intrusion, but trade vast quantities of metal and manufactured goods to Khador and Cygnar in exchange for wood, food and other things hard to get in the mountains. The Iosans are rare in human lands, but the Rhulfolk are widley accepted as valuable members of any community. The recent wars have seen a larger number of armed Rhulic warriors turning to a life as mercenaries. They seem to enjoy fighting - not for any cause, just a genuine satisfaction with a battle well fought. Their long stability seems to make them vew war as a kind of entertaining diversion. The Bloodstone Marches have long been a wasteland, where practically no one has ever survived. The howling winds and the terrible beasts are one thing, but there are also the Stormlands, plagued by constant lightning and thunder. Other than the Protectorate's current capital of Imer, the only human settlement near the Marches is a small collection of shacks and hovels known as Ternon Crag, where miners hunt for gold and coal in constant danger. After the Lion's Coup of 594 AR, Vinter Raelthorne IV fled his capital in an imperfect balloon intended to fly high over the ground. It was believed he died on that unlikely and ridiculous contraption, as no one has ever made it across the wastes alive. However, he returnex inexplicably in 603 AR, allied with the skorne. Little is known of the skorne save that they are potent and cruel warriors, armed with great beasts and strange weapons of their own invention. They have yet to pierce the Cygnaran border, but not for lack of trying, having built fortresses just east of the Black River, on land that humans assumed could not be settled. The skorne seem to be doing just fine. They are hardly the only dangers from the wilderness, though. Strange horrors have emerged from the northern mountains of Khador, unexplainable beasts alongside twisted and deformed warriors, all bent on slaughter. Violence has also erupted among the trollkin kriels, once peacefully settled in the untamed regions. Now, they harass trade routes and train lines in cygnar, Khador and even Ord. Some claim that the Cygnarans have been using the trollkin as a buffer against the skorne, but it doesn't seem to matter if that's true - the cygnarans recently faced the trollkin in a series of bloody battles with great casualties on both sides. And if that weren't bad enough, an ominous group of mystics, the Blackclads, have been seen on the move with well-armed bands, guarded by wild beasts. The world seems on the brink of disaster, and all must choose a side now - better to fall in battle than to waste away. That brings us to the rules of play. It's a wargame, so it can get pretty complex, and the rules aren't really what I'm trying to sell you. I'm trying to sell you the setting. So I'm going to, instead, bring up rules only as and when I feel they'll enhance our understanding of things. Suffice to say that I think it's a good wargame and you should play it. I will, however, note the two special kinds of unit in the Warmachine armies: warjacks and warcasters. Warcasters are your army leaders and commanders of the warjacks, the giant robot death machines. Warcasters are all wizards of various types, able to give orders to nearby warjacks and cast spells and use a Feat once per battle that usually is some really potent effect that can turn the tide of a match. Warjacks are bigass giant robots. They are tough and often hard to damage, but also rather slow. If they have hands, they can pick up and hurl things around or headlock other robots, but often they don't actually have hands to use for that. Unlike any other unit, they have a Damage Grid - they take damage to a randomized location, and when a location is damaged enough it can shut down parts of their body, like an arm or, if you're real lucky, their cortex, rendering them a giant pile of useless metal. Certain warcasters also have Theme Forces - armies that limit what you can deploy, but the more limits you obey, the more benefits they get. These often show how a character's strategy is meant to be. There are also mercenary warcasters and warjacks, usable only in full mercenary armies or when you have enough of a force to bring along multiple warcasters. Cygnaran armies focus on their ability to deliver lots of ranged damage - they're masters at rifles and cannons as well as combined-arms tactics and the use of electricity. They have some of the most advanced warjacks in the world. The Protectorate, on the other hand, are somewhat lacking in sophsitication but have huge numbers as they can call on their entire population for war, and also have a ton of protective spells and ways to deny their foes' strengths, nullifying magic and also setting people on fire. Khador focuses pretty much entirely on giant-rear end heavy warjacks and regged reliability, favoring brute force to speed or mobility. They are extremely tough and often call on the powers of ice and wind as well as potent artillery. Cryx are the corrupting forces of Draglond Toruk, specializing in speed and exploiting the weaknesses of others, as well as sacrificing their own. They can field lots of troops, even creating new ones mid-battle, and excel at weakning foes and taking advantage of that weakness with corrosion and corruption. While not covered much in this book, Ios is backed by the once-outlawed sect known as the Retribution of Syrah, who believe that they can save their dying god, Scyrah, by eliminating human magic, and they wield mighty myrmidons, a kind of warjack protected by regenerating forcefields. They use both professional soldiers and quick, stealthy assassins. The Rhulfolk are often mercenaries, working alongside their brethren, the immense ogrun. Their machines are slow industrial tools turned to weapons, but immensely powerful, and they understand well the use of guns and explosives. Ord is a haven for mercenaries and pirates, and the Ordic forces are known for bravery and stubbornness if not technological might. The Llaelese are mostly fallen, but the few that have escaped as mercenaries, conscripts of Khador or political exiles are noted for their skilled alchemy. Next time: Cygnar in detail.
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Jun 29, 2015 16:16
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theironjef posted:Yeah do it! That book is way too big for our reading schedule. Aww, but I was looking forward to you guys flipping out on it. Oh well, I will agree it probably is too much for the format.
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Jun 29, 2015 16:18
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Wizards Presents: Races and Classes Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Wizards Wizards Make Things Go Boom - Stephen Radney-MacFarland quote:It’s really just that simple. The wizard is, and always has been, the quintessential battlefield controller. Fireball, lightning bolt, meteor swarm, even magic missile—they’re all iconic wizard spells that deal damage to multiple opponents at a distance. They are fun, evocative, and the new wizard gets them in spades. We would eventually see this make it live in the form of the different Arcane Implements. Feats - Stephen Radney-MacFarland "Lots of things in D&D are changing, but don’t fret too much: You’ll still get feats." The designers had to dump metamagic and item creation feats. They got rid of the metamagic feats because they no longer wanted feats that were "conditional on a specific effect". That is, if you were going to make a round-to-round decision, it should be in the form of which power you were going to use. They wanted feats to do one thing, and do it passively, all the time. They then dumped item creation feats because they did not want players to be spending feat slots (nor experience points) on feats, when feats should have a more focused purpose. These were instead moved to rituals. quote:The intent was not to limit choice, but rather to create new and interesting ones for the wizard (and the other classes). Feats can increase the potency of arcane powers. Many of these choices will seem self-evident for the role of the traditional wizard—feats that increase defenses, feats that limit the penalties for using powers in melee, feats that increase speed—but others, called skill feats, add breadth to skills. Cherry-picking skill feats can enhance the know-it-all nature wizards exude. The last thing mentioned about feats is that while feats might require a specific race, or specific skill, or a minimum level, they will never require a class. The designers wanted to encourage players to either pick feats that compliment their build, or play against type, or to look for interesting interactions and synergy by not limiting feat selection to specific classes. Of course, we know that what happened in the end was that feats end up having class restrictions anyway, but you can take a Multi-class Feat to let you count as a member of that class for the purpose of meeting prerequisites, but here they envisioned the "Class Training" feat as a much bigger package: you wouldn't just be able to get skill training in a Fighter's class skills, you'd also be able to select a certain number of powers and abilities from that class. Balancing the Wizard - Stephen Schubert quote:When we set out to determine the right power level for each class, we first had to establish a baseline, independent of any particular class. Once that was in place, we could discuss the aspects of each class in relation to that baseline, comparing the components of a class’s offense, defense, and utility. The wizard has always been high on the offensive scale and on the lower end defensively, and much of that flavor has been maintained. We set out to preserve the idea that the wizard is very powerful, with abilities that affect multiple opponents at once, but he doesn’t last long if the enemy brutes start wailing on him. Thus, the wizard’s powers follow our higher curve of output, using spells and abilities that hit lots of enemies in quick bursts (as opposed to other high-damage classes like rogues or warlocks that do lots of damage to a single opponent, or spread their damage out over a few rounds). Acknowledgement of the save-or-die dynamic notwithstanding, the differentiation of the Wizard here compared with the Warlock and the Rogue is an eye-opener, especially since the Wizard is supposed to be a Controller and those two other classes are Strikers. Are Schools of Magic Dead? - Logan Bonner 4th Edition would categorize spells according to their effects rather than their thematic links. The 3E comparison made here is how Melf's Acid Arrow and Scorching Ray both deal energy damage, and both of them even use the "Ray" mechanic to define their in-game effect, but because one of them creates a real object, they're in different schools. 4th Edition is moving away from this because it's not really a useful way to define spells, and instead are looking more the Orb/Staff/Wand arcane focuses as the differentiating factor. The use of focuses also meant that spells and effects that were only ever useful outside of combat have been moved over to rituals, so that you can access them via an investment of gold rather than having to spend spell slots on it when those slots might otherwise be used when fighting for your life. quote:So where are the schools now? I personally never really got to understand the different D&D magic schools compared to CRPG classifications based on element, or practical classifications such as direct damage, damage-over-time, crowd-control, and so on. After I read the 5e PHB I eventually got it (never did during my Baldur's Gate days), but it still didn't seem like a particularly useful set of distinctions, so this section resonated well with me. Experiments in 3rd Edition - Stephen Schubert Here it's said that while we know that Tome of Battle was a test-bed for 4th Edition ideas, specifically for martials, that the designers were also using other 3E books to tinker with ideas that would eventually become the 4E Wizard. Complete Arcane's Warlock class showed that it was possible and desirable for a class to have an always-available at-will magic strike. quote:While the warlock continued to evolve into its own new class, the lesson had been learned: Every class should be able to do something interesting each round, even at the lowest of levels. The wizard needed to have a power, or better yet a selection of powers, that he could use every encounter or even every round. Of course, this thinking was part of the core of the new system, where every class would be a different mix of at-will, encounter-based, or daily resources. Complete Mage introduced the role of the blaster, which was when the designers began looking at really firming up and strongly defining the role that each class should fill within a group. It also introduced Reserve feats: a Wizard could cast a minor at-will power as long as they had a thematically related spell available to cast in their spell slots. [Excerpt from Complete Mage follows as an example] quote:Clap of Thunder [Reserve] The designers then built off of this concept to simply give the Wizard (and all other classes) the ability to have "interesting" at-will attacks available to them every round, with the Reserve feats' requirement of saving a particular spell in a slot. quote:These trends speak to the greater issue of extending the amount of fun players can have, by extending every class’s resources over many more encounters. While wizards still have the opportunity to cast (and run out of ) spells, they’ll have a few other powers to use much more frequently, allowing them to continue to contribute even once their spells run out. Tracking down the Complete Arcane and Complete Mage books was yet another eye-opener: I've heard it said that Pathfinder was where at-will cantrips got their start, but here we have the designers explicitly calling out a book that came out three years before Pathfinder as where they got the idea for Wizard at-wills, and where they start playing around with explicit definitions of role: the "Blaster" is really just an Archetype with a list of feats and spells for the player to rely on as a guide, but then there's also the "Booster", and the "Controller" and the "Sniper". Next up: Other Classes
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Jun 29, 2015 16:35
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LornMarkus posted:Aww, but I was looking forward to you guys flipping out on it. Oh well, I will agree it probably is too much for the format. I can dig it, but Jon don't know from Final Fantasy, so he'd probably be confused and irritated. Actually, that's generally my favorite kind of show.
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Jun 29, 2015 16:36
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bathroomrage posted:Since System Mastery never got around to doing the Returners game, I'll see if I can make some free time to do a write-up because it is a glorious mess, but no promises. Work's been real busy lately. It's probably for the best, since Returners is really bad in a really boring way.
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Jun 29, 2015 17:01
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Tatum Girlparts posted:Yea I really can't think of an RPG that works well if your party can take a nice leisurely nap every couple encounters when in 'adventure mode' Honestly, resting isn't the problem. The problem is that while the spell limits on casters might deal with equivalency supremacy and possibly play experience supremacy, they do nothing for defense supremacy. In other words, while it might seem fair that the fighter can carry on hacking away when the wizard is tapped out, it only takes an enemy wizard to show up with the fly/protection from arrows combo and it's over. Guess what every sensible enemy wizard is going to have? That makes it DM-chicken again: "We have expended our spells; either you let us recover them, or engineer things so that we do not need them, or you are killing us (or forcing retreat which will just means this choice comes up again later) as a foregone conclusion." It also does nothing for narrative supremacy: "when we're out of combat, Bob Fighter talks to some people in town, and Jim Wizard casts Control Weather, brings prosperity to the town's crops for a season and is lauded as a hero."
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Jun 29, 2015 17:18
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hyphz posted:Honestly, resting isn't the problem. The problem is that while the spell limits on casters might deal with equivalency supremacy and possibly play experience supremacy, they do nothing for defense supremacy. In other words, while it might seem fair that the fighter can carry on hacking away when the wizard is tapped out, it only takes an enemy wizard to show up with the fly/protection from arrows combo and it's over. Guess what every sensible enemy wizard is going to have? That makes it DM-chicken again: "We have expended our spells; either you let us recover them, or engineer things so that we do not need them, or you are killing us (or forcing retreat which will just means this choice comes up again later) as a foregone conclusion." I don't really want to restart the argument, but going to issue a correction here: Almost all spell buffs are mutually exclusive in 5e. You can't have both Fly and any sort of arrow protection up at the same time. They also can all be disrupted by damage.
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Jun 29, 2015 17:25
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Noncasters have poo poo for endurance anyway, because their only resource is HP and they can't recover that in a meaningful amount. Casters also have HP as resource, but they either have ways to recover it or ways to avoid taking damage in the first place (through flight/invisibility/etc or just ending a fight with a single spell) or both.
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Jun 29, 2015 17:28
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Hey Plague of Hats, this box I just got was from you, right? It went to my old work so it took a while to arrive. Sending us a DVD is a bold move, friend! Also Immortal! I haven't read that since High School, and I remember it being incredibly maddening, so I cannot wait to get in there. Thanks a bunch!
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Jun 29, 2015 17:40
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fool_of_sound posted:I don't really want to restart the argument, but going to issue a correction here: Almost all spell buffs are mutually exclusive in 5e. You can't have both Fly and any sort of arrow protection up at the same time. They also can all be disrupted by damage. That's why you Conjure Woodland Creature, get a bunch of pixies, and tell them to cast buffs on you and concentrate on them, then go hide (since range is only checked at cast time). Maybe this should have been on Murphys. 
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Jun 29, 2015 17:43
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theironjef posted:Hey Plague of Hats, this box I just got was from you, right? It went to my old work so it took a while to arrive. Sending us a DVD is a bold move, friend! Also Immortal! I haven't read that since High School, and I remember it being incredibly maddening, so I cannot wait to get in there.
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Jun 29, 2015 17:57
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Uresia: Grave of Heaven? That's not really obscure now, isn't it? It's like the only original setting BESM ever got aside from Centauri Knights and that bare bones multiverse thing in 3rd edition. Mors Rattus posted:Essentially: a giant pigman warlord decided he was kind of sick of being marginalized and out in the middle of nowhere, so he teamed up with a mad biologist to conquer all of the surrounding pigmen and is now turning them into his personal army of conquest while he tries to take up the mantle of being a noble gentleman with mixed success. I think all my orcs will be oldschool pigmen from now on. Kai Tave posted:As ironic as it is for me to say this, the thing that turns me off the most about the IKRPG is that its combat really is very much like a wargame in the sense that it's highly, highly reminiscent of the WMH tabletop game down to the fact that it uses things like movement measured in inches and facing rules. I appreciate a degree of tactical crunch in an RPG combat system but I feel like D&D 4E struck the right balance between tactics and abstraction (gridded movement measured in squares, no facing but a "flanking" system, etc). I felt the same way about Iron Kingdoms as I did about Heavy Gear, which was another RPG with a deep and expansive setting full of neat detail and worldbuilding married to a combat system that was "hey, do you like the Heavy Gear minis game? Well you're in luck!" At least Heavy Gear the RPG used a hex grid. Halloween Jack posted:It confused me that the SilCore book had all kinds of rules for fireteams, automatic weapons, and pretty detailed tactical rules in general, but not many of the individual tactical options we're used to seeing in RPG rules (like tripping and grappling). I think the idea was that skilled characters have more consistent results, as they tended to hit 6 and higher (you get a +1 for each 6 after the first, or for each 5 and 6 if you're playing very cinematically) more often. Either way, the results experienced PCs and NPCs can roll is absurdly high compared to anything seen on the miniatures side. If it wasn't for a slightly hidden rule suggesting an upper limit to your MoS, a Gear could curb-stomp a tank (and this is the kind of setting were tanks stayed kings of the battlefield), or a very good sniper could take out a Gear. Alien Rope Burn posted:Well, what I meant is that Cyberpunk had you roll 9d10s, total them up, and that gives you your character points to divide between your attributes. It's a odd mix of random and point-based generation where you're random-rolling your point total. I can only presume it's mostly just an artifact of older games. It also had the option of just random-rolling your attributes down the line, and rerolling anything at 2 or less. Now that brings me back to Mekton. gradenko_2000 posted:Add in the hirelings that you mentioned as additional cannon fodder, and the fact that monsters are supposed to undergo morale checks upon taking losses, and early D&D does not seem to be the ultra-deadly meat grinder that it's usually portrayed as, if all these rules are implemented. I think the problem was that at least the first edition had really bad editing, making some rules unclear at best. fool_of_sound posted:It's probably for the best, since Returners is really bad in a really boring way. Well, I guess one could poke fun at the sillier bits, like how Wakka is listed as both an Archer and Gambler (making him impossible to write up because there is no multiclassing), or stupid classes in general (like how the Ninja murders everything by dual-wielding katanas, but his abilities suck balls becaus their damage doesn't scale)
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Jun 29, 2015 18:04
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I've actually been thinking for a while about doing the larger books with the format of "The 10 Worst Things About:" so that the funny stuff doesn't get drowned in the muck of explaining what are generally really boring resolution rules and XP tables and stuff. Then again I want to stay miles away from anything that makes me feel like I'm generating a Cracked article. theironjef fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 18:11
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