[3.5]Explaining game mechanics

[Dixieboy]

So i got bored, and decided to make a wee game thingie

It's pretty simple, i want to find ways to explain gameplay mechanics in 3.5 using either lore or logic, "without breaking the 4th wall" (No mention of balance, gameplay or anything similar)

Everyone is free to try to make reasons up, and find other things that only makes sense gameplay wise

I have a few things.

LA: I understand adding it as a gameplay mechanic, and the general concept is apparantly that due to the long lives (Reasoning behind some of them atleast) they learn slower, this fails to explain why the elves gain levels at the same pace as a human, while being a human (In D&D known for the adaptability and quick learning) and having celestial blood, far, far back keeps you from learning
Why is it that intelligent species like dragons learn slower than half orcs?
And why does adding half dragon to my Character make him learn at less than half pace? :smallannoyed:

UMD: How do you fool a sword? I understand sentient talking swords. (Though how, or why anyone would trick lilacor is beyond me :smallamused:)
But pieces of metal with enchantments on them? How do you trick something with no brain?

[Qanael]

For the LA bit, I have no clue.

For the UMD bit, you're not tricking the item. You're tricking magic itself into allowing you to tap into the power of the item.

[Harperfan7]

Concerning LA:

The more powerful you are, the harder it is to get better. Going from 2nd to 3rd is harder than 1st to 2nd. Babies learn faster than adults. I guess that's why dragons generally don't even have class levels.

[Thrud]

UMD: How do you fool a sword? I understand sentient talking swords. (Though how, or why anyone would trick lilacor is beyond me :smallamused:)
But pieces of metal with enchantments on them? How do you trick something with no brain?

This is taken strainght from Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. Though of course, in the story the Gray Mouser is really more accurately described as a character who gained 1 level of MU before becoming a Rogue. Still, the basic concept is the same. He had a little bit of knowledge so he could try to figure out the basics of how to use the device. It is not a matter of tricking the device, it is simply a matter of having the necessary knowledge and knowing how to apply it in the particular situation so that it works. To me the reason that a fighter can't use a wand is not just because he doesn't have the spell in his spell list, it is because he hasn't got the foggiest how to make it work, BECAUSE he doesn't have the spell giving him pretty much no ability to use the gizmo. I like to use the example of magic being mathmatics. Fighters never got past basic arithmetic so they can't use a magical device. Rogues on the other hand have been around, and so have seen many formulas used in the past. They don't fully grasp the math, but have stolen a crib sheet that they try to apply to a given situation. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

For the Gray Mouser it never really came out well when he tried to use a magical device. Unfortunately he was fascinated by them even if he had absolutely no aptitude for them.

Anyway, that is my take on it.

[Devils_Advocate]

Magical information actively dislikes being duplicated.

If you memorize a spell off a scroll, it disappears from the scroll. If you transcribe that spell into your spellbook, it disappears from your mind. If you cast a spell -- the act of effectively copying it onto the world -- it disappears from wherever you cast it from, be it your mind, a scroll, or a charged item (where it's held in compact form).

This is why spellbooks have to be written in a special language, using special inks made from the blood of dragons, amongst other things. It took a long time for wizards to find a way to record spells so that they don't disappear when they're copied or translated. The method they hit on isn't cheap or easy, but it is reliable.

A Blessed Book (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#blessedBook) is enchanted to allow spells written in ordinary ink not to disappear.

[Quietus]

Magical information actively dislikes being duplicated.

If you memorize a spell off a scroll, it disappears from the scroll. If you transcribe that spell into your spellbook, it disappears from your mind. If you cast a spell -- the act of effectively copying it onto the world -- it disappears from wherever you cast it from, be it your mind, a scroll, or a charged item (where it's held in compact form).

This is why spellbooks have to be written in a special language, using special inks made from the blood of dragons, amongst other things. It took a long time for wizards to find a way to record spells so that they don't disappear when they're copied or translated. The method they hit on isn't cheap or easy, but it is reliable.

A Blessed Book (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#blessedBook) is enchanted to allow spells written in ordinary ink not to disappear.

Magic as a living thing, with its own desires and, possibly, intentions... I like it. :smallamused:

[Samurai Jill]

This way madness lies.

[Fishy]

Magic is a living, intelligent entity, and a good enough Rogue can run a con on it like anyone else. Hence, UMD.

"Suuuure, I'm a wizard."

[Malacode]

You do realise that Theif from 8-Bit just became exponentially more powerful. Thief + Hadoken = Eep.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Level 1 character with LA +2 (ECL 3) kills an Orc: "That was easy!" and he gets a little bit of XP because he didn't learn much from an easy fight.

Level 1 character with LA +0 (ECL 1) kills an Orc: "That guy really put up a fight!" and he gets a bit more XP for it because he learned quite a bit more.

Level-adjusted characters don't find opponents of the same level as challenging as characters with no level adjustment, therefore they don't learn to improve their abilities as quickly and they progress slower when facing the same challenges.

I read a nice article about this a while back on Sean K Reynolds' website, but I can't seem to find it now.

[kamikasei]

LA: I understand adding it as a gameplay mechanic, and the general concept is apparantly that due to the long lives (Reasoning behind some of them atleast) they learn slower, this fails to explain why the elves gain levels at the same pace as a human, while being a human (In D&D known for the adaptability and quick learning) and having celestial blood, far, far back keeps you from learning

Doesn't the fact that elves and other long-lived races don't actually have LA not suggest to you that your interpretation is off here?

Biffoniacus_Furiou is correct, the "in-world" explanation for LA is that being more powerful due to the abilities your LA grants means that you require greater challenges in order to improve yourself.

The question of age, level, and rate of learning versus supposed intelligence and adaptibility is its own problem separate from LA.

[Baidas Kebante]

I've thought of LA races as having more stuff to learn, regardless of how ageless they are. For example, I can imagine that races with certain powers need to spend a great deal of time learning how to properly use their powers before going on to study magic or how to fight. The more powers they have, the more time they need to train before going on in life.

This would especially be true if their growth was developmental - in other words, they gain powers only after reaching certain stages of growth. Certain racial abilities may not manifest until puberty, for example. In this case, LA represents how long a race needs for fundamental training before going out in the world.

For truly ageless races, I usually see it as dabbling. A dragon may spend centuries just being a dragon, and then finally one day waking up and deciding to become an adventurer. And even as he does, he's just plain more of a "dragon" than anything else, which could be represented by LA.

[Ryuuk]

I don't really think LA needs to be justified as slow learning. Unless you also want to have a lore explanation for leveling, which would simply lead to something like "Once you have 112 kobolds, you will have enough experience in the arcane arts to learn and cast spells of the third tier, such as the mighty ball of fire or bolt of lighting" as a fluff explanation.

It's not that the character learns slower, perhaps its just that the character joined the others earlier in his career. Afterall, what are the odds of 4 complete strangers to suddenly meet up, decide to adventure together and discover that not only do they all have a comparable degree of past experience, all of them seem to improve at the same "rate". Its not even the same rate though, where the barbarian learns to whack things just a bit harder, the wizard learns to change the shape of any willing creature, animate the dead and blink through vast distances with only a word.

I'd say you should just justify it as PCs with LA being just a bit fresher at the whole adventuring thing then their normal brethren or they may have relied on their racial gifts rather then on any learned skills. Who knows, maybe its a a kind of cosmic justice, a Half Dragon Fighter 1 may hit just as accurately and just as hard as a Fighter 4, but attacks seem to find their mark more often against him more often then against the regular fighter. Asuming HP is an abstraction, the blow that surpasses AC and deals 20 damage may be a near fatal blow that leaves the half dragon bleeding, but for the fighter it may leave him intact, not even connecting, but still represent a 20 point deduction from his HP value.

[PinkysBrain]

In Eberron adventurers are special, there is a limit to what you can achieve without adventuring and it's reached relatively fast. Adventuring is not the same as learning or aging (Dragons tend to simply not advance in class levels, they live an easy live without much challenges and get power from age alone). Critters with high LA level slower because the challenges are lower for them, it has nothing to do with aging.

As for UMD, it's simply not non magical ... people who use UMD are manipulating magic (just like rogues do with magic traps).

PS. the greatest proof that old Dragons haven't adventured enough to get class levels is that they are old.

[AslanCross]

I always thought of UMD as forcing magic to work rather than fooling it.

[Tequila Sunrise]

About LA, I don't imagine it has anything to do with age. It has to do with innate talent. Think back to when you were in school; some kids were just naturally smart and so they could just kind of coast along, until they got to the really advanced stuff at which point everyone else had it easier because everyone else was used to working hard. That's how I imagine LAs; if you're a half giant fighter for example, you don't learn as fast as others because you can depend more on your natural strength to win the fight rather than skill.

Of course that doesn't explain why humans don't have negative LAs for having no stat bonuses, or why half giant wizards learn so slowly, but whatever.

TS