[Legend] Is Legend... Dead?

[Larkas]

So, I need to ask. Is Legend... Dead? It's such a promising system, it makes me sad to see it go mid-development. Really, with the promised Monster Manual and a couple of mini-campaign settings, that thing would really shine! :smallfrown:

[Psyren]

My understanding is that most of its intended audience found what they were looking for (or something close to it) in 5e, so it quietly faded away.

[Urpriest]

My understanding is that most of its intended audience found what they were looking for (or something close to it) in 5e, so it quietly faded away.

...how? 5e has lazier and shoddier monster rules than 4e! Legend's monster system was its biggest draw!

Obviously everyone chooses systems for the monster rules, right? :smalltongue:

[noob]

Yes it is why I like 3.5 monsters can do everything(especially if they are wizard)
I remember of a bug allowing monsters to have a level of wizard superior to their fp.

[Psyren]

...how? 5e has lazier and shoddier monster rules than 4e! Legend's monster system was its biggest draw!

Obviously everyone chooses systems for the monster rules, right? :smalltongue:

Are you being tongue-in-cheek? Monsters were Legend's biggest flaw - the track system is great for PCs, but one of the tenets of monster design even in fiction is just being able to give your monster the abilities it needs to have to be threatening, and Legend's design hamstrung that. Legend treated vampires much like 4e did, making them almost like a class instead of a monster.

[Larkas]

Are you being tongue-in-cheek? Monsters were Legend's biggest flaw - the track system is great for PCs, but one of the tenets of monster design even in fiction is just being able to give your monster the abilities it needs to have to be threatening, and Legend's design hamstrung that. Legend treated vampires much like 4e did, making them almost like a class instead of a monster.

That's not in and of itself bad. A base track with regular tracks for intended abilities isn't terrible if played right. But seeing that we never got a MM, newbies can't really build from examples, can they?

[Firechanter]

We have just started a Legend campaign a couple of weeks ago. Parallel to our 5E game, mind you. Legend and 5E convey an entirely different gaming experience. 5E is very down to earth, almost austere where you celebrate when some of your values go up by one per five levels (what someone on the net described as "pathetic aesthetic"). Legend is much more freaky and lavish with wicked abilities, and customization opportunity til the knob comes off.
Both games have their merits, but they are so ragingly different that I can hardly imagine 5E being the reason for the admittedly dormant state of Legend.

I checked out the Rule of Cool forums and considered registering there, but in the last 6 months it had activity in like 2 threads, so yeah, I'd kinda feel like joining the party after everybody went home.

And I wish there was a Legend bestiary, too.

[Psyren]

That's not in and of itself bad. A base track with regular tracks for intended abilities isn't terrible if played right. But seeing that we never got a MM, newbies can't really build from examples, can they?

It can be done well, sure, but it also makes bringing existing monsters into Legend (particularly when it comes to transforming into them, another fantasy staple) quite difficult. What would the tracks look like for, say, a mindflayer, or a gelatinous cube, or a planetar, or a shadow?



Both games have their merits, but they are so ragingly different that I can hardly imagine 5E being the reason for the admittedly dormant state of Legend.

I meant more in balance than in feel. The folks that were fed up with 3.P's wide disparity but also found 4e's homogeneity stifling would have been happy with either 5e or Legend's approach - but 5e dropped first, and of course had much bigger name recognition, mopping said folks up.

[Mcdt2]

To quote a post from the ruleofcool forum roughly 2 months ago:


For those of you still holding out hope, let me lay down a bit of information for you. I may put this up in a new topic later.

There are two things you need to know:

• Legend is not dead
Of the few dev team members who are still operational, VertigoCharades continues to lead a determined effort to completely nail down the core rules and keep Legend on life support. Dedicated fans still play the game and hope to keep it alive and kicking.

• Legend is dead
The collapse of the dev team due to a huge flood of Real Life, coupled with the greatly diminished influx of fan activity and the difficulty in marketing the game due to the nonexistent Monster Guide and fluff-null core book (not to mention a stack of promises by the former head of Legend), have basically brought development and support of Legend to a standstill. Sadly, everything that I warned the former head about has basically come to pass, and while the core rules might eventually be (re-)completed, I can't say reasonably that any other Legend product will be forthcoming.

That said, what I'd like to organize this summer is a cleanup and release of planned Monster Guide material; essentially taking what should already be available to our fans and moving it out there. I can't make guarantees, since that would involve speaking for other people, but we're still here and the IRC channel is still active.

For what it's worth, I'd love to run or join a Legend campaign, if anyone wants to play one. I'd prefer to use Roll20, but I could be convinced to use basically any VTT or even Play By Post, at this point.

[Lord_Gareth]

Legend's problems - and dormancy - happened well before 5e and frankly laying its death at the feet of that travesty is insulting to the quality of work performed by Rule of Cool.

[Alea]

I meant more in balance than in feel. The folks that were fed up with 3.P's wide disparity but also found 4e's homogeneity stifling would have been happy with either 5e or Legend's approach - but 5e dropped first, and of course had much bigger name recognition, mopping said folks up.
I don't think Legend was ever seriously trying to compete with 5e; that'd be preposterous. No way a new indy developer was going to swing with the established names (Wizards, or even Paizo, which at least had an existing company with publishing and advertising experience). Also, really, 5e doesn't hit most of the things I think of when I think of what Legend was trying to accomplish; Legend is far closer to 4e in goals and methods than it is to 5e.

[gkathellar]

The quote from afroakuma has the right of it. Those of us on the Dev Team are still around to provide clarifications and guidance, but the reality is that the game, at least as it was, is unlikely to (read: not going to) see future additions. We're still happy to support the game, we still hang around on the IRC channel, and we're pleased to see that some people still play it. But working on Legend-that-was comprised a particular phase of our lives, and that phase of our lives is honestly past.

Perhaps Legend will see a future reincarnation (not a resurrection), or perhaps we'll move on to other projects. For the moment, we just want to get the existing thing into ship shape before casting it off to sea.


My understanding is that most of its intended audience found what they were looking for (or something close to it) in 5e, so it quietly faded away.

I'm ... I'm legitimately baffled by this statement. I think you're actually insulting 5E and Legend, by way of conflating two totally different beasts that really don't have any desire to resemble each other.

[Kip Shades]

Pretty sure the only real thing that 5e has in common with Legend is the d20 mechanic and a lack of a magic item economy and limited attunement slots. Hell, 5e is closer to d20 Modern than it is to Legend. Plus, Legend 1.1 and the decline in development happened before 5e. If anything, 5e borrowed the lack of a magic item economy from Legend (though that's likely more of a "strange minds think alike" scenario)

But yeah. The devs are still active on IRC (You can find the chatroom on their forums or through gkathellar's signature) for discussion of rules and affairs, and have mentioned a few things they want to accomplish with 1.2 (Revising Earth Elemental's capstone, among other things) before putting out the Monster Manual and working on stuff for outsourcing development to the community.

[Psyren]

Legend's problems - and dormancy - happened well before 5e and frankly laying its death at the feet of that travesty is insulting to the quality of work performed by Rule of Cool.

And yet, I can't help but feel that if 5e hadn't happened, there'd be more clamoring for Legend and its advertised role as the golden mean between the extremes of 3e wide imbalance and 4e's laserlike focus on balance to the exclusion of other aspects of the game - and with that clamor, more impetus to get it over the finish line.

But it's just my opinion, and definitely not intended to insult anyone or anything at all.


I don't think Legend was ever seriously trying to compete with 5e; that'd be preposterous.

Indeed, which is why I didn't say that.

[afroakuma]

And yet, I can't help but feel that if 5e hadn't happened, there'd be more clamoring for Legend and its advertised role as the golden mean between the extremes of 3e wide imbalance and 4e's laserlike focus on balance to the exclusion of other aspects of the game - and with that clamor, more impetus to get it over the finish line.

Clamor wouldn't have translated into impetus, I promise you. Legend stalled out well before 5E was approaching, poisoned by the head designer leaving the project and then literally every other team member both moving and starting a new phase in their lives at the same time. One got married (yay!), one was failing in school and had to step back to work on grades (boo), most others were simply coping with new or intensified responsibilities. For all that there remained devs with a desire to see Legend progress, the manpower simply did not exist and continues not to. The previous head designer squandered too much early momentum and the results... well. I think we know those.

To say 5E had anything to do with Legend's current state is incorrect. Whatever justification you'd like to use to advance the argument - I'd recommend you don't bother. I have the inside perspective, I know where the bodies are buried, I know where the body is that should have been buried but got away, I know the names, the dates and the personal details of everything behind the curtain. This was not a problem of lack of fans, lack of gamer interest, lack of clamor, lack of impetus - it was and remains a problem of lack of people, which coupled with the inherent issues with Legend's core paradigm made it next to impossible to get things to the next stage. Any criticism that could be leveled at the game, I assure you, I can sympathize with - but no, any idea that it would have been a success but for 5E puts too much credit on that game and... to be honest, too much credit on Legend in the state it was at the time things stalled out on it.

[Psyren]

Clamor wouldn't have translated into impetus, I promise you. Legend stalled out well before 5E was approaching, poisoned by the head designer leaving the project and then literally every other team member both moving and starting a new phase in their lives at the same time. One got married (yay!), one was failing in school and had to step back to work on grades (boo), most others were simply coping with new or intensified responsibilities. For all that there remained devs with a desire to see Legend progress, the manpower simply did not exist and continues not to. The previous head designer squandered too much early momentum and the results... well. I think we know those.

To say 5E had anything to do with Legend's current state is incorrect. Whatever justification you'd like to use to advance the argument - I'd recommend you don't bother. I have the inside perspective, I know where the bodies are buried, I know where the body is that should have been buried but got away, I know the names, the dates and the personal details of everything behind the curtain. This was not a problem of lack of fans, lack of gamer interest, lack of clamor, lack of impetus - it was and remains a problem of lack of people, which coupled with the inherent issues with Legend's core paradigm made it next to impossible to get things to the next stage. Any criticism that could be leveled at the game, I assure you, I can sympathize with - but no, any idea that it would have been a success but for 5E puts too much credit on that game and... to be honest, too much credit on Legend in the state it was at the time things stalled out on it.

I thank you at least for not accusing me of trying to "insult" anyone. Very well then.

[Larkas]

Thank you for all the answers, specially those from the project's team members. While it's sad to see such an interesting system go, specially at the stage it did, it's still better than see it put on permanent hiatus. At least we don't need to hang on to fruitless hope. And, well, short-lived though it was, it was still a kickass of a system. Congratulations to all that took part in the development. :smallsmile:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I still play it at my gaming table. One of the major advantages it has versus 3.5 is the ease of character creation and, more importantly, ease of levelling up. You can level up right at the gaming table and just keep going, which is pretty unique among gaming systems. Notate the skill bumps, the magic item slot, the ability unlock, and the various other numerical bumps. Takes maybe five minutes, particularly if you already have the entire tracks laid out ahead of time so you just select which one just went 'live'. I actually had to rule that you can't level up in the middle of a scene because it is just that easy.

I've never had any particular difficulty in making enemies for my players to face. Mooks and Myriads fill out the roster, with an occasional ability tacked on for customization purposes. For example, a 'displacer beast' might have that ability from the Acrobatics track that gives you the ability to negate an attack with a reflex save once per encounter, but otherwise statted out as a Mook. Only sentient beings actually got the opportunity to have one (or more) tracks appended, as per rules for more advanced Mooks. Dispelling became much more important when the wave of mooks ended up with one in the middle that had Bastion that the one in the far back with Shaman casting hit with a targeted buff. Two mooks with a single track each, the rest just base mooks. Then the players understood that hitting the buff with a dispel drops it for ALL the mooks and their grumbles died down rapidly and they quickly realized how important having a source of Dispelling can be. Then I used that same tactic against the party, once they had figured it out. Meanwhile, popcorn, chips, and dice flew across the table at various periods of time, and fun was had by all.

For those who have not, I strongly urge you to download the PhB and play around with it. Sure, it's not perfect. But it is, in my personal opinion, what 4e should have been.

[Urpriest]

Are you being tongue-in-cheek? Monsters were Legend's biggest flaw - the track system is great for PCs, but one of the tenets of monster design even in fiction is just being able to give your monster the abilities it needs to have to be threatening, and Legend's design hamstrung that. Legend treated vampires much like 4e did, making them almost like a class instead of a monster.

If that were true of monsters, it would also be true of PCs.

[Segev]

Afrokuma had an interesting comment in his post that I would like elaboration on: What in Legend's "core paradigm" made it so difficult to get it to "the next stage?" I can guess that the "core paradigm" is that tracks system, but please correct me if I'm wrong. I am unsure what "the next stage" was nor why the core paradigm got in the way of it.

(I fully understand the lack of manpower issues, as well as...other...issues which can crop up in a group of unpaid developers working together on a mutually-shared, but not necessarily unified, dream.)

[Psyren]

If that were true of monsters, it would also be true of PCs.

Nah - PCs are designed to get their abilities on an even, balanced track because that's how they progress relative to the game and to one another. But monsters have given abilities for a variety of reasons, with balance being only one component - others include folklore, ease of conversion/compatibility with other games, baselining for future monster design, being silver-bullet answers to very specific defenses etc. Designing monsters is equal parts art and science, and being able to simply give them a certain ability without being chained to a "track" design is a key component of that.

[Urpriest]

Nah - PCs are designed to get their abilities on an even, balanced track because that's how they progress relative to the game and to one another. But monsters have given abilities for a variety of reasons, with balance being only one component - others include folklore, ease of conversion/compatibility with other games, baselining for future monster design, being silver-bullet answers to very specific defenses etc. Designing monsters is equal parts art and science, and being able to simply give them a certain ability without being chained to a "track" design is a key component of that.

Folklore is enormously relevant for PC abilities. Think about how often people blame the fact that the Wizard class was trying to encompass everything every mythological Wizard was capable of for how unbalanced it is.

Conversion/compatibility isn't really relevant. Either you think of games as standing alone and it never comes up, or you're the kind of person who tries to bring in things from other games/editions and your players do too and are all trying to play Naruto characters or something. Either way it's symmetrical.

Baselining is either meaningless in a Legend-like system, because you're using the same ingredients, or you're baselining for new monster features, in which case the same argument applies to class features.

Silver-bullet monsters are bad design in any CR-based system, since their CR is only correct if their silver-bullet target is present. The times when you want a silver bullet, you need to balance it in the same way you balance one-trick-pony PCs in order to make it able to contribute in situations where its silver bullet is irrelevant.

The only reason you think of designing monsters as more "artistic" than designing PCs is because you're used to using a class-based system. In plenty of rules-light to rules-moderate systems, players design their own abilities rather than picking them from a menu. It's certainly viable, but it's not really the kind of system D&D is. When monsters are just a spell away from PC access, they need to be structured like other PC options, which means that if you're balancing PCs based on a finite list of choices you need to do the same for monsters.

[stack]

I'll miss Legend (though I do have a Legend game going on this board still), but at least with various 3rd party additions to PF I can get effective martials and reasonable casters with strong, thematic, at-will abilities. Akashic mysteries, path of war, spheres of power, pact magic, etc make all the difference.

[Necroticplague]

Like the system, and it at least seems finished mechanically, just regret I can never seem to find games for it.

[Urpriest]

I'll miss Legend (though I do have a Legend game going on this board still), but at least with various 3rd party additions to PF I can get effective martials and reasonable casters with strong, thematic, at-will abilities. Akashic mysteries, path of war, spheres of power, pact magic, etc make all the difference.

Do you know if anyone has homebrewed class-based monster systems for PF yet? That's the part I care about. :smallwink:

[icefractal]

When monsters are just a spell away from PC access, they need to be structured like other PC options, which means that if you're balancing PCs based on a finite list of choices you need to do the same for monsters.Does Legend even have open-ended Polymorph though? I thought it didn't.

Speaking as someone who does like customizing and optimizing PCs, and who thinks the track system is an elegant way to do things, I still don't want to do it for monsters. Too much work, too little benefit. Optimizing monsters has no pay-off over simply using a tougher monster to begin with, and hand-crafting every foe was simply not workable for a weekly game. Which would have been greatly ameliorated with the planned bestiary, I realize.

"Wow, that fight was ok, but the fact that the monster was technically only 9th level, but it seemed as strong as a 12th level one ... that was what made things amazing!" - said by no player I've ever met.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Do you know if anyone has homebrewed class-based monster systems for PF yet? That's the part I care about. :smallwink:

Not that I know off but a) their way to treat monster as PC's is actually quite good and b) I've heard that Spheres of Powers is versatile enough you can play quite as a few types of monsters (most notably shapeshifters like Werewolfs) without much problem.

[Psyren]

Folklore is enormously relevant for PC abilities. Think about how often people blame the fact that the Wizard class was trying to encompass everything every mythological Wizard was capable of for how unbalanced it is.

Right, but you can still put that on a track because it's a class, and that implies being able to start off fairly weak and get better at something over time. It's what you do (a profession) rather than what you are. After all, no one is going to eyeball Pug, or First-year Harry (or Neville!), and expect them to be equal to Milamber, Dumbledore, or Merlin.

Compare to a monster - there are certain things you expect ALL vampires to be able to do, or ALL hydras, or ALL balors and solars. There is no progression there, and thus no need for a track. About the only monster you could reliably place on a track are Dragons, and even that would be based on age rather than levels. And even if you do place them on a track - like the monster class rules attempted to do, for some monsters - you're going to end up with an incomplete list (because designing those things is intensive) and the abilities they get at each rung end up being arbitrary points of contention, with it being far too easy for said monster to be too weak or two strong at each rung, and even to vacillate between both extremes as they climb.



Conversion/compatibility isn't really relevant.

In theory/a perfect world, perhaps it shouldn't be, and every system should stand on its own. But as a practical matter, it absolutely is. How easy it is for GMs to convert their favorite villains, modules and adventure paths is a key factor in how readily they will adopt a system. That compatibility was one of the lynchpins of Pathfinder's runaway success, and furthermore it was far easier to convert your 3.5 adventures to PF than to 4e. Not saying that was the only factor in PF's success, but it certainly was one of many.



Silver-bullet monsters are bad design in any CR-based system, since their CR is only correct if their silver-bullet target is present. The times when you want a silver bullet, you need to balance it in the same way you balance one-trick-pony PCs in order to make it able to contribute in situations where its silver bullet is irrelevant.

But that's the beauty of them - if the target isn't present, you have lots of other options to choose from. If nobody in your PC's party has access to break enchantment/flesh to stone, just leave the Medusa at home, or consider it more of a challenge. The CR system is meant to be mutable after all, what with the "favorable circumstances for the PCs" and "unfavorable circumstances for the PCs" considerations. The GM is not intended to be a robot who simply picks numbers from the MM or rolls on tables to design encounters without an iota of critical thought.



The only reason you think of designing monsters as more "artistic" than designing PCs is because you're used to using a class-based system. In plenty of rules-light to rules-moderate systems, players design their own abilities rather than picking them from a menu. It's certainly viable, but it's not really the kind of system D&D is. When monsters are just a spell away from PC access, they need to be structured like other PC options, which means that if you're balancing PCs based on a finite list of choices you need to do the same for monsters.

Or, you know, modify the "one spell that gives the PC access" so that they are not getting everything that monster has to offer, nor are they getting every single monster regardless of suitability for PC use. 3.5 did this with summoning spells, and PF went a step further with the shapeshifting ones, as it should have been.

[Segev]

If I ever do design a class/level-based RPG, I definitely will take the step that AD&D took from OD&D and expand on it. In OD&D, "elf" and "dwarf" and other things we know of as races were classes. The job-based classes were humans. Every elf was the same class, "elf."

AD&D made class and race separate things. AD&D 1e and 2e tried to have races of varying powers paid for by EXP penalties.

3e used LA and ECL to try to sacrifice levels for more powerful races.

I'd approach it differently: everybody would have a race and class, and both would level up. It's akin to Savage Species monster progressions, but gestalting them with your class, and every race having them. So a level 20 dwarf would be more iconically and powerfully dwarven than a level 1 dwarf, regardless of their classes. And, ideally, level 20 dwarf and level 20 dragon would be similarly potent.

[Urpriest]

Right, but you can still put that on a track because it's a class, and that implies being able to start off fairly weak and get better at something over time. It's what you do (a profession) rather than what you are. After all, no one is going to eyeball Pug, or First-year Harry (or Neville!), and expect them to be equal to Milamber, Dumbledore, or Merlin.

Compare to a monster - there are certain things you expect ALL vampires to be able to do, or ALL hydras, or ALL balors and solars. There is no progression there, and thus no need for a track. About the only monster you could reliably place on a track are Dragons, and even that would be based on age rather than levels.

Here's the thing, though: Prestige Classes.

There are plenty of things PCs can be that have this same sort of trait: there are things you expect ALL PCs of a certain archetype to be able to do. All Assassins should know how to use poisons and kill people quickly. All members of the Wayfarer's Guild should know how to teleport. Characters can't start out with this at first level, but they don't need to, because you can make the ability require a certain level to obtain.

Similarly, if there's something that ALL vampires can do that isn't appropriate to a first level character, then that means that ALL vampires are higher than first level. That's not really all that bizarre: if you're building monsters anyway, they don't need to have leveled up from first level to their current situation.



And even if you do place them on a track - like the monster class rules attempted to do, for some monsters - you're going to end up with an incomplete list (because designing those things is intensive) and the abilities they get at each rung end up being arbitrary points of contention, with it being far too easy for said monster to be too weak or two strong at each rung, and even to vacillate between both extremes as they climb.

Think about how broad the PC options for 3.5 are, though. Heck, most of the time when someone comes on this forum wanting to play an underpowered monster, we don't direct them to the homebrew monster classes, we tell them how to do it using PC classes! Legend was a young system. Imagine a system with the depth of 3.5's character building resources, but for monsters!




In theory/a perfect world, perhaps it shouldn't be, and every system should stand on its own. But as a practical matter, it absolutely is. How easy it is for GMs to convert their favorite villains, modules and adventure paths is a key factor in how readily they will adopt a system. That compatibility was one of the lynchpins of Pathfinder's runaway success, and furthermore it was far easier to convert your 3.5 adventures to PF than to 4e. Not saying that was the only factor in PF's success, but it certainly was one of many.

And as I explained, all of these concerns are equally relevant for PCs, as evidenced by the constant "how do I make this ridiculous League of Legends thing into a D&D character" threads.




But that's the beauty of them - if the target isn't present, you have lots of other options to choose from. If nobody in your PC's party has access to break enchantment/flesh to stone, just leave the Medusa at home, or consider it more of a challenge. The CR system is meant to be mutable after all, what with the "favorable circumstances for the PCs" and "unfavorable circumstances for the PCs" considerations. The GM is not intended to be a robot who simply picks numbers from the MM or rolls on tables to design encounters without an iota of critical thought.

Sure, but again, the same applies for PCs. For example, let's say someone defended the fact that Rogues can't Sneak Attack constructs and undead in 3.5 by saying that if your game has lots of constructs and undead then the players can just choose not to play Rogues. Even if that's true, I hope you get why people find PF's setup, in which Rogues can Sneak Attack both, superior. We expect the rules to take some tweaking and some common sense, but we also expect them to be fairly reliable.



Or, you know, modify the "one spell that gives the PC access" so that they are not getting everything that monster has to offer, nor are they getting every single monster regardless of suitability for PC use. 3.5 did this with summoning spells, and PF went a step further with the shapeshifting ones, as it should have been.

It's never just going to be one spell, though. Or rather, all it takes is one spell giving too much access. You can certainly get away with keeping that sort of thing out of your system, that's what 4e is for. But plenty of people find those sorts of "invisible walls" in the system excessively gamist. That's why PF still kept a variety of ways to gain access to monsters, including mind control and rebuking undead, as well as beefed-up summoning and their laughable non-attempt at an ECL system. It's why 5e went back to the "you can get access to pretty much any monster you want eventually" philosophy. And it's why systems like Legend are our best bet: because if PCs are going to be using monsters for their own ends, monster abilities should be balanced along PC lines.

[Psyren]

Here's the thing, though: Prestige Classes.

There are plenty of things PCs can be that have this same sort of trait: there are things you expect ALL PCs of a certain archetype to be able to do. All Assassins should know how to use poisons and kill people quickly. All members of the Wayfarer's Guild should know how to teleport. Characters can't start out with this at first level, but they don't need to, because you can make the ability require a certain level to obtain.

Similarly, if there's something that ALL vampires can do that isn't appropriate to a first level character, then that means that ALL vampires are higher than first level. That's not really all that bizarre: if you're building monsters anyway, they don't need to have leveled up from first level to their current situation.

But then what is the track for? :smalltongue:
If you're starting them off with what they need to have in order to be considered X, there is no point in having a track. And if all the track is adding is extra stuff - say, rung 1 is "all the iconic {mummy} things" and then the remainder are things like "more HP" and "more AC" - then you're just adding on a bunch of tassels on the handlebars that don't fundamentally affect the monster in any way, and it's all unnecessary. You can do that without track-based design. Where would a mummy track start, where would it end, and what would it get at each rung? What about a werewolf, vampire, bat swarm, bulette, girallon, fire elemental, harpy, cockatrice, iron golem, leonal, or the Tarrasque?



Think about how broad the PC options for 3.5 are, though. Heck, most of the time when someone comes on this forum wanting to play an underpowered monster, we don't direct them to the homebrew monster classes, we tell them how to do it using PC classes! Legend was a young system. Imagine a system with the depth of 3.5's character building resources, but for monsters!
...
And as I explained, all of these concerns are equally relevant for PCs, as evidenced by the constant "how do I make this ridiculous League of Legends thing into a D&D character" threads.


The thing though with those "make me into X League character" or "make me into Y anime character" etc. requests, is that the responses are generally the finished product. We don't have to come up with a build that feels like that character every step of the way. They can be all over the place in terms of level, gear, and key abilities, with the conclusion that "by the time you get to the end, you will be X."

Monsters don't have that luxury - if it's not a hydra, or a golem, or a vampire etc when you fight it, then it simply isn't worthy of the name.

I firmly believe that the best you can do as far as monster design is provide guidelines. Anything else constrains the concept of what a monster is too much to really allow you to recreate those iconic creatures of myth, and definitely inadequate (or at least very time-consuming) for making new ones or derivations.



Sure, but again, the same applies for PCs. For example, let's say someone defended the fact that Rogues can't Sneak Attack constructs and undead in 3.5 by saying that if your game has lots of constructs and undead then the players can just choose not to play Rogues. Even if that's true, I hope you get why people find PF's setup, in which Rogues can Sneak Attack both, superior. We expect the rules to take some tweaking and some common sense, but we also expect them to be fairly reliable.

This is a false equivalency - PCs are built from the ground up and played over the long course of a campaign, and so modifying them/adding abilities to them for overcoming weaknesses in their class design is something they can do gradually and organically throughout the game. Monsters on the other hand are designed to be used much faster - disposable obstacles to be quickly grabbed out of a bestiary and thrown on the table for a fight, then forgotten after they have been slain and looted. With a track, not only are you adding extra design time in figuring out what goes at each rung, you're adding extra prep time to the GM in figuring out which rung he should grab the monster at to plop onto the table, or even which monster to grab at all - is a "rung 5 mummy" equal in challenge to a "rung 2 lich?"

The CR system, for its flaws, avoids that - it says "this monster" or even "this group of monsters" will present a challenge to an X level party of adventurers. There is only one number to compare, and any modifications are up to the individual GM rather than being codified in a track that can be simultaneously restrictive and impenetrable.



It's never just going to be one spell, though. Or rather, all it takes is one spell giving too much access. You can certainly get away with keeping that sort of thing out of your system, that's what 4e is for. But plenty of people find those sorts of "invisible walls" in the system excessively gamist. That's why PF still kept a variety of ways to gain access to monsters, including mind control and rebuking undead, as well as beefed-up summoning and their laughable non-attempt at an ECL system. It's why 5e went back to the "you can get access to pretty much any monster you want eventually" philosophy. And it's why systems like Legend are our best bet: because if PCs are going to be using monsters for their own ends, monster abilities should be balanced along PC lines.

PF mind control is already balanced; there are heavy restrictions around when you gain access to it, what you can use it on, what you can make them do. So is shapeshifting (with the singular exception of PAO.) Calling also has tight restrictions on what you can make your minion do, and summoning has very limited lists. They're all pretty balanced, often weaker than pure battlefield control unless you devote significant resources to optimizing them.

[Snowbluff]

For what it's worth, I'd love to run or join a Legend campaign, if anyone wants to play one. I'd prefer to use Roll20, but I could be convinced to use basically any VTT or even Play By Post, at this point.

I'd PbP it as a player. When I first took at a look at it, it was like an epiphany. It's a work of genius.

Of course, I'd need someone to help walk me through the rules. I'm only vaguely familiar with them.

[Extra Anchovies]

I'm completely unfamiliar with Legend, but the praise it's gotten here has made me interested. Could someone give me a quick overview of what the system has to offer, and what its main mechanical differences are from standard d20 (3.5, PF)?

[Mcdt2]

I'm completely unfamiliar with Legend, but the praise it's gotten here has made me interested. Could someone give me a quick overview of what the system has to offer, and what its main mechanical differences are from standard d20 (3.5, PF)?

The first big change is the Track system. Each class is divided into three Tracks comprised of seven tiers of abilities, or "circles". Some classes have more than three tracks, which you choose from to make your class. For example, the barbarian Tracks are Path of War (which gives you the choice of Rage or Dervish, for either Str or Dex focus), Path of Destruction (which is an offense track for melee, and is good at making cleaving attacks), and Path of the Ancestors (which is the tanky portion of the class). You can swap out any one track for one from another class or from a specific list of independent tracks, which is the game's version of multiclassing. There are also racial tracks, such as Dragon, Undead, or Celestial, which you can swap one track for, separate from your multiclass swap. There's also a feat for an additional swap, and you can give up most of your magic item progression (see below) to gain a 4th Track; this is called "Full Buy-In".

Items are heavily abstracted. At certain levels, you get item slots of specific tiers. You can choose for these items to be actual tangible things, or magical boons, or other types of things. There's some room for DM decision as to whether the players will get items as soon as a slot becomes available (essentially making them a second kind of feat slot) or if they have to loot/buy the items like in D&D. Of note, the game has no actual wealth mechanic or economy to speak of; that's left as campaign specific decision.

Ability scores aren't as tightly tied to specific effects anymore. Every character will have a Key Offense Modifier and a Key Defensive Modifier (or KOM/KDM). For example, a Rage Barbarian with no multiclassing would have Strength as a KOM and Constitution as a KDM. As such, they'd use Str for all attacks (melee and ranged) and damage rolls, and they'd add Con to AC and HP. It's possible to get unusual combinations, such as Con as a KOM and Cha as a KDM, depending on your exact track setup. All attributes still have value, since they impact skills. Str, Dex, and Con still have benefits beyond that, as Str adds 1/2 the modifier to damage (stacks if your KOM is Str), Dex affects initiative, and Con gives DR.

Weapons are highly customizable; all weapons have a d6 damage die and three properties, and are either melee or ranged. Properties can be things like Brutal, which increases damage, or Guardian, which gives +1 AC, or Elemental, which converts the damage to an energy type of your choice. After you choose the properties you decide what the weapon actually is, leaving the fluff entirely up to you. Fun thing with this: you can also choose properties to represent a specific fighting style. For example, a reckless fighter might choose Brutal 3 times for maximum damage with his greataxe, but another might choose properties that allow them to scythe through foes and block with the head of the axe. You can even have "a large supply of throwing weapons" as a single weapon, since it's entirely up to fluff.

In fact, everything is designed to be refluffed, and it's very easy to do so. For example, just using the basic Rage Barbarian above, we can easily turn it into a Space Marine. Ancestors is their power armor, Destruction represents the sheer firepower of their guns, and Rage is an injection of adrenaline.

On top of all this, it's a very well balanced system, and very few of the Tracks are lackluster or overpowered. Personally, I think the Sage class is a bit weak out of the box, but mostly for lack of synergy in the tracks; they're all perfectly serviceable on their own. Definitely check it out, it's a great system.

[Extra Anchovies]

Sounds pretty great. I especially like the concept of the track system. Where can I find the rulebook, and is it compatible enough with 3.5 or PF content that the lack of a system-native bestiary wouldn't be an issue?

[Mcdt2]

Sounds pretty great. I especially like the concept of the track system. Where can I find the rulebook, and is it compatible enough with 3.5 or PF content that the lack of a system-native bestiary wouldn't be an issue?

Here's the rulebook:
http://www.ruleofcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Legend-1.1.pdf

And here's the character sheet:
http://www.ruleofcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Legend-Sheet-1.17-Form-Reader-Version.pdf

As for compatibility with 3.5/PF monsters, no, it really isn't. You'll have to build everything from scratch yourself. That's probably the biggest issue with the system right now, that the Bestiary isn't done yet. I have done a decent number of creatures up already from the MM, and I have some notes on how I intend to do the rest, so if you can't decide how best to represent a specific creature, feel free to shoot me a PM. On the upside, making monsters is basically the same process as making a character, so it's good practice as a DM to help you get an idea of what your players will be capable of.

If you have any questions about it, either rules or tips or whatever, feel free to PM me, or better yet, join the IRC channel (link in my signature). You can get a direct line to the dev team that way. Same goes out to anyone else out there interested in the system; don't be shy, we're friendly.

[dextercorvia]

Are all the extras from the initial fundraiser compiled somewhere? I remember that the Elemental and Pony Tracks were fairly good (even though I would divorce them from their equine fluff).

[Extra Anchovies]

Here's the rulebook:
http://www.ruleofcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Legend-1.1.pdf

And here's the character sheet:
http://www.ruleofcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Legend-Sheet-1.17-Form-Reader-Version.pdf

Woah. That looks pretty awesome.

...we should start a Legend PbP :smallbiggrin:

[Firechanter]

Yeah, the Track-based character system is probably the single biggest change. Actually you might say "Classes" are just pre-made Track packages as an aid to newbie/casual players -- you can also use entirely different combinations.

Then, Combat is also rather streamlined. Some elements:
- Everyone has full access to combat abilities that are basic must-haves anyway, like Power Attack, Deadly Aim etc. Also, no more Weapon or Armour Proficiencies. Everybody can use everything, and weapons are just a combination of 3 properties anyway, arranged to taste.
- Your basic stats all scale by level, including Damage and AC. Also, movement speed and melee reach automatically increase over the levels.
- Everyone gets only 1 AoO per round, and you can only use your AoO for a regular attack, so no AoO Trippers or the like. (In fact, there is exactly one way to do it anyway, but you have to be at least level 18 to pull it off, which shows just how much the designers wanted to prevent the 3.5 Lockdown Tank).
- Skills are pretty much like in 5E, i.e. all-or-nothing. Either you have a skill trained, then it's always maxed out, or you don't, then it will always remain at 0. Most characters get 5 or 6 skills, and each skill has one in-combat and one out-of-combat use (except Ride, which is different).
- Access to other must-haves is greatly simplified. For example, the ability to Fly: a number of tracks have it built right in, and if your tracks don't have it you can gain it as level 9 Feat, and if you can't spare the Feat you can slap it on as Armour Property.

Third, the game, especially combat, feels considerably different.
Due to the nature of many abilities, in-combat healing is a big thing. Fast Healing (works just like in 3E) is easily accessible via tracks and items. Burst-healing is also available through a number of defensive tracks. Since (at least in our game) opponents also often have in-combat healing, it becomes more important to focus fire on one target at a time. (If the GM goes overboard with it, battles can get rather long and tedious).
In 3.5, the ideal strategy is to focus on your offense so much that you strike so fast and hard that the enemy never gets to act. "Do unto them as they would do unto you, and do it first." In Legend, this is no longer viable; you need a good mix of offensive and defensive capabilities to be successful.

And so on. There are lots of other things, but if you have experience with 3.X, you will get the hang of Legend quickly enough.

Let me just say that in the beginning, I was very skeptical, especially at the high level of abstraction. Meanwhile, however, I have embraced it and now enjoy being able to fluff my stuff any way I like. For example, if you have certain magic items, you could fluff your Mount as Power Armour or a Shapechange ability.

However, in all fairness, there a few (potential) gripes I have with the system. For instance, I'm a bit disappointed in the binary skill system, as it effectively means that your characters gets more narrow over the levels. What I mean is, at low levels it doesn't matter whether you roll D20+Dex+1 or D20+Dex so you can always give it a shot. But at higher levels, the difference between D20+Dex and D20+Dex+Level is so enormous that you don't even need to bother rolling on an untrained skill.
I would have made Untrained skills still go up at, say 1/2 Level or something, to reflect that we are talking awesome heroes who pick up some basic competence in any field.

[Milo v3]

My issue with Legend is the same as my issue with 4e, when a friend showed me the system a year or two ago, it seemed like the system had no flavour abilities, just combat powers.

[Larkas]

Are all the extras from the initial fundraiser compiled somewhere? I remember that the Elemental and Pony Tracks were fairly good (even though I would divorce them from their equine fluff).

You can find them easily enough by skimming through the blog posts. The awesome pony tracks can be found here (http://www.ruleofcool.com/donation-reward-10-super-secret-bonus-content/), but I don't know how compatible with 1.1 they are.

[dextercorvia]

It's been a couple years since I've seen it, but isn't there another feat (maybe in the bonus content), that does something similar to Dartmuth Secret?

[Urpriest]

But then what is the track for? :smalltongue:
If you're starting them off with what they need to have in order to be considered X, there is no point in having a track. And if all the track is adding is extra stuff - say, rung 1 is "all the iconic {mummy} things" and then the remainder are things like "more HP" and "more AC" - then you're just adding on a bunch of tassels on the handlebars that don't fundamentally affect the monster in any way, and it's all unnecessary. You can do that without track-based design. Where would a mummy track start, where would it end, and what would it get at each rung? What about a werewolf, vampire, bat swarm, bulette, girallon, fire elemental, harpy, cockatrice, iron golem, leonal, or the Tarrasque?

You misunderstand. The whole point of building monsters out of tracks is that you can actually make new monsters by mixing and matching traits, rather than only having the monsters that the designers deigned to publish. Werewolf, mummy, bat swarm, bulette, girallon, fire elemental, harpy, cockatrice, iron golem, leonal, Tarrasque and the like would be(/are in Legend) builds, not tracks in and of themselves. For example, an iconic mummy might be a mid-level Undead build, a vampire a different one. Swarms would probably come out of some amorphous track including oozes, bulettes and Tarrasques are boring enough that they'd be pretty easily encompassed by a magical beast bruiser track, you can make an Eidolon that's essentially a girallon so they're pretty obviously track-replicable since tracks can be more versatile...you chose a bunch of really easy monsters, is what I'm saying.

The monsters you'd have a hard time making would be things like Efreet, or Fleshrakers, or 5e Pixies. And that's intentional, because none of those actually make sense at its current CR.




The thing though with those "make me into X League character" or "make me into Y anime character" etc. requests, is that the responses are generally the finished product. We don't have to come up with a build that feels like that character every step of the way. They can be all over the place in terms of level, gear, and key abilities, with the conclusion that "by the time you get to the end, you will be X."

...no? Most of those requests are for ongoing games. Just because this forum likes to focus on level 20 doesn't mean that's actually where these players are looking for advice.



Monsters don't have that luxury - if it's not a hydra, or a golem, or a vampire etc when you fight it, then it simply isn't worthy of the name.

So players never fight Krenshars, or Shield Guardians, or Ghouls, eh?



I firmly believe that the best you can do as far as monster design is provide guidelines. Anything else constrains the concept of what a monster is too much to really allow you to recreate those iconic creatures of myth, and definitely inadequate (or at least very time-consuming) for making new ones or derivations.

Again, why is this not true for PCs? If I want to make Merlin, with all of Merlin's powers and no powers that he doesn't have in the stories, how do I go about it?



This is a false equivalency - PCs are built from the ground up and played over the long course of a campaign, and so modifying them/adding abilities to them for overcoming weaknesses in their class design is something they can do gradually and organically throughout the game. Monsters on the other hand are designed to be used much faster - disposable obstacles to be quickly grabbed out of a bestiary and thrown on the table for a fight, then forgotten after they have been slain and looted. With a track, not only are you adding extra design time in figuring out what goes at each rung, you're adding extra prep time to the GM in figuring out which rung he should grab the monster at to plop onto the table, or even which monster to grab at all - is a "rung 5 mummy" equal in challenge to a "rung 2 lich?"

The CR system, for its flaws, avoids that - it says "this monster" or even "this group of monsters" will present a challenge to an X level party of adventurers. There is only one number to compare, and any modifications are up to the individual GM rather than being codified in a track that can be simultaneously restrictive and impenetrable.

The whole point of a track system is to make equal level characters equal in challenge, so there's no confusion there. A DM who doesn't want to spend the time building monsters can do the same thing DMs who don't want to spend the time building NPCs do, and use premades.



PF mind control is already balanced; there are heavy restrictions around when you gain access to it, what you can use it on, what you can make them do. So is shapeshifting (with the singular exception of PAO.) Calling also has tight restrictions on what you can make your minion do, and summoning has very limited lists. They're all pretty balanced, often weaker than pure battlefield control unless you devote significant resources to optimizing them.

Neither PF mind control nor PF calling have any restrictions on what, mechanically, you can make your minion do. They have restrictions on what goals you can make your minions pursue, and what role their actions can play in the story. But there's no correlation between that and the actions that happen to maintain game balance, especially when monsters already have no link between their power as PC options and their CR. Heck, coercing Wishes out of Outsiders is still a thing in PF!

[stack]

I would be happy to help anyone wih builds for a pbp. I can't run it, might be able to play though. I've built a number of legend characters and played a few. Not much until after independence day though.

[Psyren]

You misunderstand. The whole point of building monsters out of tracks is that you can actually make new monsters by mixing and matching traits, rather than only having the monsters that the designers deigned to publish. Werewolf, mummy, bat swarm, bulette, girallon, fire elemental, harpy, cockatrice, iron golem, leonal, Tarrasque and the like would be(/are in Legend) builds, not tracks in and of themselves. For example, an iconic mummy might be a mid-level Undead build, a vampire a different one. Swarms would probably come out of some amorphous track including oozes, bulettes and Tarrasques are boring enough that they'd be pretty easily encompassed by a magical beast bruiser track, you can make an Eidolon that's essentially a girallon so they're pretty obviously track-replicable since tracks can be more versatile...you chose a bunch of really easy monsters, is what I'm saying.

The monsters you'd have a hard time making would be things like Efreet, or Fleshrakers, or 5e Pixies. And that's intentional, because none of those actually make sense at its current CR.

In a trackless system there is NO monster you'd have difficulty making. At most you'd have difficulty assigning a CR to the finished product, but other than that, your imagination can run wild. That's the flaw of track-based design.



...no? Most of those requests are for ongoing games. Just because this forum likes to focus on level 20 doesn't mean that's actually where these players are looking for advice.

Who said anything about 20? Many responses are level 7, 10, 15 etc. builds. It's whenever the build has the abilities it needs to be considered X.


So players never fight Krenshars, or Shield Guardians, or Ghouls, eh?

What? :smallconfused:
Let's use your own example. If you fight a ghoul with no claws that can't paralyze, or a krenshar that can't scare anyone, why would they deserve that name? And if all of them do have those iconic abilities, what is the track for?


Again, why is this not true for PCs? If I want to make Merlin, with all of Merlin's powers and no powers that he doesn't have in the stories, how do I go about it?

By starting at a specific level, since "Merlin with all of Merlin's powers" means he's not 1st-level.
Also, "no powers that he doesn't have in the stories" is a meaningless and arbitrary limitation - just because he didn't cast something in the source material doesn't mean we saw every single spell he has access to. Throw hold portal or charm animal or other filler in his spellbook if you want.


The whole point of a track system is to make equal level characters equal in challenge, so there's no confusion there. A DM who doesn't want to spend the time building monsters can do the same thing DMs who don't want to spend the time building NPCs do, and use premades.

And those premades take much more time to design under a track system, which unfortunately was a problem for Legend due to its manpower issues.
I'm not saying it can't be done, and that it even might be beneficial for some, but I still consider it a drawback overall.


Neither PF mind control nor PF calling have any restrictions on what, mechanically, you can make your minion do. They have restrictions on what goals you can make your minions pursue, and what role their actions can play in the story. But there's no correlation between that and the actions that happen to maintain game balance, especially when monsters already have no link between their power as PC options and their CR. Heck, coercing Wishes out of Outsiders is still a thing in PF!

Trollpuckey.

"Subjects resist this control, and any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus. Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out."
"Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to."
"A clever recipient can subvert some instructions."
"Deities and unique beings cannot be controlled in any event...Failure to fulfill the promise to the letter results in your being subjected to service by the creature or by its liege and master, at the very least."

Every single one of them includes a clause like this to give the GM a way out, or to screw you over if you try your hand at being abusive. Go ahead, try to coerce a wish out of an outsider around a GM who can actually read the spell. See where that gets you.

[Larkas]

Ehm... Minor question here: suppose someone is making monsters with previously available tracks and wanted to post them in the Playground. Would they go in the homebrew subforum (new monsters) or in this subforum (new build)? :smallconfused:

[dextercorvia]

Ehm... Minor question here: suppose someone is making monsters with previously available tracks and wanted to post them in the Playground. Would they go in the homebrew subforum (new monsters) or in this subforum (new build)? :smallconfused:

Either is probably appropriate, but they are likely to get more attention here. As you said, they are Monster builds, rather than homebrewed tracks.

[Urpriest]

In a trackless system there is NO monster you'd have difficulty making. At most you'd have difficulty assigning a CR to the finished product, but other than that, your imagination can run wild. That's the flaw of track-based design.

What if no CR is correct, though? The ability to assign a CR assumes that there is some party for which the monster you're building is an appropriate challenge. If it's always inappropriate, then no CR you pick can fix that.

Imagine a system like this for PCs: you give your PC whatever abilities you want them to have, and then the DM tells you what level you need to be to have them. It's possible, even easy, to have a set of abilities that are inappropriate at low level, but insufficient to be competitive at high level.

Heck, that's the problem with the LA system! Monster abilities aren't balanced if they just have their RHD, but LA make them too fragile. Is there any reason that doesn't apply to monsters on the other side of the table?




Who said anything about 20? Many responses are level 7, 10, 15 etc. builds. It's whenever the build has the abilities it needs to be considered X.

Ok, I think you're misunderstanding how a class system for monsters would work, because this is exactly how it works.




What? :smallconfused:
Let's use your own example. If you fight a ghoul with no claws that can't paralyze, or a krenshar that can't scare anyone, why would they deserve that name? And if all of them do have those iconic abilities, what is the track for?

No, I mean if you're fighting a weaker Vampire that doesn't require special methods to kill and instead of having Energy Drain and Blood Drain has a less powerful debuff, like Paralysis, then you're fighting a Ghoul. If you're fighting a weaker Hydra that doesn't attack with a mess of heads but instead has a different cute special attack, like a fear effect, then you're fighting a Krenshar.

The point isn't one track per monster, it's one track per general type of monster, with more powerful monsters being examples with higher-level abilities on the track.



By starting at a specific level, since "Merlin with all of Merlin's powers" means he's not 1st-level.
Also, "no powers that he doesn't have in the stories" is a meaningless and arbitrary limitation - just because he didn't cast something in the source material doesn't mean we saw every single spell he has access to. Throw hold portal or charm animal or other filler in his spellbook if you want.

There are plenty of PC-viable characters from stories that do actually lack relevant abilities, though. Like, again, all of these League of Legends characters.

But maybe I'm making an argument here I don't need to. Do you have a problem with monsters having extra, lower-level powers that aren't part of their mythological fluff?




And those premades take much more time to design under a track system, which unfortunately was a problem for Legend due to its manpower issues.
I'm not saying it can't be done, and that it even might be beneficial for some, but I still consider it a drawback overall.


No, they take less manpower to design, or at least design well. Every individual monster needs its own playtesting, multiple sessions with groups who weren't involved in the original design in order to make sure the rules are written clearly. By contrast, premades need no playtesting at all if you've already tested the tracks well enough.



Trollpuckey.

"Subjects resist this control, and any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus. Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out."
"Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to."
"A clever recipient can subvert some instructions."
"Deities and unique beings cannot be controlled in any event...Failure to fulfill the promise to the letter results in your being subjected to service by the creature or by its liege and master, at the very least."

Every single one of them includes a clause like this to give the GM a way out, or to screw you over if you try your hand at being abusive. Go ahead, try to coerce a wish out of an outsider around a GM who can actually read the spell. See where that gets you.

The GM can also screw you over if you're not being abusive, though. In order for these to make the monster balanced, they would have to disproportionately screw you over if you're doing something unbalanced, and none of them do. Why is using a spell-like Wish "against its nature" or "unreasonable" when helping out in combat isn't? If a clever recipient can subvert your instructions, why not do so for more innocuous tasks too?

You can say that a GM knows when you're doing something unbalanced and when you're not, but if that were true then there would be no playtesters. GMs might be able to notice the more obvious stuff, like free Wishes, but there's no guarantee they'd pick up the sort of things that months of playtesting by the designers would.

[Psyren]

While our discussion is technically Legend-related I'm going to start using spoilers to keep things clean.


What if no CR is correct, though? The ability to assign a CR assumes that there is some party for which the monster you're building is an appropriate challenge. If it's always inappropriate, then no CR you pick can fix that.

Imagine a system like this for PCs: you give your PC whatever abilities you want them to have, and then the DM tells you what level you need to be to have them. It's possible, even easy, to have a set of abilities that are inappropriate at low level, but insufficient to be competitive at high level.

Heck, that's the problem with the LA system! Monster abilities aren't balanced if they just have their RHD, but LA make them too fragile. Is there any reason that doesn't apply to monsters on the other side of the table?

1) Scaling issues with LA were solved years ago - i.e. LA buyoff, which even PF uses. So you get a set of abilities that are too strong for low level, forcing you to be higher, but if they don't scale properly, that minimum is trimmed and you are allowed to add in more class levels than you would at the lower level to compensate. It's not perfect (particularly the 3.5 way of doing it) but as a broad brush it gets the job done quickly and easily with minimal work placed on the GM.

2) How can "no CR be correct?" :smallconfused: Player levels don't have a cap. There is a conventional maximum of 20, but both 3.5 and PF allow you to go beyond that if you so choose, thus there is no challenge that's inappropriate unless you're building something that isn't meant to be fought at all.



No, I mean if you're fighting a weaker Vampire that doesn't require special methods to kill and instead of having Energy Drain and Blood Drain has a less powerful debuff, like Paralysis, then you're fighting a Ghoul. If you're fighting a weaker Hydra that doesn't attack with a mess of heads but instead has a different cute special attack, like a fear effect, then you're fighting a Krenshar.

And this is exactly the kind of abstraction I find unpalatable. A ghoul is not a vampire. It's possible for the vampire matchup, for all its abilities, to actually be the less dangerous fight (for example, in broad daylight) and how the heck does a hydra turn into a krenshar when the hydra has no fear abilities? You have to stretch your disbelief past the breaking point to attempt to find a relatonship between these two creatures.


The point isn't one track per monster, it's one track per general type of monster, with more powerful monsters being examples with higher-level abilities on the track.

Right, but that's even worse. It requires you to kludge a wide variety of monsters into a single track, like you just did above. Krenshars and Hydras have only the most superficial aspects in common. Nor do Iron Golems and Maruts, or Skeletons and Bone Devils and Liches.



There are plenty of PC-viable characters from stories that do actually lack relevant abilities, though. Like, again, all of these League of Legends characters.

But maybe I'm making an argument here I don't need to. Do you have a problem with monsters having extra, lower-level powers that aren't part of their mythological fluff?

I'm more concerned about what monsters don't have, and the assertion that you can simply remove a track ability here and tweak one there to get from one iconic to another. For closely related monsters (e.g. zombies and ghouls) this can certainly work, but for the ones that are fundamentally different (e.g. ghouls and wraiths) it's much more involved. And that's putting aside how few tracks are actually in Legend currently and need to be designed.


No, they take less manpower to design, or at least design well. Every individual monster needs its own playtesting, multiple sessions with groups who weren't involved in the original design in order to make sure the rules are written clearly. By contrast, premades need no playtesting at all if you've already tested the tracks well enough.

The hard part about monster design in 3.x is assigning a CR. Everything else is relatively simple - you come up with the abilities you want it to have and bang. The CR you want it to have will be driven both by the nature of those abilities and their potency (e.g. to-hit, damage, DC etc.) but that second lever is fully adjustable.


The GM can also screw you over if you're not being abusive, though. In order for these to make the monster balanced, they would have to disproportionately screw you over if you're doing something unbalanced, and none of them do. Why is using a spell-like Wish "against its nature" or "unreasonable" when helping out in combat isn't? If a clever recipient can subvert your instructions, why not do so for more innocuous tasks too?

You can say that a GM knows when you're doing something unbalanced and when you're not, but if that were true then there would be no playtesters. GMs might be able to notice the more obvious stuff, like free Wishes, but there's no guarantee they'd pick up the sort of things that months of playtesting by the designers would.

Because you're a measly mortal whose petty wishes do not further the creature's goals - and even if your wish does do that, they can simply be spiteful.

As far as playtesting, spotting the more unbalanced things is easy, we do it all the time. Sure things slip through the cracks, but any designer knows that is a fraction compared to the things that are caught and revised during development. For those things that do make it through while being unbalanced, that's what FAQs and Errata are for, and it's not the end of the world. Even DSP needs to issue errata, and they are some of the best in the RPG business right now.

[JBPuffin]

I remember getting Legend, making a character, and doing nothing with it. Then looking, found the forum, built another character, and put it back on the shelf. I still have the stuff, though, and now seeing that a couple of the team members hang around here and people really want a Bestiary, I'm interested in helping with this. So, with that in mind, I'll look and see what's available and go from there.

If any of you are in a place to send me what you've got on the bestiary so far, I'd love to help with filling in design holes or, if nothing else, looking for things that might be absolutely broken.

To the Homebrew threads!...Once i've re-downloaded Legend from my Drive. >.>

[Mcdt2]

I'd PbP it as a player. When I first took at a look at it, it was like an epiphany. It's a work of genius.

Of course, I'd need someone to help walk me through the rules. I'm only vaguely familiar with them.


Woah. That looks pretty awesome.

...we should start a Legend PbP :smallbiggrin:


I would be happy to help anyone wih builds for a pbp. I can't run it, might be able to play though. I've built a number of legend characters and played a few. Not much until after independence day though.

Well that's certainly enough interest for me! I'll get a recruitment post going, then. I have a few campaign/plot ideas sketched out, though not with any particular depth; I'll have to work on them a bit more, since they were merely idle thoughts instead of full-fledged ideas. I'll have the post up by the end of the day, at least. I'll post it in this thread and also PM it to you three.

[Snowbluff]

Well that's certainly enough interest for me! I'll get a recruitment post going, then. I have a few campaign/plot ideas sketched out, though not with any particular depth; I'll have to work on them a bit more, since they were merely idle thoughts instead of full-fledged ideas. I'll have the post up by the end of the day, at least. I'll post it in this thread and also PM it to you three.

Yes. Excellent.

[Morty]

Yeah, the Track-based character system is probably the single biggest change. Actually you might say "Classes" are just pre-made Track packages as an aid to newbie/casual players -- you can also use entirely different combinations.


I'd go as far as to say that in the last version of Legend I saw, classes were mostly obsolete and got in the way, because they were given more weight than they needed.

[Necroticplague]

I'd go as far as to say that in the last version of Legend I saw, classes were mostly obsolete and got in the way, because they were given more weight than they needed.

Yeah. Given monster tracks and multiclassing, I've made a few characters who only had one track, and which saves were good to indicate what class they were.

[137beth]

Do you know if anyone has homebrewed class-based monster systems for PF yet? That's the part I care about. :smallwink:

The In the Company Of (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/2373/Rite-Publishing/subcategory/4448_20119/In-the-Company-of-) series of 'Racial Paragon Classes' are a lot like the monster classes of the homebrew forums. The most popular one, In the Company of Dragons, is getting a massive expansion via a recently funded kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/937759598/in-the-company-of-dragons-pathfinder-roleplaying-g).


meant more in balance than in feel. The folks that were fed up with 3.P's wide disparity but also found 4e's homogeneity stifling would have been happy with either 5e or Legend's approach -

...huh? I thought the point of Legend was that you could achieve better balance with less homogeneity. 5e somehow manages to achieve even less flexibility than 4e while also having even worse balance than 3.5. It's not at all similar to what Legend fans want or wanted.

[Urpriest]

Likewise spoilering.


While our discussion is technically Legend-related I'm going to start using spoilers to keep things clean.

1) Scaling issues with LA were solved years ago - i.e. LA buyoff, which even PF uses. So you get a set of abilities that are too strong for low level, forcing you to be higher, but if they don't scale properly, that minimum is trimmed and you are allowed to add in more class levels than you would at the lower level to compensate. It's not perfect (particularly the 3.5 way of doing it) but as a broad brush it gets the job done quickly and easily with minimal work placed on the GM.

2) How can "no CR be correct?" :smallconfused: Player levels don't have a cap. There is a conventional maximum of 20, but both 3.5 and PF allow you to go beyond that if you so choose, thus there is no challenge that's inappropriate unless you're building something that isn't meant to be fought at all.

The latter is what I mean. There are plenty of monsters that don't make sense to fight at all. For example, look at Pixies in 5e. They can cast 4th level spells, so they don't make sense as challenges for first level players, but they have absurdly low hp and defenses, so they don't make challenges for high level players. The advantage to using a class or track-based monster design system is that your monsters will always have the stats to back up their intended challenge and you won't accidentally lapse into binary design where the fight can either be trivial or overpowering depending on party loadout. This is also the reason that LA buyoff fails to solve LA.




And this is exactly the kind of abstraction I find unpalatable. A ghoul is not a vampire. It's possible for the vampire matchup, for all its abilities, to actually be the less dangerous fight (for example, in broad daylight) and how the heck does a hydra turn into a krenshar when the hydra has no fear abilities? You have to stretch your disbelief past the breaking point to attempt to find a relatonship between these two creatures.

Why would the vampire fight you in broad daylight, though? Anyway, picking up a novel weakness is not absurd for a high level character if it comes with concomitant strengths.

My Bloodrager grows claws, yours gets stretchy limbs. They can't possibly be from the same class! Oh wait. Classes offer choices of abilities, Hydras and Krenshars are both just quadruped bruisers plus one ability, as are many many magical beasts.



Right, but that's even worse. It requires you to kludge a wide variety of monsters into a single track, like you just did above. Krenshars and Hydras have only the most superficial aspects in common. Nor do Iron Golems and Maruts, or Skeletons and Bone Devils and Liches.

Two PC class characters often have only superficial aspects in common, even if they're members of the same class. An archery-focused Fighter and a melee-focused Fighter do completely different things in combat, yet somehow one class can represent both.




I'm more concerned about what monsters don't have, and the assertion that you can simply remove a track ability here and tweak one there to get from one iconic to another. For closely related monsters (e.g. zombies and ghouls) this can certainly work, but for the ones that are fundamentally different (e.g. ghouls and wraiths) it's much more involved. And that's putting aside how few tracks are actually in Legend currently and need to be designed.

Eh, maybe incorporeals need a different track then. I think they probably don't, since their base combat style is pretty similar: be undead, make debuffing melee attacks, make spawn. Wraiths have a big extra ability, but it's also a common one, and any sensible system would have it as a possible track.

I'm really not defending Legend's implementation in specific, because I get the impression it ended up incomplete. I'm talking about what we all expected Legend to become, namely the proper heir to 3.5's philosophy of monsters and PCs using the same mechanics.



The hard part about monster design in 3.x is assigning a CR. Everything else is relatively simple - you come up with the abilities you want it to have and bang. The CR you want it to have will be driven both by the nature of those abilities and their potency (e.g. to-hit, damage, DC etc.) but that second lever is fully adjustable.

As I discussed above, some monsters just aren't balanced at any CR. And again, if my choice as a designer is to find that CR by looking it up on a table or to find it by running ten playtest combats, I know which one I'm picking.



Because you're a measly mortal whose petty wishes do not further the creature's goals - and even if your wish does do that, they can simply be spiteful.

That's also true of any other task you ask them to do, though. Try again with something Wish-specific.



As far as playtesting, spotting the more unbalanced things is easy, we do it all the time. Sure things slip through the cracks, but any designer knows that is a fraction compared to the things that are caught and revised during development. For those things that do make it through while being unbalanced, that's what FAQs and Errata are for, and it's not the end of the world. Even DSP needs to issue errata, and they are some of the best in the RPG business right now.

That's the whole point I'm making, though. There's an extensive development process involved in finding these things. It's certainly not something your average DM can do by themself, and you can churn out monsters much faster when you don't have to do it.

[Mcdt2]

Anyone who was interested in joining a PbP game, I just set up a recruitment thread here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?424428-Legend-Starfall-A-New-Dark&p=19460124#post19460124). I imagine I'll have the game ready to go within the week.

[Larkas]

I'd go as far as to say that in the last version of Legend I saw, classes were mostly obsolete and got in the way, because they were given more weight than they needed.

Agreed. Classes were mostly disposable of in the last version of the game. Or, as I've seen someone say, "everyone's a shaman". You could have a few sample packages In the rulebook to show how you could recreate a few classes in Legend, no problem, but having it as an integral part of the system just doesn't make sense anymore.

[Firechanter]

As I said above, I see Classes as pre-packed bundles of tracks that are guaranteed to work well together, ideal for the newbie or more casual gamer who doesn't want to spend hours on end comparing tracks and looking for synergies.

But yeah, in our group we also have a "Shaman" (insert Dr Evil Fingerquotes here) who has absolutely nothing of a Shaman about him. I guess that's a common phenomenon.

[Snowbluff]

Or, as I've seen someone say, "everyone's a shaman".

Is the shaman list considered that much better?

[Larkas]

Is the shaman list considered that much better?

Well, with the shaman you can swap around all of your tracks with some creativity. It's basically the system's "classless class".

[stack]

Is the shaman list considered that much better?


Shaman's path is a free multiclass, combined with normal multiclass and a racial track means that a shaman can have 0 shaman tracks and also overwrite the base chassis without using any build resources, making it a favorite base for many builds when the multiclassing rules are enforced.

[Morty]

As I said above, I see Classes as pre-packed bundles of tracks that are guaranteed to work well together, ideal for the newbie or more casual gamer who doesn't want to spend hours on end comparing tracks and looking for synergies.


But it's not presented as such. The classes are listed just like they are in every other edition or clone of D&D. The rules for mixing and matching tracks are provided later. It would be a lot more easy and elegant if it was the other way around.