Most Ridiculous Rules in RPGS

[digiman619]

Hey, Dreamscarred Press made psionics awesome! But then again, they also made martial initiation and soulmelds balanced and fun, so they have a history of such things.

[Spore]

Speaking of 1e 'joke' items: the Helm of Opposite Alignment, I've always thought, falls firmly into this category.

And somehow, everyone missed the joke, and the item was translated pretty much unchanged into the later editions. Hilarious.

Oh people got the joke alright. They mostly just pretend to not get it to allow build shenanigans involving alignment restricted feats and classes. Which is another weird thing:

Vanilla D&D allows you only to be Paladin of Law and Good. What if you wanted to be a champion of mediocrity neutrality?
What if a 2e Paladin wanted to be something different than Human?
Why on earth would you determine a character's class by disallowing low rolls on certain classes, AD&D?

I get it, you don't want Paladins left and right but a Ranger is almost as hard to qualify for and the Ranger is basically just some dude who is a bit more in tune with nature. And GOD FORBID he ever is of a nongood alignment! We Rangers aren't called nature's Paladins for noth....actually we aren't. Hey, Greg, why are we forced to be good again?

[ClintACK]

What bugs me about D&D magic - and this is true in, as far as I can recall, every other system I've played as well - is how neatly defined all the spells are. They produce exactly this effect, no more and no less. Like, you can use your mastery of the element of fire to create a 6-metre-radius ball of fire that will torch everyone within it, but you can't use it to - y'know - light a campfire, or boil a kettle of water.

This isn't "ridiculous" as such, but it annoys the heck out of me. I guess what really bugs me is that nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has come up with an RPG magic system that really conveys the idea of "mastering" arcane forces, as opposed to just "pulling the levers on someone else's pre-existing machine".

There are systems that handle magic "better" (like the Dresden Files RPG in the FATE system) but they get there by leaving more to the player and DM to work out. But a wizard who can make a 6-meter radius ball of fire in the DFRPG could definitely light a campfire. And it uses a "magic tires you out" limit rather than anything at all like spell slots. So it meets certain tests of reasonableness discussed in this thread. :)

But there's something to be said for knowing *exactly* what you can and can't do, which the D&D system does. Until you start casting illusions. :)

[Jormengand]

Racial Holy War. The game is literally unplayable because the neo nazis behind it were too busy vomiting racial slurs onto a piece of paper to actually bother coming up with combat rules. This has the unintentionally funny side effect that all the degenerate subhuman races were impossible for the white supremacist "heroes" to actually beat in a fight.

Having read RaHoWa (and quickly wishing I hadn't), I'm wondering quite what you mean. The WWs try to roll under their weapon accuracy on a d% (after subtracting their gun penalty from their accuracy if they're at a Warmaster-determined "Long range") and if they hit, they roll for damage, subtract it from their opponent's hit points, and hope it went down to zero. However, as light and heavy clubs don't have a hit percentage, it is unknown what the WW needs to roll to use those. You should probably use 5 times your power as your hit percentage not play RaHoWa.

[Vwrt]

I broke it.

http://yourgreenfeat.com/Green_Feat/ElementalPlanes_files/Periodic%20Table%20of%20Elemental%20planes%20broke n.jpg

[ElFi]

Let's flip it around.

D&D doesn't just have "Vancian" magic, it has Vancian health!

Hit points.

You have 12 hit points. Being bitten by eleven garter snakes leaves you mad and sore, but fully upright and functional. But a twelfth garter snake biting your ankle drops you to the ground unconscious and bleeding out.

And then there's about a 50-50 chance you'll fully recover on your own, even if you're left there alone and bleeding for hours. Unless two more garter snakes come along, in which case it's instant death.

Sure. That sounds right.

(Someone really needs to come up with a D&D Emergency Room webcomic.)
The trope you're identifying is Critical Existence Failure (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CriticalExistenceFailure), and it's use in gaming extends far beyond mere D&D.

The reasoning behind it, I'd like to think, is obvious. While progressively growing more and more exhausted and less capable at fighting as injuries accrue makes sense from a logical standpoint, from a gaming perspective, you don't want your fighter to be limping around and barely holding his innards in for the remainder of a fight after he gets an unlucky crit from the ogre's AoO.

How do I know this? Because I play M&M, which doesn't use a hit points system. Instead, it uses an "injury track", wherein characters acquire a variety of different injury types depending on how poorly they fail on their save against the enemy's attack. Some varieties of injuries simply make it easier to take further damage, while others are debilitating to varying degrees. Thus, a sense of realism that hitpoint systems lack. But you know what? The injury track is awful anyway, because of just how debilitating some of the injuries can be. Fail by 10 or more against a lethal attack and you're disabled and functionally out of the fight (since doing anything that requires a standard action will result in your character falling unconscious). The fact that a single poor dice roll can effortlessly screw you over is one of the things I dislike about the game's combat system, and the game in general.

Hit-points aren't meant to be realistic. They're meant to be fun. PC's in D&D are heroes, heroes who lack the proverbial time to bleed. If your character lost all sense of competence just because the other guy got a lucky hit in on him, you wouldn't be having fun, trust me.

[PersonMan]

In short:

Systems that want to make fighting dangerous (potentially crippling for the winning side) and something to be considered carefully, then done only once the party has made sure they have every advantage, don't want to use HP.

Systems that want to make fighting one of the big focuses of the game, or at least something that the PCs can do to resolve conflict without too much issue (apart from the fight's difficulty), do.

[Frozen_Feet]

Hitpoints get a lot of undeserved hate because people tend to forget one thing:

Hitpoints are the second simplest system for modeling injury, after one-hit-you're-dead.

That's why they became so ubiquitous after D&D practically invented the concept.


Systems that want to make fighting dangerous (potentially crippling for the winning side) and something to be considered carefully, then done only once the party has made sure they have every advantage, don't want to use HP.

Untrue. Plenty of Old-School games, including early D&D (especially at low levels) require you to approach battle like this, despite using hitpoints. So do many roguelikes on the computer game side. Another example on the videogame side is games like Fire Emblem.

The actual difference is in how much HP units have compared to how much damage they may suffer in one conflict, and how easy it is to recover HP.

At early levels of old-edition D&D, it might only take one or two maximum-damage hits to take a character out, obviously limiting their actions. On the other hand, recovery can take days or weeks without magical aid, and magical aid is a limited resource.

[icefractal]

Well, I would say it's hard to "game" the skill-gaining rules from Call of Cthulhu (and other games published by Chaosium including Runequest, Elric, etc). I gamed the hell out of those rules, as a matter of fact. :smallwink:

The key is to have as many skills as possible marked at the end of an adventure. So you'd want to make sure you never missed a chance for a skill check (that you haven't already marked) - that guy confessed as soon as we walked in the door? Better question him anyway, he, um, might have left something important out. You got a formal invitation to the ball? Scrutinize it with your knowledge of high society to see if it's legitimate. And then forge a copy of it, just so you have a spare. And so forth.

Admittedly, you couldn't go very nuts with this - mostly, it just made you more well-rounded, since it's likely you would have used your primary skills anyway. But it did feel like a bit of a "tax" - "Do this somewhat pointless thing now, or you'll regret it later when you fail that important check by a couple points."

[Arbane]

I gamed the hell out of those rules, as a matter of fact. :smallwink:

The key is to have as many skills as possible marked at the end of an adventure. So you'd want to make sure you never missed a chance for a skill check (that you haven't already marked) - that guy confessed as soon as we walked in the door? Better question him anyway, he, um, might have left something important out. You got a formal invitation to the ball? Scrutinize it with your knowledge of high society to see if it's legitimate. And then forge a copy of it, just so you have a spare. And so forth.

Admittedly, you couldn't go very nuts with this - mostly, it just made you more well-rounded, since it's likely you would have used your primary skills anyway. But it did feel like a bit of a "tax" - "Do this somewhat pointless thing now, or you'll regret it later when you fail that important check by a couple points."

In Runequest, they called abusing the skill gain rules 'Golf-Bagging' - the idea was that your character carried a golf-bag full of weapons and used each one until they hit, then tossed it and drew the next one.

I don't know if anyone actually DID it, but the concept definitely existed.

[Segev]

Were I designing such a skill-improvement system, I'd:

1) Make it so that you only got points towards improvement on a failed roll. (The old saw about how you learn more from failure than success combined with the notion that, if you're succeeding a lot, you don't need to be better at it.)
2) Make sure that using skills generally came with some sort of cost. Usually time. Forging that invitation is a lengthy process, after all. Failure because you phoned it in wouldn't count.

[Frozen_Feet]

In Runequest, they called abusing the skill gain rules 'Golf-Bagging' - the idea was that your character carried a golf-bag full of weapons and used each one until they hit, then tossed it and drew the next one.

I don't know if anyone actually DID it, but the concept definitely existed.

Encumberance rules make this a chore and not worth doing. In pretty much all systems like this, you're better off specializing with a small number of weapons with different purposes.

[Strigon]

Were I designing such a skill-improvement system, I'd:

1) Make it so that you only got points towards improvement on a failed roll. (The old saw about how you learn more from failure than success combined with the notion that, if you're succeeding a lot, you don't need to be better at it.)
2) Make sure that using skills generally came with some sort of cost. Usually time. Forging that invitation is a lengthy process, after all. Failure because you phoned it in wouldn't count.

I'd say only if you fail by a small margin - this helps prevent gaming the system, and it's realistic too. You can see exactly what went wrong, and take steps to fix it next time. Usually if you don't even approach doing something right, you don't learn much at all.
Maybe also gain experience on whatever passes for a crit in your system? To represent discovering a new way to improve your technique purely by chance, as that does happen.

[Nepenthe]

Were I designing such a skill-improvement system, I'd:

1) Make it so that you only got points towards improvement on a failed roll. (The old saw about how you learn more from failure than success combined with the notion that, if you're succeeding a lot, you don't need to be better at it.)
2) Make sure that using skills generally came with some sort of cost. Usually time. Forging that invitation is a lengthy process, after all. Failure because you phoned it in wouldn't count.

This is pretty much how Torchbearer works. For skill rank "X" you need X successes and X-1 failures to advance. Testing a skill advances the turn counter, which advances the Grind, which advances a condition track.

[The Glyphstone]

Burning Wheel simply requires X skill tests (pass or fail), but at specific difficulty margins and only in circumstances when success/failure would be narratively relevant.

[goto124]

1) Make it so that you only got points towards improvement on a failed roll. (The old saw about how you learn more from failure than success combined with the notion that, if you're succeeding a lot, you don't need to be better at it.)
2) Make sure that using skills generally came with some sort of cost. Usually time. Forging that invitation is a lengthy process, after all. Failure because you phoned it in wouldn't count.

How is a train-for-skill system viable in a game where you can't actually stop to train your skills anyway?

[Segev]

How is a train-for-skill system viable in a game where you can't actually stop to train your skills anyway?

I dunno. Downtime rules could also be written. I will confess that I have almost never been in a game where stopping to train was a viable option. Nor was stopping for anything else. "Downtime" was "you have a few hours in the afternoon before night falls and your meeting the next day with the quest-giver."

[Tetsubo 57]

Does that mean it takes a 10th-level wizard almost 11 hours every day to prepare his spells? :smalleek:

I always ruled it as an hour of concentrated study gets back a wizard all the spells he needs for the day. They may only do this once per day as it is taxing

[Jay R]

In Runequest, they called abusing the skill gain rules 'Golf-Bagging' - the idea was that your character carried a golf-bag full of weapons and used each one until they hit, then tossed it and drew the next one.

I don't know if anyone actually DID it, but the concept definitely existed.

In Flashing Blades, I had a character who was trying to become a fencing master. He definitely did exactly this, and was quite open that the reason was to develop expertise with all weapons.

[Chauncymancer]

Does that mean it takes a 10th-level wizard almost 11 hours every day to prepare his spells? :smalleek:

Yes and no. In earlier editions, wizards' spells did not de-memorize when they slept (I have no idea if that's how it still works or not), so a wizard only prepared a full slate of spells a few times a month. Going nova and the five minute workday were specifically ruled out: Unless facing the final boss, only an absolute moron would cast a spell in every encounter, and a wastrel would spend more than one spell on an encounter unless it was some sort of true emergency. The prep time was eventually shortened, on the grounds that the Disc World philosophy of wizardry (that learning to be a wizard was about learning how to use magic sparingly.) wasn't much fun to most players.

[SimonMoon6]

What bugs me about D&D magic - and this is true in, as far as I can recall, every other system I've played as well - is how neatly defined all the spells are. They produce exactly this effect, no more and no less. Like, you can use your mastery of the element of fire to create a 6-metre-radius ball of fire that will torch everyone within it, but you can't use it to - y'know - light a campfire, or boil a kettle of water.

This isn't "ridiculous" as such, but it annoys the heck out of me. I guess what really bugs me is that nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has come up with an RPG magic system that really conveys the idea of "mastering" arcane forces, as opposed to just "pulling the levers on someone else's pre-existing machine".


Try TORG. The system can get very complicated if you want to do more than cast pre-made spells but the system exists and you can theoretically cast any spell off the top of your head. However, it will take you (the player not the character) about an hour to create the spell using the system for doing so and that's not particularly appropriate in the middle of combat. It goes into loving detail about the arcane knowledges you may need for various things and even allows for adjusting spells on the fly (affecting things like duration, area, range, etc).

[goto124]

Sounds like building your own machine from scratch and then pulling the levers on it. No surprise many people skip the most tedious and difficult step.

[Segev]

Mage: the Ascension also allows for "build-your-own effect" magic. Even if you don't like a lot of the other mechanics surrounding it, that part of their "Spheres" system may appeal.

(I haven't looked at "Spheres of Power," but supposedly that's a good system for that kind of thing, too. It's a 3rd party PF supplement.)

[Shoot Da Moon]

I've ranted before (and not just here) about how the class and level system in D&D and anywhere else is usually dumb, inelegant and boring compared to the point buy of, say, GURPS.

Like, class and level is pretty only going to work in video games, not tabletop roleplaying games. It has NO advantages over even a rudimentary point-buy/directly buy advancement with experience points set-up.

That's all I got to say about that.

[goto124]

Like, class and level is pretty only going to work in video games, not tabletop roleplaying games. It has NO advantages over even a rudimentary point-buy/directly buy advancement with experience points set-up.

Er... what? How and why and stuff?

[thirdkingdom]

Er... what? How and why and stuff?

Yeah, I'm *really* looking forward to the rationale on *this* one.

[Milo v3]

I've ranted before (and not just here) about how the class and level system in D&D and anywhere else is usually dumb, inelegant and boring compared to the point buy of, say, GURPS.
As someone prefers D&D (even *shudders* 4e) over GURPS, I disagree rather severely, especially since GURPS is one of the most horrible point-buys I've ever seen.

Both point-buy and class based systems have innate faults and benefits. Neither is innately better than the other. The only possible reason I can see behind the arguement of class based being boring would be just that people have made a lot of heartbreakers without trying to actually have any originality rather than a fault in the concept of a class based system.

[Honest Tiefling]

I've never played GURPS because most people who play games with me had an eventful session where they spent hours filling out a character sheet. Either they lack an attention span (always possible), or GURPS has very complex character sheets...

[Max_Killjoy]

GURPs is not a great system.

That said, level-based systems really only work for a certain specific sort of game. The progression is wonky, the world has to be built in strange ways, etc.

[slachance6]

I always hated the fact that your melee attack bonus is almost always based on Strength. It ends up meaning that giant creatures with high Str always have massive attack bonuses despite usually low Dex. According to both genre conventions and basic logic, huge, slow creatures should be easy to dodge.

[Strigon]

I always hated the fact that your melee attack bonus is almost always based on Strength. It ends up meaning that giant creatures with high Str always have massive attack bonuses despite usually low Dex. According to both genre conventions and basic logic, huge, slow creatures should be easy to dodge.

That's why there are size penalties to attack.
The only real alternative is to either redo the attack system entirely, or base it off of Dex and deal with the fact that you can stab through plate armour with a dagger as long as you move fast enough

[Coidzor]

Having actually read the Traveller books, this makes a lot more sense in context to me than it did before. It's always optional whether to risk death in exchange for getting to start with better gear and higher stats, repeated until you die, get denied another try, or choose to stop pushing your luck. Plus, 'character creation' in Original Traveller took about 5min and consisted of, on average 10-15 rolls of 2d6, so even death wasn't much of a time setback.

Now, see, that just made me think of chargen where you can get kicked out of the gaming group by the character creation system. :smalleek:

[veti]

That's why there are size penalties to attack.
The only real alternative is to either redo the attack system entirely, or base it off of Dex and deal with the fact that you can stab through plate armour with a dagger as long as you move fast enough

Hero system (Champions/Fantasy Hero) uses DEX for attack. And defence. And speed. With the result that basically every character has high DEX.

Armour in such a system doesn't affect chance to hit, it affects damage done, and that's where strength comes in. If a defender has 5 points of armour, and gets hit by a 1d6 dagger, it only has a one in six chance of doing a single point of damage. Whereas if the attacker has enough strength to hit harder, that 1d6 becomes 2d6, and it'll get through the armour. It makes sense, although of course it does introduce more issues.

[The Glyphstone]

Now, see, that just made me think of chargen where you can get kicked out of the gaming group by the character creation system. :smalleek:

Could be worse. The character creation system could result in your death, not merely your character.

[Malimar]

Could be worse. The character creation system could result in your death, not merely your character.

Is this the discovery of the one thing that could make FATAL worse than it already is?

...No, on second thought, death would be preferable to playing FATAL, so character creation resulting in your death is the best possible outcome there.

[Friv]

Now, see, that just made me think of chargen where you can get kicked out of the gaming group by the character creation system. :smalleek:

Under a strict reading of the rules of deadEarth (https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/top-5-reasons-you-should-be-playing-deadearth/), that is exactly what happens. It's easy to die in character creation, and according to the RAW, you're only allowed to build three characters ever.

[trikkydik]

Falling 200 feet in D&D does 20d of damage which is on average 70 points. This means that higher level characters often can't die from falling if they are at full HP.

"Grok...you fell 200 feet and landed on rocks...are you all right?" Grok:"Sure, only a flesh wound"

Taking more than 50 points of damage is lethal, regardless of hp.

[The Glyphstone]

Taking more than 50 points of damage is lethal, regardless of hp.

In which system? 3.x has the (GM-optional) Massive Damage rules that demand a rather paltry DC15 Fortitude save vs. death if you take 50 damage in a single hit, but you can easily get a Fortitude mod+Steadfast Determination to be invincible to Massive Damage saves.

[2D8HP]

That's why there are size penalties to attack.
The only real alternative is to either redo the attack system entirely, or base it off of Dex and deal with the fact that you can stab through plate armour with a dagger as long as you move fast enoughUm..I actually think this was often how it was really done. (after the "Knight" or "Man at Arms" was still knocked prone from their horse they were then dispatched with a Dirk through gaps in their armor.

[Strigon]

Hero system (Champions/Fantasy Hero) uses DEX for attack. And defence. And speed. With the result that basically every character has high DEX.

Armour in such a system doesn't affect chance to hit, it affects damage done, and that's where strength comes in. If a defender has 5 points of armour, and gets hit by a 1d6 dagger, it only has a one in six chance of doing a single point of damage. Whereas if the attacker has enough strength to hit harder, that 1d6 becomes 2d6, and it'll get through the armour. It makes sense, although of course it does introduce more issues.

Exactly what I meant by redoing the entire attack system.
It's certainly closer to reality, to be sure.


Um..I actually think this was often how it was really done. (after the "Knight" or "Man at Arms" was still knocked prone from their horse they were then dispatched with a Dirk through gaps in their armor.

That is one way, but either you only do it to helpless opponents - in which case your dexterity doesn't matter that much, on account of them not being able to resist - or you have people with knives rushing in against fully armed and armoured war machines.

[2D8HP]

That is one way, but either you only do it to helpless opponents - in which case your dexterity doesn't matter that much, on account of them not being able to resist - or you have people with knives rushing in against fully armed and armoured war machines.Both.
*ahem*
On the battle of Crecy, from:
"The Hundreds Years War, The English in France 1337-1453" by Desmond Seward:
The slaughter was heightened by the Welsh and Cornish knifemen who 'slew and murdered many as they lay on the ground, both early, barons, knights, and squires'.

[The Glyphstone]

Both.
*ahem*
On the battle of Crecy, from:
"The Hundreds Years War, The English in France 1337-1453" by Desmond Seward:

his point is, I think, that all those earls, barons, and squires had been dismounted/prone, and were immobilized by the weight of their armor, effectively gaining the Helpless condition and being vulnerable to knives even from low-dexterity enemies.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The only possible reason I can see behind the arguement of class based being boring would be just that people have made a lot of heartbreakers without trying to actually have any originality rather than a fault in the concept of a class based system.

Levels in D&D classes have, as far as I know, had problems with empty levels (thus, caster supremacy) and class-specific mechanics that were insufficiently integrated with other mechanics or otherwise esoteric (psionics and Vancian magic, to name two). The worst classes in D&D(-likes) often began with "this class has its OWN gimmick of abstract resources" (ninjas with Ki or gunslingers with Grit, for instance, both underwhelmed AND add (unnecessary?) gameplay complications). How much was a level in 3.5 Fighter worth compared to a level in 3.5 Wizard? If the values in levels (with the same amount of experience points needed to reach those levels) are not comparable, then you are just wasting ink writing up an inferior class. Why am I reading several pages of rules about sneaking, Lockpicking, rolls to hit, diplomacy and investigating a murder mystery, when there are spells that render those rules redundant? (Invisibility, Knock, save or die, Charm Person, Zone of Truth.) The magic system is the real rule set of D&D 3.5, all other rules are basically for people who chose the wrong class at character creation and are now proverbially bringing a knife to a gunfight. Any class must ALWAYS be worth playing, gaining any level must ALWAYS be an achievement of this much worth, or the system is promising Choose-Yo-Own-Adventure and delivering Three Card Monte. Linear Warriors and Quadratic Wizards has plagued D&D for...ever? because a class/level system can easily self-sabotage and be hard to fix without simply tearing out the guts. At best, it is simply doing what a point-buy system already did, but in a more rigid and uncreative way.


Yeah, I'm *really* looking forward to the rationale on *this* one.


Er... what? How and why and stuff?

Long story short; I think the D&D level-class thing is a game-able abstraction that fails to A) be simple enough to work as an abstraction (gaining a level often means a lot of accounting all at once) and B) good enough as game design (the feat tax, trying to home-brew a D&D class and actually come out the other side with a good result is notoriously tricky, multi-classing, empty levels, etc.). Video games with class/level stuff typically do it better because it's game designers, put simply, are less concerned with allowing a more total freedom for players than you'd expect when playing a TRPG. The video game design space is much more limited, more controlled, and it was never meant to be really free form. That means the VG designer can give the players these options, and make all of those options somehow meaningful in play, assuming he knows what he is doing. But that same class/level thing will clash with a design space that is inherently more chaotic and open than the VG one. Am I making sense here?

I think I'm derailing the thread here. I should probably say no more than this post.

[Strigon]

his point is, I think, that all those earls, barons, and squires had been dismounted/prone, and were immobilized by the weight of their armor, effectively gaining the Helpless condition and being vulnerable to knives even from low-dexterity enemies.

Correct.
In fact, my original point wasn't even "Str to attack makes more sense than Dex to attack", but more along the lines of "Str makes a certain amount of sense, and if you want to switch to Dex because you think it fixes all the problems, you'll be disappointed".

[Shoot Da Moon]

Just to clarify; I think the class/level thing in D&D is the only mechanic in the game that is truly BAD. Every other part of playing D&D (rolling to hit, skill checks, saving throws, ability scores, magic) is, at worst, flawed (not irredeemably so) and whatever flaws were there could be easily compensated for. No campaign of D&D was ruined by rolling a D20 and adding modifiers versus an AC score in order to simulate a melee attack. The Vancian magic thing was never my cup of tea, but I'd like to note that the magic in most TRPG systems is rarely a stand-out.* In isolation, having magic be a specifically limited resource via spell slots is a serviceable mechanic.

But the second D&D passes the ball to class/level, the opposing team is up by five touchdowns and the coach is eaten by a bear. Every mechanic is worse off because one class is badly written or one level just makes five numbers go up by one AND NOTHING ELSE.

*I mean, what's the greatest magic system you've ever seen in a TRPG? I think a popular choice is usually Ars Magica - and that's a game where the designers CLEARLY thought the campaign should be focused on people who do are DEFINED by casting spells, so of course they put a lot of effort into making spellcasting mechanically compelling and richly flavoured.

[Milo v3]

SNIP
None of that is actually required in the creation of a system that uses class/level structure, for example Pathfinder has no dead levels and there are both balanced non-magical classes and balanced magical classes. I don't see why you'd think the class/level structure would be a reason that "some people are much weaker than other people", same thing happens in point-buy if you put your points in something weak, the dev's over or under value something, or if you generalize rather than specialize.... Magic rendering non-magic redundant is especially unrelated to class/level structure, as same thing happens in point-buy games.

[Max_Killjoy]

his point is, I think, that all those earls, barons, and squires had been dismounted/prone, and were immobilized by the weight of their armor, effectively gaining the Helpless condition and being vulnerable to knives even from low-dexterity enemies.

"Immobilized by the weight of their armor" happens to be much more myth than reality.

More likely, those men were already injured in some way, but might have lived had they not been "finished off" by the "dagger-men".

[Talakeal]

The only possible reason I can see behind the arguement of class based being boring would be just that people have made a lot of heartbreakers without trying to actually have any originality rather than a fault in the concept of a class based system.

Thats an odd sentiment. Could you clarify?

It seems like you are saying that if you want to play a fantasy game that isnt class and level based you should just get over it and either play d&d or leave the hobby.

If so, I have to ask, what is wrong with making an RPG that is actually designed for the style of game you want to play rather than trying to hack an existing game that isnt suited for it?

[AMFV]

"Immobilized by the weight of their armor" happens to be much more myth than reality.

More likely, those men were already injured in some way, but might have lived had they not been "finished off" by the "dagger-men".

I would suggest that it's possibly a result of concussion or injury from falling off a horse, which is a pretty dangerous thing, especially if you're not adequately padded or protected.

Edit: Just noticed your comment in the other thread, and am in general agreement.

[thirdkingdom]

Levels in D&D classes have, as far as I know, had problems with empty levels (thus, caster supremacy) and class-specific mechanics that were insufficiently integrated with other mechanics or otherwise esoteric (psionics and Vancian magic, to name two). The worst classes in D&D(-likes) often began with "this class has its OWN gimmick of abstract resources" (ninjas with Ki or gunslingers with Grit, for instance, both underwhelmed AND add (unnecessary?) gameplay complications). How much was a level in 3.5 Fighter worth compared to a level in 3.5 Wizard? If the values in levels (with the same amount of experience points needed to reach those levels) are not comparable, then you are just wasting ink writing up an inferior class. Why am I reading several pages of rules about sneaking, Lockpicking, rolls to hit, diplomacy and investigating a murder mystery, when there are spells that render those rules redundant? (Invisibility, Knock, save or die, Charm Person, Zone of Truth.) The magic system is the real rule set of D&D 3.5, all other rules are basically for people who chose the wrong class at character creation and are now proverbially bringing a knife to a gunfight. Any class must ALWAYS be worth playing, gaining any level must ALWAYS be an achievement of this much worth, or the system is promising Choose-Yo-Own-Adventure and delivering Three Card Monte. Linear Warriors and Quadratic Wizards has plagued D&D for...ever? because a class/level system can easily self-sabotage and be hard to fix without simply tearing out the guts. At best, it is simply doing what a point-buy system already did, but in a more rigid and uncreative way.





Long story short; I think the D&D level-class thing is a game-able abstraction that fails to A) be simple enough to work as an abstraction (gaining a level often means a lot of accounting all at once) and B) good enough as game design (the feat tax, trying to home-brew a D&D class and actually come out the other side with a good result is notoriously tricky, multi-classing, empty levels, etc.). Video games with class/level stuff typically do it better because it's game designers, put simply, are less concerned with allowing a more total freedom for players than you'd expect when playing a TRPG. The video game design space is much more limited, more controlled, and it was never meant to be really free form. That means the VG designer can give the players these options, and make all of those options somehow meaningful in play, assuming he knows what he is doing. But that same class/level thing will clash with a design space that is inherently more chaotic and open than the VG one. Am I making sense here?

I think I'm derailing the thread here. I should probably say no more than this post.

In other words, it sounds like you're taking relatively little experience in tabletop rpgs, and D&D in particular, and extrapolating that to mean that *all* class and level base systems are terrible by focusing on the one iteration that even most fans would admit has the largest problem with LFQW. That's painting with an awfully broad brush there, dude.

[Ceiling_Squid]

his point is, I think, that all those earls, barons, and squires had been dismounted/prone, and were immobilized by the weight of their armor, effectively gaining the Helpless condition and being vulnerable to knives even from low-dexterity enemies.

"Immobilized"

Common (and gross) misconception. Armor doesn't impede movement that much, especially because that would be a serious design flaw. A knight in full plate can get up from a prone or supine position just fine, albiet a little bit slower than a man in little to no armor. Being on the ground like that only provided a temporary opportunity to dispatch them, same with any combatant you've knocked over. It was exploiting a moment of vulnerability, especially if they were stunned or injured by the fall.

Of course, any truly "realistic" combat system would also have to account for dispatching heavily-armored opponemnts via sheer blunt force (maces, etc), aside from just finding the chinks in armor with finesse.

So we're now back to overcomplicating things, because both strength and dexterity have a place in melee.

[Khedrac]

Just to clarify; I think the class/level thing in D&D is the only mechanic in the game that is truly BAD. Every other part of playing D&D (rolling to hit, skill checks, saving throws, ability scores, magic) is, at worst, flawed (not irredeemably so) and whatever flaws were there could be easily compensated for. No campaign of D&D was ruined by rolling a D20 and adding modifiers versus an AC score in order to simulate a melee attack. The Vancian magic thing was never my cup of tea, but I'd like to note that the magic in most TRPG systems is rarely a stand-out.* In isolation, having magic be a specifically limited resource via spell slots is a serviceable mechanic.

But the second D&D passes the ball to class/level, the opposing team is up by five touchdowns and the coach is eaten by a bear. Every mechanic is worse off because one class is badly written or one level just makes five numbers go up by one AND NOTHING ELSE.

*I mean, what's the greatest magic system you've ever seen in a TRPG? I think a popular choice is usually Ars Magica - and that's a game where the designers CLEARLY thought the campaign should be focused on people who do are DEFINED by casting spells, so of course they put a lot of effort into making spellcasting mechanically compelling and richly flavoured.
Well lots of games of D&D would have been ruined by "rolling a D20 and adding modifiers versus an AC score in order to simulate a melee attack" - because that is a concept introduced to D&D in 3rd Ed - so D&D games played with earlier versions simply don't work like that.
Personally I really don't like the way BECMI D&D (optional rules) and 3.0 & 3.5 handle skills - I find it is a system that defines what people cannot do not what they can (and yes, it is made worse by the fact it is in a level-based system) and no, the flaw with this way of handling skills is not easy to compensate for (especially as diplomancers are a thing) - it is something that can be endured.
As for levels making five numbers go up or down and nothing else - pre 3rd Ed most D&D levels were that, indeed after level 9 very few classes even got hit dice - they got 1-3 hit points per level flat.
Probably the biggest mistake with 3rd Ed's class levels is they tried to make all classes equivalent - older versions of D&D had radically different amounts to xp required to level depending on the class (e.g. 1st to 2nd level - 1200xp thief, 2000xp fighter, 4000xp elf).

Incidentally if you think the way D&D handles class levels is bad, try RoleMaster - in many ways they are a lot worse!

[Knaight]

Thats an odd sentiment. Could you clarify?

It seems like you are saying that if you want to play a fantasy game that isnt class and level based you should just get over it and either play d&d or leave the hobby.

If so, I have to ask, what is wrong with making an RPG that is actually designed for the style of game you want to play rather than trying to hack an existing game that isnt suited for it?

That's not what's being said. What's being said is that there are a lot of class based systems that are pretty much D&D knockoffs with nothing much to recommend them. That isn't every class based system - Legend from these very forums is a D&D knockoff with some carefully different design that works as a replacement, Torchbearer is class based but is actually a Burning Wheel spinoff with a different focus, so on and so forth.

[Talakeal]

That's not what's being said. What's being said is that there are a lot of class based systems that are pretty much D&D knockoffs with nothing much to recommend them. That isn't every class based system - Legend from these very forums is a D&D knockoff with some carefully different design that works as a replacement, Torchbearer is class based but is actually a Burning Wheel spinoff with a different focus, so on and so forth.

That makes more sense then.

I thought he was saying "hatred for class based systems inspires people to make fantasy heartbreakers" rather than "fantasy heartbreakers feel the need to include classes just because d&d did it".

I fully agree with the latter sentiment.

[Cazero]

Well lots of games of D&D would have been ruined by "rolling a D20 and adding modifiers versus an AC score in order to simulate a melee attack" - because that is a concept introduced to D&D in 3rd Ed - so D&D games played with earlier versions simply don't work like that.

Claiming that replacing THAC0 with BAB (wich is mathematicaly equivalent, follows the intuitive idea that bigger is better, and has a much simpler acronym) would "ruin D&D" is quite an extreme position.

[The Glyphstone]

"Immobilized by the weight of their armor" happens to be much more myth than reality.

More likely, those men were already injured in some way, but might have lived had they not been "finished off" by the "dagger-men".

I've seen the videos of re-enactors in full plate doing cartwheels, I should have included more qualifiers.

People like Desmond Seward were, however, fully believing of said myth and wrote assuming it was true, hence the quote.

[Khedrac]

Claiming that replacing THAC0 with BAB (wich is mathematicaly equivalent, follows the intuitive idea that bigger is better, and has a much simpler acronym) would "ruin D&D" is quite an extreme position.
Perhaps, but go and look at BECMI D&D which does not use THAC0 - it uses a system that is close but not the same, the attack table is not actually linear (20, 30 etc each repeat 5 times).

I agree it would not 'ruin' such games, but I was trying to make the point that Shoot Da Moon was talking about '3.0/3.5 D&D' when he (or she) was saying 'D&D' which has a lot more variability in it than he (or she) apparantly realised. The point here is that whilst you may have an issue with a rule of a game system, it helps to be specific about which game system you are talking about as different versions may actually be very different game systems under the same name.

[arclance]

Dark Heresy - the severity of perils of the warp relies entirely on how bad your roll is, with no relation at all to how much power you've tried to draw upon. So with some bad luck, you could TPK the party while trying to conjure some light.
One of the people I played Dark Heresy (v1) with had that happen to them once.
In the first 15 min. of play they used a psychic power for the first time and rolled perils, accidentally summoning a Demon and killing the whole party.

When I played one player rolled a Jam about 80% of the time he made a ranged attack.
Rolling a Jam with a grenade made you roll on the grenade fumble table and he liked grenades.
The team lead, a Adeptus Arbite, had to revoke his grenade privileges or he would have killed us all with the fumble table.

[Max_Killjoy]

Levels in D&D classes have, as far as I know, had problems with empty levels (thus, caster supremacy) and class-specific mechanics that were insufficiently integrated with other mechanics or otherwise esoteric (psionics and Vancian magic, to name two). The worst classes in D&D(-likes) often began with "this class has its OWN gimmick of abstract resources" (ninjas with Ki or gunslingers with Grit, for instance, both underwhelmed AND add (unnecessary?) gameplay complications). How much was a level in 3.5 Fighter worth compared to a level in 3.5 Wizard? If the values in levels (with the same amount of experience points needed to reach those levels) are not comparable, then you are just wasting ink writing up an inferior class. Why am I reading several pages of rules about sneaking, Lockpicking, rolls to hit, diplomacy and investigating a murder mystery, when there are spells that render those rules redundant? (Invisibility, Knock, save or die, Charm Person, Zone of Truth.) The magic system is the real rule set of D&D 3.5, all other rules are basically for people who chose the wrong class at character creation and are now proverbially bringing a knife to a gunfight. Any class must ALWAYS be worth playing, gaining any level must ALWAYS be an achievement of this much worth, or the system is promising Choose-Yo-Own-Adventure and delivering Three Card Monte. Linear Warriors and Quadratic Wizards has plagued D&D for...ever? because a class/level system can easily self-sabotage and be hard to fix without simply tearing out the guts. At best, it is simply doing what a point-buy system already did, but in a more rigid and uncreative way.


Long story short; I think the D&D level-class thing is a game-able abstraction that fails to A) be simple enough to work as an abstraction (gaining a level often means a lot of accounting all at once) and B) good enough as game design (the feat tax, trying to home-brew a D&D class and actually come out the other side with a good result is notoriously tricky, multi-classing, empty levels, etc.). Video games with class/level stuff typically do it better because it's game designers, put simply, are less concerned with allowing a more total freedom for players than you'd expect when playing a TRPG. The video game design space is much more limited, more controlled, and it was never meant to be really free form. That means the VG designer can give the players these options, and make all of those options somehow meaningful in play, assuming he knows what he is doing. But that same class/level thing will clash with a design space that is inherently more chaotic and open than the VG one. Am I making sense here?

I think I'm derailing the thread here. I should probably say no more than this post.

And I thought I didn't like the level-class construction that D&D sadly made so common in RPGs...

[Max_Killjoy]

I've seen the videos of re-enactors in full plate doing cartwheels, I should have included more qualifiers.

People like Desmond Seward were, however, fully believing of said myth and wrote assuming it was true, hence the quote.


Fair enough.

[Milo v3]

That makes more sense then.

I thought he was saying "hatred for class based systems inspires people to make fantasy heartbreakers" rather than "fantasy heartbreakers feel the need to include classes just because d&d did it".

I fully agree with the latter sentiment.


Yeah, I was saying that latter + "and because heartbreakers are easy to make, it is easier for it to give the impression it's unoriginal since so many have done it unoriginally".

[goto124]

I've never played GURPS because most people who play games with me had an eventful session where they spent hours filling out a character sheet. Either they lack an attention span (always possible), or GURPS has very complex character sheets...

I feel I would spend a couple of months just filling out the sheets, and never get round to actually playing the game.


And I thought I didn't like the level-class construction that D&D sadly made so common in RPGs...

Common enough that less experienced people pop up and say "wait, there's another way to do it? Other than levels and classes?"...

Wait, we already have super-long threads on level/class vs point buy, and it seemed we settled that level/class wasn't all the bad things people sometimes make it out to be. I think.

[Segev]

Is this thread about whether class/level systems are bad, or about ridiculous rules?

[AMFV]

Is this thread about whether class/level systems are bad, or about ridiculous rules?

Started out as the latter, devolving into the former around post 40 (well that was the Vancian Magic debate, which pulled into the Class/Level debate). Occasionally comes back for air, but has been pretty thoroughly derailed more than a few times (see above example about unhorsed knights a few posts ago). Generally comes back to class/level every dozen or so posts.

[Max_Killjoy]

Is this thread about whether class/level systems are bad, or about ridiculous rules?

Yes.



It's going to be hard to completely avoid all "derails" in a thread where people are asked to note which RPG rules they find ridiculous -- there's often going to be someone tempted to defend a rule that another has listed as ridiculous.

[Orderic]

There are two quite ridiculous rules from the Dark Eye that I would like to mention here.

In 4.1, first edition of WdZ(Wege der Zauberei, the book about magic), it was possible for an ore elemental to create infinite sand.

Also in 4.1, there is WdA (Wege der Alchemie, book about alchemy and creating magic items), in which it is, by certain interpretations of the rules, possible to gain more magic points by combining the right materials in a magical item you are creating.

[Sith_Happens]

The Explosions do more damage in small spaces rule: Another game tries to emulate that hand grenades etc do more damage if you are in a confide space with them when they go boom.
However the formula used "breaks thru" at a certain size of space and well... The end result before it was corrected in a later edition made you HEAL if you pulled the pin from a grenade, held it in your hand, and managed to squeeze yourself into a standard size old-fashioned outdoor trashcan (the kind you have standing in your yard). The number basically went haywire when there was too little space between you and the wall.

Oh, wow. I've heard of drown-healing, but grenade-healing is something else entirely.:smallbiggrin:


How do I know this? Because I play M&M, which doesn't use a hit points system. Instead, it uses an "injury track", wherein characters acquire a variety of different injury types depending on how poorly they fail on their save against the enemy's attack. Some varieties of injuries simply make it easier to take further damage, while others are debilitating to varying degrees. Thus, a sense of realism that hitpoint systems lack. But you know what? The injury track is awful anyway, because of just how debilitating some of the injuries can be. Fail by 10 or more against a lethal attack and you're disabled and functionally out of the fight (since doing anything that requires a standard action will result in your character falling unconscious). The fact that a single poor dice roll can effortlessly screw you over is one of the things I dislike about the game's combat system, and the game in general.

3e improves things a lot, mainly by making lethal damage an optional rule in the Gamemaster's Guide but also by lessening the severity of some of the damage conditions.


In earlier editions, wizards' spells did not de-memorize when they slept (I have no idea if that's how it still works or not)

It is indeed still how it works.

[thirdkingdom]

Is this thread about whether class/level systems are bad, or about ridiculous rules?


I think there's a disconnect for some people between "this rule is objectively bad and deserves mockery" and "I don't like that."

[Chauncymancer]

Common (and gross) misconception. Armor doesn't impede movement that much, especially because that would be a serious design flaw. A knight in full plate can get up from a prone or supine position just fine, albiet a little bit slower than a man in little to no armor. Being on the ground like that only provided a temporary opportunity to dispatch them, same with any combatant you've knocked over. It was exploiting a moment of vulnerability, especially if they were stunned or injured by the fall.

If I'm remembering correctly, those men actually were almost completely immobilized. Not (at least for the most part) by their armor, but because several days of hard rain had turned Crecy into a bog, and a man who stood still too long would start sinking in the mud up over his toes. Being knocked to the ground meant you were basically stuck, not helped by the fact that an unhorsed man will hit the ground hard enough to cause a concussion.

[Bohandas]

My most ridiculous rule: The gold to exp rule was pretty ridiculous in AD&D 2e. One time I had a player open up a gold mine to gain exp through this method. From there on, I scrapped that rule.
Was that a real core rule in 2e or was it al Unearthed Arcana-style alternate rule? If it was an official rule I think Champions of Krynn and Baldur's Gate have been stiffing me.


What is your most ridiculous rule.

Dragon breath weapon save DCs in 3.x are constitution based, which is odd since since it's a reflex save it seems like it should take account the dragon's ability to aim (which would be either dex, str, or int)

3.x save DCs in general are overly formulaic, general being based entirely on the monster's hd and a single ability score and ignoring all other factors, however seemingly relevant they may be.

[The Glyphstone]

Was that a real core rule in 2e or was it al Unearthed Arcana-style alternate rule? If it was an official rule I think Champions of Krynn and Baldur's Gate have been stiffing me.




Official rule, AFAIK. 2e was a very different dynamic in general; it actively encouraged you to do stuff like sneak past a monster to steal its treasure, because if you got 100 XP from fighting the monster and 1000XP from its gold stash, but risked death/serious injury in the fight, that 100XP might not be worth it. Characters were much more fragile in those days (and also easier to replace, to be fair).

[Telok]

Interesting thing that come up recently,

In 5e D&D a paralyzed, unconsious, immobilized victim retains all dexterity bonuses to AC. Thus if you tie this person to a post and shoot at them with a crossbow from 110 feet away, they are just as hard to hit as if they were awake and running.

[Cazero]

Dragon breath weapon save DCs in 3.x are constitution based, which is odd since since it's a reflex save it seems like it should take account the dragon's ability to aim (which would be either dex, str, or int)
When you can fill the entire room with fiery death, accuracy isn't that much relevant. Duration is. A breath weapon is logically made stronger by lung capacity, wich is covered by CON.

[Lord Torath]

Was that a real core rule in 2e or was it al Unearthed Arcana-style alternate rule? If it was an official rule I think Champions of Krynn and Baldur's Gate have been stiffing me.It was an official rule in 1st Edition AD&D, and an optional rule in 2nd Edition (in the DMG). Baldur's Gate has been stiffing you, yes. But I believe Champions of Krynn has not been. (Although it has been over a decade since I played any of the Gold Box games, so I may be mistaken).

[WrittenInBlood]

Interesting thing that come up recently,

In 5e D&D a paralyzed, unconsious, immobilized victim retains all dexterity bonuses to AC.

True.


Thus if you tie this person to a post and shoot at them with a crossbow from 110 feet away, they are just as hard to hit as if they were awake and running.

False. In 5e, attacks against unconscious, stunned, paralyzed, petrified or restrained have advantage (roll 2d20, choose better one). Most of them also are auto-crits. That's more than lowering AC by 5 at most.

[Telok]

SPOILER=5e specific correcting compulsion]False. In 5e, attacks against unconscious, stunned, paralyzed, petrified or restrained have advantage (roll 2d20, choose better one). Most of them also are auto-crits. That's more than lowering AC by 5 at most.
[/SPOILER

Check the range on crossbows again, 110 is outside of short range. The auto crit only applys to attacks from less than 5 feet away.

More hilarity: The 5e DMG lists a cannon as taking three actions to use. One each to load, aim, and fire. Thus a cannon with a crew of 3 people can fire every six seconds. A cannon with a crew of 6 people can fire twice a round.

[Max_Killjoy]

Check the range on crossbows again, 110 is outside of short range. The auto crit only applys to attacks from less than 5 feet away.

More hilarity: The 5e DMG lists a cannon as taking three actions to use. One each to load, aim, and fire. Thus a cannon with a crew of 3 people can fire every six seconds. A cannon with a crew of 6 people can fire twice a round.

Eventually, you get an autocannon?

[thirdkingdom]

Official rule, AFAIK. 2e was a very different dynamic in general; it actively encouraged you to do stuff like sneak past a monster to steal its treasure, because if you got 100 XP from fighting the monster and 1000XP from its gold stash, but risked death/serious injury in the fight, that 100XP might not be worth it. Characters were much more fragile in those days (and also easier to replace, to be fair).

This is another case of not really a ridiculous rule but rather a failure to understand it is part of how the game is *meant* to be played. To be fair, I didn't get it when I was young and playing BECMI or 1e, either. I posted earlier in the thread a breakdown of how opening a gold mine is really *not* the best use of the average adventurer's time*. These days, if a player wanted to do that I'd shrug and let them go ahead and do it, understanding that mining isn't as simple as pulling gold pieces out of the ground. The mine's got to be protected, supply lines and roads have to be established, mercenaries have to be hired to guard the claim and miners hired to work the veins. The ore has to be dug out, smelted, taken to a market likely some distance away, all the way risking wandering encounter checks, raids from bandits and so forth, to say nothing of having to *do* something with the gold once they get to a market. If they really want to play Miners and Mule Trains instead of D&D I'll run with that.


*I'm running a higher level domain hexcrawl now with a focus on establish and running domains, and operating mines *is* actually something the PCs are doing, but it's totally not the focus of the game.

[Knaight]

Eventually, you get an autocannon?

You run out of space around the cannon first.

[Max_Killjoy]

This is another case of not really a ridiculous rule but rather a failure to understand it is part of how the game is *meant* to be played. To be fair, I didn't get it when I was young and playing BECMI or 1e, either. I posted earlier in the thread a breakdown of how opening a gold mine is really *not* the best use of the average adventurer's time*. These days, if a player wanted to do that I'd shrug and let them go ahead and do it, understanding that mining isn't as simple as pulling gold pieces out of the ground. The mine's got to be protected, supply lines and roads have to be established, mercenaries have to be hired to guard the claim and miners hired to work the veins. The ore has to be dug out, smelted, taken to a market likely some distance away, all the way risking wandering encounter checks, raids from bandits and so forth, to say nothing of having to *do* something with the gold once they get to a market. If they really want to play Miners and Mule Trains instead of D&D I'll run with that.


*I'm running a higher level domain hexcrawl now with a focus on establish and running domains, and operating mines *is* actually something the PCs are doing, but it's totally not the focus of the game.


My problem with stuff like this that there's a conundrum... if the players have that sort of asset, they keep drawing on it "for free" if I don't threaten it, and if I do threaten it, I feel like I'm playing right into a terrible trope.

[The Glyphstone]

If you simply have to be adjacent to the cannon to operate it, I think the maximum ROF we can get out of one cannon require it to be mounted on a 5ft. tall pedestal, with a 10ft. tall wooden platform on built on its sides and rear. Reserving all squares in front of the cannon open, This permits six people to be "below" it at ground level reaching up, 5 adjacent to it 5ft. above ground, and 6 more above it at 10ft. above ground. 17 total gunners, for 5 shots every six seconds with 2 surplus crew in case of casualties.

As a point of comparison, a skilled gunnery crew on an 18th century warship could manage 3 shots every five minutes. So even the 3 crew/six seconds is absurdly fast.

[Cazero]

You run out of space around the cannon first.
Never heard of conga-chain guns?

As a point of comparison, a skilled gunnery crew on an 18th century warship could manage 3 shots every five minutes. So even the 3 crew/six seconds is absurdly fast.
So just like crossbows, but with gunpowder. And worse.

[goto124]

[snip] opening a gold mine is really *not* the best use of the average adventurer's time*. These days, if a player wanted to do that I'd shrug and let them go ahead and do it, understanding that [snip] If they really want to play Miners and Mule Trains instead of D&D I'll run with that.

Why did the GM give a gold mine to the players? If they wanted to play Miners and Mule Trains instead of DnD shouldn't that have been clarified before the game even starts?

I would personally populate the gold mine with monsters, and turn the mine into a dungeon. It's in the spirit of the game!


You run out of space around the cannon first.

Then place people on top of the cannon...

[Khedrac]

More hilarity: The 5e DMG lists a cannon as taking three actions to use. One each to load, aim, and fire. Thus a cannon with a crew of 3 people can fire every six seconds. A cannon with a crew of 6 people can fire twice a round.


As a point of comparison, a skilled gunnery crew on an 18th century warship could manage 3 shots every five minutes. So even the 3 crew/six seconds is absurdly fast.

And there is a very good reason why they didn't usually fire that fast for any length of time - barrel overheating.
This brings us to another problem with the 5e DMG rules - they have missed out a vital action - and one that probably ought to be at least a one full round action (don't play 5E so I don't know if it has them, I am thinking like most 3.x summoning spells: sponging out the barrel.

If you shove more gunpowder into the barrel of a cannon that has just been fired there is a good chance that there will be some embers left in it - and the gunpowder will therefore ignite and explode/conflagrate before anyone else can act.
To me this makes the 5e rules even more ridiculous!

[thirdkingdom]

Why did the GM give a gold mine to the players? If they wanted to play Miners and Mule Trains instead of DnD shouldn't that have been clarified before the game even starts?

I would personally populate the gold mine with monsters, and turn the mine into a dungeon. It's in the spirit of the game!


Well, I can't speak to the OP, but I run open ended sandbox style hexcrawls. Stuff like mines are out there in the world and the PCs can interact with them how they want. I'm not "giving" them anything, but I'm also not going to say they can't interact with them. Quite possibly, in the OPs case, the mine *was* a dungeon, and after the PCs cleared it they decided to run it as a mine. In my book that's a totally legit thing to decide to do, but it comes with a bunch of attendant logistical issues. Again, if the PCs want to go that route I'd totally roll with it.

My point is that the gold for XP rule of earlier editions is not a "ridiculous" rule. People may not *like* it, but its a perfectly legitimate way of playing the game and it is my impression that those who find it "ridiculous" simply don't understand how it was meant to be played (i.e. it discouraged combat in favor of stealth and tactics). People may not realize that there was no thief class originally in D&D; all characters were thieves, to one extent or another.

[Bohandas]

And there is a very good reason why they didn't usually fire that fast for any length of time - barrel overheating.
This brings us to another problem with the 5e DMG rules - they have missed out a vital action - and one that probably ought to be at least a one full round action (don't play 5E so I don't know if it has them, I am thinking like most 3.x summoning spells: sponging out the barrel.

If you shove more gunpowder into the barrel of a cannon that has just been fired there is a good chance that there will be some embers left in it - and the gunpowder will therefore ignite and explode/conflagrate before anyone else can act.
To me this makes the 5e rules even more ridiculous!

Depending on the DM (and whether the spell in question has been carried over to 5e; I don;t play 5e) you could probably get it back up to 2 shots a round by having someone cast chill metal on the barrel

[Max_Killjoy]

Depending on the DM (and whether the spell in question has been carried over to 5e; I don;t play 5e) you could probably get it back up to 2 shots a round by having someone cast chill metal on the barrel


Just how chill is that? Sounds like a good way to shatter the barrel after a few shots.

Plus, it won't put out the embers and you still risk burning off the next powder fill -- especially in the years before bagged powder charges.

[Belac93]

Then place people on top of the cannon...

Why just do that? Have 26 warlocks all cast the levitate spell, and the a wizard casts the levitate spell on the cannon, and fire it once every .692 seconds (or 8.66 times per round).

[Pugwampy]

I got one . Ranger favoured enemy undead which covers all ten thousand gagillion of species of undead out there .

[Khedrac]

I got one . Ranger favoured enemy undead which covers all ten thousand gagillion of species of undead out there .

Good one, but lumping the undead all into one type is not anything like as bad as lumping all abberations into one type - so Ranger Favored Enemy and Knowledge: Dungoneering skill checks work for all of them (D&D 3.0/3.5 of course).

[Pugwampy]

Heres another gripe about 3.5 races . The author must have been a gnome and dwarf fanboy . Those races get a page and half of racial traits while poor half orc and half elf get an itsy bitsy paragraph .

[Spore]

Vampire the Masquerade attributes each vampire clan a specific weakness. Some of which have suffered bizarre changes between the editions. The Assamites were master assassins (also sorcerers, priests and warriors because the rules say so). So within their niche role of killing people (and basically everything else) they have been cursed to be unable to eat another vampires' life force to improve themselves.

1. ed: They take severe damage when feeding off a Vampire. But I think they could still take the damage and advance their generation (ie. powers). As a result of pushing the new edition the curse get lifted.

2. ed: Suddenly Assamites are addicted to the blood of Vampires. They do the exact opposite now, basically feeding regularly on Vampires. So they got cursed again (because fans said so, also new edition = cash).

3.ed: Now they are defaulted to not being able to feed of Vampires but worse. They take damage from feeding, do not regain blood points and cannot advance their generation. Also they become "reverse vampires" as in: their skin grows darker as they age. What happens to old African Assamites? Do they become vantablack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack)?

[Telok]

Heres another gripe about 3.5 races . The author must have been a gnome and dwarf fanboy . Those races get a page and half of racial traits while poor half orc and half elf have get an itsy bitsy paragraph .

Eh, that's a leftover from AD&D. Essentially a bad copy/paste by the designers. Again it's reasonable when you understand the original context and purpose but the game has been so much changed in the last three versions that there's no point now. It's just sloppy design by people who can't be bothered to understand the past and so keep on making the same mistakes.

[Bohandas]

Good one, but lumping the undead all into one type is not anything like as bad as lumping all abberations into one type - so Ranger Favored Enemy and Knowledge: Dungoneering skill checks work for all of them (D&D 3.0/3.5 of course).

Also, seperating all the humanoids could be argued to present the opposite problem.

[veti]

Official rule, AFAIK. 2e was a very different dynamic in general; it actively encouraged you to do stuff like sneak past a monster to steal its treasure, because if you got 100 XP from fighting the monster and 1000XP from its gold stash, but risked death/serious injury in the fight, that 100XP might not be worth it. Characters were much more fragile in those days (and also easier to replace, to be fair).

The gold-to-XP rule as I remember it (from 1e) had a specific caveat, that the gold had to be earned. If you just lucked into a huge fortune, you didn't automatically get XP for it. The guideline was that the reward should be proportionate to the level of adventure/plot/risk taken - if not, the DM should scale down the XP reward appropriately.

So opening a gold mine (etc.) would not necessarily gain you any XP. The DM always had discretion to cut down the reward or cancel it entirely.

[Arbane]

Also, seperating all the humanoids could be argued to present the opposite problem.

Yeah. Apparently, Humans and Elves have less in common than Flumphs and Aboleths. :smallconfused:

[Segev]

Yeah. Apparently, Humans and Elves have less in common than Flumphs and Aboleths. :smallconfused:

Indeed! In fact, the defining traits of the Flumph and Aboleth go back to the fundamentals of...

<7 hours later, you wake up as the lecture concludes>

--and that's how humans and elves are EXTREMELY different from each other, by comparison!

[Milo v3]

Indeed! In fact, the defining traits of the Flumph and Aboleth go back to the fundamentals of...

<7 hours later, you wake up as the lecture concludes>

--and that's how humans and elves are EXTREMELY different from each other, by comparison!

But you are forgetting the existance of Interspecific Hybrids of Humans and Elves which means they must be in the same Genus in order to...

<3 hours later, after everyone's gone home>

-- wait, where did everyone go?

[goto124]

Also they become "reverse vampires" as in: their skin grows darker as they age. What happens to old African Assamites? Do they become vantablack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack)?

"I AM THE SHADOW. LITERALLY. Okay, not literally. But pretty close."

"Even a shadow isn't that dark..."

[Spore]

"I AM THE SHADOW. LITERALLY. Okay, not literally. But pretty close."

"Even a shadow isn't that dark..."

"No John, you are in fact NOT the night. Lay off with your terrible Batman impressions."

[GorinichSerpant]

"No John, you are in fact NOT the night. Lay off with your terrible Batman impressions."

"But Jim, what's the point of undeath if one can't enjoy Batman impressions? I gave up my humanity for a reason you know."

I'll stop before this goes to much off topic.

[Telok]

Here's one: Age has no effect in 5e D&D. None.

Five year old 20th level elven wizard? Totally legit.
Octogenarian first level barbarian? No problem.
Wild magic zaps you to less than one year old? Doesn't affect your ability to swing a sword.
Ghosts add 300 years to your age? Don't care.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Here's one: Age has no effect in 5e D&D. None.

Five year old 20th level elven wizard? Totally legit.
Octogenarian first level barbarian? No problem.
Wild magic zaps you to less than one year old? Doesn't affect your ability to swing a sword.
Ghosts add 300 years to your age? Don't care.

That's not a rule, that's an absence of a rule. 5e doesn't have rules for digestion either - does this mean D&D characters never need the loo?

[goto124]

Here's one: Age has no effect in 5e D&D. None.


That's not a rule, that's an absence of a rule. 5e doesn't have rules for digestion either - does this mean D&D characters never need the loo?

It's assumed that the entirety of a typical 5e DnD campaign will span a single year, or less than 5 at most. There's no need to account for aging in such a timespan.

It's also assumed that your characters will be of a certain age range. Even if you go beyond that, age is so irrelevant you can use point buy and give your own idea of what the stats should look like.

Do the de-aging wild magic and aging ghosts actually exist in any published material for DnD 5e?

[Arbane]

That's not a rule, that's an absence of a rule. 5e doesn't have rules for digestion either - does this mean D&D characters never need the loo?

:miko:"There aren't even rules for sleeping, you know!" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0224.html)

[Telok]

Do the de-aging wild magic and aging ghosts actually exist in any published material for DnD 5e?

Yes, the wild sorcerer has a +/- d(something, d10?) years of aging and ghosts can age someone 1d4*10 years. So any 18 year old human sorcerer can lost 10 years or meet two ghosts and age 80 years. Player's Handbook and Monster Manual, rules to age a character but no effects of doing so.

[Bohandas]

3.X has a lot, like really excessively a lot, of things derived from hit dice that really have no business being correlated to hitpoints (skill points, for example). This is especially flagant with large monsters whose hit dice unambiguously represent sheer size and (dragons excluded) are not in any way the result of or correlated to experience.

[Arbane]

3.X has a lot, like really excessively a lot, of things derived from hit dice that really have no business being correlated to hitpoints (skill points, for example). This is especially flagant with large monsters whose hit dice unambiguously represent sheer size and are not in any way the result of experience.

And at the other end, you've got silliness like a master cook or long-time librarian being notably better in a fight than a random doofus, thanks to their levels in Expert.

[Bohandas]

To be fair, the master cook at least has experience with knives and various other sharp and/or pointy implements

[Segev]

If the "master cook" is a level 10 Expert and the mighty barbarian is level 1, I am not going to be upset that the master cook is better in a fight. He's Seen Some Things. He's the kind of expert chef who travelled with Sir Passelthwaite the elven knight and had to participate in securing his kitchen area from carrion crawlers. Sure, he wasn't an adventurer and Sir Passelthwaite and his companions did the real fighting, but this chef had to defend himself more than once. And he probably knows more about how to butcher anything with an anatomy than the barbarian wants to learn. Including some things which are still moving.

[Max_Killjoy]

If the "master cook" is a level 10 Expert and the mighty barbarian is level 1, I am not going to be upset that the master cook is better in a fight. He's Seen Some Things. He's the kind of expert chef who travelled with Sir Passelthwaite the elven knight and had to participate in securing his kitchen area from carrion crawlers. Sure, he wasn't an adventurer and Sir Passelthwaite and his companions did the real fighting, but this chef had to defend himself more than once. And he probably knows more about how to butcher anything with an anatomy than the barbarian wants to learn. Including some things which are still moving.

Or he's just a good cook and the concept of "levels" tends to distort things.

[Segev]

Or he's just a good cook and the concept of "levels" tends to distort things.

A level 1 expert can have +4 from stat, +4 from skill ranks/prof. bonus, and +3 from skill focus. Add +2 from masterwork tools, and a +2 to +6 circumstance bonus for his kitchen, ingredients, familiarity with the recipe, etc., and you've got +13 to +19 to any given cooking roll.

If all you're looking for is "a good cook," even "an extremely good cook," you don't NEED to go above level 1.

A level 10 character, even in an NPC class, is pretty near legendary. He's done things that are worthy of grand storytelling, and has had adventures of some sort or another. But if he's using that +33 to his cooking skill(s), it's probably because he's doing it to counteract pretty severe penalties. He's cooking with wet wood in a camp fire, or preparing a feast with naught but the contents of a ship's galley, in a thunderstorm, or using ingredients that the wizard has barely heard of.

Such feats are indeed the stuff of legend, and are the kind of thing one learns to do through adventuresome careers, or at least being on the periphery of such careers enough to pick things up.

Mac, owner of the renowned tavern in the Dresden Files series, is probably a level 7 or so Expert. He likely earned those levels through much more than simply going in to work and cooking food and brewing beer every day, considering his clientele and what he must have gone through to establish such a business.

[Friv]

A level 10 character, even in an NPC class, is pretty near legendary. He's done things that are worthy of grand storytelling, and has had adventures of some sort or another. But if he's using that +33 to his cooking skill(s), it's probably because he's doing it to counteract pretty severe penalties. He's cooking with wet wood in a camp fire, or preparing a feast with naught but the contents of a ship's galley, in a thunderstorm, or using ingredients that the wizard has barely heard of.

People like to say this, but the rules don't support it. Two out of three towns with at least 2,000 people in them have a level 10-15 expert in them. One in five has a level 10-11 warrior, and one in four has a level 10+ fighter or rogue. Overall, 85% of large towns have one of these near-legendary people in them.

If you have cities of 5,000 or more people, you're basically guaranteed to have a lot of Level 10+ people running around. You've got two Level 9-18 Experts, two Level 8-14 Warriors, two 7-13 Adepts and a lot of Level 7-16 PC class characters. And all those high-level characters are exceptional soldiers who can fight entire squads of trained soldiers because of their amazing cooking or priesting skills.

[Jormengand]

I think that "Entire squads of trained soldiers" is a little much. Take a level 15 expert. By this level, we're talking about someone who can easily be capable of answering "The toughest questions" offhand, who can craft you any weapon in existence, who can sing so well that angels come to listen without even trying to roll. This kind of person is, no matter how common, absolutely legendary in a lot of ways.

On the other hand, he has a base attack bonus of eleven; he's just mastered the art of making one sword swing in two seconds. Or, one morningstar swing, because a spiky ball on a stick is the most dangerous weapon he's able to wield. He has about fifty-two hit points. Each attack, if it hits, deals about four and a half points of damage. This ignoring the fact that he probably has low strength and constitution and higher intelligence and wisdom with moderate dexterity and charisma, so actually his attack, with a +10 to hit, deals 3.5 damage, and he has about thirty-seven hit points. He's kitted out with a chain shirt, giving him a respectable AC of 14, decent for a noncombatant.

Enter a small squad of five level three warriors. Decked out in the finest plate armour NPC WBL 3 can buy, with longswords and heavy shields, weapon specialisation and focus, and the ubiquitously powerful bonus feat toughness (assuming they're humans), they're rolling with high strength and constitution and medium dexterity, meaning that they deal 7.5 damage per swing, have a +5 to hit, and have nineteen hitpoints apiece. They're rolling with an AC of 21, meaning it's slightly harder for the expert to hit them than for them to hit the expert. They need to land an average of a little under five hits, meaning it will take them two rounds to decapitate the poor expert. If he does land a few hits in that time - which is actually unlikely - he needs an average of a little over five hits to kill one of the warriors.

Two out of three towns have someone who it takes two rounds for a squad of bog-standard soldiers to kill, instead of one.

Let's kick it up a notch. Let's suppose we have a level one hundred expert, one who you won't find in most towns. This still doesn't necessarily make him hard to kill. If he's venerable, for example, he could easily have a strength penalty so big that it took me a while to calculate what the average damage he deals is (it's one a and a quarter points of damage). True, he has a +51 to hit and three attacks, but he's not doing anything to you when he hits. Two of those third-level warriors will eventually cut through all 100 of his hit points before he has a chance to kill either warrior. Sure, he can turn the warriors into fanatic members of his cause as a standard action without having to roll or speak aloud their name in a language so freakish that there's an entire class dedicated to speaking it, also without having to roll, but fighting them is out of the question.

[Friv]

That is some good summaries, thanks!

In my defense, the "squad of soldiers" I was thinking of was the basic Level 1 Warrior with +1 Str, Dex, Con and basic weapons and armor (15 AC, 9 HP each.) Such a warrior only has +2 to hit, and gets hit on a 5/10/15 and killed in two hits. I assumed the scholar could take one out each round, while taking hits from half his opponents at 6 damage each, with a result of:
Round 1: Four warriors left, scholar 46/52 HP
Round 2: Three warriors left, scholar 34/52 HP
Round 3: Two warriors left, scholar 28/52 HP
Round 4: One warrior left, scholar 22/52 HP
Round 5: Scholar wins with 20ish HP.

But yeah, it doesn't take many levels or gold for the warriors to catch up.

[Segev]

That is some good summaries, thanks!

In my defense, the "squad of soldiers" I was thinking of was the basic Level 1 Warrior with +1 Str, Dex, Con and basic weapons and armor (15 AC, 9 HP each.) Such a warrior only has +2 to hit, and gets hit on a 5/10/15 and killed in two hits. I assumed the scholar could take one out each round, while taking hits from half his opponents at 6 damage each, with a result of:
Round 1: Four warriors left, scholar 46/52 HP
Round 2: Three warriors left, scholar 34/52 HP
Round 3: Two warriors left, scholar 28/52 HP
Round 4: One warrior left, scholar 22/52 HP
Round 5: Scholar wins with 20ish HP.

But yeah, it doesn't take many levels or gold for the warriors to catch up.

By the math presented in the prior post, and the figures here, your assumption that I've bolded is inaccurate. The scholar's average damage of 7 per round would take him 2 rounds to defeat any one warrior. (Assuming I have understood correctly that the 3.5 damage average per swing was based on chance-to-hit, and not merely average damage per hit. In the latter case, it takes 3+ rounds to kill a given 1st level warrior.)

[Jormengand]

(Assuming I have understood correctly that the 3.5 damage average per swing was based on chance-to-hit, and not merely average damage per hit. In the latter case, it takes 3+ rounds to kill a given 1st level warrior.)

To clarify, it is actually damage per hit. 4.5 from the 1d8 from the morningstar, and -1 from the strength bonus.

Also, Friv, by your own admission, there are going to be people of pretty high levels just randomly running around. I assumed a "Trained soldier" rather than just a new recruit or cadet was going to be an easy third level.

[Friv]

To clarify, it is actually damage per hit. 4.5 from the 1d8 from the morningstar, and -1 from the strength bonus.

Yep. Should have specified that my original numbers assumed +0 Str, which is not a guarantee.


Also, Friv, by your own admission, there are going to be people of pretty high levels just randomly running around. I assumed a "Trained soldier" rather than just a new recruit or cadet was going to be an easy third level.

So, the rules for higher-level NPCs in D&D 3.x are weird. In fact, I should probably stop discussing the weirdness of what it means to be a higher-level NPC in favour of the weirdness of those rules.

In a typical "large town" of 2,000 - 5,000 people, which is where my theoretical scholar lived, you have the following:
* Your highest-level expert is Level 6-15. Then you have two experts at level 3-7. Then, if your highest level expert was at least level 8, you have four experts at level 2-3. Then you have about 60-150 Level 1 experts.
* Your higest-level warrior is Level 5-11. Then you have two warriors at Level 2-5. Then, if your highest level warrior was at least level 8, you have four warriors at level 2. Then you have about 50-250 Level 1 warriors.
* Your highest-level PC class member is Level 3-11; if they're at least level 4, you get the same two people at level 2-5. Most of your PC class members will be Level 6-7, with a couple of Level 3 people.

So, a typical town powerful enough to have a Level 10 expert has, at best, three warriors higher than level 2, which aren't enough to form a trained squad. Instead, they're going to be captains and militia leaders, or possibly local mercenaries or private bodyguards and guard captains. In the event of an invasion, rounding up your three high-level experts doubles your capability to produce skilled combatants.

Of course, a totally average town (which is kind of unlikely, but perfectly spherical towns, you know) will have roughly thirty adventurers in the Level 2-8 range, and about fifteen NPCs in the Level 2-15 range, so really you just want to throw all of them at any problems.

[Frozen_Feet]

What about that is so ridiculous? You have about 45 out of 3500 especially skilled individuals in a town. The occurrence rate of that is lower than that of people who have natural 18 in some ability score.

[Jormengand]

Also, if you have hundreds of level 1 warriors running around, that means that, assuming the nation isn't going to war, that means that you have hundreds of town guards. You probably have five longswordsmen and five longbowmen in each of five to twenty-five squads. Each one of those squads is well able to take down the expert.

[Milo v3]

Also, if you have hundreds of level 1 warriors running around, that means that, assuming the nation isn't going to war, that means that you have hundreds of town guards. You probably have five longswordsmen and five longbowmen in each of five to twenty-five squads. Each one of those squads is well able to take down the expert.

Warriors don't have to be part of the military or guards, they could just be a thug or someone who is tough.

[Friv]

What about that is so ridiculous? You have about 45 out of 3500 especially skilled individuals in a town. The occurrence rate of that is lower than that of people who have natural 18 in some ability score.

Take a look at all the points in this thread discussing how, by the rules, Level 10+ people are wildly exceptional and legendary due to what it means to be able to routinely hit DC 25 or DC 30 checks. Then consider how few points there are between those legends and the masses.

The rules allow for almost no one who is Level 2-3; you get twice as many of them as everyone who is Level 4-7, of whom you get about twice as many as everyone who is Level 8-15. You just have massive hordes of Level 1 peons, and then a number of immensely skilled people who are quite rare in each community, but incredibly common in society as a whole, any one of whom is not only absurdly capable in their field of expertise, but can slot in as a mid-level person in any combat. If a war breaks out, you need to round up your scholars and blacksmiths fast, because they're more skilled in combat than all but seven or eight of your NPCs. Except really you need to round up the forty adventurers that live in every town of 2,000 because they're going to be far more effective. And on that note - there are forty Level 2-15 adventurers in every town, because every single class gets rolled for individually and provides 3-7 people of Levels 2-11. Even a tiny village has twenty or thirty low-level adventurers hanging around. The market is kind of clogged.


Also, if you have hundreds of level 1 warriors running around, that means that, assuming the nation isn't going to war, that means that you have hundreds of town guards. You probably have five longswordsmen and five longbowmen in each of five to twenty-five squads. Each one of those squads is well able to take down the expert.

The argument against level rules was never that the scholar is unstoppable. It was that a life of studious contemplation, which creates a character who exists in every town, also gives that character fighting skill comparable to the top 2% of the town's inhabitants, because studying makes you a skilled soldier.

[Sith_Happens]

I guess knowledge really is power.:smalltongue:

[Spore]

I love the ramification this has ingame.

The Mage's guild's librarian walks down a dark alleyway. His way suddenly gets blocked by three thugs.
Player 1: "Give us the key and you won't get hurt"
Player 2: "Yeah, get lost, wimp."
Librarian: "I have graduated summa *** laude in three subjects! You better back off."
Player 3: "Oh ****, guys, run. He has found a stick and thus does not receive penalties for improvised weapons. We are no match for him."

[Jormengand]

Well, yeah, but at the same time it seems odd that you could offhand answer the toughest questions about humans and not be able to slice them up more effectively than joe schmoe.

[Max_Killjoy]

Well, yeah, but at the same time it seems odd that you could offhand answer the toughest questions about humans and not be able to slice them up more effectively than joe schmoe.


So being a surgeon should make someone an expert fencer?

[Segev]

So being a surgeon should make someone an expert fencer?

No, but arguably they should be more competent at cutting somebody apart in a fight than would a schmuck who just was a street tough whose training was simply "pointy end in other guy."

[digiman619]

A level 1 expert can have +4 from stat, +4 from skill ranks/prof. bonus, and +3 from skill focus. Add +2 from masterwork tools, and a +2 to +6 circumstance bonus for his kitchen, ingredients, familiarity with the recipe, etc., and you've got +13 to +19 to any given cooking roll.

If all you're looking for is "a good cook," even "an extremely good cook," you don't NEED to go above level 1.

A level 10 character, even in an NPC class, is pretty near legendary. He's done things that are worthy of grand storytelling, and has had adventures of some sort or another. But if he's using that +33 to his cooking skill(s), it's probably because he's doing it to counteract pretty severe penalties. He's cooking with wet wood in a camp fire, or preparing a feast with naught but the contents of a ship's galley, in a thunderstorm, or using ingredients that the wizard has barely heard of.

Such feats are indeed the stuff of legend, and are the kind of thing one learns to do through adventuresome careers, or at least being on the periphery of such careers enough to pick things up.

Mac, owner of the renowned tavern in the Dresden Files series, is probably a level 7 or so Expert. He likely earned those levels through much more than simply going in to work and cooking food and brewing beer every day, considering his clientele and what he must have gone through to establish such a business.

Mac might have 7 levels of Expert, but he is clearly someone (or possibly thing) of great power that retired and opened a bar.

[Knaight]

No, but arguably they should be more competent at cutting somebody apart in a fight than would a schmuck who just was a street tough whose training was simply "pointy end in other guy."

You can argue that, but it's tenuous at best. Specific anatomy knowledge is way, way down the list of things that are helpful in a fight.

[Segev]

Mac might have 7 levels of Expert, but he is clearly someone (or possibly thing) of great power that retired and opened a bar.

That is something one could assume, but I haven't seen evidence of it. He's never once intimidated anything out of his bar; all the enforcement of good behavior could easily be "don't start trouble in the middle of the mercenary pit" variety. Disrupt the dragon, wizard, and lawyer for the demon god's drinking time, and Mac won't HAVE to punish you; the other patrons will handle it.

If you've seen Deadpool, note that the bar owner there isn't particularly powerful, but messing around with him in his establishment is a SUPREMELY bad idea (unless you're a person of mass destruction all on your lonesome).


Doesn't mean he CAN'T be, but there's no REAL indication that he is. Most of the Things of that nature have been less subtly hinted at, if not outright revealed. Mac could be a particularly skilled and experienced human with no special supernatural powers beyond his loyal customers. He could also be secretly Bors, who just wishes his son would come visit after distributing presents that one night every year.

[Friv]

Well, yeah, but at the same time it seems odd that you could offhand answer the toughest questions about humans and not be able to slice them up more effectively than joe schmoe.

I have to admit, that doesn't seem remotely odd to me. There is no direct connection in the skillset. Think of it this way: if you saw twenty highly skilled surgeons in a parking lot, holding knives and bats, and across from them were twenty street punks, also holding knives and bats, would you think, "Man, those punks are about to get medical schooled", or would you think, "Those doctors are about to need their own medicine"?

[Jormengand]

I have to admit, that doesn't seem remotely odd to me. There is no direct connection in the skillset. Think of it this way: if you saw twenty highly skilled surgeons in a parking lot, holding knives and bats, and across from them were twenty street punks, also holding knives and bats, would you think, "Man, those punks are about to get medical schooled", or would you think, "Those doctors are about to need their own medicine"?

Yes, warriors will always be able to take on experts of the same level. But we're talking about experts of a higher level versus warriors of about level 1, because any higher than that and the warrior can beat the hell out of the expert unless he's the gods' own doctor. And just from a basic knowledge of human bodies (I'm not a doctor, I'm a first-aider) I know some interesting locations that I can hit you to do a hell of a lot of damage that you wouldn't automatically think of them, and could probably find a way of using this to my advantage.

Alternatively, you could accept that in a D&D world, people who have more experience in general are better in general, because with the number of random monsters willing to mess with you, you're going to have to learn some fighting. People who learn better (that is, ones who reach higher levels) learn everything better. I mean, sure, D&D isn't quite at Warhammer 40,000 levels of "Librarians are actually all genetically-engineered super soldiers with psychic powers because they have to be to defend the big important library with all the world's knowledge", but in D&D, everyone learns how to fight.

[Max_Killjoy]

If you've seen Deadpool, note that the bar owner there isn't particularly powerful, but messing around with him in his establishment is a SUPREMELY bad idea (unless you're a person of mass destruction all on your lonesome).



I do like how that scene...


...completely averted the trope of "nemesis villain gets to show off and increase the tension by killing all the people in hero's favorite hangout".

[Friv]

Yes, warriors will always be able to take on experts of the same level. But we're talking about experts of a higher level versus warriors of about level 1, because any higher than that and the warrior can beat the hell out of the expert unless he's the gods' own doctor.
Uh... that is what I said. Highly trained surgeons, i.e. high level experts, versus street punks, i.e. first level warriors.


And just from a basic knowledge of human bodies (I'm not a doctor, I'm a first-aider) I know some interesting locations that I can hit you to do a hell of a lot of damage that you wouldn't automatically think of them, and could probably find a way of using this to my advantage.

Do you have combat training? Because if not, I find that assertion dubious. You need to have the strength to leverage a hit, the speed and accuracy to succeed at the hit, the skill and training not to freeze up when a guy comes at you with a knife, etc.


Alternatively, you could accept that in a D&D world, people who have more experience in general are better in general, because with the number of random monsters willing to mess with you, you're going to have to learn some fighting. People who learn better (that is, ones who reach higher levels) learn everything better. I mean, sure, D&D isn't quite at Warhammer 40,000 levels of "Librarians are actually all genetically-engineered super soldiers with psychic powers because they have to be to defend the big important library with all the world's knowledge", but in D&D, everyone learns how to fight.

The idea that every D&D setting is such a vicious hellhole that it's impossible to become skilled at anything without also being a skilled killer is far more ridiculous than the idea that applying PC advancement rules to every NPC in your setting creates wonky results.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yes, warriors will always be able to take on experts of the same level. But we're talking about experts of a higher level versus warriors of about level 1, because any higher than that and the warrior can beat the hell out of the expert unless he's the gods' own doctor. And just from a basic knowledge of human bodies (I'm not a doctor, I'm a first-aider) I know some interesting locations that I can hit you to do a hell of a lot of damage that you wouldn't automatically think of them, and could probably find a way of using this to my advantage.


Great, someone "knows where to hit someone".

Do they have any training or experience in fights? No? Then good luck to them actually hitting an experienced/trained fighter in any of those spots before they get their teeth kicked in.

[Friv]

Also, while we're discussing ridiculous rules in D&D worldbuilding, it's worth noting that your typical 100-person village in a setting built using the town demographics rules contains 17-20 adventurers and ten magic-users. So maybe that "violent hellhole" theory isn't so far off after all.

[Bohandas]

The rules as written for skill advancement in Toon are kind of wonky. the value of additional ranks is highly variable and you can'y really get better than pretty good due to the cap on ranks

[Segev]

Remember that sufficient level to really out-shine the warriors based on BAB alone probably means more than "highly-trained surgeons." Our surgeons are, presumably, not spending any resources they have a choice in on their combat capabilities, for your example to make the point you want it to. The street toughs probably are, from having Weapon Focus to a masterwork weapon-of-choice or two to having more investment in Strength (while our surgeons are invested in Int).

So let's assume the street toughs have at least a +1 from Str and a +1 to hit from weapon focus and maybe even a +1 to hit from a masterwork weapon. The surgeons have to thus have a +2 or +3 BAB. That pushes them to third or fourth level.

That's not "high" level, obviously, but a third or fourth level Expert is probably more than JUST a highly-trained surgeon. He's a surgeon who's had a pretty impressive set of experiences in his life. He's as experienced as adventurers who've gone out and cleared goblin lairs and possibly won a first arc of a campaign. Like Daniel Jackson, he's picked up some things that are not directly related to his surgical studies, and it's made him better at surgery than many of his compatriots while also giving him more...practical skills when it comes to cutting in to unwilling, hostile "patients." He's combatted plagues and illnesses and injuries most of his colleagues have never SEEN, and he did so in conditions that, even if they didn't put his life in serious danger, at least put him where he had to fight to protect it. At least as much as that rogue who specializes in infiltrating ancient tombs does.

And that's to make the surgeon an "equal" to the warrior in a fight. Ignoring his likely lack of armor compared to the warrior, and his lesser damage and smaller hit dice (admittedly made up for by greater numbers thereof).

The scenario of a bunch of street toughs attacking these surgeons who are high enough level to compare to them in combat stats is one of a gang threatening the badass personal medical staff of an adventuring party who have had to deal with unruly prisoner-monsters and treated heroes who have the weirdest of ailments from the most mysterious of dungeons. No, they're not almighty warriors, but they're a lot tougher and have seen a lot more than these thugs expected.

[Comet]

In other words: D&D is a game about combat and adventure and appyling its rules to people who don't fight or adventure is not going to work.

[OracleofWuffing]

If you simply have to be adjacent to the cannon to operate it, I think the maximum ROF we can get out of one cannon require it to be mounted on a 5ft. tall pedestal, with a 10ft. tall wooden platform on built on its sides and rear. Reserving all squares in front of the cannon open, This permits six people to be "below" it at ground level reaching up, 5 adjacent to it 5ft. above ground, and 6 more above it at 10ft. above ground. 17 total gunners, for 5 shots every six seconds with 2 surplus crew in case of casualties.

As a point of comparison, a skilled gunnery crew on an 18th century warship could manage 3 shots every five minutes. So even the 3 crew/six seconds is absurdly fast.

I'm not familiar with D&D 5e, so maybe I misunderstand certain terminologies or the size/shape of the cannon, so this is a genuine question: Would it be possible to get more gunners adjacent to the cannon- and thus a higher rate of fire- by pointing the cannon directly up?

[Jormengand]

Also, while we're discussing ridiculous rules in D&D worldbuilding, it's worth noting that your typical 100-person village in a setting built using the town demographics rules contains 17-20 adventurers and ten magic-users. So maybe that "violent hellhole" theory isn't so far off after all.

Of course the average D&D setting is a violent hellhole. Nine times out of ten, the player characters are people whose job description is saving towns from up-and-coming necromancers, dragon attacks, or the invasion of the entire forces of Avernus, depending on level. Random priests have access to seventeen first-level spells, and they include shooting fire from their hands and making their foes flee from them in terror. Over half of them are only even useful in combat, most of the time! Eighth level adepts are capable of raising armies of the dead, firing off lightning from their fingertips, cursing people, inflicting diseases on them, and curing more hit points than most people have. Most of that stuff is only useful in a violent hellhole.

D&D is a game designed for violent hellholes, and of course the assumptions that you make to run a game in a violent hellhole (namely, everyone has combat training because they have to) aren't going to make sense if you transfer the game into a different setting. Even then, if anyone has so many as two levels in warrior, you're gonna have to be the gods' own surgeon before you match their combat ability.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Of course the average D&D setting is a violent hellhole. Nine times out of ten, the player characters are people whose job description is saving towns from up-and-coming necromancers, dragon attacks, or the invasion of the entire forces of Avernus, depending on level. Random priests have access to seventeen first-level spells, and they include shooting fire from their hands and making their foes flee from them in terror. Over half of them are only even useful in combat, most of the time! Eighth level adepts are capable of raising armies of the dead, firing off lightning from their fingertips, cursing people, inflicting diseases on them, and curing more hit points than most people have. Most of that stuff is only useful in a violent hellhole.

D&D is a game designed for violent hellholes, and of course the assumptions that you make to run a game in a violent hellhole (namely, everyone has combat training because they have to) aren't going to make sense if you transfer the game into a different setting. Even then, if anyone has so many as two levels in warrior, you're gonna have to be the gods' own surgeon before you match their combat ability.

The last one tends to be causing those events...

[jindra34]

Adding another ridiculous rule (or standard or something) was travel times in Exalted 2ed. Or more accurately how they came up with the numbers; 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (out of 7), 3 weeks a month (out of 4), 2 months a season (out of 3), 4 seasons a year (out of 5). Which comes out to a very silly amount of time spent seriously traveling. And going by boat, over ocean only changes it to 24 hours a day. And if you were traveling more than a week the time taken went up. And those are under optimal conditions.

[NoldorForce]

Adding another ridiculous rule (or standard or something) was travel times in Exalted 2ed. Or more accurately how they came up with the numbers; 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (out of 7), 3 weeks a month (out of 4), 2 months a season (out of 3), 4 seasons a year (out of 5). Which comes out to a very silly amount of time spent seriously traveling. And going by boat, over ocean only changes it to 24 hours a day. And if you were traveling more than a week the time taken went up. And those are under optimal conditions.It sounds like someone failed to do any kind of analysis on this, because it's equivalent to spending one day's worth of waking hours per week on traveling and then "resting" for the other six.

[Sith_Happens]

Adding another ridiculous rule (or standard or something) was travel times in Exalted 2ed. Or more accurately how they came up with the numbers; 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (out of 7), 3 weeks a month (out of 4), 2 months a season (out of 3), 4 seasons a year (out of 5). Which comes out to a very silly amount of time spent seriously traveling. And going by boat, over ocean only changes it to 24 hours a day. And if you were traveling more than a week the time taken went up. And those are under optimal conditions.

It's worse than that, it's only 5 hours a day.

[jindra34]

It sounds like someone failed to do any kind of analysis on this, because it's equivalent to spending one day's worth of waking hours per week on traveling and then "resting" for the other six.
Actually the skipped days were spent RESTOCKING. But still no excuse.

It's worse than that, it's only 5 hours a day.
I felt I got something wrong but didn't want to dig out the books to double check. Either way I remember it because as a boy scout I could cover more in a WEEKEND than the supposed epic heroes could in a week without magic.

[NoldorForce]

Actually the skipped days were spent RESTOCKING. But still no excuse.

I felt I got something wrong but didn't want to dig out the books to double check. Either way I remember it because as a boy scout I could cover more in a WEEKEND than the supposed epic heroes could in a week without magic.What, is this Gentleman Johnny's Party Train (http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/2014/03/024-saratoga.html) or something? Real-world armies didn't move this slowly unless they had major logistical issues or were travelling through atrocious terrain.

[jindra34]

What, is this Gentleman Johnny's Party Train (http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/2014/03/024-saratoga.html) or something? Real-world armies didn't move this slowly unless they had major logistical issues or were travelling through atrocious terrain.

This was Exalted. And armies moved at half speed (which given bad terrain, long distance, hills, and other stuff could... easily resulted in a movement speed of single digit miles per month).

[Max_Killjoy]

This was Exalted. And armies moved at half speed (which given bad terrain, long distance, hills, and other stuff could... easily resulted in a movement speed of single digit miles per month).

I learned to take anything of that sort from White Wolf with a massive grain of salt... they were terrible at actual research into mundane topics.

[Knaight]

I learned to take anything of that sort from White Wolf with a massive grain of salt... they were terrible at actual research into mundane topics.

I'm not sure this is their mundane topic research flaw as much as their bad with numbers flaw.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm not sure this is their mundane topic research flaw as much as their bad with numbers flaw.

Or both...

[Kurald Galain]

4e uses highly gamist structure and language with little attempt to justify its mechanics. Something as convoluted as packets of spell power that are memorized and then wiped from the mind upon use? --fuhgeddaboudit. EDIT: Er, no pun intended.

4E has the silly notion that when you learn higher level spells, lower level spells instantaneously disappear from your spellbook...

[Max_Killjoy]

4E has the silly notion that when you learn higher level spells, lower level spells instantaneously disappear from your spellbook...

You mean the way I saw some higher-level spells and powers instantly replace-and-erase lower level equivalents in some places?

[Cazero]

4E has the silly notion that when you learn higher level spells, lower level spells instantaneously disappear from your spellbook...
Wich is why 4e hasn't that much in common with MMORPGs. That is a Pokémon thing. MMORPGs tend to not break your toys.
When I looked at 4e I thought "hey, that thing could work really well with computer support" and then made the conclusion of "this is just like a MMORPG", and then I played a game and realised I was wrong. (And then I played Neverwinter, the 4e MMORPG. Why did they screw up this. But I digress.)

You mean the way I saw some higher-level spells and powers instantly replace-and-erase lower level equivalents in some places?
If only they were equivalents. It would be logical then.
But no, you have to forget a power to learn a higher level power. Sometimes a variation or stronger equivalent is available, but for the most part you're supposed to forget Dig and learn Ice beam.

[Kurald Galain]

You run out of space around the cannon first.
5E's infamous Goblin Conga Line says you don't.

For those unfamiliar, one of the ridiculous rules in 5E is that any number of enemies can walk up to you, attack, and walk away all in the same round. Even in a chokepoint. To make it worse, doing so is often tactically a good idea even though it doesn't make any sense.



You mean the way I saw some higher-level spells and powers instantly replace-and-erase lower level equivalents in some places?
Not really. Rather, a character can only have four daily powers, so by the time you hit level 15 or 19 you must remove one of your older daily powers to gain a higher level one (which are usually better, but not always). So you forget how to do that, and if you're a wizard, it also erases the power from your spellbook.

[Max_Killjoy]

Not really. Rather, a character can only have four daily powers, so by the time you hit level 15 or 19 you must remove one of your older daily powers to gain a higher level one (which are usually better, but not always). So you forget how to do that, and if you're a wizard, it also erases the power from your spellbook.


That's even sillier and goofier than what I was thinking of.

[Sith_Happens]

5E's infamous Goblin Conga Line says you don't.

For those unfamiliar, one of the ridiculous rules in 5E is that any number of enemies can walk up to you, attack, and walk away all in the same round. Even in a chokepoint. To make it worse, doing so is often tactically a good idea even though it doesn't make any sense.

That's only new to 5e in that I'm assuming it no longer takes three feats to be able to do it.

[Telok]

That's even sillier and goofier than what I was thinking of.

Yeah, it also reminds me of the time I played a druid in 4e.

In 4e the druid's wildshape power has no effect except to allow you to use [beast] powers and prevent you from using all other powers. Now there's some fluff text about the druid turning into an animal, but that's not what the rules text did. So there was silly stuff like the elf druid wildshaping into a fish and climbing a tree or wildshaping into a 'wild elf' and biting someone's face off.

[InvisibleBison]

Yeah, it also reminds me of the time I played a druid in 4e.

In 4e the druid's wildshape power has no effect except to allow you to use [beast] powers and prevent you from using all other powers. Now there's some fluff text about the druid turning into an animal, but that's not what the rules text did. So there was silly stuff like the elf druid wildshaping into a fish and climbing a tree or wildshaping into a 'wild elf' and biting someone's face off.

Was 4e composed entirely of dissociated mechanics?

[Malimar]

Yeah, it also reminds me of the time I played a druid in 4e.

In 4e the druid's wildshape power has no effect except to allow you to use [beast] powers and prevent you from using all other powers. Now there's some fluff text about the druid turning into an animal, but that's not what the rules text did. So there was silly stuff like the elf druid wildshaping into a fish and climbing a tree or wildshaping into a 'wild elf' and biting someone's face off.

The one time I played a druid in 4e, I spent the session as an emu.

[Max_Killjoy]

Was 4e composed entirely of dissociated mechanics?

From what I've seen... yes.

[2D8HP]

After my PC got stabbed and lost half his hit points, I just recently encountered and took advantage of the "short rest" in 5e D&D, in which pretending to lay around for 30 minutes completely healed my PC!
Which is totally realistic!
:wink:
The old slower healing of AD&D did not properly model such true to life depictions, as when Danny Glover as "Mike Harrigan" in: Predator 2 (http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0100403/)
falls through a freakin' building, then dusts himself off, and goes back into the fight!

[NoldorForce]

Was 4e composed entirely of dissociated mechanics?
If you take an entirely mechanistic/zero-abstraction view of the rules and use dog-whistle terms, yes.

[Yael]

The whole Pokémon Tabletop United, it incites slavery on poor engines of mass destruction cute-colored animals.

Also, fire in Vampire; the Masquerade is like the most terrifying reaction in the whole game, someone with a flamethrower basically can kill anything that has no Fortitude or almost kill those who do. When in other systems, fire is handled better, not as a insta-death source.

[jindra34]

Also, fire in Vampire; the Masquerade is like the most terrifying reaction in the whole game, someone with a flamethrower basically can kill anything that has no Fortitude or almost kill those who do. When in other systems, fire is handled better, not as a insta-death source.

IIRC thats more because fire is supernaturally dangerous to Vampires. Also getting hit with a flamethrower full on in real life is kinda going to do massive amounts of damage anyway.

[Yael]

IIRC thats more because fire is supernaturally dangerous to Vampires. Also getting hit with a flamethrower full on in real life is kinda going to do massive amounts of damage anyway.

It is explained on the Frenzy they enter in contact (or presence) of it, but the type of damage it deals (aggravated) isn't soakable by anything but those with high resistances, this kills the entire World of Darkness, imho.

NeeeAAAAAvermind, doublechecked, it deals Lethal to anything who isn't a Vampire, Mummy or Werewolf.

[Arbane]

It is explained on the Frenzy they enter in contact (or presence) of it, but the type of damage it deals (aggravated) isn't soakable by anything but those with high resistances, this kills the entire World of Darkness, imho.

For extra fun, try imagining vampires back in the days before electric lights were invented, Frenzying in the mere presence of fire....

[Max_Killjoy]

Being doused by an actual flame-thrower is pretty much a death-sentence.

[Friv]

After my PC got stabbed and lost half his hit points, I just recently encountered and took advantage of the "short rest" in 5e D&D, in which pretending to lay around for 30 minutes completely healed my PC!
Which is totally realistic!
:wink:
The old slower healing of AD&D did not properly model such true to life depictions, as when Danny Glover as "Mike Harrigan" in: Predator 2 (http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0100403/)
falls through a freakin' building, then dusts himself off, and goes back into the fight!

Trying to argue that AD&D healing is "real to life" is a little tricky, given that the more powerful and skilled you are, the harder it becomes to heal. If two equally-skilled 1st Level fighters go at it, and one is reduced to 1 HP, it takes him two days of bed rest with a medic onhand to heal back from the brink of death to total health. Once he's Level 20, though, it's going to take about a month.

[Sith_Happens]

Yeah, it also reminds me of the time I played a druid in 4e.

In 4e the druid's wildshape power has no effect except to allow you to use [beast] powers and prevent you from using all other powers. Now there's some fluff text about the druid turning into an animal, but that's not what the rules text did. So there was silly stuff like the elf druid wildshaping into a fish and climbing a tree or wildshaping into a 'wild elf' and biting someone's face off.

It kind of sounds already like the answer is no, but does what you turn into have any effect on which beast powers you can use or what they do?

[Telok]

It kind of sounds already like the answer is no, but does what you turn into have any effect on which beast powers you can use or what they do?

Only if you used a beast power that limited what you turned into. By level 10 there were three utility powers that turned you into a cat sized critter and gave you bonuses while locking you out of all other powers and attacks and abilities. They were each daily powers that lasted up to 5 minutes, one turned you into a bird and gave you a fly speed, one turned you into a fish or amphibian and gave you a swim speed (but not water breathing), and the last turned you into a cat or a spider and gave you +5 on stealth checks.

They were useful powers because druids weren't strength based so all your swiming, climbing, and jumping had no bonuses unless one of your three(? don't recall exactly) skills was athletics. I don't recall stealth being on the druid skills list, so the +5 from that power just mimicked having that skill trained but without the dex focus or stealth bennies of an actual stealthing class. Of course none of this changed the character's creature type so a trivial not-an-action nature skill check revealed them as not really being an animal.

Heck, I turned into a purple winged alligator once with the excuse of it being a cocaine wizard animal experiment. There was also a man sized roach in one of the monster sets that was typed as an animal, a druid could turn into that. I don't recall being in beast form even preventing you from talking, just from using non-beast powers and wielding weapons.

[Traziremus]

The use of Aligment in game mechanics and restrictions based on it. Also the slowed progression is quite unreal, so what if I want to kill people all the sudden, that does not make me less capable of learning..

[Milo v3]

The use of Aligment in game mechanics and restrictions based on it. Also the slowed progression is quite unreal, so what if I want to kill people all the sudden, that does not make me less capable of learning..

Slowed progression?

[Traziremus]

Slowed progression?
In Advanced Dungeons and Dragons PC's get less XP if their aligment shifts.

Changing the way a character behaves and thinks will cost him experience points and slow his advancement. Part of a character's experience comes from learning how his own behavior affects him and the world around him. In real life, for example, a person learns that he doesn't like horror movies only by going to see a few of them. Based on that experience, he learns to avoid certain types of movies. Changing behavior means discarding things the character learned previously. Relearning things takes time. This costs the character experience.

[Kurald Galain]

It kind of sounds already like the answer is no, but does what you turn into have any effect on which beast powers you can use or what they do?
Nope. In addition, if you'd expect that turning into a bird would enable you to fly (or a fish to swim), you'd be wrong.


Was 4e composed entirely of dissociated mechanics?
Well, it leads to all kinds of ridiculous things like that an inspiring speech (which usually heals people) works even on people who cannot hear it. Or that a variety of "death" spells (finger of death, disintegrate, etc) simply deal the same damage as other powers of the same level. Or that in printed adventures, anything from city guards to trickster fey to friggin' dragons are simply the same level as the PCs, regardless of which level that happens to be.

Anyway, let's throw in some other games.
In DSA (or certain editions, at least), if you see something valuable you must roll against your Greed ability score to avoid rushing up and grabbing it.
In Aberrant, each ability score has two independent scales. You can have a character with strength 5 (on a scale of 5), and another with strength 1 and MEGA-strength 2. It is entirely unclear which of the two is supposed to be stronger.
In 2E D&D, due to the ridiculous number of attacks per round, the most damaging fighter is one that specializes in throwing darts.
In Paranoia, there are no ridiculous rules and the game is completely flawless. Honest. If you've heard otherwise, report to the nearest termination center. Rumors are treason. Have a nice daycycle!

[Frozen_Feet]

In general, a lot of mechanized flaws end up having inverse effect to what they're supposed to model.

For example, if "alcoholic" flaw makes a character compulsively consume alcohol on a roll of 1 on a d6, the player will probably try to AVOID alcohol like a teetotaler, to avoid losing character resources.

Almost as ridiculous is giving benefits in exchange of flaws or playing them out. Character flaws in RPGs really only make sense as handicaps and self-imposed challenges the players voluntarily take. Attempts to balance equivalent of Iron Man run with someone playing on Wizard mode, to use roguelike terminology, is obviously a fool's errand yet some games still try.

[Jormengand]

For example, if "alcoholic" flaw makes a character compulsively consume alcohol on a roll of 1 on a d6, the player will probably try to AVOID alcohol like a teetotaler, to avoid losing character resources.

You mean... exactly what real alcoholics do?

[Frozen_Feet]

Wrong.

Real alcoholics are characterized by going to ridiculous lengths to GET drunk, not to AVOID getting drunk.

[Kami2awa]

For extra fun, try imagining vampires back in the days before electric lights were invented, Frenzying in the mere presence of fire....

Yes I've often wondered how they coped before the invention and widespread application of electric lights, given that only a small number of them have darkvision, and that frenzy can be set off by a flame as small as a candle.

Possibly they all carried Spedding mills:

http://www.healeyhero.co.uk/rescue/glossary/speding.htm

which is a rather silly image... and would make a vampire hunter's life rather easy.

[Sith_Happens]

Nope. In addition, if you'd expect that turning into a bird would enable you to fly (or a fish to swim), you'd be wrong.

So now I'm totally imaging 4e Druids as horrid shapeshifting abominations constantly sprouting whatever animal bits they happen to need onto an arbitrary chassis, and I love it.:smallbiggrin:


Almost as ridiculous is giving benefits in exchange of flaws or playing them out. Character flaws in RPGs really only make sense as handicaps and self-imposed challenges the players voluntarily take.

Seriously? The part I bolded is one of the best things to ever happen to RPGs.

[Malimar]

Wrong.

Real alcoholics are characterized by going to ridiculous lengths to GET drunk, not to AVOID getting drunk.

Jormengand presumably was referring to recovering alcoholics, who, yes, I think generally still consider themselves alcoholics, even if they're on the wagon.

[Frozen_Feet]

Seriously? The part I bolded is one of the best things to ever happen to RPGs.

I disagree. In my experience, handing out rewards for playing a flawed character just inverts the bad behaviour I referenced in context of mechanized flaws. Instead of treating the flaw as a flaw, you know, a disadvantage or a handicap, the players milk the flaw for bennies.

It's similar to how in fanfiction, Anti-Sues (=characters who are supposedly really flawed but end up being the most important character anyway) aren't any more desireable than Mary Sues (=unrealistically flawless characters who hog the spotlight).


Jormengand presumably was referring to recovering alcoholics, who, yes, I think generally still consider themselves alcoholics, even if they're on the wagon.

I can get that. It's still dissonant with the intent behind the rules. It encourages the player to play a role, but not the "right" one.

[LooseCannoneer]

In general, a lot of mechanized flaws end up having inverse effect to what they're supposed to model.

For example, if "alcoholic" flaw makes a character compulsively consume alcohol on a roll of 1 on a d6, the player will probably try to AVOID alcohol like a teetotaler, to avoid losing character resources.

Almost as ridiculous is giving benefits in exchange of flaws or playing them out. Character flaws in RPGs really only make sense as handicaps and self-imposed challenges the players voluntarily take. Attempts to balance equivalent of Iron Man run with someone playing on Wizard mode, to use roguelike terminology, is obviously a fool's errand yet some games still try.

I personally think the Continuum Limit/Flaw system is completely insane. If the GM allows (really just don't), players can take a roll on a table to get extra points. The possible limits range from the annoying, such as losing your sense of smell or having a facial tic, to the game-breaking, such as having no arms or being completely blind.

[The Glyphstone]

I personally think the Continuum Limit/Flaw system is completely insane. If the GM allows (really just don't), players can take a roll on a table to get extra points. The possible limits range from the annoying, such as losing your sense of smell or having a facial tic, to the game-breaking, such as having no arms or being completely blind.

The ridiculous part of this is that you claim you've actually gotten to play Continuum.:smallcool:

[LooseCannoneer]

The ridiculous part of this is that you claim you've actually gotten to play Continuum.:smallcool:

It took me almost a year to find two people who were willing to try comprehending the system.

[Jormengand]

Jormengand presumably was referring to recovering alcoholics, who, yes, I think generally still consider themselves alcoholics, even if they're on the wagon.

Yes. In fact, once you have alcoholism, you pretty much can't get rid of it. You can only try to get yourself out of situations where it might adversely affect you. Meaning that the players' behaviour is not only sensible, but the exact same as I might expect from a real person in the PC's situation.

[Sith_Happens]

I disagree. In my experience, handing out rewards for playing a flawed character just inverts the bad behaviour I referenced in context of mechanized flaws. Instead of treating the flaw as a flaw, you know, a disadvantage or a handicap, the players milk the flaw for bennies.

Except that generally the flaw has to actually, you know, hinder you or cause you problems in some appreciable way for you to get the reward. So you can't have your cake and eat it too.


The ridiculous part of this is that you claim you've actually gotten to play Continuum.:smallcool:


It took me almost a year to find two people who were willing to try comprehending the system.

I was very nearly in a Continuum PbP six months ago but the GM silently dropped it just as we'd all finished our characters.:smallannoyed:

[Max_Killjoy]

I personally think the Continuum Limit/Flaw system is completely insane. If the GM allows (really just don't), players can take a roll on a table to get extra points. The possible limits range from the annoying, such as losing your sense of smell or having a facial tic, to the game-breaking, such as having no arms or being completely blind.

In part bad because it's a random table...

[Frozen_Feet]

Except that generally the flaw has to actually, you know, hinder you or cause you problems in some appreciable way for you to get the reward. So you can't have your cake and eat it too.

That's the theory, yes.

In practice... for a reward to matter, the character has to survive. So a lot of games which utilize this kind of logic balance things towards characters surviving with flaws, and this is very exploitable by players. The flaws might hinder them, but never too much, and quite often the longterm benefits outweigh temporary inconvenience.

[The Glyphstone]

I was very nearly in a Continuum PbP six months ago but the GM silently dropped it just as we'd all finished our characters.:smallannoyed:

I suspect Continuum is the only tabletop game that would actually function better in PbP than it would in RL, between all the time travel (Edit Post Ahoy!) and the mandates on real-time play elapsed limiting character advancement.

[Sith_Happens]

That's the theory, yes.

In practice... for a reward to matter, the character has to survive. So a lot of games which utilize this kind of logic balance things towards characters surviving with flaws, and this is very exploitable by players. The flaws might hinder them, but never too much, and quite often the longterm benefits outweigh temporary inconvenience.

Your preferred alternative being for players to give their characters flaws without being in any way compensated for them... Except that most people very much want their characters to survive as long as possible, which means they're incentivized to minimize the real impact of their flaws, leading to exactly the sort of "My character is flawed (but not really)" situation you want to avoid. Rewarding players for allowing their characters' flaws to actually matter, on the other hand, encourages them to do just that. Not to mention that in many systems the reward itself is part of the point (see: Fate, M&M).


and the mandates on real-time play elapsed limiting character advancement.

Personally I'm just assuming that the one group to ever actually play Continuum ignored that rule, on account of it being so stupid that you just won this thread by mentioning it.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yes. In fact, once you have alcoholism, you pretty much can't get rid of it. You can only try to get yourself out of situations where it might adversely affect you.

Or at least, that the AA position on the matter.

Reality is a bit more nuanced (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/).

[Jormengand]

Or at least, that the AA position on the matter.

Reality is a bit more nuanced (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/).

Yes, everything will always be more nuanced than I can say in a relatively short sentence. But that's not massively the point. The point is that people who abstain from drink because they're alcoholics are not in the least unusual.

[Kurald Galain]

Except that generally the flaw has to actually, you know, hinder you or cause you problems in some appreciable way for you to get the reward. So you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Yep. In my experience, the system where a flaw gives you a bonus (e.g. more XP) when it actually comes into play works pretty well. The system where a flaw gives you a bonus (e.g. extra feat) at character generation is hilariously bad and always leads to abuse.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yes, everything will always be more nuanced than I can say in a relatively short sentence. But that's not massively the point. The point is that people who abstain from drink because they're alcoholics are not in the least unusual.

OK, yes, that is true.

[LooseCannoneer]

I suspect Continuum is the only tabletop game that would actually function better in PbP than it would in RL, between all the time travel (Edit Post Ahoy!) and the mandates on real-time play elapsed limiting character advancement.

I personally house-ruled out the real-time play requirement (why does that exist?) and didn't expect very strict record-keeping except in Time Combat.

I would deal frag for editing posts, given that its changing the known.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yep. In my experience, the system where a flaw gives you a bonus (e.g. more XP) when it actually comes into play works pretty well. The system where a flaw gives you a bonus (e.g. extra feat) at character generation is hilariously bad and always leads to abuse.

The systems I've played tend to give extra character creation points for taking the flaws, up to a certain max total.

[The Glyphstone]

The systems I've played tend to give extra character creation points for taking the flaws, up to a certain max total.

Yeah, those are on the worse end of flaw systems, since they are up-front permanent rewards, and the flaw can then be ignored or downplayed to no detriment. A system that handles it 'better' is something like NWoD, where Flaws only award bonus XP when they materially hinder your character in some fashion, determined on a session-by-session basis.

[Frozen_Feet]

Your preferred alternative being for players to give their characters flaws without being in any way compensated for them...

You really don't seem to get what I am talking about.

Let me give an example of what I'm talking about:

I use systems like Lamentations of the Flame Princess which do not recognize mechanized flaws, or even really talk about giving your characters flaws.

Plenty of players have their characters drink to the point of being black-out wasted, despite the fact that this usually and predictably screws said characters over. Why? Because they find the resultant chaos fun.

This is the kind of "playing out your flaws" I actually want to see. It's born from the player's internal motivation to play the role of a flawed character, and only exist if the player doesn't care about making their character survive for longest time possible.

The "carrot and stick" -method, where players are given game tokens to encourage some behaviour, relies solely on external motivation. The idea that bribing players with metaphorical carrots is somehow groundbreaking is also silly, because the idea has existed at least since 1st Ed AD&D, where a GM was explicitly encouraged to reward good roleplay by faster advancement.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yeah, those are on the worse end of flaw systems, since they are up-front permanent rewards, and the flaw can then be ignored or downplayed to no detriment. A system that handles it 'better' is something like NWoD, where Flaws only award bonus XP when they materially hinder your character in some fashion, determined on a session-by-session basis.


If the flaw is downplayed or outright ignored, then first, that's on the player for not following through on the character they've created.

Second, the GM can, if paying attention, first push the flaw, and then penalize the character for not following the flaw -- including a loss of XP.


For example, if a vampire character who took the limitation "cannot drink from children" tried to drink from a child, then the GM would be perfectly justified in saying "role self-control -- if you fail, you puke the blood up in a fit of conscience and remorse... if you succeed, you gain the blood but lose a bit more of your grip on your humanity".

[Kurald Galain]

If the flaw is downplayed or outright ignored, then first, that's on the player for not following through on the character they've created.

Not at all. The traditional trick is to take something like "-4 to hit in melee" on a character that's never intending to make melee attacks (because he's a gun user or a caster or whatnot). Or conversely, take "-2 to caster level" on a fighter; or "-4 to stealth" on a paladin who will never want to stealth. And so forth.

Not saying that's RIGHT, but that's precisely the behavior that the classic system of "taking flaws at chargen in exchange for extra feats/points" encourages.

[Der_DWSage]

To be fair, that's more an issue of 3.5's specific flaws, where the most commonly taken ones could easily be ignored if it wasn't something you were focusing on.

If they were to make flaws that were more universal (Such as if all of them were on par with 'You get -1 HP per level, minimum 0' or -1 to all saves.) or could be brought into play against them more easily (Such as an elemental weakness, or a phobia against something common that makes you automatically shaken) it'd be a lot more feasible.

3.5's issue was that they made flaws that harshly impact one aspect of your character, without thinking about the fact that the aspects they chose are really easy to ignore.

[ideasmith]

Then there's Alignment Tongues, found in OD&D and the first edition of AD&D (though I don't think any version of BD&D had them). There was one alignment language for every alignment. Whatever your alignment was, you knew that alignment language. If your alignment changed, so did your alignment language.

[Max_Killjoy]

Not at all. The traditional trick is to take something like "-4 to hit in melee" on a character that's never intending to make melee attacks (because he's a gun user or a caster or whatnot). Or conversely, take "-2 to caster level" on a fighter; or "-4 to stealth" on a paladin who will never want to stealth. And so forth.

Not saying that's RIGHT, but that's precisely the behavior that the classic system of "taking flaws at chargen in exchange for extra feats/points" encourages.

It only encourages that sort of behavior from players already prone to abuse whatever system they're using -- again, that's a player and GM issue.

As a player, I'd be ashamed to do that.

As a GM, I'd take one look and say "what are you trying to pull?"


Or... you know... put the guy who can't hit anything without his guns into situations where his guns were useless due to number or proximity of foes.


.

[flond]

It only encourages that sort of behavior from players already prone to abuse whatever system they're using -- again, that's a player and GM issue.

As a player, I'd be ashamed to do that.

As a GM, I'd take one look and say "what are you trying to pull?"

Ehh. In fairness it ALSO depends on your goal. If you're running something aimed at ruthless simulationism, well, having someone who's terrible at melee combat, that's why they switched to use bows makes perfect sense. (The fact that it's also optimal doesn't help).

(This is also discounting the fact that some flaws tend to be "Give me xp in advance for spotlight later" (enemy, things like that))

(Also, XP when flaws come UP can be fun because well...if a flaw is vicious enough, it can be nice to get a consolation prize.)

[Max_Killjoy]

Ehh. In fairness it ALSO depends on your goal. If you're running something aimed at ruthless simulationism, well, having someone who's terrible at melee combat, that's why they switched to use bows makes perfect sense. (The fact that it's also optimal doesn't help).

(This is also discounting the fact that some flaws tend to be "Give me xp in advance for spotlight later" (enemy, things like that))

(Also, XP when flaws come UP can be fun because well...if a flaw is vicious enough, it can be nice to get a consolation prize.)


I'm not saying "bonus XP during play" is a bad system, just taking issue with some of the criticisms of "bonus at character creation".

[AMFV]

I'm not saying "bonus XP during play" is a bad system, just taking issue with some of the criticisms of "bonus at character creation".

I think the main thing they're usually going for is a more comprehensive character. For example having a near-sighted character who chooses to get in close, is a better rounded character than one with no reason for a particular behavior. Now not all behavior is tied to flaws or weaknesses, but oftentimes overcoming our flaws or finding ways to avoid them is a pretty key part of shaping who we are as people. I think this is why they tie these things in.

Now my personal preference is to have a mandatory number of flaws, if they are featured, to keep things roughly equivalent.

[flond]

I'm not saying "bonus XP during play" is a bad system, just taking issue with some of the criticisms of "bonus at character creation".

Fair 'nuff :smallsmile:

[Segev]

The only issue I have with a lot of "bonus at chargen" flaws is that they tend to distort the play experience differently than one might expect. That alcoholism flaw is great for somebody trying to overcome it; his weakness for it and the rational behaviors of the player to keep his PC from being hindered will match the character's struggle to avoid temptation, and the occasional failure to do so. But if you want to play "a drunk," somebody whose alcoholism is an ongoing problem with which they do not struggle, but instead in which they wallow, the "bonus at chargen, penalty during play" approach doesn't lend itself naturally to that kind of play. (Though one could design them to be better about it, perhaps by making permanent penalties due to DTs if they're not sufficiently inebriated...which means they suffer drunk penalties if they're not suffering withdrawal penalties.)

"Reward the PC with metagame benefits for his flaw hindering him" approaches ensure that flaws come up in play as something that the DM doesn't have to force upon the player.

They have their own issues, of course. Honestly, there's nothing preventing both from being in the same system.

One could have a system with "flaws" which are penalties that gave bonuses at chargen, and "complications" which are things that are free or even BOUGHT with chargen resources as "investments," because them coming up gives more bonuses down the line. Whether it's something like a Hero Point or Fate Point or Inspiration, or it's something like bonus XP, or what-have-you.

One could even design them into classes in a class-based system. "When the paladin's adherence to virtue and honor causes difficulty for him, he receives divine blessings for his faithfulness. He gains another use of Lay On Hands for the day" or some-such.

[ImNotTrevor]

.
One could have a system with "flaws" which are penalties that gave bonuses at chargen, and "complications" which are things that are free or even BOUGHT with chargen resources as "investments," because them coming up gives more bonuses down the line. Whether it's something like a Hero Point or Fate Point or Inspiration, or it's something like bonus XP, or what-have-you.

Burning Wheel does that second thing. You have to spend character gen points to obtain flaws. :D

But that's the only way to obtain them.

[The Glyphstone]

Burning Wheel does that second thing. You have to spend character gen points to obtain flaws. :D

But that's the only way to obtain them.

I was going to bring up Burning Wheel, actually, because of that. Flaws are objectively good, and cost character points to earn, because triggering them is the only way to earn 'XP' (well, Artha, the closest thing BW has to XP).

[Kurald Galain]

To be fair, that's more an issue of 3.5's specific flaws, where the most commonly taken ones could easily be ignored if it wasn't something you were focusing on.

You'd be surprised how many RPGs use this ineffective approach to flaws (i.e. take a drawback that doesn't affect you, to get more feats/points). 3.5 is merely the most prominent.

[Spore]

Now my personal preference is to have a mandatory number of flaws, if they are featured, to keep things roughly equivalent.

This. I have taken 4 flaws and 3 advantages in Vampire. The others took no flaws short of one taking nightmares. As a result I have had a much different experience than the others. This was also the reason why my character had to deal with himself and his situation instead of dealing with the actual campaign plot. A part had to do with the other players not even trying to rescue me after I was kidnapped. They went: "Oh gee, I guess he's dead. Bummer. Move on now." along with my DM accepting my flaws and advantages and then scolding me for taking so many flaws on the second session.

You can roleplay flaws and advantages if you want to. But it promotes snowflakes and slows down the game somewhat if everyone is constantly checking the situation for their personalized flaw.

[Milo v3]

This. I have taken 4 flaws and 3 advantages in Vampire. The others took no flaws short of one taking nightmares. As a result I have had a much different experience than the others. This was also the reason why my character had to deal with himself and his situation instead of dealing with the actual campaign plot. A part had to do with the other players not even trying to rescue me after I was kidnapped. They went: "Oh gee, I guess he's dead. Bummer. Move on now." along with my DM accepting my flaws and advantages and then scolding me for taking so many flaws on the second session.

You can roleplay flaws and advantages if you want to. But it promotes snowflakes and slows down the game somewhat if everyone is constantly checking the situation for their personalized flaw.

My only experience with Vampire has been Requiem, where it's like 80% dealing with your own personal stuff, so this was really weird to read until I remembered Masquerade.

[goto124]

For example, if a vampire character who took the limitation "cannot drink from children" tried to drink from a child, then the GM would be perfectly justified in saying "role self-control -- if you fail, you puke the blood up in a fit of conscience and remorse... if you succeed, you gain the blood but lose a bit more of your grip on your humanity".

Here I am trying to figure out "how did the group get to the point that drinking from a child is something they have to/want to/considered doing"?

[Milo v3]

Here I am trying to figure out "how did the group get to the point that drinking from a child is something they have to/want to/considered doing"?

Children are not exactly known for their ability to fight individuals bigger than them, and in vampire you sometimes go for whatever prey is easiest.

[Max_Killjoy]

Here I am trying to figure out "how did the group get to the point that drinking from a child is something they have to/want to/considered doing"?

An important bit of context here is that Vampire can include a lot of the group not being together.

1) character is infiltrating a cell of "bad vampires" (this being relative, of course)
2) character is desperate after being unable to feed for a while, or after a fight (using blood to power powers)
3) player is trying to get away with ignoring the character trait after taking the points
4) character is trying to hide "being soft" from other vampires
5) etc

[Der_DWSage]

You'd be surprised how many RPGs use this ineffective approach to flaws (i.e. take a drawback that doesn't affect you, to get more feats/points). 3.5 is merely the most prominent.

It'd be difficult to surprise me, there. But again, that's an issue with 'These flaws in particular are abusable' rather than 'the entire system is flawed from the get-go.'

It's like saying, for example, that SKR's point-buy feat system was an awful idea because he had bonkers pricing. It was awful pricing, but a decent core of an idea.

[Amphetryon]

Here I am trying to figure out "how did the group get to the point that drinking from a child is something they have to/want to/considered doing"?

Depending on the specific system, a juvenile vampire is entirely playable.

[ATHATH]

What is this "Continuum" that was mentioned on the last page?

[Arbane]

What is this "Continuum" that was mentioned on the last page?

CºNTINUUM: Roleplaying in The Yet™ (http://www.aetherco.com/continuum/). I haven't played it, but it's about time-travel.

[LooseCannoneer]

What is this "Continuum" that was mentioned on the last page?

Continuum is a largely unknown RPG based around time-travel. Unlike other time travel RPGs, paradoxes are not permitted to any degree, and any absurd-yet-explainable time travel shenanigan is permitted.

Unfortunately, very few people are willing to comprehend the mechanics, which makes finding groups difficult to impossible. As I said earlier, I spent a year trying to get a group together.

Also, you get enough points at character creation to make a competent starting character. (Always a plus.)

[Chauncymancer]

Yes I've often wondered how they coped before the invention and widespread application of electric lights, given that only a small number of them have darkvision, and that frenzy can be set off by a flame as small as a candle.


According to my books (2nd ed) all vampires can see in the dark perfectly, and what advanced senses gives you is the ability to perceive color.

[Max_Killjoy]

According to my books (2nd ed) all vampires can see in the dark perfectly, and what advanced senses gives you is the ability to perceive color.

I honestly don't recall that -- don't suppose you have a page number handy? :smallbiggrin:

[Milo v3]

I honestly don't recall that -- don't suppose you have a page number handy? :smallbiggrin:

91, here's a quote: "Kindred do not suffer normal vision penalties for being in the dark, and can compensate with hearing. In full darkness, they only suffer a –2 die penalty to rolls that require vision."

Note, that the full darkness thing is for pit-black caves and stuff not just something as simple as walking around at night.

[Spore]

I didn't delve too far into Vampire v20 but I think your vision in the dark was like a mortal's (probably a bit better) with the exception of Vampires with Auspex.

Which brings me to another weird rule which is apparently a common houserule. You cannot learn disciplines that are not of your clan without a trainer. Our group made an exception for the "normal ones". You know, like SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH AND AGILITY and why am I even playing a Brujah again? Seriously they even consider Presence to be learnable by all.

I am by no means against systems with flexible character generation but if a Gangrel throws around trucks no one bats an eye. But woe me if my Brujah has a basic understanding of Nature Thaumaturgy to read in fallen leaves. Then all hell breaks loose.

[Max_Killjoy]

I didn't delve too far into Vampire v20 but I think your vision in the dark was like a mortal's (probably a bit better) with the exception of Vampires with Auspex.

Which brings me to another weird rule which is apparently a common houserule. You cannot learn disciplines that are not of your clan without a trainer. Our group made an exception for the "normal ones". You know, like SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH AND AGILITY and why am I even playing a Brujah again? Seriously they even consider Presence to be learnable by all.

I am by no means against systems with flexible character generation but if a Gangrel throws around trucks no one bats an eye. But woe me if my Brujah has a basic understanding of Nature Thaumaturgy to read in fallen leaves. Then all hell breaks loose.


The whole "training" thing was a contrived metagame limitation to preserve the "uniqueness" of each splat, er Clan, and to keep players from stacking up the various Disciplines.

[Friv]

Which brings me to another weird rule which is apparently a common houserule. You cannot learn disciplines that are not of your clan without a trainer. Our group made an exception for the "normal ones". You know, like SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH AND AGILITY and why am I even playing a Brujah again? Seriously they even consider Presence to be learnable by all.

I am by no means against systems with flexible character generation but if a Gangrel throws around trucks no one bats an eye. But woe me if my Brujah has a basic understanding of Nature Thaumaturgy to read in fallen leaves. Then all hell breaks loose.

Yeah, one of the things I liked in New WOD was that they split the disciplines into five "common" ones that anyone could learn, and five "clan-specific" ones that made you special, and each clan got two of the common ones and a specific one. (IIRC, the common ones were super-strength, super-agility, super-resilience, stealth, and animal control.)

[Talakeal]

I didn't delve too far into Vampire v20 but I think your vision in the dark was like a mortal's (probably a bit better) with the exception of Vampires with Auspex.

Which brings me to another weird rule which is apparently a common houserule. You cannot learn disciplines that are not of your clan without a trainer. Our group made an exception for the "normal ones". You know, like SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH AND AGILITY and why am I even playing a Brujah again? Seriously they even consider Presence to be learnable by all.

I am by no means against systems with flexible character generation but if a Gangrel throws around trucks no one bats an eye. But woe me if my Brujah has a basic understanding of Nature Thaumaturgy to read in fallen leaves. Then all hell breaks loose.

I think there is actually an IC reason for this. The Brujah are one of the three clans whose antedeluvian was diablerised and was left with only generic discsiplines as their specialty discipline was lost along with the original bloodline.

The other two clans in a similar prediciment replaced their disciplines by adapting mortal sorcery into a new vampiric form, but the Brujah were not overly magically inclined and instead just focused on a greater mastery of the generic physical disciplines. Although I do recall it being said that the brujah were the first clan to develop celerity as a replacement for their lost time manipulation powers.


If you take an entirely mechanistic/zero-abstraction view of the rules and use dog-whistle terms, yes.

I am genuinly at a loss for what you mean by dog whistle terms. Any way you can explain without violating forum rules?

[The Glyphstone]

It sounds more like Sporeegg's problem was in the houserule his group made, letting anyone learn the traditionally Brujah disciplines without needing a teacher, so actual Brujah were left out in the cold.

[Segev]

Honestly, the uniqueness can be preserved by having the different costs to learn based on Clan, as well as the unique Clan weaknesses.

[NoldorForce]

I am genuinly at a loss for what you mean by dog whistle terms. Any way you can explain without violating forum rules?Usually "dog-whistle" is used to relate to politics, but I felt it appropriate to apply the term here. In general it refers to language that means one thing to a broad group, but something additional or distinct to a smaller subgroup, not unlike an actual dog whistle that is inaudible to humans but audible to dogs and cats.

[Segev]

Usually "dog-whistle" is used to relate to politics, but I felt it appropriate to apply the term here. In general it refers to language that means one thing to a broad group, but something additional or distinct to a smaller subgroup, not unlike an actual dog whistle that is inaudible to humans but audible to dogs and cats.

The funny thing is that the people who always seem to hear it are the ones calling it out to complain and accuse the supposed "target audience" of being bad people in some way, while the supposed "target audience" is baffled that the term could possibly have meant what it supposedly does as a "dog whistle."

Given that only dogs are supposed to hear dog whistles, I kind-of wonder if the term is more a warning that somebody is looking for excuses to take umbrage.

(If they are, by all means, take her!)http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/harrypotter/images/5/5a/Dolores_Umbridge.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20150825230359

[Talakeal]

Usually "dog-whistle" is used to relate to politics, but I felt it appropriate to apply the term here. In general it refers to language that means one thing to a broad group, but something additional or distinct to a smaller subgroup, not unlike an actual dog whistle that is inaudible to humans but audible to dogs and cats.

I know what the term means, I am just struggling to see how it would be applied to the specific example.

[NoldorForce]

I know what the term means, I am just struggling to see how it would be applied to the specific example."Disassociated mechanics" is a phrase coined for the express purpose of edition warring, recall.

[Max_Killjoy]

"Disassociated mechanics" is a phrase coined for the express purpose of edition warring, recall.

I'd never heard that specific term before, but as soon as I saw it, the made perfect sense as a description of 4th Ed.

[Segev]

I wouldn't even call "disassociated mechanics" a BAD thing, inherently. Any time somebody discusses "refluffing" a power or ability or rule, they're dissociating the mechanics from their original use to apply them differently.

[Arbane]

I'd never heard that specific term before, but as soon as I saw it, the made perfect sense as a description of 4th Ed.

It makes perfect sense as a description of EVERY edition of D&D. What does rolling dice have to do with swordfighting?

[Segev]

It makes perfect sense as a description of EVERY edition of D&D. What does rolling dice have to do with swordfighting?

Um... it's all in the wrist?

[BRC]

Yeah, those are on the worse end of flaw systems, since they are up-front permanent rewards, and the flaw can then be ignored or downplayed to no detriment. A system that handles it 'better' is something like NWoD, where Flaws only award bonus XP when they materially hinder your character in some fashion, determined on a session-by-session basis.

Deadlands Classic tries to have it both ways, which can be a bit awkard.

You get extra points at character creation for taking Hindrances, and Hindrances ALSO give you meta-resources (Chips) whenever
1) It causes a problem for your character
2) The Player plays to that hindrance.

This works to varying degrees with different hindrances. If you have, for example, "Phobia: Dogs", then you take a penalty on rolls when around dogs, but get a chip (meta-resource) basically every time there is a scene where you have to make rolls around dogs.

Or, if you have the "Enemy: Black River Railroad" Hindrance, you get a chip every time somebody from Black River comes after you.

The issue comes up with Behavioral hindrances, where it's basically totally up to the player whether or not they want to act on it. For example, the "Confident" Hindrance gives you chips every time your confidence gets you into trouble (Say, by walking up to the Bandit Camp demanding they surrender, rather than ambushing them), but there is no mechanical penalty for playing your character cautiously until you, the player, decide that it's worth being Confident here so you can get the chips without taking any serious penalties.

For my group, this nuance has had a pretty substantial impact based on the decisions we made while building characters before we had any idea how the system worked. For example, two characters are Loyal to each other, and have been milking that hindrance for chips, and hasn't really forced us to make any stupid decisions we wouldn't have made anyway.

Meanwhile, another character grabbed "Bad Luck", which has had some fairly devastating consequences.

It can lead to a sort of optimization game where somebody figures out which hindrances can be harmlessly milked for chips and which ones will screw you over.

Basically, don't take Bad Luck or Grim Servant of Death. Just don't.

[Max_Killjoy]

It makes perfect sense as a description of EVERY edition of D&D. What does rolling dice have to do with swordfighting?

I was thinking more along the lines of how in 4E, "fighter" and "mage" seem to largely be just special effects for the same basic powers in the mechanics of the system -- like they borrowed from HERO a bit in the effort to really, really, really "balance" everything perfectly.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

In the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG, Politicians can knock people unconscious by whining at them.

[Max_Killjoy]

In the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG, Politicians can knock people unconscious by whining at them.


Yeah... and pointing out how silly that is will get you some serious backlash over on their forums...

[Segev]

Yeah... and pointing out how silly that is will get you some serious backlash over on their forums...

Really? What's their retort?

[Sith_Happens]

Um... it's all in the wrist?

*grabs cup of dice with feet and turns it over*

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?:smalltongue:


I was thinking more along the lines of how in 4E, "fighter" and "mage" seem to largely be just special effects for the same basic powers in the mechanics of the system -- like they borrowed from HERO a bit in the effort to really, really, really "balance" everything perfectly.

Depends what you mean by the "same" powers. I'm not actually terribly familiar with 4e, but from what I have seen the basic framework is the same but the powers themselves do some fairly different sorts of things going from class to class.

[Segev]

Depends what you mean by the "same" powers. I'm not actually terribly familiar with 4e, but from what I have seen the basic framework is the same but the powers themselves do some fairly different sorts of things going from class to class.

I won't go into too much detail lest I start an edition war argument, but my biggest complaint is that all of the classes were, at their heart, 3e Martial Adepts. They felt and played that way, and didn't feel like any of the other archetypes that went into making D&D feel like D&D.

4e was a perfectly fine fantasy combat simulation game that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike D&D.

[The Glyphstone]

In the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG, Politicians can knock people unconscious by whining at them.


Yeah... and pointing out how silly that is will get you some serious backlash over on their forums...

I fall asleep in real life if I listen to a politician for too long. I fail to see the problem with this rule.

[goto124]

Really? What's their retort?

Political discussion is not allowed on these forums? :smalltongue:

[Knaight]

4e was a perfectly fine fantasy combat simulation game that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike D&D.

This is a pretty common criticism, but it's notable that it only ever seems to come from primary D&D players. For those who's primary game isn't D&D, 4e looks a lot more D&D like. The points of similarity that get glossed over by D&D players because they're so ingrained as to be near invisible background material stand out a bit more when they aren't there in whatever game you're playing. Being a class and level system alone is a pretty big D&D marker, and then there's the attributes, the saves, the ascending HP, the plethora of monsters, so on and so forth.

[Sith_Happens]

4e was a perfectly fine fantasy combat simulation game that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike D&D.

+1 just for the Hitchhiker's Guide reference.:smallbiggrin: