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Gizmogidget
2016-06-03, 01:18 PM
RPGS try to create a semblance of realism but many rules are so ridiculous that you can't even see the logic behind them.

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.

What is your most ridiculous rule.

JustIgnoreMe
2016-06-03, 02:50 PM
In the King Arthur Pendragon RPG, it is possible to be so ugly you become bedridden and die.

RazorChain
2016-06-03, 03:01 PM
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"

Honest Tiefling
2016-06-03, 03:20 PM
It was pointed out today in the 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder forum that Assassins, a profession normally associated with stealth, technically has to sing or be otherwise heard when casting spells because of lazy editing. I really just want to find an example of a singing assassin in some musical right about now.

LordFluffy
2016-06-03, 03:27 PM
In FASERIP Marvel Superheroes, you couldn't be killed by blunt force trauma. It was also technically possible for Tony Stark to buy a yacht, then be unable to buy a pen for a while.

In Lords of Creation, the Demolition skill was exclusive to the Espionage progression, meaning any construction worker who used explosives was also a spy.

In AD&D a housecat is a serious threat to a first level magic user.

In the original Traveller, it was possible to die in character creation.

In Cyberpunk 2020, a set of contacts can possibly make you go insane. Also, a reasonable blow from a baseball bat can rip someone's arm off.

ComaVision
2016-06-03, 03:29 PM
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"

Eh, I don't really think that's too crazy because higher level characters in 3.5e are essentially demigods. A better example would be the rule that starting to drown brings your hp to 0, meaning it can heal you if you're under 0 health.

SaintRidley
2016-06-03, 03:34 PM
FATAL. All of it.

Jormengand
2016-06-03, 03:45 PM
It was pointed out today in the 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder forum that Assassins, a profession normally associated with stealth, technically has to sing or be otherwise heard when casting spells because of lazy editing. I really just want to find an example of a singing assassin in some musical right about now.

Pirates of Penzance: With Cat-like Tread? It's an operetta (and the song from one), but that basically is the same thing as a musical really.

flond
2016-06-03, 03:50 PM
RPGS try to create a semblance of realism but many rules are so ridiculous that you can't even see the logic behind them.

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.

What is your most ridiculous rule.

For what it's worth, unless I'm mistaken usually only gold gotten through adventuring or taxes counted.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-03, 03:55 PM
RPGS try to create a semblance of realism but many rules are so ridiculous that you can't even see the logic behind them.

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.

What is your most ridiculous rule.

While it may have been broken in the edge cases, its purpose was the promote exploration so that you got EXP even if you bypassed monsters to get the treasure.

Yora
2016-06-03, 03:58 PM
XP for gold (brought back to town from an adventure) is actually a pretty brilliant idea. It's not a simulation of anything, but a very good incentive system. It encourages and rewards players for using any available options to get as much treasure out of a dungeon as they can. This leads to much more interesting gameplay than rewarding players for getting into a fight with everything they can find. It lets you have situations where players steal and decieve and have to get past enemies without getting into a fight.

Level limit for nonhuman PCs but unlimited advancement for human PCs: Now that's a really ridiculous rule. As long as the campaign doesn't reach that level, the limits have absolutely no effect. Once that level is reached the limit becomes extremely prominent. It's either not there or very frustrating. It doesn't do anything to balance PC races.

The Glyphstone
2016-06-03, 04:03 PM
In the original Traveller, it was possible to die in character creation.


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.

BWR
2016-06-03, 04:09 PM
Pirates of Penzance: With Cat-like Tread? It's an operetta (and the song from one), but that basically is the same thing as a musical really.

Beat me to it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKQzbf3Y-VY)

Jormengand
2016-06-03, 04:13 PM
Honestly, ANY roll to shoot yourself in the foot during character creation irks me. Rolling for hit points, ability scores, and so forth just annoys me on the basis that I have no control over whether I'm playing a strong, smart, tough guy or a dork with no reflexes and no sense of observation, or both.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-03, 04:39 PM
That reminds me - critical fumbles are moronic. Why in the world should my inhumanly badass warrior trip 5% of the time he tries to swing his sword? Especially bad since as you level and gain more attacks, it increases the chance of you tripping. In 3.x, a high level monk would have nearly a 50/50 chance of fumbling each round of combat. (8 normal attacks, plus Haste, plus any potential AOOs)

Alent
2016-06-03, 05:32 PM
The D&D 3.x Economy and skills relating to it, all of them.

Waar
2016-06-03, 05:41 PM
In rogue trader the damage and blast radius of explosions scale linearly with the mass of the used explosive, and since rogue trader characters are filthy rich...

Beleriphon
2016-06-03, 05:42 PM
That reminds me - critical fumbles are moronic. Why in the world should my inhumanly badass warrior trip 5% of the time he tries to swing his sword? Especially bad since as you level and gain more attacks, it increases the chance of you tripping. In 3.x, a high level monk would have nearly a 50/50 chance of fumbling each round of combat. (8 normal attacks, plus Haste, plus any potential AOOs)

I'm fond of of a roll, then another roll, then another roll all being 1s, or the system's equivalent worst result.

Pex
2016-06-03, 06:04 PM
2E telling DMs even if they allow a player to adjust rolled ability scores to deny them playing a class they want to play. Example given is if a player already qualifies for a fighter the DMG asks "Does he really need to be a ranger?" He should play a fighter who always wanted to be a ranger but is allergic to trees. "Inspire roleplaying!"

2E dual classing rules. Not only do you need high stats even to qualify, but you are forbidden to use any class features of your original class while advancing in your new class. If you do use such a class feature you get no experience for that particular encounter and half experience for the entire adventure.

Various 2E spells aging the character for the audacity of casting them.

Rollmaster using a chart for everything.

In GURPS, upon successfully completing a task for some NPC or organization that entity can never count as an Ally/Patron unless you spend character points. Good relations mean nothing. However, a person or organization who opposed your completing that task can become an Enemy to haunt your further adventures, giving you the drawback of the Enemy disadvantage but not the extra points you could have gotten if you chose it at character creation.

Gizmogidget
2016-06-03, 06:43 PM
While it may have been broken in the edge cases, its purpose was the promote exploration so that you got EXP even if you bypassed monsters to get the treasure.

Eh, but the way it was used was my players would bypass whatever monster collect the loot and escape. I did change the ruling though to promote exploration by giving players exp bonuses when they explored in new areas.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-03, 07:05 PM
Eh, but the way it was used was my players would bypass whatever monster collect the loot and escape.

That was Working as Intended then. The entire purpose of the rule was to encourage that exact behavior. The monsters should have stopped being so lame and defended their hordes.

Now, you might not have been a fan of that sort of game-play, and that's fine. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't doing exactly what it was intended to do, and it wasn't a ridiculous purpose.

Thrudd
2016-06-03, 07:23 PM
It was pointed out today in the 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder forum that Assassins, a profession normally associated with stealth, technically has to sing or be otherwise heard when casting spells because of lazy editing. I really just want to find an example of a singing assassin in some musical right about now.

To be fair, assassins are normally known more for stabbing people, poisoning them, or strangling them, rather than casting spells. An assassin that is casting spells is stepping out of their normal profession. The word "spell" literally refers to using words, saying things. So that's not really weird that most spells have a verbal component. It is weirder that some of them don't.

Gizmogidget
2016-06-03, 07:32 PM
That was Working as Intended then. The entire purpose of the rule was to encourage that exact behavior. The monsters should have stopped being so lame and defended their hordes.

Now, you might not have been a fan of that sort of game-play, and that's fine. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't doing exactly what it was intended to do, and it wasn't a ridiculous purpose.

Believe me, the monsters defended the hordes to the death (not literally of course) but the players were crafty enough to bypass the monsters unless I did something utterly ridiculous like prevent all other modes of transport but walking within 1 mile of the boss, and then make the terrain super difficult to move through. The party invested so much into moving as fast as possible so they would run in take the loot and disappear. In fact they took a keen liking to games where they had to steal an item from a castle, mansion etc. Eventually I got tired of those kind of games and initiated my exp by discovery rule.

I will admit that the exp from gold rule for finding a monsters horde is acceptable if the players don't outright abuse it. The exp from gold because you get taxes is pretty ridiculous because that implies that the lord of a small village who is described as timid of adventuring and never leaves his castle can become an npc of decent level say 7th level.

JAL_1138
2016-06-03, 07:39 PM
Some of the level titles for classes in 1e. Rutterkin and Waghalter spring to mind. I rather like them because of the ridiculousness.

Alignment languages. This one was just a bit too ludicrous even for me.

Potion miscibility results could be hilariously stupid (and wonderfully so).

The fact that in most editions of D&D you can't stab someone with a medieval longsword, a weapon designed to be thrust into the joints of armor. In 5e, you can't stab someone with the spike on a halberd (you know, one of the very things that makes it a halberd instead of a long-handled axe).

Blaster-proof Wookies in WEG D6.

Almost everything about psionics in AD&D.

J-H
2016-06-03, 08:02 PM
In the original Traveller, it was possible to die in character creation.

How??
Inquiring minds must know.

Pex
2016-06-03, 08:56 PM
4E skill DC depends on the level of the character doing the skill and not the difficulty of the circumstance independent of whoever is doing it.

5E skill DC and resolution to determine success depends on who is the DM at the moment the skill is attempted. I acknowledge some people find that a feature to be cheered.

5E using all ability scores as saving throws. You get worse at making a save as you level because you can't increase all your scores while spellcasters and magic using monsters of the appropriate level increase their spellcasting score that determines the DC.

3E charging double skill points to increase a skill rank for skills not on your class list.

3E favored class limitations and essentially forbidding paladins and monks from multiclassing.

3E Truenamer unable to do what it's supposed to do because the formula to determine success at truenaming increases exponentially higher as the levels increase while your ability to increase your skill is linear, thus the math makes you fail almost all the time. The only way to make the math work for you is to have one specific build of having specific feats and magic items.

Pathfinder splitting up what was one feat in 3E into multiple feats.

3E and Pathfinder having an Attack of Opportunity for almost everything requiring a character have a feat in order to do one particular thing because without it if the AoO hits it either autonegates the thing you want to do or the damage dealt increases the DC to attempt the thing by that amount you might as well not even attempt the thing at all.

The Glyphstone
2016-06-03, 09:47 PM
How??
Inquiring minds must know.

Original Traveller worked like this:
1) Roll 2d6 for each of your 10 or so stats.
1) roll 1d6 to determine your career (Army, Navy, Marines, Scouts, Merchants, or Criminal AFAIK), or select one.
3) Roll to survive a 4-year tour of duty in your career - this was a 2d6 roll against a variable DC - Merchants had the easiest at 3+, Scouts had the highest at 8+. Having a high score in certain stats boosted your survival roll.
4) If you survived, roll for Re-Enlistment, again a variable DC depending on service career, and for Promotion to a higher rank.
5) If you got the option to re-enlist, you could do so, or choose to retire early. If re-enlisted, go back to 3.
6) Once you failed a re-enlist roll, or chose to retire, add up your total tours of duty served, then get stat/skill/wealth increases based on that number and the highest Rank you were promoted to before retiring.
7) Begin the game.

Once the game started, it was almost impossible to raise your stats or skills without absurd quantities of money and downtime for training, so the optional risk-reward tradeoff of death versus bonuses was often worth it. And of course the riskier service courses got better rewards.

goto124
2016-06-03, 10:03 PM
RPGS try to create a semblance of realism but many rules are so ridiculous that you can't even see the logic behind them.

In FATAL, the convoluted character creation system is such that the smartest female ever that could possibly exist is still dumber than a 'sorta smart' male. When asked, the author said this was on purpose.

I wonder what can beat this.

NoldorForce
2016-06-03, 11:15 PM
That was Working as Intended then. The entire purpose of the rule was to encourage that exact behavior. The monsters should have stopped being so lame and defended their hordes.

Now, you might not have been a fan of that sort of game-play, and that's fine. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't doing exactly what it was intended to do, and it wasn't a ridiculous purpose.Before co-developing D&D, Gary Gygax worked as an insurance underwriter, so that whole playstyle of risk assessment and management was near and dear to his heart.

Believe me, the monsters defended the hordes to the death (not literally of course) but the players were crafty enough to bypass the monsters unless I did something utterly ridiculous like prevent all other modes of transport but walking within 1 mile of the boss, and then make the terrain super difficult to move through. The party invested so much into moving as fast as possible so they would run in take the loot and disappear. In fact they took a keen liking to games where they had to steal an item from a castle, mansion etc. Eventually I got tired of those kind of games and initiated my exp by discovery rule.

I will admit that the exp from gold rule for finding a monsters horde is acceptable if the players don't outright abuse it. The exp from gold because you get taxes is pretty ridiculous because that implies that the lord of a small village who is described as timid of adventuring and never leaves his castle can become an npc of decent level say 7th level.It sounds like the problem was more that the PCs had invested so hard into being zippy that the rest of the game became rather degenerate. Normally, excepting things like Teleport which always had some risk that you might instead pop into a wall or so forth, it would take a fair bit of time to scout/map/sneak on by. But that's all in the past, so oh well. :smallsmile:

Zavoniki
2016-06-04, 12:25 AM
Exalted has charms that increase and decrease the time it takes bureacracies to perform certain tasks. This can lead to interesting results, like making the task of filling out a simple form take a month. Not submitting it, just filling it out.

Khedrac
2016-06-04, 02:15 AM
Original Traveller worked like this:
1) Roll 2d6 for each of your 10 or so stats.
1) roll 1d6 to determine your career (Army, Navy, Marines, Scouts, Merchants, or Criminal AFAIK), or select one.
3) Roll to survive a 4-year tour of duty in your career - this was a 2d6 roll against a variable DC - Merchants had the easiest at 3+, Scouts had the highest at 8+. Having a high score in certain stats boosted your survival roll.
4) If you survived, roll for Re-Enlistment, again a variable DC depending on service career, and for Promotion to a higher rank.
5) If you got the option to re-enlist, you could do so, or choose to retire early. If re-enlisted, go back to 3.
6) Once you failed a re-enlist roll, or chose to retire, add up your total tours of duty served, then get stat/skill/wealth increases based on that number and the highest Rank you were promoted to before retiring.
7) Begin the game.

Once the game started, it was almost impossible to raise your stats or skills without absurd quantities of money and downtime for training, so the optional risk-reward tradeoff of death versus bonuses was often worth it. And of course the riskier service courses got better rewards.
It is worth noting that unless you were a Scout failing the survival role merely mustered you out 'injured', only scouts died.

That said, while we are on Original Traveller - the psionics rules.
Because one's psionic ability started deteriorating (at 18 iirc) it was pretty much impossible to create a psionic character. Not only was the chance of having the ability reall low, but getting the ability 'fixed' required training which meant the ability to do anything had probably already been lost before it was acquired...

Friv
2016-06-04, 09:51 AM
Original Traveller worked like this:
1) Roll 2d6 for each of your 10 or so stats.
1) roll 1d6 to determine your career (Army, Navy, Marines, Scouts, Merchants, or Criminal AFAIK), or select one.
3) Roll to survive a 4-year tour of duty in your career - this was a 2d6 roll against a variable DC - Merchants had the easiest at 3+, Scouts had the highest at 8+. Having a high score in certain stats boosted your survival roll.
4) If you survived, roll for Re-Enlistment, again a variable DC depending on service career, and for Promotion to a higher rank.
5) If you got the option to re-enlist, you could do so, or choose to retire early. If re-enlisted, go back to 3.
6) Once you failed a re-enlist roll, or chose to retire, add up your total tours of duty served, then get stat/skill/wealth increases based on that number and the highest Rank you were promoted to before retiring.
7) Begin the game.

Once the game started, it was almost impossible to raise your stats or skills without absurd quantities of money and downtime for training, so the optional risk-reward tradeoff of death versus bonuses was often worth it. And of course the riskier service courses got better rewards.

You know, looking at that, I can see how Mongoose Traveller went so wrong. They were trying to make the system more in-depth, and instead just made it a ton more complicated and with far worse penalties for bad rolling and better successes for good rolling.

For those who are curious, the Mongoose creation rules are below.

1) Roll 2d6 for each of your six stats; determine the modifier (from -3 to +3) for that stat.
2) Pick (Education modifier +3) starting skills.
3) Choose one of the twelve basic careers. Roll 2d6 to see if you can enter it. If not, your Career becomes either Drifter or Drafted, your choice.
4) Roll a test to "survive" the career, ranging from 4+ to 7+.
5) If the survival test succeeded, roll 2d6 to determine a Career event. Otherwise, roll 1d6 to determine a Mishap.
6) Roll the secondary test if there is one for step 5.
7) Roll the Advancement test for that career (ranging from 5+ to 9+)
8) If the Advancement test succeeds, advance a rank and roll for a new Skill or Training.
9) If the Advancement test is very low, you muster out of your career. If it is high, either muster out or stay, you choose. If it's a 12, you have to stay.
9.5) If mustering out, roll 2d6 for benefits.
10) Repeat Steps 3 - 9 until you get tired of doing so. Each time counts as four years of service. If this pushes you past 34 years old:
11) Roll for aging effects.
12) Finalize connections with other players.
13) Pick a Group Skill Package with the other players
14) Spend credits on any starting equipment you want.
15) Finally start playing.

The sample character goes through six total tours, for a total of 49 steps of character creation and forty-two sets of die rolls.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-04, 11:14 AM
Exalted has charms that increase and decrease the time it takes bureacracies to perform certain tasks. This can lead to interesting results, like making the task of filling out a simple form take a month. Not submitting it, just filling it out.

As someone who has filled out and attempted to submit various bureaucratic forms, that doesn't seem TOO ridiculous for licensing etc. Now, I would fill it out in 20min and send it off to the department whose job is to submit it, and they then inform me of stuff I "forgot" to do (which they never told me about) after a delay of a week or so. And then something else after another delay... oh, and send a new copy of your fingerprints. >.<

Just think if we had supernatural mumjo jumbo screwing up the works too!

The Glyphstone
2016-06-04, 12:46 PM
It is worth noting that unless you were a Scout failing the survival role merely mustered you out 'injured', only scouts died.

I thought that was a GM-optional rule for all careers.

TeCoolMage
2016-06-04, 01:46 PM
In FATAL, the convoluted character creation system is such that the smartest female ever that could possibly exist is still dumber than a 'sorta smart' male. When asked, the author said this was on purpose.

I wonder what can beat this.

At least half of the rules in FATAL are worse than that specific one. Including the 60% difference between male and female strength.

I was going to think up a rule from PF, 5e or 3.5e (I was thinking of the rule that made punpun at the time) but then I saw a copy of this book and decided that you guys should just google it and suddenly all non-FATAL rules look good.

Telok
2016-06-04, 01:50 PM
I thought that was a GM-optional rule for all careers.

As I recall from when I played it was a player optional rule. Plus it's expected that you'll roll four or five characters and pick one you like, unless it's an adventure with pregenerated characters.

And really with each jump taking a couple weeks and in-system travel taking a couple weeks an in game year can go pretty quickly if you're traveling a lot. So gaining skills isn't tremendously glacial. It also helps to remember that Navigation 1 isn't a novice navigator. He might be relatively young and inexperienced but he's fully qualified and licensed to plot interstellar hyperspace jumps.

What got iffy was someone with high levels of Jack of all Trades.

Arbane
2016-06-04, 01:57 PM
Shadowrun's Chunky Salsa Rule: If an explosion happens in an area too small for the blast radius, the explosion bounces off the walls and hits any targets again.

Presumably, you could create a fusion reactor by sealing a grenade in a footlocker.

----

AD&D's Gold-for-XP rule makes more sense when you remember that back then, D&D characters weren't expected to be heroic monster slayers - they were treasure-hunting tomb robbers who happened to be ABLE to fight.

On that note, a rule that might be dumb, but I find both hilarious AND genre-appropriate. Adventurer Conqueror King (I think? One of those OSR games) allows players to bank XP for their next character by having their current character squander their money on things that don't benefit them in-play: Ale and whores, donations to orphanages, commissioning big statues of themselves....

Also, AD&D1's training rules: by the rules, to go up a level, the DM graded you on how well you acted your alignment and class, and that determined how many weeks it would take to level up, IF you could find a trainer of the same class and pay 1500GP per level per week. And it took longer if the GM didn't like your RPing. (You could level up on your own if the GM gave you a good grade, but it took longer and cost just as much per week.) I get the impression this is one of many AD&D rules that was quietly ignored at most tables.

Jormengand
2016-06-04, 02:25 PM
Adventurer Conqueror King (I think? One of those OSR games) allows players to bank XP for their next character by having their current character squander their money on things that don't benefit them in-play: Ale and whores, donations to orphanages, commissioning big statues of themselves....

It gives people an IC reason to act selflessly or do things that only make sense for a real human being but not the kind that appears in a game. I think it's pretty good in principle, I just worry about it in practice.

Honest Tiefling
2016-06-04, 02:30 PM
He came from a world steeped in tradition. And fire.

She sat on a hillside, waiting for him to appear.

Their love would break every rule, overcome every obstacle, and confuse biologists for generations to come.

This fall, see a love story that will leave you thinking, "Wait... But... How?"

Nicholas Sparks' Azer and Tree.

Passion burns... Like a tree that's on fire.

Another gem from the Assassin thread. Technically, these two star crossed lovers could potentially make offspring in that game.

(For those who don't know, in DnD Azers are basically dwarves made out of fire.)

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-04, 03:28 PM
This won't be popular, but I consider levels and classes to be fairly ridiculous.

Also, Vancian magic.

Takewo
2016-06-04, 03:32 PM
Also, Vancian magic.

This! How on earth do you spend hours memorising the same spell over and over again and you forget how to cast it as soon as you've cast it?

Yora
2016-06-04, 03:45 PM
It's a type of magic flavor that I really don't like. But I think the rules to represent it mechanically work very well. If you accept the flavor, it's a very solid mechanic.

Thrudd
2016-06-04, 03:55 PM
This! How on earth do you spend hours memorising the same spell over and over again and you forget how to cast it as soon as you've cast it?

Read "The Dying Earth" by Jack Vance. That's what it's from.

Braininthejar2
2016-06-04, 03:57 PM
Crystals of Time, first edition - there are rules for PM-storing amulets, but none for charging them - so if you want to cast spells, you literally have no option but to buy your mana from vendors.

Neuroshima - since it's a post-apocalyptic world, everyone is sick with something, and it's one of the very few rolls in character creation, but it comes at the very end - so you might end up as a road warrior with ostheoporosis.

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.

also an example of horrible house-rule. One of my friends moved to Canada and tried to join the local rpg club. She immediately got scolded for speaking out of turn - it turns out the locals interpreted the rules in such a way, that their characters could only speak in initiative order.

Takewo
2016-06-04, 04:12 PM
Read "The Dying Earth" by Jack Vance. That's what it's from.

The fact that the system comes from a novel doesn't make it any less absurd in my opinion.

Of course you can back up almost any made up idea with made up stuff. That is not necessarily going to make me think that it is a reasonable option, though.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-04, 04:40 PM
This won't be popular, but I consider levels and classes to be fairly ridiculous.

Classes & levels are the only way to have decent balance in a crunchy system. (Not that every system with classes & levels have decent balance.)

It also promotes character roles. (which I consider to be a positive)

GrayDeath
2016-06-04, 05:16 PM
Exalted has charms that increase and decrease the time it takes bureacracies to perform certain tasks. This can lead to interesting results, like making the task of filling out a simple form take a month. Not submitting it, just filling it out.

I always found Exalteds ... shall we call them "unusual" Charm Trees best.


It's a type of magic flavor that I really don't like. But I think the rules to represent it mechanically work very well. If you accept the flavor, it's a very solid mechanic.

Agreed.

I think its really not how MAGIC should work, but mechanically it works quite well, is easy to grasp, and works well (just to be sure^^).


I always found the orignal "Roll 3d6, in order" Rules idiotic.
You can never play what youa ctuallpy WANT, only what the rolls allow.

While that might be fun once in a blue moon, I normally rate Roleplaying, Immersion and style much higher, so for me its stupid.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-04, 05:22 PM
Classes & levels are the only way to have decent balance in a crunchy system. (Not that every system with classes & levels have decent balance.)


I've never seen any relationship between balance, and L&C structure.

See also the long-standing debate about martial vs magic balance in D&D, linear fighters vs exponential wizards, bushi vs shugenja in L5R (which just pretty much replaces level and class with insight rank and school), etc.





It also promotes character roles. (which I consider to be a positive)


I consider it a negative -- if someone wants to play a very specific sort of archetype, then they don't need a straitjacket to "help" them.


More importantly, character advancement through levels, and character abilities defined by a preset archetype, both strike me as very much on the "hang by the neck until dead" side of suspension of disbelief.

Thrudd
2016-06-04, 05:48 PM
The fact that the system comes from a novel doesn't make it any less absurd in my opinion.

Of course you can back up almost any made up idea with made up stuff. That is not necessarily going to make me think that it is a reasonable option, though.

The game's magic is based on the book's setting. The book explains why magic works that way. It isn't more absurd than any other type of fantasy magic. It is a setting where "magic" is actually unbelievably advanced technology of previous civilizations, which is not much understood by the people presently inhabiting earth.

Not really digging that setting for a game is fine, just preference. But it isn't "unreasonable" or without sense.

digiman619
2016-06-04, 06:06 PM
Also, Vancian magic.

*cough*Spheres of Power*cough*

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-04, 06:10 PM
*cough*Spheres of Power*cough*


As a generic term, that could cover a lot of different game systems...

E: or do you specifically mean the Spheres of Power alternate system for Pathfinder? Do you mean it's better or worse than default D&D spellcasting mechanics?




The game's magic is based on the book's setting. The book explains why magic works that way. It isn't more absurd than any other type of fantasy magic. It is a setting where "magic" is actually unbelievably advanced technology of previous civilizations, which is not much understood by the people presently inhabiting earth.

Not really digging that setting for a game is fine, just preference. But it isn't "unreasonable" or without sense.

One might also, conceivably, consider the setting a bit daft for a book as well..

Arbane
2016-06-04, 07:02 PM
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"

I can just about accept that hit points are a measure of defensive ability that gets worn down in battle... until the Fighter bellyflops into lava and walks to shore.

I've come to accept them as Ablative Plot Armor, which is fine... until a spellcaster cuts right through them with a Save-or-Die spell. :smallannoyed:

Madbox
2016-06-04, 07:16 PM
Exalted has charms that increase and decrease the time it takes bureacracies to perform certain tasks. This can lead to interesting results, like making the task of filling out a simple form take a month. Not submitting it, just filling it out.

"I'm sorry, sir, you forgot to initial here. This form is now invalid, here is a fresh copy."

"I'm sorry sir, this form is missing section A-316. It is invalid. Here is a fresh copy. "

"I'm sorry sir, this form is stapled, while it states in section RM-619 to only paper clip it. It is invalid, here is a fresh copy. "

"I'm sorry sir, we only accept forms filled in black ink, not blue. Here is a fresh copy. "

"I'm sorry sir, we have updated our forms. This old one is invalid. Here is a fresh copy. "

"Alright, everything seems to be correct. We just need your filing fee. Money orders only."

"Alright, your form is correct. And you have the fee, thank you. Now we just need to process it, followed by a one week cool down period, then you will receive confirmation. "

One week later: "I'm sorry sir, but there was a clerical error. Your form has been lost. We will need you to resubmit it."

CharonsHelper
2016-06-04, 07:32 PM
I've never seen any relationship between balance, and L&C structure.

See also the long-standing debate about martial vs magic balance in D&D, linear fighters vs exponential wizards, bushi vs shugenja in L5R (which just pretty much replaces level and class with insight rank and school), etc.

I did specifically say that having classes doesn't inherently mean that there is balance. High level spellcasting has all sorts of issues. Though I will say, the balance between martial classes in Pathfinder is pretty good. Even caster/martial isn't too bad until level 10ish. I haven't played it yet, but I've heard that 5e is pretty decent in caster/martial too.


I consider it a negative -- if someone wants to play a very specific sort of archetype, then they don't need a straitjacket to "help" them.

That part is definitely opinion both ways. However, having roles encourages team play, which is major plus. I'm not going to say that point-buy doesn't have advantages too; in theory I prefer it. But every point-buy system I've seen with crunch is blatantly exploitable.

In addition, classes make the system much more digestible to new players since they only have to understand their own class. Levels do the same, since they don't need to understand higher level abilities.

Are levels an abstraction? Sure. So are 90+% of all RPG rules.

I'm not saying that there aren't advantages to point-buy systems too, but don't deny the advantages that classes/levels have.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-04, 08:45 PM
I did specifically say that having classes doesn't inherently mean that there is balance. High level spellcasting has all sorts of issues. Though I will say, the balance between martial classes in Pathfinder is pretty good. Even caster/martial isn't too bad until level 10ish. I haven't played it yet, but I've heard that 5e is pretty decent in caster/martial too.



That part is definitely opinion both ways. However, having roles encourages team play, which is major plus. I'm not going to say that point-buy doesn't have advantages too; in theory I prefer it. But every point-buy system I've seen with crunch is blatantly exploitable.

In addition, classes make the system much more digestible to new players since they only have to understand their own class. Levels do the same, since they don't need to understand higher level abilities.

Are levels an abstraction? Sure. So are 90+% of all RPG rules.

I'm not saying that there aren't advantages to point-buy systems too, but don't deny the advantages that classes/levels have.


Personally, I don't think they have any advantages.

Geostationary
2016-06-05, 02:06 AM
In GURPS, upon successfully completing a task for some NPC or organization that entity can never count as an Ally/Patron unless you spend character points. Good relations mean nothing. However, a person or organization who opposed your completing that task can become an Enemy to haunt your further adventures, giving you the drawback of the Enemy disadvantage but not the extra points you could have gotten if you chose it at character creation.

That's actually a relatively common thing in my experience; the thing is that the mechanical widget of allies/contacts/what-have-you carries with it specific mechanical implications that the fluff of it lacks. I can be friends with an organization, but buying them as an Ally means I can both invoke their help and specify a positive output whereas general friendliness just means they'd be inclined to help, maybe, as their whims dictate- it's an expansion of the character and their sheet. Meanwhile, enemies are both not part of your sheet per se and an expected consequence of existing as a PC in the world. Buying them as a flaw at creation is basically saying that you want extra antagonism on top of whatever it is the GM has planned, but it also gives you the ability to partially define them, which is not typically something you can do for enemies gained through play.

JoeJ
2016-06-05, 02:08 AM
This won't be popular, but I consider levels and classes to be fairly ridiculous.

I agree completely. But it became much much more ridiculous in 3e when they tried to shoehorn every NPC in the world into the class/level system. So becoming a better baker automatically makes someone better at combat too.

Zombimode
2016-06-05, 02:59 AM
This! How on earth do you spend hours memorising the same spell over and over again and you forget how to cast it as soon as you've cast it?

Uhm, you ARE aware of the difference between "spells known" and "spells prepared", right?

goto124
2016-06-05, 03:24 AM
I figured the spells are more akin to grenades. You can carry only a limited number of grenades, use them one at a time, and once you run out of grenades, tough luck - gotta go back and restock.

Faily
2016-06-05, 07:21 AM
I figured the spells are more akin to grenades. You can carry only a limited number of grenades, use them one at a time, and once you run out of grenades, tough luck - gotta go back and restock.

It's magic.

Maybe one of its side-effects actually is that it consumes the memory of preparing that spell. (If you're a wizard)
Or you have to prove yourself worthy to have more power. (For Clerics)
And casting magic is a drain on your spiritual energy or something. (For Sorcerers)

Really. It's magic. There's tons of possibilities of why it works the way it does, so I wouldn't say it's ridiculous or stupid.

Professor Gnoll
2016-06-05, 07:48 AM
I heard an idea once that each spell is actually an independent, living being. Preparing the spell every day is briefly binding that spell to your service, and using it releases it until you can catch another one.

Ninjaxenomorph
2016-06-05, 07:53 AM
I've always thought of it as 'they've trained themselves to tap into this energy X amount of times per day', with X being spells per day. I've always kind of pushed aside the fluff about memorizing spells, and thought of it as rather like loading a gun: a wizard does these rituals to cast X spell Y times per day, and gets more efficient when leveling up.

A rule that I find ridiculous: weapon proficiencies in 3.X. While mechanically I like the categories, and I like it a hell of a lot better than most systems where you individually take weapon skills, it sometimes plum doesn't make sense. Simple weapons I think are the worst; spears, clubs, and daggers make sense, but crossbows and slings? Crossbows I can sorta get, with the reloading being the exception (stone-age barbarian might get point-and-shoot, but not reloading), but the sling is a difficult weapon for ANYBODY to use. Hell, a halfling sling staff would be easier, and that's an exotic!

Jormengand
2016-06-05, 08:01 AM
Also, for a caster who prepares spells, the spell preparation is essentially most of the casting - it's like the dire half-dragon version of holding the charge on a touch spell, which is why there's a limit on how many you can hold at once - and the "Casting" is actually just finishing off the casting. Unfortunately for you, some spells like resurrection and quest can't be held right at the end - they have to be held about 10 minutes from the end. Fortunately for you, some spells like Feather Fall can be cast pretty much completely at the preparation stage.

Frozen_Feet
2016-06-05, 08:05 AM
A lot of the rules called out here aren't ridiculous, or even bad; they just happened to be the first way some idea was implemented in an RPG. In some cases (XP-for-gold, hit points, Vancian magic, random character generation, racial level limits), it's clear the criticism completely fails to even grasp why a the thing would've been done that way.

Alternatives may seem obvious now, but weren't when these were invented, because there was no real comparison point. (Or because the comparison point was something completely different - see Chainmail and wargaming.)

But for truly ridiculous rules, AD&D psionics is a good example. It looks interesting, but in practice is unfeasible - and looking at in-depth reveals it's even worse, having no real tactical depth despite its complexity.

I recall Cyberpunk also had issues due to separating Mathematics to its own skill from, say, Accouting. Even more hilarious was how Library Search was its own skill from Net Database searches. The core of the system was solid, but how the authors ended up categorizing the skills lead to many redundancies and weird interactions.

Zombimode
2016-06-05, 08:10 AM
I've always kind of pushed aside the fluff about memorizing spells

Well, thats the thing: this supposed fluff only exists in some peoples heads. It is not part of the 3.5 fluff for magic. To the contrary even, seeing how Read Magic can be prepared from memory.

What is really puzzling to me is that most of those people that cling to the "memorize" fluff are also those who actually really don't like this idea making it a self-made misery.
Once again the quote by the Giant in Psyren sig could not be more fitting.

Frozen_Feet
2016-06-05, 08:38 AM
@NinjaXenomorph: even more ridiculous is how they manage to classify kama differently from a sickle, when they're the same damn thing.

While overall fairly inconsequential in the scope of the system, it's clear the designers had very poor idea what many weapons are, nevermind how they were used, and this lead to the weapon system in general being lackluster.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-05, 08:56 AM
Well, thats the thing: this supposed fluff only exists in some peoples heads. It is not part of the 3.5 fluff for magic. To the contrary even, seeing how Read Magic can be prepared from memory.

What is really puzzling to me is that most of those people that cling to the "memorize" fluff are also those who actually really don't like this idea making it a self-made misery.
Once again the quote by the Giant in Psyren sig could not be more fitting.

The D&D family of games did exist before 3.5... and Gygax made repeated references to "memorizing" and "equipping" spells in answering questions about the system.

Are you saying that memorizing spells was never a thing, or that the criticism of Vancian magic is invalid because 3.5 specifically doesn't have it and nothing but 3.5 counts, or what?


Some interesting things regarding the concept, from the original fiction...

On memorizing spells:
...They would be poignant corrosive spells, of such a nature that one would daunt the brain of an ordinary man and two render him mad. Mazirian, by dint of stringent exercise, could encompass four of the most formidable, or six of the lesser spells.


...Mazirian made a selection from his books and with great effort forced five spells upon his brain: ...

On having used a spell:
...The mesmeric spell had been expended, and he had none other in his brain.


On having spells at the ready:
"You may in any event, Mazirian. Are you with powerful spells today?"



Or here -- http://www.dyingearth.com/files/GARY%20GYGAX%20JACK%20VANCE.pdf -- where Gygax talks about it.
To my way of thinking, the concept of a spell itself being magical, that its written form carried energy, seemed a perfect way to balance the mage against other types of characters in the game. The memorization of the spell required time and concentration so as to impart not merely the written content but also its magical energies. When subsequently cast—by speaking or some other means—the words or gestures, or whatever triggered the magical force of the spell, leaving a blank place in the brain where the previously memorized spell had been held.




Personally, I find the entire concept of spell slots, memorized or prepared spells, etc, to be rather insipid and inane.





@NinjaXenomorph: even more ridiculous is how they manage to classify kama differently from a sickle, when they're the same damn thing.

While overall fairly inconsequential in the scope of the system, it's clear the designers had very poor idea what many weapons are, nevermind how they were used, and this lead to the weapon system in general being lackluster.



That would be par for the course, though... see also the complete misuse of the term "long sword" from the very beginning, "studded leather armor", and any other number of conceptual curses inflicted upon fantasy RPGs.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-05, 09:05 AM
I agree completely. But it became much much more ridiculous in 3e when they tried to shoehorn every NPC in the world into the class/level system. So becoming a better baker automatically makes someone better at combat too.

That part was pretty ridiculous. Why should a master tailor be able to beat-up low level adventurers. It reminds my of Everquest and the level 45 merchant I accidentally poked.

I just always houseruled that leveling in Expert only have you skill-points & feats; no BAB/HD/saves.

Ninjaxenomorph
2016-06-05, 09:22 AM
While the sword dichotomy is annoying, I will admit that mechanically it works and has a niche. The fact that most blade-type weapons should be able to do both slashing and piercing damage bugs me, but not too much. I don't mind studded leather, though, since there are similar things, like brigandine armor.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-05, 09:55 AM
While the sword dichotomy is annoying, I will admit that mechanically it works and has a niche. The fact that most blade-type weapons should be able to do both slashing and piercing damage bugs me, but not too much. I don't mind studded leather, though, since there are similar things, like brigandine armor.

Brigandine is likely where the studded leather nonsense started, with people misinterpreting artwork or images without examining the actual armor -- the rivets or studs showing on the outside have nothing to do with directly providing protection, they're what's holding the metal plates in place on the inside of the cloth or leather -- it's those plates that provide the protection. Take away the plates, and all you have are "nails" in your armor that a lucky hit will drive into your skin.

On the swords, many CAN be used cutting and thrusting, it's only at the extremes that you can't thrust (because of an extreme curve or unsuited "tip") or can't cut (because of lack of mass or no functional edge).

Friv
2016-06-05, 10:39 AM
That part was pretty ridiculous. Why should a master tailor be able to beat-up low level adventurers. It reminds my of Everquest and the level 45 merchant I accidentally poked.

I just always houseruled that leveling in Expert only have you skill-points & feats; no BAB/HD/saves.

Obviously it's because, in D&D, as you level as a tailor or smith you get more and more low-level adventurers arriving at your shop and trying to mug you. So you have to learn to fight to hold them off.

Thrudd
2016-06-05, 11:38 AM
Obviously it's because, in D&D, as you level as a tailor or smith you get more and more low-level adventurers arriving at your shop and trying to mug you. So you have to learn to fight to hold them off.

lol Yes. Every D&D town is like the tenement in "Kung Fu Hustle".

Jay R
2016-06-05, 11:56 AM
2E dual classing rules. Not only do you need high stats even to qualify, but you are forbidden to use any class features of your original class while advancing in your new class. If you do use such a class feature you get no experience for that particular encounter and half experience for the entire adventure.

This always made perfect sense to me. Suppose you are trying to become a Thief, but faced with a locked door you say, "I don't want to try picking the lock. I'm a high-strength Fighter. I'll just break it down." That's indicative of an attitude that would include not practicing sneaking, etc. You aren't focused on becoming a Thief.

It's no different from a driver trying to become a swimmer. Instead of swimming across the bay, he just drives around the long way. He reached the goal, but he didn't gain any experience as a swimmer.

-------------

The rules that makes no sense to me are many of the results of the multi-classing approach in 3e/3.5e. You can become a barbarian later in life, rather than being raised in a barbaric culture, or become a wizard without ever spending lots of time learning spells, or (worst of all) suddenly become a Fighter without ever training with, or even seeing, the weapons you are now supposed to be proficient with.

JoeJ
2016-06-05, 02:12 PM
That part was pretty ridiculous. Why should a master tailor be able to beat-up low level adventurers. It reminds my of Everquest and the level 45 merchant I accidentally poked.

I just always houseruled that leveling in Expert only have you skill-points & feats; no BAB/HD/saves.

Whereas I don't use class or level at all for most NPCs, but simply give them whatever combination of abilities I want them to have. (And I don't play 3.x any more.)


The rules that makes no sense to me are many of the results of the multi-classing approach in 3e/3.5e. You can become a barbarian later in life, rather than being raised in a barbaric culture, or become a wizard without ever spending lots of time learning spells, or (worst of all) suddenly become a Fighter without ever training with, or even seeing, the weapons you are now supposed to be proficient with.

It's especially silly if you don't require any sort of training, or even downtime, to gain levels. Except for classes like sorcerer, with hereditary abilities based on a particular bloodline. That's equally ridiculous with or without training.

Spore
2016-06-05, 02:20 PM
In Degenesis: Rebirth nonlethal combat damages (like from a fist fight) "ego" instead of health points. Your ego can be so bruised that you have to recover a whole day. Possibly mostly complaining and whining. It's like hero points or wilpower from WoD except that you black out when at 0.

JoeJ
2016-06-05, 02:28 PM
Not a rule per se, but a common way of evaluating rules that I've always found ridiculous is the idea that a game should be "balanced" in such a way that every PC is approximately as good as every other PC at winning a series of white room combats against randomly chosen "level appropriate" enemies.

Honest Tiefling
2016-06-05, 02:29 PM
In Degenesis: Rebirth nonlethal combat damages (like from a fist fight) "ego" instead of health points. Your ego can be so bruised that you have to recover a whole day. Possibly mostly complaining and whining. It's like hero points or wilpower from WoD except that you black out when at 0.

Clearly, you mean HILARIOUS. I want to play this game and try to heal my ego by writing bad poetry. 'It was a dark and stormy night...JUST LIKE MY SOUL.'

JoeJ
2016-06-05, 02:43 PM
This reminds me of the old Murphy's Rules column from Space Gamer.

Which, a quick Google search reveals, have been compiled into a book by Steve Jackson Games. They even helpfully posted a free preview (http://www.warehouse23.com/media/SJG30-9006_preview.pdf).

JAL_1138
2016-06-05, 03:11 PM
I recall Cyberpunk also had issues due to separating Mathematics to its own skill from, say, Accouting. Even more hilarious was how Library Search was its own skill from Net Database searches. The core of the system was solid, but how the authors ended up categorizing the skills lead to many redundancies and weird interactions.

Accounting doesn't take good math skills, just a pocket calculator or an Excel spreadsheet to handle the arithmetic. What it actually takes is knowledge of a complex mess of rules, regulations, laws, generally-accepted accounting practices, and in many cases the particular business entity in question (to determine whether adjusting entries need to be made, or how to classify a particular item, etc). Separating those actually does make sense.

napoleon_in_rag
2016-06-05, 03:47 PM
The most ridiculous rule for D&D has always been alignments.

AMFV
2016-06-05, 03:52 PM
The most ridiculous rule for D&D has always been alignments.

Well it can certainly lead to ridiculousness, but the actual premise makes some kind of sick sense if you use the standard cosmology and the standard cosmological stuff.

thirdkingdom
2016-06-05, 04:01 PM
RPGS try to create a semblance of realism but many rules are so ridiculous that you can't even see the logic behind them.

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.

What is your most ridiculous rule.

See, I would totally let the players do this if they wanted, and even give them XP for the gold they sell. I don't have my Dungeoneer's Survival Guide handy, but I do have some rules for ACKS based off the 2e Complete Dwarves. Let's see. The average gold mine is going to produce ore that is 50% pure gold; a team of 17 miners (this is detailed in ACKS terms, which I'm not bothering with here) produces one miner week per week and costs 40 gp. Based on the rules one miner week will yield 6 stone of gold ore; at 50% this yields 3 stone of smelted gold. A unit of gold weighs 4 stone and has a base value of 600 gp. Therefore, in one month you can yield enough ore to yield 24 stone of gold ore. When smelted this produces 12 stone of refined gold, or 3 total units with a base price of 1800 gp. You've got a total of 160 in wages to pay the miner for this, plus the cost (and time) of refining, plus the cost (and time) of transporting this gold to the market, plus the cost of any mercenaries hired to guard the mine/caravan whatever, plus the time your PCs spend overseeing the mine versus adventuring . . . . Let's assume they can clear 1400 gp per month for every "tree" of miners they have working the mine. Plus, the average mine is going to last for 51 miner-weeks, which means it will be played out in a year. Over the course of that year they will make 16,800 gp. Assuming a party if five adventurers and no henchmen they'd each earn 3,360 XP, which will basically take the average fighter from 1st to the upper middle of 2nd level . . . .

But if that's what my players really wanted to do with their time I would have no problem letting them do this.


Eh, but the way it was used was my players would bypass whatever monster collect the loot and escape. I did change the ruling though to promote exploration by giving players exp bonuses when they explored in new areas.

Again, that's kind of how the game was meant to be played. Out of curiosity, were you using encumbrance? Because ignoring that and allowing your PCs to escape from a monster lair carrying piles of coins would be certainly part of the problem.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-05, 05:03 PM
Not a rule per se, but a common way of evaluating rules that I've always found ridiculous is the idea that a game should be "balanced" in such a way that every PC is approximately as good as every other PC at winning a series of white room combats against randomly chosen "level appropriate" enemies.

I don't think that most would promote balance in that sense, but I am a big fan of balance in how a character is able to shape the world as a whole. In a combat heavy game, this might be largely combat skills, but that's certainly not the only form of balance. If the system is cyberpunk espionage based, a hacker might be much weaker in a fight, but he pulls his weight by... hacking instead.

If you have absolutely no balance, the gaming can easily become an episode of Angel Summoner & BMX Bandit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

And that's not any fun for BMX Bandit, and (depending upon the player) probably less fun for Angel Summoner too.

napoleon_in_rag
2016-06-05, 05:05 PM
Well it can certainly lead to ridiculousness, but the actual premise makes some kind of sick sense if you use the standard cosmology and the standard cosmological stuff.

The idea that you can describe incredibly complex stuff like morality, ethics, motivation, religion, etc with a simple table is pretty ridiculous.

JoeJ
2016-06-05, 05:06 PM
I don't think that most would promote balance in that sense, but I am a big fan of balance in how a character is able to shape the world as a whole. In a combat heavy game, this might be largely combat skills, but that's certainly not the only form of balance. If the system is cyberpunk espionage based, a hacker might be much weaker in a fight, but he pulls his weight by... hacking instead.

If you have absolutely no balance, the gaming can easily become an episode of Angel Summoner & BMX Bandit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

And that's not any fun for BMX Bandit, and (depending upon the player) probably less fun for Angel Summoner too.

So how would you describe the balance in a game where Clark Kent and Lois Lane are both good character choices?

AMFV
2016-06-05, 05:24 PM
The idea that you can describe incredibly complex stuff like morality, ethics, motivation, religion, etc with a simple table is pretty ridiculous.

There are certainly real world moral philosophies that explain things in fairly simple terms. Of course getting everything to fit into those terms can be tricky at best. But I would argue it's not particularly ridiculous if it can have sense. There can be logical parameters used for the alignment system. And it makes sense in-universe.

Of course, the difficulty with it, is that there's not usually sufficient time to go into it in-depth.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-05, 05:33 PM
So how would you describe the balance in a game where Clark Kent and Lois Lane are both good character choices?


Unless it's an abstract system (FATE etc.) that sounds terrible. Keep Lois as an NPC. (Not that I'd want to play Superman either. He's too powerful to be interesting to me.)

JoeJ
2016-06-05, 06:01 PM
Unless it's an abstract system (FATE etc.) that sounds terrible. Keep Lois as an NPC. (Not that I'd want to play Superman either. He's too powerful to be interesting to me.)

Why would that be terrible? I've never played the Smallville RPG, but the reviews I've seen all indicate that it works quite well. Which makes sense, actually, because if your metric is not combat power but ability to affect a dramatic storyline, Lois and Clark are pretty close to equal.

The Glyphstone
2016-06-05, 06:18 PM
Why would that be terrible? I've never played the Smallville RPG, but the reviews I've seen all indicate that it works quite well. Which makes sense, actually, because if your metric is not combat power but ability to affect a dramatic storyline, Lois and Clark are pretty close to equal.

That's quite similar to how FATE works, at least in regards to its Aspects. So if that's how the Smallville RPG works, then the two are working on similar lines. But in any skill/objective-based system (not necessary combat power, look at Call of Cthulhu as an extremely objective/skill-centric game where combat is a last resort) the guy with all his stats maxed out through the roof is going to overshadow the regular human.

ElFi
2016-06-05, 06:27 PM
I love the system as a whole, but Mutants and Masterminds' damage system leaves a lot to be desired.
There is exactly one attack method in the entire game that can straight-up kill an opponent (the Disentegration power), and even then only if the opponent rolls really poorly. Otherwise, lethal damage is assumed to leave the target near death even if it should've left them as a bloody smear on the wall.
Assuming the group's using critical fail rolls (mine does), a single roll of a 1 will leave your character unconscious and/or dying.
Getting disabled (failing by 10 or more but less than 15 on a Toughness save against lethal damage) is the absolute worst thing that can happen to somebody, since it ostensibly keeps you in the fight while preventing you from actually doing anything.
3E has no rules for lethal damage whatsoever. All attacks are automatically assumed to be nonlethal, even if you're hitting somebody with a death ray or dropping a building on them.

In addition, the system is hilariously biased against characters with good Initiative rolls, since hitting somebody who's still flat-footed has a lot more benefits than it does in most other systems.

More dumb than ridiculous, but the fact that the Mental Shield and Sensory Shield powers exist when it's possible to become outright immune to mental and dazzle effects (which those two powers provide saving throw bonuses against respectively) for a pittance of points.

Create Object's rules are woefully underdeveloped. So, can I create spikes for a trap using this power? What about summoning a weapon? And what exactly does the Precise feat allow me to create?

Jay R
2016-06-05, 06:38 PM
Not an PPG per se, but how silly is it that castles can move farther than knights in Chess?

Professor Gnoll
2016-06-05, 06:41 PM
Not an PPG per se, but how silly is it that castles can move farther than knights in Chess?
It's a relic from back when they were chariots.
That said, the castle-looking piece could be intended to represent siege towers, which can still move.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-05, 07:15 PM
The most ridiculous rule for D&D has always been alignments.

Good call.

JoeJ
2016-06-05, 08:36 PM
But in any skill/objective-based system (not necessary combat power, look at Call of Cthulhu as an extremely objective/skill-centric game where combat is a last resort) the guy with all his stats maxed out through the roof is going to overshadow the regular human.

But I wasn't talking about having one character who's the best at everything the game does (whatever that might be), but the idea that comparing characters in white room combat is a useful way to judge the "balance" of most RPGs.

Arbane
2016-06-05, 09:00 PM
So how would you describe the balance in a game where Clark Kent and Lois Lane are both good character choices?

"Totally dependent on a good writer."

Pex
2016-06-05, 09:12 PM
Not an PPG per se, but how silly is it that castles can move farther than knights in Chess?

The En Passant rule I think is silly. If the opponent's pawn moves two squares past yours you can still capture it as if it only moved one. You have to do it on your immediate next turn, but you can.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-05, 10:54 PM
But I wasn't talking about having one character who's the best at everything the game does (whatever that might be), but the idea that comparing characters in white room combat is a useful way to judge the "balance" of most RPGs.

No one actually disagreed that combat isn't the only way to balance a game. That doesn't mean that they still don't need game balance as a whole. (And many RPGs are combat centric.)

And the Smallville RPG is exactly the sort of abstract system I meant the Superman/Lois Lane thing could work, so it doesn't invalidate my point at all.

JoeJ
2016-06-05, 11:01 PM
"Totally dependent on a good writer."

Please explain. This is an RPG we're talking about, not a comic book or TV show.

JoeJ
2016-06-05, 11:14 PM
No one actually disagreed that combat isn't the only way to balance a game. That doesn't mean that they still don't need game balance as a whole. (And many RPGs are combat centric.)

"Balance" is a word that a lot of people throw around without ever clearly defining. Unfortunately, that generally makes it a useless term for indicating anything beyond the bare fact that a particular individual does or doesn't like that game.

Simply saying that a game is unbalanced, without specifying what measure of "balance" was used and why it's an appropriate measure for that game, does not give a prospective player any useful information at all.

Alent
2016-06-05, 11:34 PM
The En Passant rule I think is silly. If the opponent's pawn moves two squares past yours you can still capture it as if it only moved one. You have to do it on your immediate next turn, but you can.

En Passant is quite reasonable: It's a balance patch. When they changed the rules to let pawns move 2 squares on their first movement for the sake of speeding up the opening, the complaint arose: "If pawns were still limited to moving one square like before, my opponent would not be able to jump beside my advanced pawn to prevent me from capturing him."

So they came out with En Passant to compromise.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-06, 06:33 AM
Please explain. This is an RPG we're talking about, not a comic book or TV show.


And as I keep saying to people who want to perfectly simulate some fictional setting from movies and/or book... an RPG is a different "medium", and some things that work in a book or movie, don't work in an RPG.

If you have 4 players, then you have 4 main protagonists, 4 main PoV characters, 4 equal "stars".

There's less (often far less) authorial fiat because the players and the dice have a say.

Etc.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-06, 07:00 AM
Not an PPG per se, but how silly is it that castles can move farther than knights in Chess?

Totally sensible, the Rook obviously has a higher carrying capacity than the Knight does. Therefore, with all it's equipment, the Rook is able to move at it's full movement speed, while the Knight has to move slower.


The En Passant rule I think is silly. If the opponent's pawn moves two squares past yours you can still capture it as if it only moved one. You have to do it on your immediate next turn, but you can.

Continuing with this, how is it that such a weak character as a pawn is able to take out a highly levelled knight in one hit? They wouldn't be able to get past the armour!

Spore
2016-06-06, 07:31 AM
Clearly, you mean HILARIOUS. I want to play this game and try to heal my ego by writing bad poetry. 'It was a dark and stormy night...JUST LIKE MY SOUL.'

What PCs do to regain bonus ego is dependant upon their concept. My scrapper builds stuff, but a bike gang member might as well torture puppies.

LordFluffy
2016-06-06, 10:56 AM
But for truly ridiculous rules, AD&D psionics is a good example. It looks interesting, but in practice is unfeasible - and looking at in-depth reveals it's even worse, having no real tactical depth despite its complexity.
Some friends of mine were playing a very RAW campaign, back in the day, accidentally summoned Demogorgon at 5th level due to psionics random encounters, then managed to kill Demogorgan with a very, very lucky psionic attack.


I recall Cyberpunk also had issues due to separating Mathematics to its own skill from, say, Accouting. Even more hilarious was how Library Search was its own skill from Net Database searches. The core of the system was solid, but how the authors ended up categorizing the skills lead to many redundancies and weird interactions.
Like trying to separate the Streetwise skill from the Streetdeal Fixer special ability when they basically had the same wording.

"Um, yeah... one's totally more streetier than the other. Sure. That's how it works."

JBPuffin
2016-06-06, 10:31 PM
Some friends of mine were playing a very RAW campaign, back in the day, accidentally summoned Demogorgon at 5th level due to psionics random encounters, then managed to kill Demogorgan with a very, very lucky psionic attack."

Psionics - Making everyone better at life since 1983 (this is a random date).

The fact that clerics are a thing, and that paladins are a separate thing. Cloistered Cleric-style Priests and Fighter+Priest Paladins work for me, but 3E Clerics were essentially wizards that could heal and actually use weapons. The major differences being exact spell selection (they both got to break the game, tho :/ ) and that Clerics got less spells.

digiman619
2016-06-07, 02:38 AM
Psionics - Making everyone better at life since 1983 (this is a random date).

The fact that clerics are a thing, and that paladins are a separate thing. Cloistered Cleric-style Priests and Fighter+Priest Paladins work for me, but 3E Clerics were essentially wizards that could heal and actually use weapons. The major differences being exact spell selection (they both got to break the game, tho :/ ) and that Clerics got less spells.

To be fair, 2nd edition psionics and 3.5 psionics are two totally different things. On the dumb rules front, did you know that once upon a time, everyone spoke the language of their alignment? Even if you met an alien, if it was LN and you were LN, you could talk to it. As dumb as that sounds, it gets dumber: Not only was it physically and mystically impossible to teach an alignment language, if you ever changed alignment, you suddenly forgot your old alignment's language and instantaneously learned the new one's.

Spore
2016-06-07, 02:45 AM
On the dumb rules front, did you know that once upon a time, everyone spoke the language of their alignment? Even if you met an alien, if it was LN and you were LN, you could talk to it. As dumb as that sounds, it gets dumber: Not only was it physically and mystically impossible to teach an alignment language, if you ever changed alignment, you suddenly forgot your old alignment's language and instantaneously learned the new one's.

Call me Weirdo McRidiculousrule but I like that ruling. You both commune on a much more empathic level than mere language. This however intensifies the topic of "which alignment is my character actually"?

goto124
2016-06-07, 03:53 AM
On the dumb rules front, did you know that once upon a time, everyone spoke the language of their alignment? Even if you met an alien, if it was LN and you were LN, you could talk to it. As dumb as that sounds, it gets dumber: Not only was it physically and mystically impossible to teach an alignment language, if you ever changed alignment, you suddenly forgot your old alignment's language and instantaneously learned the new one's.

How does one communicate with people of different alignment? Comprehend Languages? Don't bother at all?

Or were there normal languages such as Common and racial languages?

Phoenixguard09
2016-06-07, 05:18 AM
Those languages were in addition to Common and the like.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-07, 05:35 AM
In the King Arthur Pendragon RPG, it is possible to be so ugly you become bedridden and die.

It's possible in RuneQuest as well (at least RQ3, which is the only one I've read). The book essentially describes it as 'those aging effects not modelled by other stats', which is a decent enough explanation seeing as it's the least useful stat, but still brings up the hilarious idea of one extremely lucky adventurer being as strong and agile as ever into his 80s or 90s (the words 'Cohen the Barbarian' spring to mind) and then dropping dead from ugly.

Oh, RuneQuest 3rd edition also indirectly limits priests to adventuring for no more than 10 days at a time, seeing as they get 'ten days in every one hundred off' with no mention if that's one day off in every ten or if for every nine days they minister and preach they can take a day off at any time. It's there for balance issues (as priests can replenish divine spells by lots of prayer instead of sacrificing POW), but it's also a bit silly.

Also from RQ3, the more spells a Sorcerer knows the less able he is to manipulate spells. This isn't bad as Sorcerers are the PC-friendly option with the cheapest spells, but it still limits you to only about 10 spells maximum if you want to alter them while casting, unless you roll really well for INT*.

* Which can only be increased by magic, not by training. In fact, that's another ridiculous rule, I can train to become stronger or more resilient, but not to be better at general reasoning.

hifidelity2
2016-06-07, 06:59 AM
That reminds me - critical fumbles are moronic. Why in the world should my inhumanly badass warrior trip 5% of the time he tries to swing his sword? Especially bad since as you level and gain more attacks, it increases the chance of you tripping. In 3.x, a high level monk would have nearly a 50/50 chance of fumbling each round of combat. (8 normal attacks, plus Haste, plus any potential AOOs)

Agree esp if you have 2 armies facing each other

Assume each army is 10,000 strong and all of them have a 5% fumble and being 1st (ish) level it fatal

Then after 30 rounds - assuming they don't actually kill any of the other army each is down to 2259 men!! - all death is from the 5% fumbles

So I will tell my army to just hunker down and defend and the opposing army will whittle themselves down

Friv
2016-06-07, 11:04 AM
Assume each army is 10,000 strong and all of them have a 5% fumble and being 1st (ish) level it fatal

Then after 30 rounds - assuming they don't actually kill any of the other army each is down to 2259 men!! - all death is from the 5% fumbles

So I will tell my army to just hunker down and defend and the opposing army will whittle themselves down

There are really three things to keep in mind there.

1) Critical fumbles aren't always "you damage yourself". They can be "you stumble and drop your sword", or "you lose your next turn because of fright", or any number of similar things.
2) 1st level characters dying from glancing sword blows is itself a pretty ridiculous rules. Yes, it's certainly possible for someone to be killed in one blow, but it's not standard, especially if you're actually fighting.
3) You have to attack to fumble. The entire 10,000 strong army isn't actually fighting at any given moment, and if one side hunkers down the other side will either not close, or will close and will be losing 5% a round while the people they're fighting lose 25% from successful hits.

(The fact that if you try to model large-scale battles through standard rules, a battle with two thousand people to a side will end in five minutes with one side almost completely wiped out is, itself, a ridiculous rule effect, although one based on the fact that battles really change in methodology as you scale them up, and skirmish rules don't.)

Khedrac
2016-06-07, 11:41 AM
Oh, RuneQuest 3rd edition also indirectly limits priests to adventuring for no more than 10 days at a time, seeing as they get 'ten days in every one hundred off' with no mention if that's one day off in every ten or if for every nine days they minister and preach they can take a day off at any time. It's there for balance issues (as priests can replenish divine spells by lots of prayer instead of sacrificing POW), but it's also a bit silly.Actually they have to spend the other 90% of their time on cult business. Since they are often the ones who decide what "Cult Business" is, that's a lot less restrictive than it appears. Also a good GM will work in suitable adventures.


Also from RQ3, the more spells a Sorcerer knows the less able he is to manipulate spells. This isn't bad as Sorcerers are the PC-friendly option with the cheapest spells, but it still limits you to only about 10 spells maximum if you want to alter them while casting, unless you roll really well for INTAnd that is why Int spirits were added to the game.

Ceiling_Squid
2016-06-07, 11:50 AM
The game's magic is based on the book's setting. The book explains why magic works that way. It isn't more absurd than any other type of fantasy magic. It is a setting where "magic" is actually unbelievably advanced technology of previous civilizations, which is not much understood by the people presently inhabiting earth.

Not really digging that setting for a game is fine, just preference. But it isn't "unreasonable" or without sense.

It's a bit unreasonable for D&D, an game system which currently supports a wide variety of settings, to have a magic system only justified by the internal logic and lore of one very specific setting.

If they loved Vancian casting so much, they ought to have written a Dying Earth RPG supplement. It's a rather bizarre type of spellcasting that isn't propped up by any reasoning inherent to the trappings of generic high fantasy. At this point, we're stuck with it due to tradition and familiarity, but if I had a time machine...

Bah. That's why I play spontaneous casters in D&D, in any case. Vancian just rubs me the wrong way, because it's mere existence in settings outside Dying Earth is a major headscratcher.

I can see why games like Savage Worlds go with a more generic Power Point system.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-07, 12:40 PM
Actually they have to spend the other 90% of their time on cult business. Since they are often the ones who decide what "Cult Business" is, that's a lot less restrictive than it appears. Also a good GM will work in suitable adventures.

Not quite, the 90% cult business thing is supposed to be a limitation. I also thought that there was a higher rank of priest (the RQ3 High Priest) who decided what 'Cult Business' was, which PCs aren't expected to be.

And yeah, I actually hate the restriction. I'd personally have mentioned that 'Cult Business' can be questing because who wants to play a guy who can be taken out of the session at the whim of the GM?


And that is why Int spirits were added to the game.

To be honest, I'm thinking of just allowing Attributes to be trained during downtime if I ever get to run it. I need to buy the books instead of loaning them off my friend first though.

Telok
2016-06-08, 11:29 AM
It's a bit unreasonable for D&D, an game system which currently supports a wide variety of settings, to have a magic system only justified by the internal logic and lore of one very specific setting.

If they loved Vancian casting so much, they ought to have written a Dying Earth RPG supplement.

The current editions of D&D do support more than just Vancian casting, that's part of why they support a more diverse range of settings now. Really they did mostly write a Dying Earth RPG (crossed with Tolken and with serial numbers filed off).

I have the Murphy's Rules book and it's pretty great. I had the first edition of it back in the 90's but that got lost in a move so I now have the current version.

But for ridiculous: In D&D 5e an NPC warlock with an Imp familiar can share the familiar's magic resistance. A PC warlock with an Imp familiar cannot.

veti
2016-06-08, 05:07 PM
Diplomancy in D&D 3.5. In fact, everything in a D20 system that doesn't remind the DM that they can always, at will, declare a given feat "simply impossible, I don't care that you rolled a natural 20 and you've got a +86 bonus, that's still not happening".

Malimar
2016-06-08, 06:39 PM
Diplomancy in D&D 3.5. In fact, everything in a D20 system that doesn't remind the DM that they can always, at will, declare a given feat "simply impossible, I don't care that you rolled a natural 20 and you've got a +86 bonus, that's still not happening".

I actually really enjoy this feature of 3.5: with superhuman skill bonuses, you can achieve superhuman feats like swimming up waterfalls and balancing on clouds, even if you're a supposedly "mundane" class.

Though in fairness to your point, the fact that it's possible to make everyone in a crowd fanatically devoted to you by squeezing yourself through somebody's digestive tract is certainly a little peculiar.

Thrudd
2016-06-08, 11:03 PM
It's a bit unreasonable for D&D, an game system which currently supports a wide variety of settings, to have a magic system only justified by the internal logic and lore of one very specific setting.

If they loved Vancian casting so much, they ought to have written a Dying Earth RPG supplement. It's a rather bizarre type of spellcasting that isn't propped up by any reasoning inherent to the trappings of generic high fantasy. At this point, we're stuck with it due to tradition and familiarity, but if I had a time machine...

Bah. That's why I play spontaneous casters in D&D, in any case. Vancian just rubs me the wrong way, because it's mere existence in settings outside Dying Earth is a major headscratcher.

I can see why games like Savage Worlds go with a more generic Power Point system.

It isn't unreasonable for D&D, it IS D&D. That D&D later diversified to incorporate more ideas doesn't invalidate the original ideas. The settings fit the game, not the other way around. Notice almost all the D&D settings are specifically made for D&D and use the Vancian casting. D&D isn't a generic system made to replicate different fictional settings, it is an agglomeration of a series of fictional sources creating its own setting.

"Generic High Fantasy" was basically invented by D&D. That later fantasy authors didn't plagiarize Vance's Dying Earth isn't really surprising. If you notice, most fantasy novels have settings with their own unique magic systems, as one would expect. Spell points and specific rote spells don't represent what is going on in most novels, either.

Don't like the Vance style magic system, fine. But there's nothing incomprehensible or unfitting about it. It fits, by definition, because it was a key element of D&D's design.

Takewo
2016-06-09, 01:51 AM
But there's nothing incomprehensible or unfitting about it. It fits, by definition, because it was a key element of D&D's design.

While I agree with that, I also think that this is true:


It's a bit unreasonable for D&D, an game system which currently supports a wide variety of settings, to have a magic system only justified by the internal logic and lore of one very specific setting.

No, there is nothing wrong with the Vancian system (mechanically-wise). No, there's nothing wrong with using it in your game. The problem is that the only justification and some sort of "internal consistency" is to be found in a book outside of D&D.

Also, it looks like the justification that appears in the book is not valid for all the settings that D&D currently supports. I haven't got the chance to read Dying Earth yet (and I don't know if I'd read it should I ever have the chance). But if what Thrudd says is right, not all the settings present some sort of long-dead, extremely advanced civilisation where magic comes from. In fact, in some of the most known settings magic comes from the gods.

Knaight
2016-06-09, 02:57 AM
No, there is nothing wrong with the Vancian system (mechanically-wise). No, there's nothing wrong with using it in your game. The problem is that the only justification and some sort of "internal consistency" is to be found in a book outside of D&D.

Also, it looks like the justification that appears in the book is not valid for all the settings that D&D currently supports. I haven't got the chance to read Dying Earth yet (and I don't know if I'd read it should I ever have the chance). But if what Thrudd says is right, not all the settings present some sort of long-dead, extremely advanced civilisation where magic comes from. In fact, in some of the most known settings magic comes from the gods.

The D&D books themselves also often offer some sort of justification, and while D&D may pretend to be a generic fantasy game from time to time, there are a lot of ways in which it is nothing of the sort.

Takewo
2016-06-09, 04:54 AM
The D&D books themselves also often offer some sort of justification, and while D&D may pretend to be a generic fantasy game from time to time, there are a lot of ways in which it is nothing of the sort.

Oh, that's news to me. Would you point somewhere where they justify it? I can't remember coming across any explanation other than "well, it's magic."

Knaight
2016-06-09, 05:01 AM
Oh, that's news to me. Would you point somewhere where they justify it? I can't remember coming across any explanation other than "well, it's magic."

3e had an explanation about how every prepared spell was actually a complex ritual with only the very end left unfinished, where actually casting the spell was finishing up the mostly unfinished ritual, and there were limitations to how many and how powerful unfinished rituals a mage could haul around at once.

Takewo
2016-06-09, 06:34 AM
3e had an explanation about how every prepared spell was actually a complex ritual with only the very end left unfinished, where actually casting the spell was finishing up the mostly unfinished ritual, and there were limitations to how many and how powerful unfinished rituals a mage could haul around at once.

Oh, yeah. I remember that. I guess it went on a trip at the far back of my mind and had never really come back,

goto124
2016-06-09, 07:24 AM
Oh, yeah. I remember that. I guess it went on a trip at the far back of my mind and had never really come back,

Knaight had to finish the complex ritual for the Summon Memory spell for you... :smalltongue:

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-09, 07:47 AM
Oh, yeah. I remember that. I guess it went on a trip at the far back of my mind and had never really come back,

Well, it is an utterly forgettable excuse for a bad magic system.

Amaril
2016-06-09, 08:19 AM
Dragonlance explains it with the Curse of the Magi. Originally, on Krynn, once a wizard learned a spell, they could cast it as many times as they wanted. The gods feared how powerful the wizards became, so they cursed them all to forget their spells every time they cast them, forcing them to learn them again.

Takewo
2016-06-09, 10:08 AM
Dragonlance explains it with the Curse of the Magi. Originally, on Krynn, once a wizard learned a spell, they could cast it as many times as they wanted. The gods feared how powerful the wizards became, so they cursed them all to forget their spells every time they cast them, forcing them to learn them again.

Which has always made me wonder how a wizard can prepare the same spell twice at once.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-09, 10:14 AM
Which has always made me wonder how a wizard can prepare the same spell twice at once.

Well it's like how electrical engineers always memorise Ohm's Law twice, just in case they forget the first time.

What's really weird is that once you've forgotten a spell you don't get to memorise a new one until tomorrow rolls around. So what, does my mind shrink whenever I cast a spell and then grow back while I sleep?

CharonsHelper
2016-06-09, 10:30 AM
Which has always made me wonder how a wizard can prepare the same spell twice at once.

Is it magic?

Takewo
2016-06-09, 10:40 AM
Well it's like how electrical engineers always memorise Ohm's Law twice, just in case they forget the first time.

What's really weird is that once you've forgotten a spell you don't get to memorise a new one until tomorrow rolls around. So what, does my mind shrink whenever I cast a spell and then grow back while I sleep?

That sounds reasonable


Is it magic?

I've always found "because of magic" a very poor explanation. "Magic works that way because it's magic" is a circular argument. You don't need a complete rational explanation for anything that you put in your game, but I prefer that systems have some sort of coherence and consistency.

D&D 3e's explanation can be as poor as you want, but it's consistent (kinda).

"You lose a prepared spell you cast it, because you had started casting it in the morning and you are just finishing it. That's why you can prepare the same spell twice" makes sense.

"You lose a prepared spell when you cast it, because the gods so willed. You can memorise the same spell twice, though, because magic" makes no sense at all.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-09, 10:57 AM
I've always found "because of magic" a very poor explanation. "Magic works that way because it's magic" is a circular argument. You don't need a complete rational explanation for anything that you put in your game, but I prefer that systems have some sort of coherence and consistency.

Well - it looks like I had another sarcasm fail. >.<

goto124
2016-06-09, 11:09 AM
Well - it looks like I had another sarcasm fail. >.<

Blue color is important in these forums!

digiman619
2016-06-09, 11:09 AM
I've always found "because of magic" a very poor explanation. "Magic works that way because it's magic" is a circular argument. You don't need a complete rational explanation for anything that you put in your game, but I prefer that systems have some sort of coherence and consistency.

What are you talking about? That's what Marvel did for One More Day, and every one remembers how awesome that turned out.

Takewo
2016-06-09, 11:37 AM
Well - it looks like I had another sarcasm fail. >.<

Oh! Sorry about that. I actually wondered whether you were being sarcastic or serious, but my fingers had already started typing, haha.

Segev
2016-06-09, 11:51 AM
My preferred fluff for D&D-style spellcasting (particularly 3e) is one that requires a bit of an animist universe. The very spirits of the world - near-mindless as many may be - are bound by ancient contracts and rules. Sorcerers and bards charm these beings, befriending some and simply learning enough about others that they can call upon them and implore or command or intimidate them into doing their will. The verbal, somatic, and material components are just the tried-and-true means of getting the results the sorcerer wants. But, like any request or demand, ask too often in too short a time, and you start to be ignored.

Wizards are, essentially, lawyers. They pour over books of ancient law and pacts, finding things which require of spirits great and small to do things they want done. Whether programmatically putting together sequences of effects into larger ones, or finding agreements which require exactly the effects they desire, wizards collect these in notes and reminders. Their spellbooks rarely are codified "spells," though they're organized in ways that suggest them. This is why it can take so many pages to copy one "spell;" it's almost never as simple as a list of ingredients, because the wizard who researched it collected notes and tricks from myriad sources.

A wizard preparing his spells isn't memorizing anything. He's using his references to remind himself of the ritual actions he must take to set up "his side" of the agreement, so that later that day he can command by ancient pact in the name of the whoever that owes him a favor for his preparations that the spell effect he wants shall be cast. When he's cast it, the bargain is fulfilled and he's owed nothing more for that preparation. This is also how he can prepare more than one at a time; move three rocks nineteen degrees windershins, and you get 3 copies of the spell that requires one rock moving nineteen degrees windershins, or whatever.

The limits to a wizard's spell preparations are those of skill; too many preparations, and he can't get them all done, or worse, he isn't yet experienced enough to prepare more without accidentally abrogating earlier-prepared ones (which is what happens when he overwrites them). Attempting to "overwrite" too soon can also have disastrous consequences, as he is already in violation of some that he needs time to cleanse himself of.

ClintACK
2016-06-09, 11:55 AM
3e had an explanation about how every prepared spell was actually a complex ritual with only the very end left unfinished, where actually casting the spell was finishing up the mostly unfinished ritual, and there were limitations to how many and how powerful unfinished rituals a mage could haul around at once.

This was explained, or at least described, better in the second set of Amber books, once upon a time. (The ones where Merlin is the main character.)

But no amount of explanation or description is going to change the fact that it's really frustrating to be the 1st level wizard who has expended all his spell slots and has nothing to do but whine at the party that this looks like a good place to camp for the night.




Shadowrun's Chunky Salsa Rule: If an explosion happens in an area too small for the blast radius, the explosion bounces off the walls and hits any targets again.

Presumably, you could create a fusion reactor by sealing a grenade in a footlocker.


Actually, that's pretty much how a pipe bomb works, isn't it? :)



AD&D's Gold-for-XP rule makes more sense when you remember that back then, D&D characters weren't expected to be heroic monster slayers - they were treasure-hunting tomb robbers who happened to be ABLE to fight.


Yep. And 3e kept the spirit of this alive -- you didn't have to *kill* a *monster* to get XP for it, you had to *defeat* an *encounter*. Sneaking past the guards meant you'd defeated them. Intimidating the bandits so they'd go look for easier marks meant you'd defeated them. And so on.



Also, AD&D1's training rules: by the rules, to go up a level, the DM graded you on how well you acted your alignment and class, and that determined how many weeks it would take to level up, IF you could find a trainer of the same class and pay 1500GP per level per week. And it took longer if the GM didn't like your RPing. (You could level up on your own if the GM gave you a good grade, but it took longer and cost just as much per week.) I get the impression this is one of many AD&D rules that was quietly ignored at most tables.

This is how I started out playing. Honestly, this makes quite a bit more sense than the way leveling up is usually played.

After a campaign arc was finished -- a big bad slain, a bounty claimed, a tomb raided -- we'd head back to our home city and take some downtime between adventures. The wizard would scour the library or magic guild for spells he could purchase access to and laboriously transcribe into his spell book. The fighter would go visit his mentor and train. We'd visit the local temple so that more serious damage (like level drains or severed limbs) could be healed by the powerful priests there. The cleric might spend some time brewing healing potions. There was a whole rhythm to the game of dangerous adventuring building to a boss battle, then an influx of wealth (whether it was the boss's hoard or the reward from the quest-giver) and then downtime to recover and become more powerful for the next time.

So my vote for Most Ridiculous Rule in 5e: The way leveling up works. RAW, a 4th-level Barbarian can be in mid combat, kill a hobgoblin, and then the very next round be a 5th-level Barbarian with an extra 10' of movement and an extra attack per round. And the wizard wakes up the next morning suddenly knowing how to cast fireball, which he'd never been able to figure out before. Or, heck, the Barbarian could decide to multiclass -- so one round he's beheading a hobgoblin, and six seconds later he has a brand new spell book in his pack and is casting shocking grasp on the rather surprised goblin that was sneaking up behind him.

Anyway... I do know that the fluff on this is that the Barbarian had been studying magic for weeks and it finally just clicked in his head -- in between swings of the axe -- but it's a pretty ridiculous rule. Especially when there's a whole chapter of the DMG on what characters can do during their downtime.

Thrudd
2016-06-09, 12:02 PM
Maybe spell slots are literally a thing. Spell casters learn to create psychic partitions in their mind that are dedicating to housing the patterns that call up extra-dimensional reality bending energies. These energies literally can't be understood or held onto by normal mental processes, they are not of this reality. You store them and release them, and once they are released from the special mind partition it quickly fades out of your awareness like a dream fades, like memory of a past life or what you were doing before you were born.

You don't "know" a spell so much as you have a recording of the spell and the training/discipline to make your mind into an instrument that can run the program that is the spell. No human being has the hard drive capacity to actually store or understand a spell, you can only run it off of a removeable hard drive (spell book) or stream it from the cloud (deity/divine magic). You can't stay connected to the internet or leave the hard drive connected perpetually, however, because the energy required is beyond the ability of your body and mind to handle.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-09, 12:22 PM
So my vote for Most Ridiculous Rule in 5e: The way leveling up works. RAW, a 4th-level Barbarian can be in mid combat, kill a hobgoblin, and then the very next round be a 5th-level Barbarian with an extra 10' of movement and an extra attack per round. And the wizard wakes up the next morning suddenly knowing how to cast fireball, which he'd never been able to figure out before. Or, heck, the Barbarian could decide to multiclass -- so one round he's beheading a hobgoblin, and six seconds later he has a brand new spell book in his pack and is casting shocking grasp on the rather surprised goblin that was sneaking up behind him.

Anyway... I do know that the fluff on this is that the Barbarian had been studying magic for weeks and it finally just clicked in his head -- in between swings of the axe -- but it's a pretty ridiculous rule. Especially when there's a whole chapter of the DMG on what characters can do during their downtime.

That is, in general, part of the silliness of character progression based on discreet and sudden levels.

ClintACK
2016-06-09, 12:34 PM
That is, in general, part of the silliness of character progression based on discreet and sudden levels.

Absolutely.

But discrete jumps in ability *feel* a lot more organic when you've got adventures interspersed with downtime, and you are gaining new capabilities in the downtime.

But I agree, something more like the system in Elder Scrolls where you get better at a skill by practicing it feels more natural. Except even then you are gaining hit points by sitting in your room casting spells over and over and over. *sigh*

Of course the real problem is that there's no way to craft a fixed set of known rules that can't be gamed.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-09, 01:08 PM
Absolutely.

But discrete jumps in ability *feel* a lot more organic when you've got adventures interspersed with downtime, and you are gaining new capabilities in the downtime.

But I agree, something more like the system in Elder Scrolls where you get better at a skill by practicing it feels more natural. Except even then you are gaining hit points by sitting in your room casting spells over and over and over. *sigh*

Of course the real problem is that there's no way to craft a fixed set of known rules that can't be gamed.

In addition, that would be a LOT of extra paperwork.

shadow_archmagi
2016-06-09, 01:59 PM
It gives people an IC reason to act selflessly or do things that only make sense for a real human being but not the kind that appears in a game. I think it's pretty good in principle, I just worry about it in practice.

I really like it conceptually, but in practice my players tended to either invest really heavily and then be unhappy because they were constantly poor, or completely fail to invest and then die and be miserable about starting at level 1.

I like the concept of players spending half their loot on booze and orphans, but tying it to as important and distant a concept as their eventual death may not have been the best choice.


Absolutely.
But discrete jumps in ability *feel* a lot more organic when you've got adventures interspersed with downtime, and you are gaining new capabilities in the downtime.

But I agree, something more like the system in Elder Scrolls where you get better at a skill by practicing it feels more natural. Except even then you are gaining hit points by sitting in your room casting spells over and over and over. *sigh*

Of course the real problem is that there's no way to craft a fixed set of known rules that can't be gamed.

My problem with the Elder Scrolls system is twofold:

1. Discrete jumps are more satisfying. "haha! I just levelled so I can throw fireballs, wield the Mega Hammer, and those rats that taunted me earlier will be easy now!" is way better than "Hohoho, after a good workout today, I'm 5% stronger! As long as I don't skip leg day, by this time next year, I'll be able to carry an extra 50 pounds!"

2. Sometimes I want skills, but don't want to practice them. Either you grind it and do something mind-numbing like standing in a fire while casting heal constantly, or you spend six hours wandering the countryside looking for injured people to help. Just let me learn spend some points to learn Speak with Dead so I can solve the mystery of Jogger's Peak already. I want to do that sidequest, not a weird one where my only goal is practice.

Talakeal
2016-06-09, 02:13 PM
My preferred fluff for D&D-style spellcasting (particularly 3e) is one that requires a bit of an animist universe. The very spirits of the world - near-mindless as many may be - are bound by ancient contracts and rules. Sorcerers and bards charm these beings, befriending some and simply learning enough about others that they can call upon them and implore or command or intimidate them into doing their will. The verbal, somatic, and material components are just the tried-and-true means of getting the results the sorcerer wants. But, like any request or demand, ask too often in too short a time, and you start to be ignored.

Wizards are, essentially, lawyers. They pour over books of ancient law and pacts, finding things which require of spirits great and small to do things they want done. Whether programmatically putting together sequences of effects into larger ones, or finding agreements which require exactly the effects they desire, wizards collect these in notes and reminders. Their spellbooks rarely are codified "spells," though they're organized in ways that suggest them. This is why it can take so many pages to copy one "spell;" it's almost never as simple as a list of ingredients, because the wizard who researched it collected notes and tricks from myriad sources.

A wizard preparing his spells isn't memorizing anything. He's using his references to remind himself of the ritual actions he must take to set up "his side" of the agreement, so that later that day he can command by ancient pact in the name of the whoever that owes him a favor for his preparations that the spell effect he wants shall be cast. When he's cast it, the bargain is fulfilled and he's owed nothing more for that preparation. This is also how he can prepare more than one at a time; move three rocks nineteen degrees windershins, and you get 3 copies of the spell that requires one rock moving nineteen degrees windershins, or whatever.

The limits to a wizard's spell preparations are those of skill; too many preparations, and he can't get them all done, or worse, he isn't yet experienced enough to prepare more without accidentally abrogating earlier-prepared ones (which is what happens when he overwrites them). Attempting to "overwrite" too soon can also have disastrous consequences, as he is already in violation of some that he needs time to cleanse himself of.

I really like that. I may borrow this next time I run D&D.

thirdkingdom
2016-06-09, 02:25 PM
I really like it conceptually, but in practice my players tended to either invest really heavily and then be unhappy because they were constantly poor, or completely fail to invest and then die and be miserable about starting at level 1.

I like the concept of players spending half their loot on booze and orphans, but tying it to as important and distant a concept as their eventual death may not have been the best choice.


I'm running ACKS right now and we're not using the XP reserve at all, largely because each player has a large enough stable of henchmen that if their primary PC were to die they'd just promote a hench up to full PC status. I do use the following houserules, though:

1. 500 gp and a week of drinking, debauchery and downtime will earn a character a reroll of hit points, although they have to take the new result.

2. Wealth worn openly doesn't count towards encumbrance. This is to encourage the players to bling their characters out with found treasure and jewelry rather than sell it.

3. Instead of gold going towards an XP reserve I apply bonuses to certain reaction rolls (and hiring attempts) for wealth spent flagrantly. So, spending a thousand gold on hiring a playwright to compose a musical about the adventurers' exploits and engaging a dozen actors to travel around the countryside performing said play would net them a positive modifier on reaction rolls for a good couple of months or so.

Segev
2016-06-09, 02:34 PM
That is, in general, part of the silliness of character progression based on discreet and sudden levels.Eh, no sillier than any other system where you can gain new powers and abilities you never had before. "I spend X character points to buy the Shocking Grasp power; I've totally been studying that for the last few months, and it just clicked!"

Even the systems which allow you to try something you don't yet have the ability to do and require investment of resources towards buying them still have that "magic" point where you go from "I can't cast fireball," to "I just cast fireball for the first time!"


I really like that. I may borrow this next time I run D&D.

Please do! I treat divine casters as being members of the spirit "courts," so to speak; they don't make pacts, but instead their place of value to their gods or the social structure of their spiritual society is such that they have the right to ask for or command authority. "You, our god has assigned you to help me today. When I call, raise somebody from the dead." Druids don't have gods, but their place in the Nature "club" serves a similar purpose.

Jay R
2016-06-09, 03:31 PM
I always assumed that it takes several minutes to completely cast a spell, but you can do most of it and then wait with your finger on the "trigger", to make it go off quickly. The morning preparation was doing 98% of the casting.

In the last game I ran, I gave people the option of saving some unfilled slots, but they would need to get out the books and spend time with them to cast a spell with those slots. This allowed them to have a single slot open for any utility non-combat spell in the evening (mending, identify, sending, any form of scrying, etc.)

Airk
2016-06-09, 03:50 PM
Even the systems which allow you to try something you don't yet have the ability to do and require investment of resources towards buying them still have that "magic" point where you go from "I can't cast fireball," to "I just cast fireball for the first time!"

I can't perceive how this is a problem. This is WHAT HAPPENS in real life. If I'm trying to do a combo in Street Fighter, I go into training mode and I screw it up over and over again until I hit that "magic" point where I actually do it right. There's only a problem if the game then allows me to do it 100% of the time from then on, but since these sorts of systems are usually associated with skill systems, there's no "Okay, I can fireball now" but rather "Okay, I can fireball if I roll well enough."

Malimar
2016-06-09, 03:55 PM
In the last game I ran, I gave people the option of saving some unfilled slots, but they would need to get out the books and spend time with them to cast a spell with those slots. This allowed them to have a single slot open for any utility non-combat spell in the evening (mending, identify, sending, any form of scrying, etc.)

In 3.5, this is the official rule for wizards (but not divine casters, who have to prepare spells at a specific time each day). Leave a slot unfilled, spend 15 minutes later during the day to fill it:
When preparing spells for the day, a wizard can leave some of these spell slots open. Later during that day, she can repeat the preparation process as often as she likes, time and circumstances permitting. During these extra sessions of preparation, the wizard can fill these unused spell slots. She cannot, however, abandon a previously prepared spell to replace it with another one or fill a slot that is empty because she has cast a spell in the meantime. That sort of preparation requires a mind fresh from rest. Like the first session of the day, this preparation takes at least 15 minutes, and it takes longer if the wizard prepares more than one-quarter of her spells.

Telok
2016-06-09, 04:03 PM
But no amount of explanation or description is going to change the fact that it's really frustrating to be the 1st level wizard who has expended all his spell slots and has nothing to do but whine at the party that this looks like a good place to camp for the night.

Well if the character is an idiot savant who can only cast spells and never do anything else.

Most wizards can do other stuff like round up horses, drag wounded allies out and administer potions, throw explosives or nets, rally the hirelings, make sure nothing is sneaking up behind the party, hold a shield to cover the cleric casting a heal, etc. etc.

Some wizards can even swing a staff and hit people.

Knaight
2016-06-09, 04:17 PM
But no amount of explanation or description is going to change the fact that it's really frustrating to be the 1st level wizard who has expended all his spell slots and has nothing to do but whine at the party that this looks like a good place to camp for the night.

No argument there (although there's generally at least something they can do, particularly as they tend to have good out of combat skills for most D&D editions). I'm just saying that there are setting-side justifications.

Segev
2016-06-09, 04:18 PM
I can't perceive how this is a problem. This is WHAT HAPPENS in real life. If I'm trying to do a combo in Street Fighter, I go into training mode and I screw it up over and over again until I hit that "magic" point where I actually do it right. There's only a problem if the game then allows me to do it 100% of the time from then on, but since these sorts of systems are usually associated with skill systems, there's no "Okay, I can fireball now" but rather "Okay, I can fireball if I roll well enough."

I have seen very, very few systems which have a kind of granularity where you start off only being able to do something occasionally, and work your way up to doing it all the time. Particularly when that "something" is a special technique, spell, or other encapsulated power.

Thrudd
2016-06-09, 04:24 PM
In 3.5, this is the official rule for wizards (but not divine casters, who have to prepare spells at a specific time each day). Leave a slot unfilled, spend 15 minutes later during the day to fill it:

Exactly. It is something that takes time and peace and quiet to study and prepare. Normally this is accomplished when the party is camped somewhere relatively safe, so describing it as gaining spells each day is accurate in a general sense.
In 1e, spells take 15 min per spell per spell level to prepare. You can absolutely leave your spell slots empty and prepare them later, you just need a safe place and time required. A single 3rd level spell, for instance, will need 45 minutes of peace and quiet.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-09, 04:33 PM
Exactly. It is something that takes time and peace and quiet to study and prepare. Normally this is accomplished when the party is camped somewhere relatively safe, so describing it as gaining spells each day is accurate in a general sense.
In 1e, spells take 15 min per spell per spell level to prepare. You can absolutely leave your spell slots empty and prepare them later, you just need a safe place and time required. A single 3rd level spell, for instance, will need 45 minutes of peace and quiet.

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

Ninjaxenomorph
2016-06-09, 04:34 PM
The WEG Star Wars RPG had an interesting take on improving skills; it took a certain amount of free time to boost a skill, or no time if you had used it between the last time you were awarded character points (XP). So, if your smuggler guy got into a shootout and earned CP at the end of the session, they could improve their blaster skill instantly if they had enough. If they wanted to train up their languages, though, they needed a few weeks.

Segev
2016-06-09, 04:40 PM
Does that mean it takes a 10th-level wizard almost 11 hours every day to prepare his spells? :smalleek:

In earlier editions, wizards had to very carefully shepherd their spells, because, yes, they could not be sure of having enough time to re-fill all their spell slots while on the go.

Frozen_Feet
2016-06-09, 04:43 PM
Does that mean it takes a 10th-level wizard almost 11 hours every day to prepare his spells? :smalleek:
Yes.

Spell preparation taking actual time was something of a balancing point, even. It effectively prevented many forms of buff stacking or "15 minute workdays".

Jay R
2016-06-09, 09:45 PM
But no amount of explanation or description is going to change the fact that it's really frustrating to be the 1st level wizard who has expended all his spell slots and has nothing to do but whine at the party that this looks like a good place to camp for the night.

My experience is that anybody whining at this stage was also whining earlier, when he still had spells.

goto124
2016-06-09, 10:43 PM
1. Discrete jumps are more satisfying. "haha! I just levelled so I can throw fireballs, wield the Mega Hammer, and those rats that taunted me earlier will be easy now!" is way better than "Hohoho, after a good workout today, I'm 5% stronger! As long as I don't skip leg day, by this time next year, I'll be able to carry an extra 50 pounds!"

2. Sometimes I want skills, but don't want to practice them. Either you grind it and do something mind-numbing like standing in a fire while casting heal constantly, or you spend six hours wandering the countryside looking for injured people to help. Just let me learn spend some points to learn Speak with Dead so I can solve the mystery of Jogger's Peak already. I want to do that sidequest, not a weird one where my only goal is practice.

This is my experience as well, especially point 2. In a TTRPG, you don't even get to run off and practice your skills. You're going to come across many situations where you do something that would have been helped by the very skill you get only after doing the something! That, or you deliberately create situations to practice your skills, in the midst of adventuring. "I attwmpt to climb the 100 foot wall!" "Why don't you just pick the door?" "I need to practice my Acrobatics!" "The world's ending in 2 hours!" "But what if we come across a wall in the last 20 seconds? I'm practicing now!"

It's a case when trying for realism just bogs down actual gameplay.

MesiDoomstalker
2016-06-10, 12:21 AM
Yes.

Spell preparation taking actual time was something of a balancing point, even. It effectively prevented many forms of buff stacking or "15 minute workdays".

I can understand the point to balance. But at the same time, it seems like the worst way to go about things. "Your too good, you can break the game. Instead of actually fixing this problem by toning down your abilities, we'll just make it super inconvenient to actually use your abilities in play. That's fun right? Right?"

Telok
2016-06-10, 12:54 AM
I can understand the point to balance. But at the same time, it seems like the worst way to go about things. "Your too good, you can break the game. Instead of actually fixing this problem by toning down your abilities, we'll just make it super inconvenient to actually use your abilities in play. That's fun right? Right?"
Nope, that wouldn't be fun. But it wasn't inconvenient, it was resource management. The latest few iterations of D&D have attempted to make magic spells usable as often as sword swings. This has resulted in cases where the spells are just sword swings or arrow shots with different descriptions, and cases where characters could only swing a sword in some way once a day or attempt a trick shot once a day.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-10, 03:21 AM
This is my experience as well, especially point 2. In a TTRPG, you don't even get to run off and practice your skills. You're going to come across many situations where you do something that would have been helped by the very skill you get only after doing the something! That, or you deliberately create situations to practice your skills, in the midst of adventuring. "I attwmpt to climb the 100 foot wall!" "Why don't you just pick the door?" "I need to practice my Acrobatics!" "The world's ending in 2 hours!" "But what if we come across a wall in the last 20 seconds? I'm practicing now!"

It's a case when trying for realism just bogs down actual gameplay.

You see, this is why we should abolish levels and just give XP that can be spent on everything. It's annoying when I need to improve my climb skill but the GM goes 'sorry, you won't level for another two weeks'.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-10, 07:14 AM
I can understand the point to balance. But at the same time, it seems like the worst way to go about things. "Your You're too good, you can break the game. Instead of actually fixing this problem by toning down your abilities, we'll just make it super inconvenient to actually use your abilities in play. That's fun right? Right?"

It's not as if you have to roleplay scribing your scrolls for 11 hours anymore than the fighter needs to roleplay maintenance on their blade/armor.

But in earlier editions, a lot of playing an effective wizard was knowing when to use and when to save your spells. Different sort of gameplay. Nothing wrong with either style; just different.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-10, 07:17 AM
You see, this is why we should abolish levels and just give XP that can be spent on everything. It's annoying when I need to improve my climb skill but the GM goes 'sorry, you won't level for another two weeks'.

Because it makes more sense for you to be able to concentrate really hard and suddenly get better at climbing when you need it? You should have upped it last level.

(Being able to spend EXP on anything is also basically impossible to balance, especially while maintaining asymmetry.)

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-10, 07:42 AM
Because it makes more sense for you to be able to concentrate really hard and suddenly get better at climbing when you need it? You should have upped it last level.

Who said I could just concentrate really hard and suddenly get better? In the games I tend to play you generally have downtime at the end of a session, and all XP is spent between sessions. There are times when you'll end up getting better at something with no downtime, but those cases are rare. However, it makes a lot more sense for me to decide I want to get better at climbing and then (assuming I have the XP) get better at it during downtime then to have 2 weeks of downtime but be unable to gain a point in climbing because the next level is 370XP away.


(Being able to spend EXP on anything is also basically impossible to balance, especially while maintaining asymmetry.)

(Yeah, but after a certain point balance becomes less necessary, especially if not playing PVP. It's also a personal preference, but it avoids stupid stuff like 5e's stupidly unskilled characters).

CharonsHelper
2016-06-10, 07:50 AM
(Yeah, but after a certain point balance becomes less necessary, especially if not playing PVP.

That depends heavily on the system's vibe. For more abstract systems, balance doesn't really matter. (While I'm not a huge fan of abstract systems - such point-buy works well for them.) For games about tactical gameplay - balance matters much more.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-10, 08:02 AM
That depends heavily on the system's vibe. For more abstract systems, balance doesn't really matter. (While I'm not a huge fan of abstract systems - such point-buy works well for them.) For games about tactical gameplay - balance matters much more.

Ah, we have a difference here, I couldn't give a **** about tactical gameplay. In my view, if everybody has something they can make use of it's balanced enough. Now a game like D&D 4e has this matter more, but in say Fate or the Mistborn Adventure Game balance is less important. Now balance in Fate does matter, I shouldn't let one character have a 'do anything' skill while other characters have to use the standard list, but as long as you avoid the major pitfalls everybody is competitive.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-10, 08:10 AM
Because it makes more sense for you to be able to concentrate really hard and suddenly get better at climbing when you need it? You should have upped it last level.

(Being able to spend EXP on anything is also basically impossible to balance, especially while maintaining asymmetry.)

Neither of these matches any experience I've ever had with actual gaming.

In fact, I've always found point-buy MORE balanced than levels, along with being more natural and less goofy.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-10, 09:05 AM
Ah, we have a difference here, I couldn't give a **** about tactical gameplay. In my view, if everybody has something they can make use of it's balanced enough. Now a game like D&D 4e has this matter more, but in say Fate or the Mistborn Adventure Game balance is less important.

I don't see the difference. I already said that for abstract system balance doesn't matter as much. You're just saying that you prefer abstract systems where balance doesn't matter.

Okay - I agree. We have different taste in RPGs, but we actually seem to agree entirely that balance matters less in abstract systems and more in tactical ones.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-10, 09:34 AM
I don't see the difference. I already said that for abstract system balance doesn't matter as much. You're just saying that you prefer abstract systems where balance doesn't matter.

Okay - I agree. We have different taste in RPGs, but we actually seem to agree entirely that balance matters less in abstract systems and more in tactical ones.

Kind of, I was saying that in an abstract system balance does matter, but to a much less extent. I was correcting the 'doesn't really matter', because it still matters, but only up to a point.

Sure, Fate might be fine without having rigorous playtesting for every combination, but it still requires that there be no singular best choices. Less 'is everything balanced' and more 'is anything particularly unbalanced'.

ClintACK
2016-06-10, 09:57 AM
Well if the character is an idiot savant who can only cast spells and never do anything else.

Most wizards can do other stuff like round up horses, drag wounded allies out and administer potions, throw explosives or nets, rally the hirelings, make sure nothing is sneaking up behind the party, hold a shield to cover the cleric casting a heal, etc. etc.

Some wizards can even swing a staff and hit people.

Yes. A good RPer can always find *something* for their character to do. But there's really a different level of fun between being able to competently contribute to the group's success and being able to find something to say you were doing.

(And notice that each of the things you picked is something the wizard is likely to be poor at -- Animal Handling, Strength check, improvised weapons, Charisma check, and perception check. The second one of those becomes hard, a competent party member will have to take over from the wizard.)

Note: I say this as a guy who once spent several complete sessions playing the wizard who had been feebleminded, before the party found a cure. Sure. I could role-play it a bit, but it was very different.


No argument there (although there's generally at least something they can do, particularly as they tend to have good out of combat skills for most D&D editions). I'm just saying that there are setting-side justifications.

There definitely are. And I agree with them. My point is that the justifications don't help. People who are screaming about Vancian magic sucking are generally people who have experienced the problem of a mismatch of party rest needs. (Which is *not* explicitly a Vancian magic problem.)

Imagine a 5e fighter, monk, warlock, wizard party. Until they run out of hit dice, the first three are fully recovered after a half an hour of rest. They might go through an entire campaign arc without ever wanting a long rest, unless the DM starts to ding them with exhaustion rules. Only the wizard wants long rests -- and if there's even a hint of time pressure in the adventure, the rest of the party won't ever want to stop. In an adventure with ten short rests and no long rests, the fifth level warlock can cast 20 3rd level spells. The wizard can cast only 2.

Of course, 5e made this a lot better -- wizards have a number of ways to get effective armor, weapons, and skills, and cantrips can actually be real magic that the wizard can use all day long.

In 2e, a wizard who was out of spell slots had the feeblest attack, the worst armor, and the least useful skills of any member of the party. It wasn't pretty.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-10, 10:03 AM
Kind of, I was saying that in an abstract system balance does matter, but to a much less extent. I was correcting the 'doesn't really matter', because it still matters, but only up to a point.

Sure, Fate might be fine without having rigorous playtesting for every combination, but it still requires that there be no singular best choices. Less 'is everything balanced' and more 'is anything particularly unbalanced'.

Fair enough. Instead of saying that balance doesn't really matter in abstract games, I should have just said that it doesn't really matter "as much".

SimonMoon6
2016-06-10, 10:22 AM
But I agree, something more like the system in Elder Scrolls where you get better at a skill by practicing it feels more natural. Except even then you are gaining hit points by sitting in your room casting spells over and over and over. *sigh*

Of course the real problem is that there's no way to craft a fixed set of known rules that can't be gamed.

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). In that system, your character pretty much isn't going to improve much. Your stats (except POW... and Sanity if you count that as a stat) don't change. Your skills won't change much either, but they can increase slightly. Here's how:

Every skill has a rating from 0-100. You succeed at a skill if you roll under it's rating on d100. If you succeed at a skill when it's actually relevant and useful to the adventure (rather than sitting at home rolling dice all day), then you get to put a check mark next to the skill. At the end of the adventure, you get to roll to see if you can increase the skill. This time, you have to roll *above* your skill rating (since someone who already knows how to do something well is unlikely to get better at it). If you succeed, you get to add a d6 to your skill. Otherwise, you get nothing.

It's slow and I've never seen anyone make significant gains. But it gives you a little bit of something now and then, while making sure that you don't suddenly become a completely different character.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-10, 10:26 AM
It's slow and I've never seen anyone make significant gains.

Well yeah - you're lucky to survive more than 2-3 sessions without going insane! :P

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-10, 10:32 AM
There definitely are. And I agree with them. My point is that the justifications don't help. People who are screaming about Vancian magic sucking are generally people who have experienced the problem of a mismatch of party rest needs. (Which is *not* explicitly a Vancian magic problem.)

Imagine a 5e fighter, monk, warlock, wizard party. Until they run out of hit dice, the first three are fully recovered after a half an hour of rest. They might go through an entire campaign arc without ever wanting a long rest, unless the DM starts to ding them with exhaustion rules. Only the wizard wants long rests -- and if there's even a hint of time pressure in the adventure, the rest of the party won't ever want to stop. In an adventure with ten short rests and no long rests, the fifth level warlock can cast 20 3rd level spells. The wizard can cast only 2.

Of course, 5e made this a lot better -- wizards have a number of ways to get effective armor, weapons, and skills, and cantrips can actually be real magic that the wizard can use all day long.

In 2e, a wizard who was out of spell slots had the feeblest attack, the worst armor, and the least useful skills of any member of the party. It wasn't pretty.

"Rest issues" is just icing on the cake when it comes to the problems with Vancian magic. Conceptually, it's nonsense, and for balance, it's a kludge.

Thrudd
2016-06-10, 11:41 AM
"Rest issues" is just icing on the cake when it comes to the problems with Vancian magic. Conceptually, it's nonsense, and for balance, it's a kludge.

Which type of magic isn't "conceptually nonsense"? All magic is literally nonsense.
For balance, it works pefectly as a resource management element.

I feel that people saying it's a stupid rule are really just saying they don't like playing the kind of game it is used in. It is a fine rule for the type of game it was made for. This is not primarily a cinematic or narrative action game, nor purely a tactical battle game.

Disliking a type of game or a particular setting does not mean it is a bad game with stupid rules. A rule needs to be judged in the context of the game it's in and how it accomplishes it's goal in that game.

MrZJunior
2016-06-10, 11:49 AM
Not precisely a ridiculous rule but in Traveller they make a point to inform you that Vargr, uplifted wolves, are incapable of kicking in combat. I can see the logic but it seems a bit pedantic.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-10, 12:23 PM
Which type of magic isn't "conceptually nonsense"?


The kind that doesn't require hanging one's disbelief by the neck until dead.




For balance, it works pefectly as a resource management element.


This is, of course, why we've had nearly 4 decades of issues with "linear fighters and exponential wizards" and variations on that complaint regarding multiple variations of that casting system.




I feel that people saying it's a stupid rule are really just saying they don't like playing the kind of game it is used in. It is a fine rule for the type of game it was made for. This is not primarily a cinematic or narrative action game, nor purely a tactical battle game.


If the primary issues of the game are managing "resources" via abstracted rules, and measuring win conditions numerically, and "in game avatars" are built mainly around how they function as numerical entities within the ruleset...

If that's really true, then D&D and its tree of offspring should stop being marketed as "roleplaying games", and instead go for something that would be more accurate such as "tactical simulation games" or "freeform boardgames". Without story and character of some sort, and thus the need for underlying setting coherence and consistency and everything that entails, you really do not have a "roleplaying game", as no "roles" are actually being played.




Disliking a type of game or a particular setting does not mean it is a bad game with stupid rules. A rule needs to be judged in the context of the game it's in and how it accomplishes it's goal in that game.


First, I'm also looking at the very concept of a Vancian magic system, outside of the rules, and finding it patently ridiculous, even accounting for the fact that it's magic in a fantasy setting.

Second, as a rules set, regardless of setting, I consider a Vancian system a kludgey nightmare that doesn't balance, but that rather has simply long been taken for granted because it's the "original recipe".

CharonsHelper
2016-06-10, 12:28 PM
This is, of course, why we've had nearly 4 decades of issues with "linear fighters and exponential wizards" and variations on that complaint regarding multiple variations of that casting system.

No we haven't. That's mostly just a 3.x thing. (I like 3.x/Pathfinder; I just keep to the first 8-10 levels before casters become OP. The game flows better anyway.)

Not that other editions haven't had their own issues.


Also - you're acting like other systems with different magic systems don't have the same issues. Many of them do.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-10, 12:30 PM
The kind that doesn't require hanging one's disbelief by the neck until dead.



So... no - you don't have one?

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-10, 01:03 PM
So... no - you don't have one?

I only "don't have one" if we're operating under the false dichotomy that any magic at all justifies absolutely any magic you feel like, and that all magic is equivalent.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-10, 01:11 PM
No we haven't. That's mostly just a 3.x thing. (I like 3.x/Pathfinder; I just keep to the first 8-10 levels before casters become OP. The game flows better anyway.)

Not that other editions haven't had their own issues.


Also - you're acting like other systems with different magic systems don't have the same issues. Many of them do.

And if you want to discuss the failings of those systems, feel free.

If you think that "linear vs quadratic" thing started with or was largely confined to 3.x, you need to go back and study the history of the D&D family.

Thrudd
2016-06-10, 01:54 PM
The kind that doesn't require hanging one's disbelief by the neck until dead.


That is all magic, of any sort. Suspending disbelief is required no matter how you explain it. Why is believing that a spell can erase itself from your memory just too much, when you're ok with the existence of creatures the size of houses capable of flight that breath fire (among other things), the ability to shapechange into things of vastly different mass, sentient beings made out of rock or fire, people flying and teleporting and bringing furniture to life, people altering objective reality with mind-power in general: I don't need to go on.

The arguments against vancian magic are all preference, no objective substance. A game where exploration and resource management is the focus can still be a game with story and role played characters. Just as easily or moreso in comparison with a tactical battle game.

It's a system you don't like and think isn't fun. It's a kind of fantasy that you don't enjoy or don't "get". That's not the same as being ridiculous or a bad rule.

Telok
2016-06-10, 02:06 PM
(And notice that each of the things you picked is something the wizard is likely to be poor at -- Animal Handling, Strength check, improvised weapons, Charisma check, and perception check. The second one of those becomes hard, a competent party member will have to take over from the wizard.)
Exactly, a one dimensional, idiot savant magic-user character whose only contribution can ever be casting spells. It's a lousy character to play regardless of edition, game, or magic system. You may also be confusing Vancian casting with a game system that makes anything outside of a character's core competency effectively impossible or useless. D&Ds 3 and 4 both do that, and I don't think that 5 has really gotten away from it either.

You can make such a character in a game like Shadowrun or Champions too, a character with a limited capacity for doing one strong trick and nothing else. But in both of those games the rulebooks actually have advice to not do that and the cost of broadening the capabilities of a character isn't as high as in D&D.


Note: I say this as a guy who once spent several complete sessions playing the wizard who had been feebleminded, before the party found a cure. Sure. I could role-play it a bit, but it was very different.
Yeah, that sucks. I've found that the best thing to do is to have a solution appear at the first plausable instance either later in the same session or as close to the beginning of the next session as possible. Struggling under a curse for a while is fine, but several game sessions (especially like the once a week sessions that tabletop is prone to) is really bad.



In 2e, a wizard who was out of spell slots had the feeblest attack, the worst armor, and the least useful skills of any member of the party. It wasn't pretty.
I've been there, it's not terrible. Don't blow all your spells too early and have some backups. You go into it knowing that you'll run out of spells at some point, being useless and incompetent after that is just bad planning. It's that way in all games with limited resources. In 4e if you blew all your dailies and encounters on minions you were left with minimum effect at-wills when the bosses showed up. If all you ended up with was a little 2d6 firebolt against a fire elemental demi-god then you shouldn't have wasted all your resources on the yard trash.

A one-shot-wonder character isn't the result of Vancian casting, it's the result of player choices.

Cazero
2016-06-10, 02:13 PM
That is all magic, of any sort. Suspending disbelief is required no matter how you explain it. Why is believing that a spell can erase itself from your memory just too much, when you're ok with the existence of creatures the size of houses capable of flight that breath fire (among other things), the ability to shapechange into things of vastly different mass, sentient beings made out of rock or fire, people flying and teleporting and bringing furniture to life, people altering objective reality with mind-power in general: I don't need to go on.

You're mixing up realism and verisimilitude. Magic is never realist, but what people dislike about Vancian magic is that no simple explanation making it consistent are provided.

Suspending disbelief for a couple second to accept the fact some dudes can make fireballs with their mind is one thing. But it's very difficult to accept that a trained wizad who spent his entire life studying magic has litteraly no difficulty learning dozen of spells every morning but somehow forgets them upon casting. The "magi curse" and "almost finished ritual" explanations make some sense but create new inconsistencies wich need more explaining. For example : how can a wizard memorize the same spell several times (magi curse), or why can't the wizard make the complete ritual from scratch when he's not hurried (almost finished ritual). All could probably be explained, but then you don't have a short suspension of disbelief. You're hanging it until it dies because you need to read a goddamn thesis before it starts making sense.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-10, 02:32 PM
why can't the wizard make the complete ritual from scratch when he's not hurried (almost finished ritual).

That one's super easy. The rest/meditation beforehand is part of the ritual.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-10, 02:35 PM
You're mixing up realism and verisimilitude. Magic is never realist, but what people dislike about Vancian magic is that no simple explanation making it consistent are provided.

Suspending disbelief for a couple second to accept the fact some dudes can make fireballs with their mind is one thing. But it's very difficult to accept that a trained wizad who spent his entire life studying magic has litteraly no difficulty learning dozen of spells every morning but somehow forgets them upon casting. The "magi curse" and "almost finished ritual" explanations make some sense but create new inconsistencies wich need more explaining. For example : how can a wizard memorize the same spell several times (magi curse), or why can't the wizard make the complete ritual from scratch when he's not hurried (almost finished ritual). All could probably be explained, but then you don't have a short suspension of disbelief. You're hanging it until it dies because you need to read a goddamn thesis before it starts making sense.


Exactly. For some reason, there's this belief out there that once you include the slightest bit of magic or the smallest fantastic element in a work of fiction or a game setting, then any need for the setting to have internal coherence and consistency is gone, and absolutely anything goes, without limits. Lack of strict realism is taken as an excuse for lack of verisimilitude, and a false dichotomy is put forth in which a setting must be entirely realistic before any aspect of it can be questioned for anything, even a lack of internal logic.

Then you get the other side, in which the most convoluted just-so stories are put forth as "acceptable" explanations of why a certain thing is as it is within the setting, which really just amounts to elephants, or rather excuses, all the way down -- nothing is every explained or giving internal logic, it just layers on additional unexplained excuses infinitely downward. Much verbiage, nothing is actually answered.

Or to put it more succinctly -- It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

Thrudd
2016-06-10, 03:01 PM
You're mixing up realism and verisimilitude. Magic is never realist, but what people dislike about Vancian magic is that no simple explanation making it consistent are provided.

Suspending disbelief for a couple second to accept the fact some dudes can make fireballs with their mind is one thing. But it's very difficult to accept that a trained wizad who spent his entire life studying magic has litteraly no difficulty learning dozen of spells every morning but somehow forgets them upon casting. The "magi curse" and "almost finished ritual" explanations make some sense but create new inconsistencies wich need more explaining. For example : how can a wizard memorize the same spell several times (magi curse), or why can't the wizard make the complete ritual from scratch when he's not hurried (almost finished ritual). All could probably be explained, but then you don't have a short suspension of disbelief. You're hanging it until it dies because you need to read a goddamn thesis before it starts making sense.

The verisimilitude answer is easy- that's how magic works. Wizards maybe know why, just like they know how to do all the things required to cast a spell. They spent their life studying, and they've learned that this is how it works. There's no inconsistency: when you prepare a spell it is imprinted on a special memory slot in your brain. When you trigger the spell, the imprint fades away, and you need to prepare it again. Preparing a spell requires a sufficiently rested mind, a period of ritual and concentration, and access to a medium which can store and preserve spell energy. I'm confident any question someone has in regards to verisimilitude can be answered as easily and as simply as can questions about how and why any other type of magic system works.

I don't know why this is more unbelievable than any other explanation of magic.

Democratus
2016-06-10, 03:08 PM
I don't know why this is more unbelievable than any other explanation of magic.

It's not. Max is just unable to disentangle "things I don't like" from "things that don't work".

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-10, 03:09 PM
Verisimilitude is not well-maintained by just-so stories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story).



It's not. Max is just unable to disentangle "things I don't like" from "things that don't work".

:smallconfused:

Speaking of fallacies... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem)

Theoboldi
2016-06-10, 03:44 PM
Verisimilitude is not well-maintained by just-so stories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story).


You do realize what 'just-so stories' are, right? They are made stories that are both unproveable and unfalsifiable which serve to explain a certain phenomenon. That is literally the definition of any sort of explanation for magic.

I don't really want to get tangled up in this discussion, but please use terms like this when they are actually relevant.

AMFV
2016-06-10, 03:45 PM
You're mixing up realism and verisimilitude. Magic is never realist, but what people dislike about Vancian magic is that no simple explanation making it consistent are provided.

But such explanations do exist, there are more than half-a-dozen of them some that were provided and created in this very thread. I mean there's even a physical parallel, supposing I can leg press 2,000 lbs, I can't do that indefinitely all day. And supposing that I can squat world record levels, I can't do that on the same day as I leg press 2,000 lbs for reps. So there's even a real world physical parallel. I have to pick which physical activities I do, and can only do a certain amount of them in a given time before I recover.

Generally the problem with verisimilitude arguments is frame of reference. Different people have very different frame of reference and won't believe different things are equally plausible. In fact, many people would believe that things that are perfectly realistic are not so, because of their frame of reference. So it winds up being largely a taste issue.

Khedrac
2016-06-10, 03:56 PM
Guys - can you please move on to finding more ridiculous rules, rather than debating how ridiculous or not already given examples are.

Whether something is "ridiculous" or not is always a personal subjective position - some people will find one thing ridiculous, others will find something else, neither of you is wrong, you just have different personal standards of expectation.

One can mage a good case for any fantasy game's magic system being "ridiculous":
Vancian casting - already discussed
Power points resetting every day - excuse me, why does an arbitary time of day take the caster form 0 power to ready to go?
Power points resetting when you sleep 8 hours - better than most, but one can have a gentle day doing very little and staying up late because you are reading a good book - no 8 hours sleep, no power regain, have an full on day but get 8 hours sleep and full power regain.
Power points returning through the day at 1/24th total per hour (AH RQ3 the way we played at Uni) - so being in a running battle is just as 'restful' as sleep? really?

All games are limited in how they represent whatever they cover - they have to, to be playable. The most complex simulations always fall short of reality - you cannot model everything and it would be no fun as a game.
Just accept that different people like different styles and acccept it and move on.

We can (or should be able to) see the humour that other see in a rule even if we personally have no problems with the rule. I am happy with Vancian casting, but I don't disagree that it is a silly way of doing it - it's a silly way that works for me.

So - what other magic systems are there out there that we can show are silly?

Let's start with Rolemaster. Loads of spell lists, each with one spell of each level (well from 1 to 20, less than that over 20) and casters have to choose individual lists to try and learn (and most lists are one class only). The on top of that bolt spells, ball spells etc. are all different attack skills.

Kapow
2016-06-10, 06:39 PM
Another System (although not ridiculous imho, sry) is the Dark Eye (Das Schwarze Auge).
It is convoluted.
Each skill check is three ability-rolls and you can use skill ranks to compensate, the more you keep the better your result.
Now, EACH spell is effectively a separate skill.

And you level EVERYTHING by spending xp AND time for training.
The only exception are special experiences (you only have to spend xp and also less of them) which are either given by the GM at the end of a session (e.g. you've been on a boat for some time, so you get a special experience in seafaring)
OR by a critical success or failure (they aren't at 5% because of the triple roll), because, it is said you learn from those things

Magic points (yep, you have those too) and hp are replenished only by a d6 (+ boni sometimes) per 8 hours rest

As I said, convoluted, but it works quite well.

After rereading this, I'm sure there are some, who find this ridiculous :smallwink:

Jay R
2016-06-10, 08:27 PM
You see, this is why we should abolish levels and just give XP that can be spent on everything. It's annoying when I need to improve my climb skill but the GM goes 'sorry, you won't level for another two weeks'.

There are such games. If that's what you want, play Fantasy Hero.


Every skill has a rating from 0-100. You succeed at a skill if you roll under it's rating on d100. If you succeed at a skill when it's actually relevant and useful to the adventure (rather than sitting at home rolling dice all day), then you get to put a check mark next to the skill. At the end of the adventure, you get to roll to see if you can increase the skill. This time, you have to roll *above* your skill rating (since someone who already knows how to do something well is unlikely to get better at it). If you succeed, you get to add a d6 to your skill. Otherwise, you get nothing.

This is very similar to the way skills increase in Flashing Blades, except that it's in 5% increment (a d20) and when it goes up, it goes up by exactly 5%.


First, I'm also looking at the very concept of a Vancian magic system, outside of the rules, and finding it patently ridiculous, even accounting for the fact that it's magic in a fantasy setting.

Second, as a rules set, regardless of setting, I consider a Vancian system a kludgey nightmare that doesn't balance, but that rather has simply long been taken for granted because it's the "original recipe".

Near as I can tell, the two biggest problem people have with D&D are that:
1. Vancian magic is too weak, and
2. Casters are too over-powered.

I've never understood how it could be both.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-10, 09:12 PM
There are such games. If that's what you want, play Fantasy Hero.



This is very similar to the way skills increase in Flashing Blades, except that it's in 5% increment (a d20) and when it goes up, it goes up by exactly 5%.



Near as I can tell, the two biggest problem people have with D&D are that:
1. Vancian magic is too weak, and
2. Casters are too over-powered.

I've never understood how it could be both.


My disdain for Vancian magic is unrelated to strength or weakness of the spells -- the spells cast with those bizarro slots can be as arbitrarily weak or powerful as the author or game designer sees fit.

It's the very structure of such a system, and the need for the sort "explanations" for it all we see in this thread and elsewhere, that drive my disdain.

"I forgotted my spells again, durp." is always going to be laughable no matter how many "explanations" you layer on it.

AMFV
2016-06-10, 09:15 PM
My disdain for Vancian magic is unrelated to strength or weakness of the spells -- the spells cast with those bizarro slots can be as arbitrarily weak or powerful as the author or game designer sees fit.

It's the very structure of such a system, and the need for the sort "explanations" for it all we see in this thread and elsewhere, that drive my disdain.

"I forgotted my spells again, durp." is always going to be laughable no matter how many "explanations" you layer on it.

"I'm too exhausted and can't lift anything." It's as reasonable as many real world limits on what a person can do physically in a day. The reason that you find (and many others find it somewhat laughable) is that they don't attribute the same kind of stress to mental work as too physical work. All systems of magic are going to require some sort of explanation. If they have rules attached to them.

GorinichSerpant
2016-06-11, 12:06 AM
My disdain for Vancian magic is unrelated to strength or weakness of the spells -- the spells cast with those bizarro slots can be as arbitrarily weak or powerful as the author or game designer sees fit.

It's the very structure of such a system, and the need for the sort "explanations" for it all we see in this thread and elsewhere, that drive my disdain.

"I forgotted my spells again, durp." is always going to be laughable no matter how many "explanations" you layer on it.

My gripe with the vatican system is less "and now I forgot my spell", and more that the spell slots are weird. This could be paralleled with how you have a limited amount of physical strength every day, but the way you use vatican spells doesn't imply that. The way the mechanic usually ends up working is that you have a metaphysical "gun" that you can reload every day during rest with any of a wide array of ammunition that appears out of somewhere. To me the vatican system feels blatantly the way it is only because there needs to be some way to balance abilities. As most people have already said, it's a preference thing.

Telok
2016-06-11, 12:44 AM
"I'm too exhausted and can't lift anything." It's as reasonable as many real world limits on what a person can do physically in a day. The reason that you find (and many others find it somewhat laughable) is that they don't attribute the same kind of stress to mental work as too physical work. All systems of magic are going to require some sort of explanation. If they have rules attached to them.I've found, over the years, that if I'm doing heavy lifting for a day all I need is a couple hours rest and a meal to get going again. On the other hand when I write computer code all day I won't be physically tired, but if I don't get a solid night's sleep I turn into useless crankypants the next day. I do wonder what percentage of people who complain about explanations for Vancian and other magic systems actually read the original fiction that lays it out.

What I've grown to really dislike is the D&D 4th and 5th editions setups where bards insult things and they take damage. A monster doesn't speak your language? Insult it to death. It's deaf and doesn't even have ears? Insult it to death. It's a mindless clockwork? Insult it to death. It's the kitchen table? Ok, that's immune. Untill some wizard animates it, then you insult it and it breaks in half. Bleah.

ClintACK
2016-06-11, 03:27 AM
"Rest issues" is just icing on the cake when it comes to the problems with Vancian magic. Conceptually, it's nonsense, and for balance, it's a kludge.

*shrug*

I *can* be explained well (as it was, sort of, by Vance, and better by Zelasny). It just *wasn't* explained well by Gary Gygax. (Making it about "memorizing" and "forgetting"... *sigh*.) And that poorly explained version is how everyone remembers it.

(Short version of Zelasny's take on Vancian magic --- Merlin could cast spells whenever he wanted, but each ritual was long and involved. So before he headed into a dangerous situation, he'd spend an hour working some magics he thought might be helpful. Then he'd have those spells hanging around him just waiting for the last word or gesture to trigger them. No "memorizing" or "forgetting" involved. It kind of fits with the way Ritual Magic works in 5e.)

Shpadoinkle
2016-06-11, 03:37 AM
RPGS try to create a semblance of realism but many rules are so ridiculous that you can't even see the logic behind them.

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.

What is your most ridiculous rule.

Actually no, it's really not. Saved this quote from somewhere I don't remember, but it makes sense if you look at it this way.


XP = Loot is actually the way the game is supposed to be played. It fixes a lot of problems. Just make XP interchangable with Gold Pieces (at 1 to 5), and you will be amazed how many things in D&D suddenly make sense.

To elaborate:

XP comes from death. When a commoner dies, he gives out XP appropriate to a CR 1/2 encounter. Now this XP can be harvested no matter how he dies, so the local lord collects a death tax of all the XP from a community (that's roughly 2 deaths per 100 people per year).

The lord invests this XP into protecting the community - which, in D&D, means giving himself levels, since 1 high lvl > many low levels. Still, he needs mooks and helpers (and eventually a replacement) so he gives some of the XP to his followers. Or gives it to a wizard in exchange for magic items.

This produces a medieval economy where the number of peasants you control = the amount of power you have. Adventurers don't have fiefs and plantations, so they go out and kill monsters for XP (the monsters, of course, have plantations of their own peasant class, like goblins or orcs).

Now look how much this solves. The PCs can't push around the local lords anymore - the King is not only rich, he is powerful, because in D&D those mean the same thing. The highest level dude around is the local ruler. The DM can figure out what level that guy is, and how many troops he has, based on the size of his holdings - and the players can figure it out too, meaning they know who to be scared of and who they can push around.

High-levels having castles for the peasants to hide in makes sense, because those peasants are the source of their income. Clerics caring about their flock - same thing. Wizards selling items make sense - they make a net profit on the XP, so they can go up levels just by catering to loser fighter-types.

Side-quests to level up before taking on the big bad? Killing monsters just for the XP/Loot? All of these are features of D&D, and now they make sense. Genies spawning wishes? Sorry, somebody has to pay XP for those wishes. The Genie will give you a free one 'cause you called him, but it comes out of his pocket. He can't give you more. Shadows spawning all over the world? Sorry but it takes XP to make a magical monster (as much for a CR 3 monster as for a Lvl 3 character); that whole village only makes 1 or 2 Shadows and meanwhile the local lord is coming to protect his property.

Seriously, it just fixes so much. And players love it, since they can use their XP for levels, or henchmen, or magic items, or just gold. It empowers them over an whole 'nother level of the game.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-11, 04:45 AM
There are such games. If that's what you want, play Fantasy Hero.

I don't actually play D&D when I have the choice anymore. I can stomach not being able to do it, but it's really annoying and I prefer levelless.

Knaight
2016-06-11, 05:25 AM
Fair enough. Instead of saying that balance doesn't really matter in abstract games, I should have just said that it doesn't really matter "as much".

It's more that different types of games have different balance. Something hyper combat focused with a design about adventurers doing things is going to need balance between adventurers, and a case like Superman and Lois Lane is going to be poorly fitting at best. Something involving character drama on the other hand needs a balance between character depth and spotlight focus more than anything, so that sort of situation is fine, whereas a character like Fitor or Wizherd the archetype that isn't even really named isn't going to work particularly well.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-11, 07:49 AM
I've found, over the years, that if I'm doing heavy lifting for a day all I need is a couple hours rest and a meal to get going again. On the other hand when I write computer code all day I won't be physically tired, but if I don't get a solid night's sleep I turn into useless crankypants the next day. I do wonder what percentage of people who complain about explanations for Vancian and other magic systems actually read the original fiction that lays it out.


I tried... I just plain don't care that much for Vance, et al.




What I've grown to really dislike is the D&D 4th and 5th editions setups where bards insult things and they take damage. A monster doesn't speak your language? Insult it to death. It's deaf and doesn't even have ears? Insult it to death. It's a mindless clockwork? Insult it to death. It's the kitchen table? Ok, that's immune. Untill some wizard animates it, then you insult it and it breaks in half. Bleah.


What makes a bard a bard (especially in the source culture instead of the "character class") is a cultural role and a set of performance and social skills. Trying to shoehorn those into a combat-centric RPG ruleset and "weaponize" them is silly.

Jay R
2016-06-11, 08:03 AM
My gripe with the vatican system is less "and now I forgot my spell", and more that the spell slots are weird. This could be paralleled with how you have a limited amount of physical strength every day, but the way you use vatican spells doesn't imply that. The way the mechanic usually ends up working is that you have a metaphysical "gun" that you can reload every day during rest with any of a wide array of ammunition that appears out of somewhere. To me the vatican system feels blatantly the way it is only because there needs to be some way to balance abilities. As most people have already said, it's a preference thing.

A better metaphor is a crossbow or a musket. It takes some time to load, but you can then carry it loaded for hours before shooting it at a moment's notice.

Or think of food in a backpack. I can decide what food to carry, up to my carrying capacity. It takes time to buy food, prepare it, and pack it in the pack, but then I can eat anything I thought to bring with me immediately. But once I eat it, and can't eat the same thing, until I get back to town, buy food, prepare it, and pack it.

Once you accept that your mind can manipulate physical reality in a magic-filled world, there is nothing inherently wrong with the idea that you can carry a mostly-finished ritual in your head, but once you use that magical force, you don't have it to use again until you go through the rituals again. And there's nothing wrong with the idea that you can only do that so many times in a day, based on your intelligence and experience.

When I say, "I can see someone" in this world, that means that the person must be in front of my eyes. But in a world with scrying, , you can say "I see someone" in a very different sense. When I say, "I'm flying tomorrow," I mean I have a ticket for an airplane flight. A D&D wizard can say it in an entirely different sense.

Stop trying to interpret the words "memorize" and "forget" in a non-magical sense, recognize that mental actions are different in a world in which your mind can cause fireballs or flight, and it's just as reasonable as any other system of magic.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-11, 08:10 AM
A better metaphor is a crossbow or a musket. It takes some time to load, but you can then carry it loaded for hours before shooting it at a moment's notice.

Or think of food in a backpack. I can decide what food to carry, up to my carrying capacity. It takes time to buy food, prepare it, and pack it in the pack, but then I can eat anything I thought to bring with me immediately. But once I eat it, and can't eat the same thing, until I get back to town, buy food, prepare it, and pack it.


None of those things is a brain/mind, or a memory.




Stop trying to interpret the words "memorize" and "forget" in a non-magical sense, recognize that mental actions are different in a world in which your mind can cause fireballs or flight, and it's just as reasonable as any other system of magic.

Stop trying to turn common everyday words into "terms of art" in order to back-explain a system that's conceptually and mechanically lacking.

goto124
2016-06-11, 08:21 AM
"Memorize" and "forget" are terrible word choices, even if the concept itself is fair.

Knaight
2016-06-11, 09:04 AM
Stop trying to turn common everyday words into "terms of art" in order to back-explain a system that's conceptually and mechanically lacking.

They are terms of art though. The word choice is questionable at best, which is probably why "memorize" has been largely dropped in favor of "prepare", but the whole almost finished ritual concept is solid. It's incredibly setting specific, and it's a large part of why I contend that D&D isn't a generic fantasy system (though there are other, larger parts), but as a mechanic in isolation it works just fine.

Jay R
2016-06-11, 09:31 AM
None of those things is a brain/mind, or a memory.

Of course. That's why I called them metaphors.

Nothing in our world that can start fires, cause flight, create lightning, make people grow or shrink, or summon monsters is a brain/mind, or a memory. Minds in D&D do things that our minds can't. They really do. They dominate people, create fireballs, cause levitation. As long as you assume a mind cannot control magic, you will not understand any theory about how minds in D&D control magic. But that's not a hole in D&D logic. It's you arguing in a circle.


Stop trying to turn common everyday words into "terms of art" in order to back-explain a system that's conceptually and mechanically lacking.

I'm not back-explaining. That was the explanation before D&D existed.

And memory really can work that way. Yesterday I was measuring a desk where I had no paper. I measured it and held those three numbers in my head, thinking of little else, until I found a piece of paper and wrote them down. Twenty minutes later, they weren't in my head, and I had to go look at the piece of paper.

That's not a perfect parallel, but it's enough to make the Vancian system reasonable.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-11, 09:34 AM
Hardly, but we'll have to disagree. There is literally no explanation you can offer that won't sound like a ridiculous excuse for a rotten concept, as far as I'm concerned.

Perfume on a pig, as it were... as I said earlier, it's all just ways to cover up for the raw silliness of "I forgot my spells. Again."

Thrudd
2016-06-11, 10:29 AM
There is literally no explanation you can offer that won't sound like a ridiculous excuse for a rotten concept, as far as I'm concerned.


That is apparent. Dying Earth just rubs you the wrong way. So what is a reasonable concept for how magic works, to you? Is the problem that you can't believe the mind/memory itself could be affected by or changed by magic? How does Suggestion and Charm work?

ClintACK
2016-06-11, 10:58 AM
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.)


And don't get me started on Raise Dead. When was the last time any NPC in any campaign was raised from the dead? It's routine for PCs, but a wealthy merchant dies -- and doesn't have a contract with the local church? A powerful duke dies, and his chaplain doesn't bring him back as a matter of course? A dragon with a whole cult of followers... anyway, you get the idea.

Particularly at high levels, there really ought to be more attention paid to *how* you dispose of an enemy's mortal remains.

Jay R
2016-06-11, 11:22 AM
Hardly, but we'll have to disagree. There is literally no explanation you can offer that won't sound like a ridiculous excuse for a rotten concept, as far as I'm concerned.

Agreed. As long as you insist on believing things about it that everybody else knows are not true, tthen nobody else can convince you of anything.


Perfume on a pig, as it were... as I said earlier, it's all just ways to cover up for the raw silliness of "I forgot my spells. Again."

Exactly. As long as you try to pretend that it ever said or meant "forgetting" in the real-world non-magical sense, rather than being a magical effect, you will always be incapable of understanding what the concept has been for over a sixty years. Casting a spell is intended as a magical effect. It really is.

It doesn't mean that. It never meant that. Neither Jack Vance nor any rules-writer ever meant that.

We agree with you completely that the interpretation "I forgot my spells. Again" is ridiculous. Our area of disagreement is that you believe that your simplistic, magic-denying approach is the intent of either Jack Vance and the rules-makers. Nobody else does.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-11, 11:38 AM
Agreed. As long as you insist on believing things about it that everybody else knows are not true, tthen nobody else can convince you of anything.


If your argument comes down to "well you must be ignorant if you don't agree with me", then we really are done.



It doesn't mean that. It never meant that. Neither Jack Vance nor any rules-writer ever meant that.


Well, then, I guess they shouldn't have said that, and neither should some of the system's advocates, either.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-11, 11:48 AM
That is apparent. Dying Earth just rubs you the wrong way.


The system in question "rubbed me the wrong way" long before I'd ever heard of Dying Earth or saw it referred to as "Vancian".





So what is a reasonable concept for how magic works, to you? Is the problem that you can't believe the mind/memory itself could be affected by or changed by magic?


No. It's that knowledge isn't magic. If you know how to do something, then you know how to do it, you don't forget how to do it every time you do it, and then have to redo it again.

Plus, the idea of discrete rote processes that only ever accomplish one exact thing and exactly one thing only, in a very preprogrammed fashion, and operate like some sort of ammunition that has to be painstakingly and carefully preloaded prior to combat, doesn't really fit the idea of someone who understands and manipulates the arcane forces of the universe.

The whole thing ends up being like claiming that a baseball player has to relearn how to swing his bat every day, or he can't swing at all, and if he doesn't prepare the enough "swing versus curveball in the low inside corner" instead of "swing versus high fastball" or "swing versus inside changeup", then he's screwed as soon as the pitcher throws the fourth or fifth curveball against him.

Or claiming that if I didn't memorize the right filters on the inventory report before I go to work in the morning, I won't know how to look at the warehouses I need to look at -- I'll only be able to set up the filters for the warehouses I studied the settings for that morning.

The Glyphstone
2016-06-11, 11:49 AM
Out of curiosity, I did a Find scan through my copy of the 3.5 PHB. It never once uses the words 'memorize' or 'forget' in relation to wizards and spells, but exclusively refers to it as 'preparing'. For that matter, it also specifically elaborates on how the 'preparation' process in the morning is casting almost all of a spell minus the last few trigger words.

Anyone have a copy of the 4E or 5E PHBs they can poke into and check for the same?

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-11, 12:05 PM
Out of curiosity, I did a Find scan through my copy of the 3.5 PHB. It never once uses the words 'memorize' or 'forget' in relation to wizards and spells, but exclusively refers to it as 'preparing'. For that matter, it also specifically elaborates on how the 'preparation' process in the morning is casting almost all of a spell minus the last few trigger words.

Anyone have a copy of the 4E or 5E PHBs they can poke into and check for the same?


http://www.dyingearth.com/files/GARY%20GYGAX%20JACK%20VANCE.pdf


Just what portions of these works, the subsequent AD&D game, stemmed from inspiration related to the writing of Jack Vance? Several elements, the unquestioned foremost being the magic system used in these games. To my way of thinking, the concept of a spell itself being magical, that its written form carried energy, seemed a perfect way to balance the mage against other types of characters in the game. The memorization of the spell required time and concentration so as to impart not merely the written content but also its magical energies. When subsequently cast — by speaking or some other means — the words or gestures, or whatever triggered the magical force of the spell, leaving a blank place in the brain where the previously memorized spell had been held. Because I explained this often, attributing its inspiration to Jack Vance, the D&D magic system of memorized then forgotten spells was dubbed by gamers “the Vancian magic system”.


And I'd say that all the subsequent stuff about "oh well it's a prepared ritual that you hold at the last moment until you fire it off" strikes me both as an attempt to get out from under the baggage of the "Vancian" system, and as nothing like most understandings of how magical rituals work. Interrupting the ritual partway through almost always ruins the ritual or causes something to go terribly wrong in almost any real world belief about ritual-magic-working, or any fiction presentation of rituals.

ClintACK
2016-06-11, 01:11 PM
... and as nothing like most understandings of how magical rituals work. Interrupting the ritual partway through almost always ruins the ritual or causes something to go terribly wrong in almost any real world belief about ritual-magic-working, or any fiction presentation of rituals.

Hmm... It's not so much interrupting the ritual -- it's that the ritual is designed with a break point. And there's *tons* of lore like that -- where you do a long magic ritual but the magic effect doesn't happen until it's triggered later.


Burying your photograph at a crossroads (or rubbing the lamp or calling upon a fairy) may grant you a wish. But nothing magic actually happens until you speak the words. Hours to assemble the right ingredients and bury them at midnight under a full moon. Seconds to say, "I wish I could play the guitar like nobody's business."


Single-use magic items (scrolls, potions, alchemical vials...) are all essentially long magic rituals whose effects are triggered by a single quick action. (Would it help if you imagine the wizard ritually preparing and charging up three balls of bat guano when the player decides to prepare fireball three times?)


The Mummy's Curse -- is essentially a magic ritual waiting to be triggered when someone breaks the seal on the tomb. In fact most curses seem to have a trigger condition (either to set it off or to break it). See Sleeping Beauty. Or Beauty and the Beast. Or Snow White's apple.

A coven of witches prepare a hex bag. Later the witch approaches you and touches you with it -- sealing the prepared curse to you. (Or hides it in your bed where you'll sleep over it and have nightmares. Or whatever)


A voodoo doll -- usually created in a long ritual involving gathering ingredients (like hair or nails from the victim), chanting and heating wax and crafting the doll. But it doesn't have any actual effect until the quick action of jabbing it with a pin. And witches/voudons are routinely portrayed in stories as carrying around the doll and only using it later.


In Navajo tradition, a Skin-walker is a witch who transforms into an animal shape. There's a whole thing where they kill and skin an animal and do ritual magic to prepare the skin, so that later they can use it to quickly transform into that animal.


In Game of Thrones, the Red Woman does a long blood magic ritual with Gendry (one of Rob's bastards) and three leeches. Then there's a break point. The spell won't actually take effect until Stannis picks up a leech, speaks the name of an enemy, and throws the leech in the fire. You could imagine him walking through a dungeon with a torch and some leeches in his pocket...


In the Dresden Files, book 12, Changes... the RC Vampires spend days sacrificing humans at their temple to charge up a massive death spell. It is triggered (and its target determined) when one more victim is sacrificed in the right way. Days to prepare the ritual, moments to finish it.


In Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ethshar series... Wizardry works with long rituals and rare ingredients. Some spells are quick -- like Thrindle's Combustion (a pinch of sulfur, a flick of your dagger, and something's on fire). But the really powerful ones -- like the greater petrification spell seen in the Unwelcome Warlock and the Vondish Ambassador -- are hours of ritual followed by the last step being done in the presence of your target. To use it as an attack, a powerful wizard prepared the whole ritual, then flew on a flying carpet into Vond's presence and jabbed his dagger into the chalice to complete the ritual.


In the TV series Supernatural... the Enochian blood spell to banish angels would take too long to be useful in combat, so they always prepare it ahead of time one way or another, and then trigger it with a bloody palm to the sigil after a pithy one-liner.


Examples from the works of Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny have already been mentioned in this thread.




"Prepared magic" is hardly a new idea. It has at least as long a tradition as Harry-Potter-style technologically reliable insta-magic.



Edited to add:

You don't have to *like* Vancian magic. By and large I don't like it either. I think 5e wizards are *much* more playable than 1e wizards.

But it's not necessarily silly and it does have a long tradition behind it.

charcoalninja
2016-06-11, 02:33 PM
4E skill DC depends on the level of the character doing the skill and not the difficulty of the circumstance independent of whoever is doing it.

I'm sure this was corrected in 7 pages of thread but this is wrong and is an error that is constantly repeated enough that it needs to be correct every time I see it.

4e DCs did not work that way. What made for a challenging skill action scaled with level so a challenging roll for level 1 is like 15 and for level 30 might be 40. However the level 1 guy us running across ice while the level 30 guy is running across a span of frictionless omni ice that formed the first glaciers on Cania.

Please read your books people and stop spreading misinformation.

digiman619
2016-06-11, 02:33 PM
In the Dresden Files, book 12, Changes... the RC Vampires spend days sacrificing humans at their temple to charge up a massive death spell. It is triggered (and its target determined) when one more victim is sacrificed in the right way. Days to prepare the ritual, moments to finish it.

In fairness, in the Dresden files ONLY rituals work like that because they are explicitly contacting otherworldly things; Harry regular magic is closer to a spell-point system.

Thrudd
2016-06-11, 02:39 PM
The system in question "rubbed me the wrong way" long before I'd ever heard of Dying Earth or saw it referred to as "Vancian".





No. It's that knowledge isn't magic. If you know how to do something, then you know how to do it, you don't forget how to do it every time you do it, and then have to redo it again.

Plus, the idea of discrete rote processes that only ever accomplish one exact thing and exactly one thing only, in a very preprogrammed fashion, and operate like some sort of ammunition that has to be painstakingly and carefully preloaded prior to combat, doesn't really fit the idea of someone who understands and manipulates the arcane forces of the universe.

The whole thing ends up being like claiming that a baseball player has to relearn how to swing his bat every day, or he can't swing at all, and if he doesn't prepare the enough "swing versus curveball in the low inside corner" instead of "swing versus high fastball" or "swing versus inside changeup", then he's screwed as soon as the pitcher throws the fourth or fifth curveball against him.

Or claiming that if I didn't memorize the right filters on the inventory report before I go to work in the morning, I won't know how to look at the warehouses I need to look at -- I'll only be able to set up the filters for the warehouses I studied the settings for that morning.

It would be an entirely different game if the magic system operated only according to real-world folklore and religious rituals. That might be an interesting setting to play in, but fantasy is not required to only be representative of real world religious beliefs.

Since there is no such thing as "real" magic, at least not the type generally present in fantasy settings, there is nothing off limits in terms of what is believable. It's only a mater of clarity and consistency. If the creator of a setting says magic works a certain way, that is how it works.

You've got Vancian magic all wrong, your examples demonstrate you aren't clear on what it is despite having it plainly described multiple times. In Dying Earth and early D&D, magic spells are not something a person "knows". A spell isn't knowledge you possess, it is a tool, a relic of a past age, that you are trained how to use (and which you possess in physical form as books/scrolls). Your brain is just a vessel temporarily housing it. That you abjectly refuse to accept this concept as a possibility makes no sense. It is a valid and imaginative choice made by the author and creator of that setting, which was clearly explained and elaborated on in a series if stories.

Yes, 3e's explanation of how magic works abandoned that setting and made a different but equally valid interpretation that allowed them to use a similar mechanic to represent it. That is more like Zelazny's Merlin, conducting rituals which store the energy for later triggering. The limiting factor is again explained as a matter of mental endurance. Personally, I think the earlier explanation works better for the "spell slot" mechanic.

There are as many systems of magic as there are authors of fantasy stories, and the only way to compare them is by how well the author describes their setting. There are few consistent elements from one to the next, and many go into little or no detail at all regarding how magic works from the point of view of the wizard.

Whatever your frame of reference is for how magic is "supposed" to be, it seems very limited.

What is the acceptable explanation for magic?

ClintACK
2016-06-11, 04:00 PM
In fairness, in the Dresden files ONLY rituals work like that because they are explicitly contacting otherworldly things; Harry regular magic is closer to a spell-point system.

Leaving aside sponsored magic rituals (like the coven in Blood Rites), DF magic is Evocation (what you can do in an instant) and Thaumaturgy (what you can do with time to carry out a ritual).

We usually see Dresden doing Evocation -- Fuego or Forzare or Ventas Servitas -- because he's usually doing things in a rush. And, yeah. It's definitely like a spell-point system -- or perhaps like a hybrid hit point/spell point/exhaustion system with an option to overchannel with longer-term consequences.

Thaumaturgy is the ritual stuff. Like when he takes time to make a circle and gather power and charge up a tracking spell, then breaks the circle and uses the spell.

But yeah... Harry basically does either evocation or ritual magic that he uses immediately. To the extent that he "prepares" magic for later, it's either potions or charging up something like his force rings.

So... mostly agree.

There are definitely hints that other wizards do more preparation and less on-the-fly evocation. (Like the Merlin's bandolier of potion vials.) But nothing particularly like "preparing spells".

The Glyphstone
2016-06-11, 04:58 PM
http://www.dyingearth.com/files/GARY%20GYGAX%20JACK%20VANCE.pdf



That...is not from the 4E or 5E PHBs, so it's irrelevant. I'm fully aware that AD&D explicitly tapped and mentioned the Dying Earth books, since Gygax was still around to be actively writing and editing them. But he had no part in 3.0 or 3.5, as clearly shown by 'memorization' no longer being a part of the fluff, and I was curious if WoTC had reverted their stance in a later edition.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-11, 08:52 PM
That...is not from the 4E or 5E PHBs, so it's irrelevant. I'm fully aware that AD&D explicitly tapped and mentioned the Dying Earth books, since Gygax was still around to be actively writing and editing them. But he had no part in 3.0 or 3.5, as clearly shown by 'memorization' no longer being a part of the fluff, and I was curious if WoTC had reverted their stance in a later edition.

As long as the D&D family tree (or at least the main branches) use "Vancian" magic, it's fair to look back at why and how that original design decision was made, and it's absolutely fair to hold the game to those creator statements.




You've got Vancian magic all wrong, your examples demonstrate you aren't clear on what it is despite having it plainly described multiple times. In Dying Earth and early D&D, magic spells are not something a person "knows". A spell isn't knowledge you possess, it is a tool, a relic of a past age, that you are trained how to use (and which you possess in physical form as books/scrolls). Your brain is just a vessel temporarily housing it.


The more you try to explain it, the more laughable the "Vancian" concept gets.




What is the acceptable explanation for magic?


I thought the thread was about rules we find ridiculous... not "and how would you replace them".

AMFV
2016-06-11, 09:30 PM
As long as the D&D family tree (or at least the main branches) use "Vancian" magic, it's fair to look back at why and how that original design decision was made, and it's absolutely fair to hold the game to those creator statements.


That's completely not the case, they don't use the same explanations in-universe. And the things that are true in the Dying Earth are not largely true in D&D, they're completely different settings with different rules. Just the inspiration doesn't mean that it's linked. You can't claim that any more than you could claim that it's ridiculous that trolls in D&D live under bridges.



I thought the thread was about rules we find ridiculous... not "and how would you replace them".

The issue is that you said "no explanation" then around five people provided many of the varying explanations, including some that referenced the real world. Then you continued to claim that there was no explanation after people had provided such. So they're trying to find out what level of explanation would be sufficient for you.

An Enemy Spy
2016-06-11, 09:40 PM
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.

Dimers
2016-06-11, 10:56 PM
That...is not from the 4E or 5E PHBs, so it's irrelevant. I'm fully aware that AD&D explicitly tapped and mentioned the Dying Earth books, since Gygax was still around to be actively writing and editing them. But he had no part in 3.0 or 3.5, as clearly shown by 'memorization' no longer being a part of the fluff, and I was curious if WoTC had reverted their stance in a later edition.

In 5e, there are cantrips and there are other spells (of levels 1-9). You never run out of cantrips -- once you know a cantrip, you can cast it every action until you drop dead from exhaustion. Some classes prepare a sub-list of spells from a large list (clerics, paladins, druids), some prepare a sub-list from a list that depends on prior access to learning (wizard), some know only a short list but can cast from that list without setting in stone any particular sub-list (sorcerer, ranger, bard, warlock (more or less), arcane trickster, eldritch knight). None of them reference memorization or forgetting. The closest 5e comes to that is replacing spells previously known upon level-up.

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.

Telok
2016-06-12, 01:25 PM
4e DCs did not work that way. What made for a challenging skill action scaled with level so a challenging roll for level 1 is like 15 and for level 30 might be 40.

Quite true, the DC of a level 3 lock and the DC of a level 30 lock are completely different and don't change when PCs level up. What does change as PCs level up is the level of the lock. Level 3 PCs don't encounter level 30 locks and level 30 PCs don't encounter level 3 locks. So in play what the players see is DCs that go up with character level, because the challenge level goes up and the DCs are directly tied to challenge level.

Sure, you can say that there could be a game where a level 3 party is confronted by a level 30 lock that they have to pick. You can also put a level 3 party up against a level 30 dragon and let it stomp them. 4e doesn't do that, it has the level of the challenge scale with the level of the characters. Which means that players keep rolling against ever increasing DCs as they level up.

Avilan the Grey
2016-06-12, 01:36 PM
There are rules that are based on mathematical formulas which, if you don't use common sense, will become ridiculous under extreme circumstances.

Two examples. Two different (swedish) RPGs, from memory:

The carrying rule: You move slower the more you carry. However sooner or later you will start moving backwards. At increasing speeds.
(Basically the rules do not specify that you stop at speed 0). Theoretically you could, if you carry enough, go at the speed of light. Backwards.

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.

CharonsHelper
2016-06-12, 02:28 PM
Quite true, the DC of a level 3 lock and the DC of a level 30 lock are completely different and don't change when PCs level up. What does change as PCs level up is the level of the lock. Level 3 PCs don't encounter level 30 locks and level 30 PCs don't encounter level 3 locks. So in play what the players see is DCs that go up with character level, because the challenge level goes up and the DCs are directly tied to challenge level.

Sure, you can say that there could be a game where a level 3 party is confronted by a level 30 lock that they have to pick. You can also put a level 3 party up against a level 30 dragon and let it stomp them. 4e doesn't do that, it has the level of the challenge scale with the level of the characters. Which means that players keep rolling against ever increasing DCs as they level up.

Sort of, but that's kind of like saying that pitching in MLB is exactly the same as pitching in little league because even though the batters are better, the pitchers are proportionally better. And my nephew pitched a shut-out last night, and that's the same thing as when famous & highly paid pitcher X pitched a shut-out against The Dodgers.

The #s being the same doesn't make the act itself the same. And if your GM has EVERY challenge be perfectly balanced against character skill with no other differences, that sounds like a GM problem rather than a system problem.

Thrudd
2016-06-12, 02:29 PM
The more you try to explain it, the more laughable the "Vancian" concept gets.

I thought the thread was about rules we find ridiculous... not "and how would you replace them".

Alright, alright, you win. I accept your right to find the system ridiculous. We just disagree.

Ceiling_Squid
2016-06-13, 04:15 PM
I only "don't have one" if we're operating under the false dichotomy that any magic at all justifies absolutely any magic you feel like, and that all magic is equivalent.

I.E. the difference between realism and verisimilitude, which too many people conflate.

All magic is not equivalent. A little justification and consistency goes a long way towards swallowing it.

And "it's magic, it's all ridiculous!" certainly doesn't fly. One can have verisimilitude without being realistic.

Thrudd
2016-06-13, 04:34 PM
I.E. the difference between realism and verisimilitude, which too many people conflate.

All magic is not equivalent. A little justification and consistency goes a long way towards swallowing it.

And "it's magic, it's all ridiculous!" certainly doesn't fly. One can have verisimilitude without being realistic.

Which, in this case, there is justification and consistency for the magic in question. It's just some people don't like it or prefer something different for their settings. It has as consistent a justification as any system of fantasy magic, perfectly capable of creating a world with a sense of verisimilitude.

veti
2016-06-13, 10:37 PM
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".

Thrudd
2016-06-13, 11:01 PM
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".

Yeah, having such an open-ended magic system comes with its own problems. World of Darkness does that in the Mage games, and GURPS can do it, too. In Mage, you gain skill in general categories of magic called disciplines and can create any effect that you can justify as being related to that category; the level of your skill in each discipline determines how powerful/extensive/long lasting the effect can be. The problems can be that what you can accomplish is highly dependent on the GM's rulings. The benefit of neatly defined spells is obvious for a game that has a tactical element.

It's true, D&D wizards don't "master arcane forces". They gather and learn how to use spells that someone else created, by means most wizards don't and never will understand. To try to fluff it otherwise does cause verisimilitude conflicts, which annoys me about some of the D&D rule books that make this mistake and cause confusion in players. Why are there just these specific spells with such specific effects? They are probably just a small set of what was once a far more extensive repertoire created by the people that really had mastered the arcane forces, that has now been lost. Why did the masters of the arcane codify spells in this manner? Maybe for their own reference/posterity, or as a shortcut to access the effects that were commonly used, or to allow less masterful people to access some useful magical effects.

Although 5e cantrips sort of give that feel, of being able to create a lot of minor and open ended effects at will.

Ninjaxenomorph
2016-06-13, 11:17 PM
Dungeon Crawl Classics has an... interesting magic system. For each spell (of which there are a finite number, handed down by the god of magic), each spell has a variety of ways to cast it, similar to the '____ law' magic of Rolemaster. Each caster, however, casts each spell differently, rolling on a three-page table. They might have it boosted in power, they might age when they cast it, they might have to sacrifice blood to get a tiny result. Very random, but very individualized.

GorinichSerpant
2016-06-14, 05:35 AM
Yeah, having such an open-ended magic system comes with its own problems. World of Darkness does that in the Mage games, and GURPS can do it, too. In Mage, you gain skill in general categories of magic called disciplines and can create any effect that you can justify as being related to that category; the level of your skill in each discipline determines how powerful/extensive/long lasting the effect can be. The problems can be that what you can accomplish is highly dependent on the GM's rulings. The benefit of neatly defined spells is obvious for a game that has a tactical element.

It's true, D&D wizards don't "master arcane forces". They gather and learn how to use spells that someone else created, by means most wizards don't and never will understand. To try to fluff it otherwise does cause verisimilitude conflicts, which annoys me about some of the D&D rule books that make this mistake and cause confusion in players. Why are there just these specific spells with such specific effects? They are probably just a small set of what was once a far more extensive repertoire created by the people that really had mastered the arcane forces, that has now been lost. Why did the masters of the arcane codify spells in this manner? Maybe for their own reference/posterity, or as a shortcut to access the effects that were commonly used, or to allow less masterful people to access some useful magical effects.

Although 5e cantrips sort of give that feel, of being able to create a lot of minor and open ended effects at will.

So what you're telling me is that Wizards have convinced everyone including themselves that they are delving into the inner workings of the universe when in reality they are just gathering tricks, bobs and ends from old books?
That is fantastic.

PersonMan
2016-06-14, 06:12 AM
As long as the D&D family tree (or at least the main branches) use "Vancian" magic, it's fair to look back at why and how that original design decision was made, and it's absolutely fair to hold the game to those creator statements.

So the current explanation, which is different from the old one, is ridiculous because in the past the old explanation was ridiculous?

I'd imagine that 3.5e's psionics are also insane because 2e's psionics were crazy, and you can look back at the original design decisions and ignore that they've been changed/overruled since then.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-14, 06:39 AM
So the current explanation, which is different from the old one, is ridiculous because in the past the old explanation was ridiculous?


It's not as if the system was built, and then "Vancian" magic was found to offer a fitting explanation. No.

The "slots and discrete fixed spells", "fire and literally forget" system was designed around Gygax's understanding of the "magic" of Vance's Dying Earth. It was built from the ground up to emulate that "magic".

Any subsequent explanation is a retroactive attempt to paint over that ugly wallpaper.

It's like those businesses that are located in what used to be houses, subsequently remodeled for commercial use. As long as that building is used, you'll always be able to tell that it was originally built as a house, not a business. ( And please, please, can we not get into this moronic cycle of arguing about the analogy? )

If one really thinks that Vancian magic makes any sort of sense (which obviously I don't, I think it's ridiculous to the core and utterly nonsensical even in Vance's original form) and wants that sort of "magic" in their game, then the general D&D system works for that. But any setting with almost any other explanation for magic should probably drop that system and never look back.

Frozen_Feet
2016-06-14, 09:12 AM
So what you're telling me is that Wizards have convinced everyone including themselves that they are delving into the inner workings of the universe when in reality they are just gathering tricks, bobs and ends from old books?
That is fantastic.

You needed something else than D&D rules to tell you that? That is literally how magic-users are described as functioning.

Conradine
2016-06-14, 09:14 AM
At least half of the rules in FATAL are worse than that specific one. Including the 60% difference between male and female strength.

Actually, that is fairly accurate.

lothos
2016-06-14, 09:21 AM
....

Potion miscibility results could be hilariously stupid (and wonderfully so).

........

Yes, the first time I every played 1e AD&D one of the party was unconscious and we had no way to stabilize him (he was the cleric). So we tipped every potion we could find down his throat. We didn't know which potion was which and one of them had to be a healing potion, right ?

The DM's eyes lit up as he rolled on the potion miscibility table and announced that our cleric had just exploded with considerable force. The bits of Cleric and his plate mail armor that went flying from the explosion knocked out the magic user (wizard) who only had 1 hit point.

It was hilarious... but not so much for the cleric.

Themrys
2016-06-14, 09:24 AM
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.


I totally forgot that - the rules for healing in The Dark Eye are sort of ridiculous, too. Basically, no matter how badly you are wounded, you can regenerate full health in two or three nights of good sleep. Unless you are sturdier (more hit points) in which case you can withstand more garter snakes bites, but also need longer to regain full health after being almost dead.
That makes sense insofar as having to recover from your injuries for weeks or months would make the game boring, but from a realistic point of view, it is ridiculous.

Telok
2016-06-14, 11:08 AM
Yeah, the recent trend of total recovery from massive trauma and blood loss in 8 hours is pretty bad too.

The last three versions of D&D have gotten silly on health recovery. Early on it took magic to zap someone back into fighting trim in less than a week. These days someone can go from being submerged in acid and sucked dry by giant acid-proof leeches, a single hit point and save away from needing a Raise Dead spell, to acting like it never happened in anywhere from five minutes to eight hours. Without magic, treatment, supplies, or anything.

Someone will whine about hit points and meat points but when everyone heals like Deadpool without even the fig leaf of magic you've gone from heroic fantasy to cartoons and video games.

Thrudd
2016-06-14, 12:16 PM
Yes, the first time I every played 1e AD&D one of the party was unconscious and we had no way to stabilize him (he was the cleric). So we tipped every potion we could find down his throat. We didn't know which potion was which and one of them had to be a healing potion, right ?

The DM's eyes lit up as he rolled on the potion miscibility table and announced that our cleric had just exploded with considerable force. The bits of Cleric and his plate mail armor that went flying from the explosion knocked out the magic user (wizard) who only had 1 hit point.

It was hilarious... but not so much for the cleric.

ha! amazing. Yes, I can say that ridiculous rules are alive in the random 1e magic items and the many random ways they can kill players with no warning.

Cursed items that are specifically undetectable as cursed items (because if you could use "identify" spell to avoid getting cursed, nobody would ever get cursed! boring!)

The deck of many things.

What happens when you put a portable hole in a bag of holding, and vice versa.

Brazier of summoning hostile fire elementals.

Bowl of watery death

Random and ridiculous and amazing.

Lord Torath
2016-06-14, 03:36 PM
So the current explanation, which is different from the old one, is ridiculous because in the past the old explanation was ridiculous?

I'd imagine that 3.5e's psionics are also insane because 2e's psionics were crazy, and you can look back at the original design decisions and ignore that they've been changed/overruled since then.You think 2nd Edition Psionics were ridiculous? Check out 1E AD&D Psionics (http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/psionics.htm) (also a follow-up article (http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/Building%20D&D/buildingdnd34.htm) - and no, I'm not the author)

The Glyphstone
2016-06-14, 03:45 PM
Anyone have a link to that satirical depiction of 2e/1e psionics that likened it to Turn Undead?

veti
2016-06-14, 03:52 PM
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.

NoldorForce
2016-06-14, 06:23 PM
Anyone have a link to that satirical depiction of 2e/1e psionics that likened it to Turn Undead?That was actually about psionic combat (:smallsigh:) in the 3.0 iteration of psionics. (:smallsigh::smallsigh::smallsigh:) By now Antidjinn's original post has gone down, but someone managed to save a copy on StackExchange (http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/25315/was-psionic-combat-removed-from-pathfinder).

I have used this model before, but to really appreciate how this "class feature" worked you should see how it would apply if ported to mainstream D&D where they haven't been conditioned to accept inferior mechanics without question. Lets take the big sacred moo, a Cleric's undead turning ability:

DM: "Before we get started, Cleric, I just want you to know that I am instituting some changes in your turn undead class feature that will make your class more different and give it a unique divine mechanic."

Player: "OK. How does it work now?"

DM: "Well, for starters, when you attempt to turn undead you will now have to burn a spell."

Player: "A spell???? What level?"

DM: "Different levels. It depends on what turning mode you want to use. Sanctified Gesture takes a level 1, Divine Dance of Power takes a level 2, High Holly Homina Homina takes a level 3, and...."

Player: "Wait, I assume I will get a bonus on the roll based on the level of spell slot I sacrifice?"

DM: "Sometimes you will. Other times you will get a penalty based on the turning defense mode the opponent selects. Turning and turning defense modes will interact on a table. The table determines the actual DC of the roll, not the level of the spell slot burned. Choosing a given defense mode may actually mean you pay a spell to get a penalty on the save, but it will still be better than being defenseless."

Player: "The undead will get defense modes?"

DM: "Sure, so will you. Each round you will select a turning attack mode and a defense mode. In fact, you will need to select a defense mode against each undead opponent each and every round and each will cost you spell slots."

Player: "Wwwwwwhat????!!!!!! What if I am facing undead who do not cast spells, I assume they won't get to mount a defense?"

DM: "It doesn't matter if you face undead without casting ability because their turning and turning defense modes are free."

Player: "Wait a minute! This is stupid! One of my 3rd level spell slots could be spent on Searing Light which fries undead; why would I ever spend it on an attack mode that might help me on a turning attempt? And why would I ever take a turning defense mode, much less a separate one vs. each undead opponent? I would simply choose to ignore undead or cast spells against them or go at them with weapons. I would have to have brain damage to choose to turn with these rules!"

DM: "If you fail to mount a defense then each unblocked undead gets a special +8 bonus to hit you for having this wonderful class feature and choosing not to use it. They also get to drain your stats if they hit. This will apply also to anyone who adds a level of Cleric; multiclassing will be very flavorful."

Player: "But I am a spellcaster, I need to be able to cast spells. How can I do my job if my spell slots get sucked away every time we run into undead?"

DM: "Well, how can you do your job if you are dead or reduced to a mindless state? You need to use your spells this way or you may not live long enough to cast them anyway."

Player: Head down, silently weeping into his hands.

DM: "I should mention too that you will be able to make turn undead attempts vs. nonundead; if you succeed they will be stunned for a few rounds. Of course, everyone who does not have this feature will get a huge bonus on the save DC. The best part: If you blow a 5th level spell to use High Holy Hokey Pokey then everyone in a large area could be stunned for a long while and they don't get a bonus vs. this one mode -- that makes the entire system usable and balanced."

Player: "They should all be stunned if they ever see me willingly use these rules. This is preposterous! I need my spells to heal and buff and perform all the functions of a Cleric. How am I going to be of any use to the party if I hemorrhage spell slots every time we run into undead?"

DM: "That is the beauty of it: You get to choose whether to use your spell slots as they were intended or save your own hide by using them to turn. Come on and at least give it a chance. It will be a mechanic unique to your class so it must be a benefit. You don't want to be just another spellcaster do you? This will add so much flavor and.... Hey! Get him off of me!"

Player: "How ya like that fist flavor?"
And for those who aren't familiar, this was basically how 3.0 psionic combat worked. Only psionic characters could engage in it, which sounds like some neat flavor if a bit limited. But to use any of the relevant modes, you also had to spend power points (PP) to fuel attacks and defenses. Psionic monsters, on the other hand, could just do this for free. The end result was to have a hot mess of busywork that served no effect but to drain the psionic PCs of their resources until they ran out, at which point those PCs were hosed.

Edit: On that topic, D&D 3.0 psionics in general (featured in the Psionics Handbook) were a hot mess. I don't remember a lot of the details, but I do recall that each subcategory of powers used a different casting stat. Its reputation among the community was so legendary that it produced a pretty funny quote. " It's well documented that the 3.0 Psionics Handbook is the physical manifestation of a natural 1. Complete Psionic* is what happens when editors roll a natural 1. There's a difference, though neither's pleasant."

*A 3.5-era splatbook that expanded on the much better D&D 3.5 Expanded Psionics Handbook.

Max_Killjoy
2016-06-14, 06:27 PM
Psionics was always this weird shoehorned thing...

gooddragon1
2016-06-14, 06:39 PM
That was actually about psionic combat (:smallsigh:) in the 3.0 iteration of psionics. (:smallsigh::smallsigh::smallsigh:) By now Antidjinn's original post has gone down, but someone managed to save a copy on StackExchange (http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/25315/was-psionic-combat-removed-from-pathfinder).

I have used this model before, but to really appreciate how this "class feature" worked you should see how it would apply if ported to mainstream D&D where they haven't been conditioned to accept inferior mechanics without question. Lets take the big sacred moo, a Cleric's undead turning ability:

DM: "Before we get started, Cleric, I just want you to know that I am instituting some changes in your turn undead class feature that will make your class more different and give it a unique divine mechanic."

Player: "OK. How does it work now?"

DM: "Well, for starters, when you attempt to turn undead you will now have to burn a spell."

Player: "A spell???? What level?"

DM: "Different levels. It depends on what turning mode you want to use. Sanctified Gesture takes a level 1, Divine Dance of Power takes a level 2, High Holly Homina Homina takes a level 3, and...."

Player: "Wait, I assume I will get a bonus on the roll based on the level of spell slot I sacrifice?"

DM: "Sometimes you will. Other times you will get a penalty based on the turning defense mode the opponent selects. Turning and turning defense modes will interact on a table. The table determines the actual DC of the roll, not the level of the spell slot burned. Choosing a given defense mode may actually mean you pay a spell to get a penalty on the save, but it will still be better than being defenseless."

Player: "The undead will get defense modes?"

DM: "Sure, so will you. Each round you will select a turning attack mode and a defense mode. In fact, you will need to select a defense mode against each undead opponent each and every round and each will cost you spell slots."

Player: "Wwwwwwhat????!!!!!! What if I am facing undead who do not cast spells, I assume they won't get to mount a defense?"

DM: "It doesn't matter if you face undead without casting ability because their turning and turning defense modes are free."

Player: "Wait a minute! This is stupid! One of my 3rd level spell slots could be spent on Searing Light which fries undead; why would I ever spend it on an attack mode that might help me on a turning attempt? And why would I ever take a turning defense mode, much less a separate one vs. each undead opponent? I would simply choose to ignore undead or cast spells against them or go at them with weapons. I would have to have brain damage to choose to turn with these rules!"

DM: "If you fail to mount a defense then each unblocked undead gets a special +8 bonus to hit you for having this wonderful class feature and choosing not to use it. They also get to drain your stats if they hit. This will apply also to anyone who adds a level of Cleric; multiclassing will be very flavorful."

Player: "But I am a spellcaster, I need to be able to cast spells. How can I do my job if my spell slots get sucked away every time we run into undead?"

DM: "Well, how can you do your job if you are dead or reduced to a mindless state? You need to use your spells this way or you may not live long enough to cast them anyway."

Player: Head down, silently weeping into his hands.

DM: "I should mention too that you will be able to make turn undead attempts vs. nonundead; if you succeed they will be stunned for a few rounds. Of course, everyone who does not have this feature will get a huge bonus on the save DC. The best part: If you blow a 5th level spell to use High Holy Hokey Pokey then everyone in a large area could be stunned for a long while and they don't get a bonus vs. this one mode -- that makes the entire system usable and balanced."

Player: "They should all be stunned if they ever see me willingly use these rules. This is preposterous! I need my spells to heal and buff and perform all the functions of a Cleric. How am I going to be of any use to the party if I hemorrhage spell slots every time we run into undead?"

DM: "That is the beauty of it: You get to choose whether to use your spell slots as they were intended or save your own hide by using them to turn. Come on and at least give it a chance. It will be a mechanic unique to your class so it must be a benefit. You don't want to be just another spellcaster do you? This will add so much flavor and.... Hey! Get him off of me!"

Player: "How ya like that fist flavor?"
And for those who aren't familiar, this was basically how 3.0 psionic combat worked. Only psionic characters could engage in it, which sounds like some neat flavor if a bit limited. But to use any of the relevant modes, you also had to spend power points (PP) to fuel attacks and defenses. Psionic monsters, on the other hand, could just do this for free. The end result was to have a hot mess of busywork that served no effect but to drain the psionic PCs of their resources until they ran out, at which point those PCs were hosed.

Edit: On that topic, D&D 3.0 psionics in general (featured in the Psionics Handbook) were a hot mess. I don't remember a lot of the details, but I do recall that each subcategory of powers used a different casting stat. Its reputation among the community was so legendary that it produced a pretty funny quote. " It's well documented that the 3.0 Psionics Handbook is the physical manifestation of a natural 1. Complete Psionic* is what happens when editors roll a natural 1. There's a difference, though neither's pleasant."

*A 3.5-era splatbook that expanded on the much better D&D 3.5 Expanded Psionics Handbook.

If I were forced to play a 3.0 psion I think I might choose a race with a level adjustment just so I could also get access to free defense modes.

In other news: Making 0 Spellcraft DC epic spells for fun and profit.