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2022-01-19, 01:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
I really don't think it does - death spirals are usually scoped to characters, not sides. Including "loss of pieces" in the definition of a death spiral basically means that every game ever made has one, and as such then the statement "this game has a death spiral" becomes effectively meaningless.
Broadening the term to that level doesn't help, and only confuses the original, fairly clear definition."Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"
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2022-01-19, 01:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Eh, I think there's another element as regards "Wound Penalties" that can exist separate from the "Death Spiral" itself.
Wasting your actions is not fun. Wound Penalties mean that not only are you closer to defeat, but you also have a greater chance of "Wasting" a turn.
Imagine a Death Spiral mechanic where an injured character suffered no penalties, but other characters attacking them gained bonuses (Say, being able to spend fewer resources to do more damaging attacks, representing the injured character being less capable of defending themselves).
Or something like a fighting game, where by dealing damage you build up some resource which can then be spent to use more powerful abilities. That also represents a form of "death Spiral" (Although in that case it's usually referred to as "Snowballing").
Which is to say, somebody can be perfectly okay with Death Spirals (or Snowballing), but dislike Wound Penalties because they find ever increasing failure chances to be unfun.
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2022-01-19, 02:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
"Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"
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2022-01-19, 03:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
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2022-01-19, 03:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Exhaustion seems a touch better as it's mostly a mechanic that you opt in to, rather than one inflicted on you - you get exhausted by pushing yourself traveling, not eating, not resting, etc. I think penalties like that always feel a bit better when you take them willingly rather than it being something that's done to you.
"Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"
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2022-01-19, 05:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Each individual's chance of winning goes down with every team member who drops.
Including "loss of pieces" in the definition of a death spiral basically means that every game ever made has one, and as such then the statement "this game has a death spiral" becomes effectively meaningless.
Games often work either through points (most sports) or through KO (chess, checkers, and similar). While in the case of chess they try to approximate piece loss with piece point values, there's a real difference. If someone draws ahead of you in points, you can keep functioning as before -- you just need to perform better if you want to win. But in chess, each piece you lose actually impairs your functioning, so that once one goes, it's more likely that you will lose more. This is why I said it's fair to draw a difference between a death slope and a death spiral.
D&D-like RPGs have a hybrid points-KO system. If one opponent is just more damaged than the other, that's like being behind in points. But once a certain points threshold is reached, KO happens and at that point death spiral effects kick in.
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2022-01-19, 07:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
That may be true, but still I can say that I've never seen someone use "death spiral" to refer to a whole side without commenting that "if we apply to idea of a death spiral to a team" or similar. Usually people use terms like "advantage" and "disadvantage" or refer to feedback loops. In fact I would say that death spiral is limited to a character progressing towards death imposing a disadvantage, if the disadvantage and the progression towards death/taking damage are not tied together than it is not a death spiral. A fairly narrow definition but if we want to be broader we can discuss feedback loops.
I'm not going to say whether a death spiral is a good idea in general though, it depends on the game and its goals.
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2022-01-19, 08:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Yeah, I don't think a definition that includes "a side losing pieces is a death spiral" is useful.
It's definitely outside the usual definition of the term. And while it's worth noting that losing people on a side makes you less likely to win, I think it's also generically true enough that it doesn't make it useful in talking about specific game designs. It's kind of like saying "roleplaying games where you have characters" at that point.
The point about "each character's chance of winning goes down if someone on their team drops" feels enough like wordsmithing that it feels like it's bordering on leaving the good faith territory."Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"
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2022-01-19, 09:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
A death spiral is specifically a mechanism by which injured combat units become less effective, thus making it harder for them to fight back and/or easier to suffer further damage. Expanding the definition to include things like dropped allies and spent resources makes it a needlessly broad term with little discussion value. You can liken the loss of allies to a death spiral, sure. You can even give it a specific term of its own, like 'team death spiral.' But using the same term for both concepts devalues the term altogether.
Last edited by Hytheter; 2022-01-19 at 09:42 PM.
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2022-01-19, 10:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
I've actually seen research that suggests that loss of agency is the number one most frustrating thing to players in any game.
For example, in fighting games, having to wait while your opponent combos your character for 10+ seconds is actually more annoying than whatever damage the combo does. To the point where games with really long combos often get more criticism due to combo length than to combo damage.
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Unrelated: I agree that using the term "death spiral" to describe any advantage gained in game is needlessly broad and makes the term basically useless.Last edited by Lemmy; 2022-01-19 at 10:39 PM.
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2022-01-20, 12:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
That's a very specific use. I would say a death spiral is when a setback actively impairs your ability to win, or vice versa (instead of just making winning less or more likely within the game's horizon).
For example, in soccer, if every time you scored a goal you got to remove one player from the opposing team (or add one to yours), that would create a death spiral where the first person to score becomes more likely to score again, and even more likely to score again if they do, etc.
Meanwhile, playing iterated matches in a KO game (like a chess tournament) dampens the death spiral effect by distributing it. But if the winner of a match gets to remove one of their opponent's pieces from the next match, cumulative with each match, you could keep the death spiral snowballing from game to game.
I don't think it's generically true. Overall, the point-counting method is more popular -- it's what pretty much every sport uses.
Each time someone scores a goal against you in soccer, the performance level required for you to win the game in the remaining time gets steeper (a tiny bit steeper if you're way ahead, a lot steeper if you're behind) -- a "death curve". But it doesn't become any harder for you to score a goal. That's meaningful to contrast with a KO game like chess where success leads to success and one failure leads to more -- a "death spiral".
And like I said, looking at D&D this way, we can see it's a hybrid. Hit points are points based, but at a certain threshold they result in KO. Injury penalties might introduce a ramp to the death spiral instead of a binary switch.
But they don't actually need to. The practical ways to put injury penalties in D&D are with combat maneuvers that apply rider debuffs, like what all the martial classes had in 4e, or with called shot rules similar to 3e's special attacks (bull rush, sunder, etc).
First, in both those cases you're forgoing some amount of damage potential in order to apply a debuff.
Second, the game is already full of abilities that apply debuffs, so this is nothing out of the norm.
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2022-01-20, 01:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Yes. It's a specific term, with a specific meaning and a specific purpose, intended for specific kinds of conversation about the design of specific kinds of games. If you want a more general term then create one; this redefinition defeats the point of the existing term entirely.
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2022-01-20, 04:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Elves is right and you are all wrong. "Death spiral" is a figurative descriptor of system behavior, widely used to describe systems that run themselves to the ground. The term pre-exist gaming usage and was applied to game systems with wound penalties because said penalties cause such behaviour, the penalties themselves are not in any way definitional to the term. Other things being able to cause a death spiral is an observation, not semantic trickery or motte-bailey-debating. For actual game analysis, finding all causes of death spirals is perfectly valid and useful.
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2022-01-20, 08:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
For D&D 5e, sickening radiance called and would like a word.
For games with action economy it is useful in the context of the party/team losing effectiveness.The point about "each character's chance of winning goes down if someone on their team drops" feels enough like wordsmithing that it feels like it's bordering on leaving the good faith territory.
It's a phenomenon in real world combat that has been studied in some depth by those concerned with such things. There's an entire moral/emotional/mental aspect to this that makes it uneven in application, elite units being less prone to this, yadda yadda I am wandering off topic.
It is also an explicitly used term in aviation to describe how to, under the influence of vertigo or other vestibular malfunctions/distractions/failures, fly an aircraft into the ground/sea. (One example among many being JFK Junior's crash)Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
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2022-01-20, 10:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
We use it in health insurance too to represent closed-group plans where the healthy people flee as the costs increase (because the healthy people are fleeing, and so on...). Google also tells me that it is also a figure skating term meaning the broad-group set in which Cosmic Spirals, Life Spirals and Love Spirals are sub-sets (I will give them credit, that's some pretty inventive terminology). That is, of course, examples of differing sub-groups having their own uses for terms, indicating to me that there is no specific reason that TTRPGers shouldn't have their own colloquial definition of the term.
Regardless, there's a difference in experience between gradually-worsening-situation by team attrition and by accumulation of combat penalties, and having discussions of one mistaken for discussions of another do no one any good. One could try to change the board culture to use the term to the broader, potentially more accurate(ly inclusive) meaning, and I wish anyone the best at that attempt (I'll be sitting here on Dapple, dreaming of my Teresa and my promised ínsula).
I think either understanding of the word is, at best, a closely overlapping venn-diagram circle to what people really dislike, which I feel is the real goal of the conversation. I think we focus on the (usually accumulation of combat penalties version) death spiral because most people can probably agree that they dislike the extreme versions. As I believe was mentioned upthread in this thread, a lot of the games known for their wound-penalty-death-spiral mechanics (Shadowrun, White Wolf WoD games, West End Star Wars) aren't actually that un-fun when it comes to combat (at least for this reason). Quite probably because you still get to act and contribute, and the penalties are not out of line with the other situational bonuses and penalties that exist in the game system. Lemmy might be on to something in suggesting that the real culprit (disliked thing) is lack of agency (or, to add my own qualifiers, have agency and be able to make meaningful decisions which contribute to overall success). Anecdotally, in the 5e discussions some of the biggest complaints about fighters and warlocks in combat is that roughly 90% of the time the character-action-decision-point is 'do I just do a normal attack again, or do something else which would be less effective?' In that case, the player actually gets to contribute, yet still feels unfulfilled.
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2022-01-20, 10:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
The usage of "death spiral " in insurance comes from the same root as the usage in roleplaying games: a system that runs itself to the ground. The cause and context are different, the effect is the same. The literal death spiral in aviation also has an example of this: trying to pull a plane up when it is losing altitude in a descending spiral causes the spiral to tighten, so the plane loses altitude even faster, so the pilot keeps pulling up... so on and so forth, until it crashes. In short, don't confuse specific examples as special definitions.
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2022-01-20, 11:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Agreed on both counts.
On the first, yes, that's perhaps the most frustrating thing in any game, where control of your "point of contact" with the game is lost for an extended period of time. Can even be an issue when characters make decisions on their own, or otherwise avoidable things happen, in video game cutscenes.
On the second, in general, the broader definitions become the less useful they become. A definition that doesn't make a distinction is useless.It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
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2022-01-20, 11:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
These are actually really interesting phenomina. They're a situation where the logical or rational response (leaving the pool, pulling up out of the dive) makes the situation worse because of the way the underlying rules work.
Most 'wound penalty' death spiral games have some sort of an exit once the spiral situation starts. It may be because combat wasn't the goal, winning isn't reliant on combat, retreat is possible, surrender isn't a 'game over' or 'as good as dead' type loss condition, or whatever. This means the badly designed death spirals are the ones where the only, useful, or normal thing to do (pull out of the dive) makes the situation worse.
And out of timr again, unfin8sh post
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2022-01-20, 04:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
I don't know that it's a crap move. It's not "spell research should always be beyond reach", just "You can't sit down and research a spell every time you have an idea."
There are several places where it talks about removing 'excess gold' from PCs somewhat arbitrarily as well.The Cranky Gamer
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2022-01-20, 05:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
This seems like far more of a problem with death, which the game already has, than with wound penalties.
In fact it seems like an argument for preferring penalties (you can act with a lower chance to succeed) over action denial like stuns, paralysis etc.
As I said upthread, I do think D&D should have more for players whose PCs are dead to do. If the game is a social experience, Xing people out of that experience for a prolonged period is a gameplay problem. That doesn't mean getting rid of death, it means giving those players some way to participate.
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2022-01-20, 07:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Not quite. Action denial conditions are a thing, and D&D has addressed the issue from history. Save or die is now long gone. In 5E you get to roll another save after failing the initial one or party members can break concentration of the creature controlling the effect. Adding penalties on top of whatever caused you to lose hit points is adding insult to injury. I could even call it passive aggressive. "Sure you can still do something. You will likely fail, but you can always try /sarcastic voice. It makes attacks more powerful than what they're supposed to be. I hit you for 10 damage. That's all it's supposed to be, 10 damage. Now if because of that 10 damage you are at -4 to hit, -4 to AC, and can only take a move or action, not both, and no bonus action, I hurt you for a lot more than a mere 10 damage.
Adding in additional penalties also has the added side effect of having pressure for someone to be a healbot. Personally playing a cleric I like to prepare Lesser Restoration for the just in case scenario I need to cast it to remove an affliction. It's standard party support. In practice I can go several gaming sessions where I never need to cast it. However, unless it's an all talking session, which can happen and are fun, people will lose hit points all the time. It's good to heal in combat to prevent someone from dropping, but kill bad guys first then heal also works. When you add in the death spiral of penalties, now someone must heal in combat or else someone dies/drops because they'll drop at a faster pace. No doubt there are those players who enjoy playing a heal bot. Hooray for them, but gaming history has shown it's not something that should be forced upon someone because someone has to be on or else the party is doomed.
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2022-01-20, 07:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2022-01-20, 07:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Yay, I get to finish the post.
So D&D has never been really good at applying penalties. Its all pretty much binary between unnoticable/ineffective and crippling/"skip your turn(s)". Like a -2 to hit or damage is really almost meaningless in most situations because of the d20 being ten times as large or you already throw out 2d6+14 damage on 70hp monsters. But then it jumps to things like half speed or -5 to saves and now the barbarian is basically immobile or needs a 18+ on the d20 to do anything. And of course where death spirals matter, combat, the D&D editions keep simplifying stuff untill the only mechanic supported win condition* is attacking untill the other side is all at zero hp.
Yeah, D&D has a long history now of not doing "gradual erosion of ability" very well. It just sort of flips from "doing fine" to "you are teh suk & lol-fail" in one or two rolls. Thats just how the d20 rolls. Binary success, binary options, binary outcomes, binary "you do/don't have a character to play".
* Important, the DM can always butt-pull something or let any player suggestion work. But removing morale, fleeing, mass incapacitating effrcts, & combat ending skill uses from the player rules and dropping them or putting them in as optional DM-only choices means they don't happen at all unless the DM remembers it & wants it to happen.Last edited by Telok; 2022-01-20 at 07:51 PM.
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2022-01-20, 09:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Are 3e Tome of Battle maneuvers or 4e martial powers OP because they can tack a debuff onto a damaging attack?
How about a called shot where you have -x or disadvantage to hit in exchange for inflicting a debuff if you do?
Is a spell OP if it deals damage and also imposes a debuff? There are plenty of those -- seems like a double standard if it's ok when spells do it but not when martial attacks do.
Adding in additional penalties also has the added side effect of having pressure for someone to be a healbot.
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2022-01-20, 11:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Touche. One got through.
No because that's the effect of the attack itself and supposedly balanced in reference to when the power comes online and comparison to other abilities that come online at the same time. The analogy isn't apt. My hypothetical attack was just 10 damage. It was not 10 damage and -4 to attacks, - 4 AC, no bonus action, and may or only move or take an action. Those hypothetical penalties were add-ons the generic rules would place as an example of a death spiral.
Then count yourself as one of the people who enjoy playing healbots, but for the most part people don't because it's boring to heal for the only thing you do in combat. Some people demand that's what clerics should be doing. I was literally yelled at in public during my 2E days in college by a fellow player for the audacity while playing a cleric to have cast a spell that was not Cure Light Wounds or make a weapon attack instead of casting Cure Light Wounds in the previous night's game. I like healing party members, but I'm not their servant.
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2022-01-21, 07:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
I was once in a one-shot where a player played a Kenku and brought a soundboard app, instead of talking he pulled some classic Samuel L Jackson lines.
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2022-01-21, 08:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
I mention it for a couple of reasons, beyond its unusual save scheme. (1) I had to use greater restoration to clear Feeblemind off of a party member a few months ago, and (2) I tried to land that spell on three different enemies (I sooooo wanted to get them) but sadly each time they saved. If I could have gotten it to land, their Cha of 1 and my Cha of 20 alongside persuasion proficiency might have made for some silly fun. Oh well, opportunity missed.
On a related note to other elements of your post: I particularly liked playing something like a healbot in Tier 1 (my original life cleric with Magic Initiate/goodberry cheese in my brother's campaign) and early Tier 2 for two reasons. One was to reassure my party mates that it was OK to take damage (don't panic!) and thus they can take more riske and (2) I could BA heal (or use CD) (well, I could try to heal) NPCs that our more murderhobo inclined party members killed in haste. This paid off very well on more than one occasion.Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2022-01-21, 10:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Fair, but there's clearly been a de-emphasis.
Speaking of 4e, specifically, since that game is really designed around players vs enemies (not PvP), and those are all PC abilities - no, it wouldn't.
3e ToB is still more aimed at players, and in that scenario, no, it's not.
(But shouldn't it count if you're debuffing a GM's characters? Nah, not really, they get multiples so having a few of them heavily restricted isn't a big deal. Even if multiples are, they can still coordinate them which gives a layer of involvement that players don't get)."Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"
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2022-01-21, 11:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society