The Gaming Den

In regard to the Chinese overlord possibility, they're not currently in a position to perform a near-term invasion, even considering the tie-up our military has in the Middle Easy. Ironically, now is one of the better times for our government to collapse, at least in regard to that element. With the...

1093405354[/unixtime]]Apparently Ed Stark developed the design principle of sticking a razor cock in the mouth of anyone who wanted to pplay a monster. And he also wrote the new druid and the new Shapechange in order to "power them up". [br][br]Was that first part an exact quote from thos...

I would guess that what's bringing about this shift in the paradigm of the discussion. People are done looking at what's stupid and wrong, and want to make things good instead. Therefore, min/maxing has given way to figuring out what people even want to begin with. Personally, I'm more inspired ever...

Frank's got a good point here, which is something to keep in mind...[br][br]Right now, you're trying to piece together what seems to be a linearly progressive power scheme. As such, each level's not doing that much for a character. Imagine if each level of Wizard gave a single spell per day, and spe...

Wow.... three pages... way too much rambling. Here's what the design process for SS looked like, from what I could pull from the old Redman statements:[br][br]At first, the SS design crew started working during 3.0E to make a system for letting more of the races in the MM be playable in normal campa...

Yeah, and that's how Rich Redman was eventually coerced into admitting the unwritten WotC policy as to why they didn't do any of that.

Their official public reason is that, for whatever reason, the powers these races have are more valuable than the normal level benefits.[br][br]Their official private reason is that non-PHB races must be inherently inferior by power level so that the 'common sense' of humans, elves, and dwarves hold...

From how it's worded, it would be just like saying, "This weapon is cool enough to grant an additional 3X to damage per hit, where X is the damage normally dealt by the weapon. This value does not multiply on a critical hit."[br][br]Given that it's a +1 dagger, it looks like this ability i...

1091488675[/unixtime]]Ha! The Charisma check is the same charisma check defined in adjusting NPC attitudes (DMG), which in turn is substitutable by a Diplomacy check. Which, since Diplomacy is usable untrained, makes that "Charisma Check" exactly the same as a Diplomacy check in all ways ...

The more a person needs to make one roll to survive, the riskier combat becomes for the PC's. Longer combats where attacks are less threatening per hit make combats safer for PCs when the players pay attention.

Maybe it's just me, but I always thought that 'move, strike, and move' shouldn't be impossible to do without a feat. At worst, it ought to just have some kind of penalty, maybe.[br][br]I think that rather than using a mechanic such as pounce, there should always be iterative attacks at higher levels...

What I think Frank is trying to say is that the older XP distribution systems were so arbitrarily set that it was no 'system' in the sense of interaction. If you created a new monster, you'd probably go and compare its XP value to roughly equally difficult monsters. In 3E, you just find its CR, and ...

And that proves that monsterous races are not designed with the intent of being used by PC's. This is one of the two reasons LA exists - to make sure abilities that are 'at will' which get used maybe a few times per encounter at most cannot be so easily abused when given to a PC present at all encou...

*nods* I agree fully. XP seems intrinsically arbitrary, so that if we're not using a point-buy system, there's no major need to track anything. Abilities that use XP for a cost always seem retarded, anyways...[br][br]It's better to just give out levels after a significant story arc for 'realistic' g...

Yeah, that does sound a lot more 'accurate' for what the typical notion of what these character types look at.[br][br]Depending on how many classes you're dividing the core group into, I'd suggest just making it a 5th or 6th level ability that allows a fighter to get more attacks for its standard ac...

Y'know, though you might have a hard time getting to class, at least a prison gives you a place to sleep.... right? >_> Never mind.

1090883215[/unixtime]]We know that the magic item system needs a huge overhaul, so you probably shouldn't even worry yourself about how many of the bonuses and abilities "should" be coming from magic swords for quite a while. [br][br]Alright. That's how I was figuring to do it, but I just...

Frank, for this comparison, should we consider magical equipment in addition to the character's class abilties, or not?

Well... no it doesn't. Not for our purposes anyway. In M&M the multiclass spellcaster problem is really there quite severely. Essentially, discovering new powers gets you behind the Line - which given enough time is just as bad as falling behind the D&D Curve. [br][br]In M&M, getting tw...

For monsters or for characters? For monsters, just make sure that the immunities are their only schtick. If your Jackyahupasaur is immune to all that, just make it otherwise very weak so that once you get around them, it's REALLY weak.[br][br]For PC's, however, this is an interesting point. One or t...

1090806659[/unixtime]]Basically the purpose of your system is encourage people to be able to generalize, and take abilities that they otherwise couldn't take because of the specialization favoritism in D&D. And this is a good worthwhile goal. However, introducing scaling attack bonus and AC bon...

1090800525[/unixtime]]That really wouldn't work at all. A 2d6 Fire Bolt is vaguely impressive at 1st level, but there's no reason for you to even have it at 15th. At no point should it even be possible for you to "spend" level abilties on getting a 2d6 Fire Bolt at 15th level. [br][br]*no...

At this point, it would almost seem easier to just make a 'point-buy' setup kinda like Mutants and Masterminds, where each level is basically a set number of points. If you're trying to keep things linearly powerful, then abilities don't naturally empower themselves, so you have to pay some each lev...

When it's a class skill for everyone, it becomes a viable option. For classes such as Fighers and Sorcerers, which don't grant so many skill points per level, honing one's senses is more costly against the other available choices. Meanwhile, classes such as the ranger and rogue which both already ha...

It'd be easier to just combine the skills into a single "Awareness" or "Observational Badassdom" skill and/or let it be in-class for everyone. That way, it's a lot easier for very experienced adventurers to not suck as badly at figuring out whether something's sneaking up on them...