The Gaming Den

so there really is no problem with material bloat, just player will power to accept not trying to use everything. Well, when a player turns up with the officially "core" new book of super-bards, a new bard character, and a big smile on his face, and you have to say "actually, no, bec...

Low: 1-3.
Mid: 4-9. (4e: 1-14)
High: 10-15. (4e: 15-30)
Epic: 16+.

You could level later in 2nd edition by farming XP in the Abyss. Not terribly safe, but gloriously rewarding if you got away with it.

Charm Person makes people friendly, that's the actual rules, changes attitude to friendly. Boy have I ever had that argument before. RTFM. Friendly folk in terms of the attitude rules are not like Charmed people at all. No opposed Cha checks to give orders, and even charmed critters resist things t...

But the fact is if you can fly and the opponent can't then the fight is already decided. Missile weapons. Things on the ground you care about. Hard cover. Concealment. Sure, on the plains of Hungary winged archers are even better than long range artillery, which was better than horse archers, but c...

1: Centaurs are voracious carnivores. 2: They look a bit like a hoofed greyhound in the lower half. 3: The human-like "torso" is really their bony gizzard. 3a: That little jaw dislocates to allow man-sized objects to be shovelled in. 4: They migrate constantly because of the ecosystem dama...

District 9 for cinema. It's stereotyped, but not badly. Oh, and the aliens are a metaphor. Otherwise just pretend whatever you're reading or watching is set in Africa.

A simple example: two parties, a single room. One side has a couple of grunts and an archer and the other has a wizard and his bodyguards. The bodyguards are trying to hold the gate to the wizard can complete his spell. Can they block others from going past them? Can they block line of sight for th...

Too specific of an effect. It makes the target "Helpful" with the definition actions of "Protect, back up, heal, aid." So here you are, talking to a Dragon that wants to murder you, and after you finish, he wants to cast Heal on you and defend you from the assassins you were run...

E6, more items (magic boots, magic cloak, magic light, magic swords, magic armour, magic clasp, magic food, magic permanent bigness, magic scrying, magic boats, a magic horse, magic rings, magic staves, magic, magic, magic). Oh, and E6 handles up to about single CR 13 foes according to the author, y...

Low level: Ride a magnificent destrier, command vicious hounds, fight ten men. Save the town, rescue the Sheriff's men, have truck with the Barkeep's daughter. Mid level: Ride a flying ship, command fire and ice, fight a pack of trolls. Save the barony and push it's boundaries, rescue the Princess B...

I like to use "the melee" as a drifting reference point, with everyone a certain distance from it in some direction, and choke points defined by the surrounds. Until the melee forms, there's a gap of some size and party order says how far back everyone else is from the nearest. Attacks in ...

They're great players, dude, "Gamist" is the word you're looking for. People from a background of board games and wargaming for the most part. Nerds. I reckon your sort prefer the DM to hide that aspect of the game so they can focus on their character's motivations and other such wankery. ...

Swording stops being effectiving in D&D That's the bit that needs to be fixed. Either by making the fighter into some sort of "Yes I can too sword it" magician, or making most everything swordable again, even the little cultist gods, like it used to be. As an aside, DMFs are good with...

I've seen a troll get back up in the game precisely once, as the PCs ran away from the other trolls. The monk took the time to zip around, put it down again, and set it on fire as they continued to run away. Comedy central. So I don't think it matters. Either you control the field and they die prope...

Isn't the point of regeneration that the monster isn't really dead when you kill it? Anyhoo, if you're making Fire Resistance into half damage with a small buffer, make trolls take double damage from Fire and Acid, and have DR 5/Fire or Acid, like they have resistance to everything else, but without...

Just some friendly history. OD&D was first 1 XP for 1 gp and more for monsters (100XP per monster "level"), and quickly changed to be almost all gold (~12 XP for an Orc by 1975). XP was added for finding magic items that you kept later on. That stabilised in AD&D, with lots of rule...

I was noting the intense resistance that grognards have towards abandoning the conceit of '20 level Vanilla Action Heroes'. Speaking as a bit of a grognard, I think that's bullshit. In the old editions, you get to the realm of Lloth by swording a horde of 20' tall fire giants, their pets, and then ...

http://www.squaremans.com/?p=19

I don't know if these boards have kicked that around before, search says no. It's far better than I could ever say on this topic. Up a tree is where they need to be.

-Do I want some defenses to be rolled, or all of them to be passive? You should always get a usable defence on the character sheet. Things that drain HPs the attacker can roll, because you can have more HP, and are busy doing subtraction anyway. Things that impose conditions on you, you get to roll...

None: What the kids call Instant. Minute: This combat, or a short chase, but not two combats. 90 seconds. 10 rounds, but only combat is in rounds and it doesn't last that long. Turn: This is how most things in the "dungeon" are measured. 15 minutes, one area search, quick rest, or a tight ...

Combat roles defined that tightly are nonsense unless you limit the game to a chess board and the opponents to doing nothing more than you. D&D combat is about setting the opening range, softening up the enemy (or destroying them quickly at range), charging the gap (or preventing closet trolls d...

NB: the proper price of a wand with 2% failure is the same as a wand with 25.5 charges left, as that matches the expected value over time with a base 50 charge wand (which is the mean number of uses remaining in all 2% failure wands). NB2: discovered wands have less than 50 charges, so you should pr...

Why 4e roles are bad. Striker: I hit you. Defender: You hit me. Leader: You hit him. Controller: You don't hit him. X hits Y, or doesn't. No real depth there, and everyone overlaps anyway. Try a selection from something like ... A gets you there, B sets them up, C knocks them down, D cleans up the m...

But in 3e D&D land, the final boss of the game (Szass Tam) is seriously just immune to death by sword blows. It doesn't matter what kind of damage output you have or don't have, you can't beat him that way. Hell, in 2nd edition a lot of high end monsters couldn't be beaten any other way. 95% MR...

So I've been thinking about this a lot: why wait to play the character you wanted to play? Not what I'm doing. Starting with a guy, a little like me only fucking awesome, having trouble with Orcs and less trouble with Kobolds. Becoming a guy not at all like me, who counts Orcs he's killed by the sc...