The Gaming Den

If two fighters at first level can kill each other in three hits, then it makes sense to me that two fighters at N level can kill each other in three hits. Gonna stop you right there. 40+2d6 does not allow three hits. It's roughly a 50-50 split between one hit and two. It's literally impossible to ...

That's really no different from where we're at right now. Yeah, which proves that we can achieve the huge power disparity without having guaranteed two-hit kills within the same power tier. Guess I phrased it weird, but the "one hit if you're lucky, two if not, never three" is what seemed...

So... what, it's impossible to envision a system for which the 2d6 in "40+2d6" is meaningful, so fuck the entire notion? I get that it's largely pointless in 3.5. But surely it isn't absurd to contemplate the idea further and what sort of system it could potentially reside in without feel...

It's because the distribution is not a curve. Sure, our 10d6 is technically discrete in that it only includes integers, but a multiplication doesnt even have even consistent distances between points, the probabilities don't scale in any intuitive way... Nobody is gonna be able to have a 'feel' for ...

I will say that rolling two dice and multiplying them is a terrible idea; objectively worse than just rolling ten dice. Is that because multiplying is too difficult, or because the distribution curve is too flat? It's because the distribution is not a curve. Sure, our 10d6 is technically discrete i...

Rejakor wrote:a) am about to start running an Ars Magica game where you manage a covenant full of grogs and npc magi in addition to going on adventures

This isn't extra rules, but to the extent that you're using AM5 you might find use in a copy of the spreadsheet I linked upthread.

I apologize - I never meant to imply that the math was beyond you. Merely that, as a disabled mostly-house-bound piece of shit, I have more spare time to throw at it than some crazy game-developer-slash-super-doctor whose life I don't claim to understand but apparently involves, as a regular matter ...

So that it's different every time. Yeah, but not meaningfully different. I don't know. I acknowledge that some players will prefer this to no dice at all, but at this point I see the die rolling as a complete waste and would be annoyed if I had to when it clearly makes no difference at all. Almost ...

Any king worth his crown isn't going to pay coin for it. Instead he's going to cancel all beheadings and hangings and use the Tyrannosaur for all public executions. If he has enough, he can raise the beast to adulthood 'on the cheap'. This sounds like a distressingly effective incentive to have a h...

It's a shame nobody likes math, or calculations, or minutia, or spreadsheets, or anything. That'd really help a project like this happen. But since we're all PhoneLobster and we all only like the things that PhoneLobster likes, it's literally impossible. Oh well. Anyway, Frank, where would that math...

I realize it's just one anecdote, but I'm currently running a game wherein the starting premise was "You have three ships, eighty soldiers, and four months' worth of food. The New World is a few weeks' sail thataways. You have until next winter to establish a self-sustaining colony, assuming t...

Why do you insist on conflating "do something" with "be part of combat"? Combat is not the end goal here! A fucking good game will not make swording the only part of the game where numbers matter, so it won't be the only part of the game where having numbers matters, so (GOSH) &q...

You... you literally do not believe that I want a cool exotic library in and of itself ? I don't even know what to say to that. Uh, I'll try this: I'm in a game right now where the loot contains "Tales of Snorri the Elder by Lukas Selvig" and it's not in the sell pile because of course I w...

PL: "tactical fights on grids with minis" was admittedly snarky but the rapidity with which you immediately devolved into tying everything to combat is... telling. Is "the D&D game play" anything but combat to you? Do these "D&D adventures", which honestly doesn...

PL: I reject your implicit assertion that D&D, at its core, is about tactical fights on grids with minis. It's just that that's the only part of the experience that D&D has ever given viable rules for, so we've all just learned to MTP the rest. But yes, I'd very much like a system that suppo...

Ok, um. There's a lot to unfold there and I honestly don't have the energy to do so at the moment, but I do feel the need to address one piece. That said, don't take my silence on the rest of that post as tacit agreement because... yeah. PS: I'm not even saying I'm not white, technically I am (altho...

Okay, so we do already know that spirits and realms aren't merely constructed on the spot from mana+the mage's consciousness. What's even the metaphysical question, then?

Nobody in world has just done a battery of tests to see what a spirit can accurately know? The fact that you can summon a spirit to teach you a spell seems to pretty clearly cut out the "fragment of caster's consciousness" idea. Can a spirit answer basic factual questions that the caster d...

If you roll the big die (a d12) and another person rolls the smallest die (d4), then 19% of the time they are going to roll higher than you. A Difficulty of 7 is a fail parade for the d12 50% of the time, but success for smaller dice isn't exactly rare. The d10 succeeds 40% of the time, the d8 25% ...

My immediate concerns are that Musketeer, Patriot, Cavalry, and (sort of) Medic have nothing to do out of combat (if it's an only-combat game, I guess that's fine, but then what's Spy doing here at all?), and that Patriot and Spy seem heavily focused on party-splitting (you even explicitly mentioned...

[EDIT: This is @deaddmwalking] Can you explicate the calculations there? At first I assumed you were going off doubled numbers->CR+2 and giving everyone both classes at level-2 (Fighter/Wizard 10 is basically a 10HD Fighter 8//Wizard 8, Rogue/Wizard 16 is 16HD Rogue 14//Wizard 14, and what you lose ...

Sure, but breaking a chain is already a strength-based roll and moving a rock totally could be if you wanted.

Effectively those few groups that ever apply any component requirement do what Krusk said "most of the time we ignore them, unless we randomly decide to screw someone" Weird. Also, like, things I just said: I mean, I'm pretty sure I didn't just make up all the fucking conversations about ...

Yeah, no. Closest we get is basic combat -> Playing On A Grid -> Using Miniatures. It really is mostly just a pile of little switches... mixed in with some really big switches. Sure, you have the option of including Potion Miscibility, or firearms, or encumbrance levels, but you also have the same b...

Wait, PL, are you saying nobody ever charges for Resurrection at all or just that nobody tracks diamonds specifically? Because while my games have all included tracking Resurrection diamonds (or, more relevantly, Identify pearls), I can at least imagine games where it just costs 10kgp. But "we ...