The Gaming Den

First, for Elennsar's reference: Statistics Probability Those might help. Now, what you (Elennsar) seem to be saying is that because game rules might dictate that a PC will never lose in combat to a single Orc, that a PC will never lose in combat to 9000 Orcs. Right? I assume we want to eventually r...

My God...that's perhaps the most cynical thing I've seen on this very cynical board. My first superlative! So saving a child's life isn't heroic unless it earns you a parade? That's truly sickening. I'm going to move beyond your attempt at character assassination here and ask you this: would you te...

Being hailed as a hero =/= being a hero. It really does. In fact, it's the only measure of "being a hero" that has any meaning. Smart Hero who says "No fucking way! I'll get killed! Screw the princess!" is not heroic. Allow me to attempt to make a subtle distinction here with a ...

No, I'm pointing out that if you have the attitude that you don't want to -ever- have TPK or any such fate, then playing a Hero is out. Heroism is defined by what you did, not what you tried to do. You can be a Magnificent Bastard and still be hailed as a hero because what you accomplished was bene...

As far as gambling is concerned, not participating in the game is the only real penalty there is. Characters can die and lose, but as a player I am going to take actions that keep me involved in the game. The risk and reward is measured against my ability to participate. By extension, anything that...

The agreeance was in relation to the topic of level-appropriate encounters. As far as gambling is concerned, not participating in the game is the only real penalty there is. Characters can die and lose, but as a player I am going to take actions that keep me involved in the game. The risk and reward...

Presumably, any encounter that you are expected to be able to win has a chance of victory of somewhere around 25% at a minimum. No, it doesn't. So read what I wrote more carefully. 25% is the minimum chance of winning for "You have a chance to win". You are able to win there. Unlikely? De...

Presumably, any encounter that you are expected to be able to win has a chance of victory of somewhere around 25% at a minimum. Wait, what? Are you saying that my chance of victory is a minimum 25% on an encounter I'm expected to be able to win? That doesn't make any sense. A 25% success rate is no...

Interesting comments. If he could have avoided it (without Bad Things Happening), Frodo wouldn't have taken the Ring to Mordor. Okay, bad example. Point is, that is an "if". Telling stories about heroes is ultimately telling stories about people doing things they'd rather not to prevent t...

I know I'm going kind of off-base here for a moment, but maybe a large part of the problem with healing in RPGs is the structure of the adventures, the demands of the game system, and the way that relates to real-world trials and tribulations. Nobody faces a series of hard opponents or challenges on...

Kamikazing really ought to be supported better by the mechanics, but even without being supported, it is an option. Why should it be mechanically supported? If you put any significant design work into it you are elevating it from an act of desperation to something that becomes a perceived part of t...

Good point. You might be better off just trying to rebalance all of the spells and just letting people cast whatever they want whenever they want it.

Good point. Damage could be assessed on the high end of d6 average by making them do 3 hp of damage per spell level. I wouldn't bother with flipping hit dice around. Magic is powerful, you screw it up, it is going to hurt. My concern would be that, if it costs you 3 hp per spell level to cast a spe...

What if you eliminated the rolls, in order to create some consistency between characters, and gave all (arcane only?) spells straight hit point costs? What those costs would be, I'm not sure. Now, you'd probably have to flip hit dice around so that wizards and sorcerers were getting d12 hit dice, as...

What if you had a Fighter class ability that occurred at each level they gained a bonus attack that granted a bonus dice of damage to all weapon attacks, with any weapon? A fighter hits level six and, in addition to being able to make 2 attacks, all his attacks also do +1d8 (or whatever) damage. Tha...

Why would a level-based bonus to damage have to apply to all classes?

Maybe we should just have a step in character creation where you roll, using whatever statistics you want, how long any given character will survive for. Both sides are happy that way. You get to play a character until level X, knowing that you won't die, and yet you have an inescapable fate looming...

Violent Media: I think situational abilities are cool, but they can't really be your supreme move as you shouldn't only have your coolest move in a limited circumstance (if my super move requires water and we're in the desert, I'm fucked). I can totally agree with that. Maybe calling them super mov...

Hello everyone. Long-time lurker, first-time poster here. What if you could have Ultimates result from luck and planning, rather than elective useage? Also, what about having them perform as interrupts once their conditions are met? Allow me to provide an example. Let's say you have a character that...