Legend: some dude's d20 clone

[Koumei]

seemed as if they were afraid of the wrath of the Den if they got it wrong.

As they well should.

So... worth a $10 donation to download and try out? Or will it just remain an interesting little thing tucked away on the Internet?

[JigokuBosatsu]

So... worth a $10 donation to download and try out?

Considering the charity aspect, yeah.

EDIT: I just realized this game would be great "Tomed".

[...You Lost Me]

Looking at BAB, I dislike that it still exists, but they did it RoW style with 20/15/15/15, and dropped the 1/2 BAB. That's really quite nice. I like that "noticing people sneaking" is no longer a skill tax, and the idea of Scenes is nice, allowing casters to use all of their spells after a lunch break or when they get attacked in the middle of the night (of course "scenes" are going to be the subject of controversy and munchkinry, I'm sure).

The use of the term "circle" is weird. I'd prefer "track" or "job", and the Tactitian doesn't seem like a thematically badass class like the Sage or something else.

That's all from my quick read.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The use of the term "circle" is weird. I'd prefer "track" or "job", and the Tactitian doesn't seem like a thematically badass class like the Sage or something else.

I think you're messing up the terminology. "Circle" denotes level within a "track".

Tactician spells seem to give Real Ultimate Power. Silent image, glitterdust, haste, hold monster, and acid fog are all still badass in this game. I assume that there are some tracks that further boost spell casting. Arcane blade might be pretty good for more damage-focused characters (i.e. necromancers with Chill Touch).

[JesterZero]

This is very off-the-cuff, but here's my initial impressions.

• In many ways it's Tome from the bizarro-world. What I mean by that is that instead of baselining PC power levels at magic-user levels and trying to bootstrap the beatsticks up, they're trying to baseline PC power levels at beatstick levels and pull the magic-users down.
• Yes I realize that's over-simplistic, but it's close enough for jazz.
• By the way, they don't succeed at that goal. The Barbarian is still going to feel very small in the pants compared to almost everyone else. At level 20 they're automatically doing 20 damage to everyone in melee range...whereas the Necromancer (which is just one track, not even a full class) is doing 120 damage to up to 20 people inside 300 feet.
• Keep in mind that's at level 20. So while my main point is the relative imbalance, it's a reminder to severely moderate your expectations as to power level.
• I haven't looked at it closely enough to get a feel for how the SLA-spam tracks compare to the spell casting tracks...but I get the distinct impression that they both curbstomp the melee tracks.
• The whole "track" system is actually interesting. It's totally not balanced, but it's interesting. It also eliminates some of the complications that other multi-classing systems have because order doesn't matter...if you somehow swap out a track later in the game, you just rewrite your character as if you had it all along. Actual history can go pound sand, we're rolling job-style!
• Some of the classes/tracks/whatever are actually pretty surprising. There's one that unabashedly makes you Batman. You get the costume, the Arkham Asylum jump kick, and the Batmobile. Yes, the Batmobile. And it can fly. RAW explicitly ALLOWS you to jump kick people from the Batmobile without getting out of the car.
• Speaking of balance issues, everyone has a fourth track that basically gives you magical items at certain levels. Roughly speaking, you wind up with the equivalent of five +1 items, four +2 items, two +3 items, and one +4 item. I'm probably slightly off on that.
• My point is, you can trade that in for another ability track, like...oh, I don't know...full spellcasting.
• To be fair, spellcasting has been hit pretty hard with a nerf bat from what you'd expect in D&D. The top-level spells for the pseudo-cleric are Miracle, Firestorm, Mass Heal, and Control Winds. (And Miracle is specifically limited to resurrection, anyspell at level n-1, dispelling, and get-the-heck-out-of-dodge group teleport).
• Even so, you see my point.
• Feats are...underwhelming. Of course, everything that isn't Tome feats is a bit underwhelming now (most tracks in this game are roughly the equivalent of 1-2 tome feats...so if you imagine stapling six tome feats to the basic D&D fighter, you're in the ballpark of the power level of most PC's). The power level of the various feats is also a bit uneven, just like good old D&D.
• All in all, it's interesting enough that I'll probably sit down to read it cover to cover at some point. Some of the simplified mechanics they introduce are genuinely good; some of the unsimplified mechanics they retain are genuinely incoherent. It's definitely positioned as a low-power alternative to D&D, but I feel like they basically just tried to stretch E6 into 20 levels, with many of the issues you'd expect from that.
• On a completely personal note, I'd put my reaction at about 50% , 30% , and 20%

Anyhow, that's based on skimming the .pdf in less than an hour, so I fully expect I got a few things wrong.

Hope that helps.

[Judging__Eagle]

Jokes aside, you really haven't seen racist stuff if Scottish Dwarves offend you. So get stuffed.

Blackface acting and why it is offensive is why Drunkard Hooligan Scottish Dwarves is offensive. They're the same thing with a different coat of paint.

Have a good day, and don't fear sex. It's fun, and good for your health. (:

[milskidasith]

To Jester: I think you may have underestimated the Barbarian a bit; his 7th circle ability is that he gets 20 free damage a round, but that doesn't take up any actions. Comparing that to the capstone of the necromancer track, which takes up your standard action, is a little bit unfair; when the Barbarian gets to use his standard actions to start attacking, his damage output becomes much, much higher.

[Blicero]

seemed as if they were afraid of the wrath of the Den if they got it wrong.

Would you mind copypastaing any espec. relevant passages? I'm kinda curious.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Yeah, if I remember next time I read through it.

[imperialspectre]

I'm one of the writing credits on the book, and figured I could clarify a couple things and explain some of our methodology when designing Legend. JE, you clearly don't know nearly as much about history, anthropology, or much of anything else as you think you do, so you're on ignore.

First, when talking about melee characters and balance, it might help to note that flight, teleportation, and quick movement are accessible to all characters at similar levels, and that Melee range scales based on level. So when you're making area of influence calculations, bear in mind that "Melee" is not 5-10 feet past the first few levels.

Second, if you're familiar with the Tomes, you may notice some similarities in how we talk about level and testing. This is not accidental. The SGT is one of the best ways we know of to test game balance in a level-based system, and we used it extensively. We also did other types of destructive testing, specifically party-based SGTs where we matched humanoids and monsters of various levels against each other in groups and a series of arena-style battles designed to find loops and other bugs that likely wouldn't show up in typical playtesting. If F&K want to take credit for our testing methodology, feel free; I for one would give it to them.

Third, if you want to conduct your own tests and throw the results at us, go for it. I'll read your results, and whatever methodology you provide, and if we screwed up somewhere we'll do what we can to fix it. You should probably note that some of the math has been tweaked from the OGL source material, so save-or-else effects are not nearly as strong as they once were.

Fourth, overall power level compared to the Tomes was intentional. The Tomes were written as a way to take an existing system (3.5 full casting) and make it possible for other characters to function in the absurd rocket tag that full casters play. That's great, but most people who are familiar with 3.5's balance problems don't want to play in the narrative space occupied by full casters. Wizards and clerics break games. Instead, we chose to set the power level somewhere between 3.5 full casters and 3.5 beatsticks, and then stick to that power level when we actually designed material.

I can't decide what I think of Legend so I'll just try to make a mid-level barbarian. I may be bad at this or get rules wrong, we'll see.

Human Barbarian 11, minus Path of Destruction, +Necromancy
Feats
Arcantric Accuracy (+2 to hit, up to +5 if focus-fired)
Damage Specialization (+Str Precision damage)
Livers Need Not Apply
Reckless Strike (Shock Trooper while standing still or charging)
Spirited Strength (basically +4 Str)

Attack-Boosting Items
Fury Stone (+2 Str)
Abandoned Arsenal (+5' reach)
Winged Armor (Flight, gauntlets +3/3d6+3+KOM, +level to damage after swift action)

KOM:[/b] Strength 36 drunk and raging (using default stat array for base 16)
Reach: 15' raging
Attacks: +28/+28/+23/+23 with Flurry
Damage/Attack: 3d6 + 12d4 + 67, 3d6 gauntlets + 12d4 Chill Touch +3 magic item +13 Str +13 Str again [Precision] + 11 overloaded Winged Armor + 22 Reckless Strike + 5 Enervating Strike (actually a negative level)
Equal-Level Character Kill Rate: one per round, two if lucky, assuming AC 31, 100-150 HP, and enemies nice enough to stand within 30' of each other.

I'm not sure if Chill Touch is supposed to work like that so feel free to say this guy isn't legal. Alternative melee builds include a 40' reach Elven Wardance monk I don't feel like fully writing out.

Chill Touch is partly correct, partly incorrect. Anything that can be delivered "on a melee attack" can be delivered through weapons, gauntlets, or unarmed attacks; however, you can only put it on one attack.

You can't deal [Precision] damage while raging; it's the sentence at the end of the Rage ability, which unfortunately is displaced into the next column.

Other than that, it's a legal build and fairly solid. Nice work.

By the way, they don't succeed at that goal. The Barbarian is still going to feel very small in the pants compared to almost everyone else. At level 20 they're automatically doing 20 damage to everyone in melee range...whereas the Necromancer (which is just one track, not even a full class) is doing 120 damage to up to 20 people inside 300 feet.

This is a bit apples-and-oranges. The Barbarian is doing 20 auto-damage with no action cost to everyone within 35 feet, then has a standard action to beat faces in and a move action to move around. If targets aren't within melee range, the Barbarian can pull out a bow, do basically the same damage as she would with a melee weapon, and then move to a position where she can do more damage next turn. The Necromancer is spending a standard action to do damage, is hard countered by immunities, and is much easier to save against than he was in 3.5 or Tome. Finally, when we did our testing, Barbarians were actually one of the strongest classes because of the relative reliability of physical damage versus save-or-else effects.

That said, it's possible that Wail is a bit too strong on its range. We haven't found this to be true because spending a standard action in the middle of everyone has a pretty significant risk attached in terms of angry people shooting or stabbing you before your next turn.

I haven't looked at it closely enough to get a feel for how the SLA-spam tracks compare to the spell casting tracks...but I get the distinct impression that they both curbstomp the melee tracks.

Again, our testing hasn't shown that melee (or archery) has a sizable disadvantage against spellcasters. In fact, because melee has so much more access to mobility and defense in Legend, most of our recent changes served to make spellcasting a viable option compared to shooting or stabbing people. Spellcasting is much easier to save against (higher base save bonuses, all classes have 2 good saves, and DC-boosting abilities are nearly nonexistent) and has more restricted effects; besides, casters are limited to one spell known per level, which means that the absurd flexibility that characterized 3.5's prepared casters is gone.

The whole "track" system is actually interesting. It's totally not balanced, but it's interesting. It also eliminates some of the complications that other multi-classing systems have because order doesn't matter...if you somehow swap out a track later in the game, you just rewrite your character as if you had it all along. Actual history can go pound sand, we're rolling job-style!

Track swaps that follow character generation are meant to model a character going through a fairly destructive and traumatic set of personal changes or rituals. These rituals do things like turn you into a dragon (swap out a previous track for the Dragon racial track); it's not surprising that you would have to give up some of your previous abilities to use the new ones effectively.

If you want to argue that the track system isn't balanced, come back with data and we'll talk.

Some of the classes/tracks/whatever are actually pretty surprising. There's one that unabashedly makes you Batman. You get the costume, the Arkham Asylum jump kick, and the Batmobile. Yes, the Batmobile. And it can fly. RAW explicitly ALLOWS you to jump kick people from the Batmobile without getting out of the car.
Speaking of balance issues, everyone has a fourth track that basically gives you magical items at certain levels. Roughly speaking, you wind up with the equivalent of five +1 items, four +2 items, two +3 items, and one +4 item. I'm probably slightly off on that.
My point is, you can trade that in for another ability track, like...oh, I don't know...full spellcasting.

No, they're +1 items with add-on abilities, etc. Compare the artifacts that we've released with 7th-circle abilities and see how they compare, for example. You might be surprised at just how much you give up for Full Buy-In.

Feats are...underwhelming. Of course, everything that isn't Tome feats is a bit underwhelming now (most tracks in this game are roughly the equivalent of 1-2 tome feats...so if you imagine stapling six tome feats to the basic D&D fighter, you're in the ballpark of the power level of most PC's). The power level of the various feats is also a bit uneven, just like good old D&D.

Frankly, I've never cared for the RoW feats. I think the level of scaling is okay in a 3.5 game with full casters, but I don't think most people want to play at that level. I also don't think there's a huge power gap between most of our feats and what you'd find in ToNecro or ToFiends.

We haven't had complaints about feat power levels from any of our playtesters, except for a recurring complaint that By Will Sustained isn't very good as a standalone feat. We're looking into buffing it for those reasons. Most feats that are more powerful than others are that way because they are unlocked at higher levels, where we expect players to pick more powerful feats in general.

All in all, it's interesting enough that I'll probably sit down to read it cover to cover at some point. Some of the simplified mechanics they introduce are genuinely good; some of the unsimplified mechanics they retain are genuinely incoherent. It's definitely positioned as a low-power alternative to D&D, but I feel like they basically just tried to stretch E6 into 20 levels, with many of the issues you'd expect from that.
On a completely personal note, I'd put my reaction at about 50% , 30% , and 20%

I can live with that.

Thanks to any/all of you for the feedback, even though I probably wasn't the intended audience.

[DragonChild]

imperialspectre, thanks for coming to answer stuff. Looking it over, I just had one concern that leaped out at me:

You have a lot of races that are +2 to two stats, and classes that seem to require two stats primarily (unless I'm wrong, here?). 4e did the same, and ran into a major issue where if you were playing an archer ranger, you were stupid not to pick an elf. Do you see this being a problem with your system, especially if more races are added?

[JesterZero]

Well, I did say I expected to get some things wrong. I'll own up to it when I do.

So, what I can now say I clearly got wrong:

• The whole KOM/KDM mechanic actually seems to work as I suspect the designers wanted it to. From a realist/simulationist/whatever perspective, that's weird (if anyone cares). But completely unbeknownst to me, it actually appears that a raging barbarian CAN whip out a musket, use his STR to modify his damage (which is higher, because he's angry) and shoot you with all the benefits of both. I can't explain it. Maybe he thrusts the rifle so violently in the enemies' direction that he actually imparts added velocity to the bullet. Maybe the bullet comes out of the gun, takes one look at his power vein and just wants to get away. I don't know why, but it works. I didn't know it did, so mea culpa.
• Melee range is abstracted to some degree. So my assumptions on that...wrong again.
• Spells of same/similar names do not have the same write-ups as they do in D&D. The well-known issues with cooperative/ally spells where you can teleport people off cliffs Wile-e-Coyote style don't work anymore, because basically if your ally tells you "don't be a jerk," the spell doesn't work. Huh. I did NOT mean to rhyme that Johnny Cochrane-style, it just came out that way.

Where I was right:

• Feats are still a bit uneven no matter what that dude says. *wink* Please note I deliberately said "a bit." Not "horribly crazy wrong." Just a bit. Case in point, there's a 9th level feat that gives you +1 to d20 rolls. There's another one that lets you fly.
• Not necessarily "right," but I didn't say that multi-class rewrites in this kind of game were a bad thing. On the contrary, I meant that as a plus. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

So to summarize, after spending another hour (two total!) with the .pdf, some of the issues I thought were there (particular those related to issues like attribute dependency, range, kiting, etc.) actually are non-issues. I skimmed the book assuming it was Diet D&D and while it is thematically, it's different enough mechanically that I went down a rabbit trail of wrong assumptions a few times. So I'm going to shut up until I can really pick it apart. I probably should stay out of D&D threads anyhow, I'm a Shadowrun guy.

If I can offer any more critical feedback without looking like it stems from sour grapes, I still have no idea how the whole "item track" really works. I originally thought that you simply missed out on "freebies," which might or might not matter depending on your DM/GM/MC/bf/gf/whoever. Now I wonder if it's supposed to instead actually limit how many magical doo-dads you have have at a time. Please note this isn't a criticism of the content, but one of the presentation of the content. By any chance were sections of this chapter removed as part of your incentive program? Are they tucking in an odd place? Am I really that bad of a speed-reader on limited sleep?

Oh, and your table titles are on the wrong side of the page on 158. Just sayin'.

[Aktariel]

Here's a bunch of unrelated thoughts about Legend. I've spent a couple of hours with it, mostly class and feat and item and ability stuff, not much combat. No play experience as of yet.

Fourth, overall power level compared to the Tomes was intentional. The Tomes were written as a way to take an existing system (3.5 full casting) and make it possible for other characters to function in the absurd rocket tag that full casters play. That's great, but most people who are familiar with 3.5's balance problems don't want to play in the narrative space occupied by full casters. Wizards and clerics break games. Instead, we chose to set the power level somewhere between 3.5 full casters and 3.5 beatsticks, and then stick to that power level when we actually designed material.

Sounds fine. I'm handing this to my DM for our current {fast and loose/steady state heroism/we really cant play all that often} Tome game and I suspect people will adopt it readily. I'm honestly sick of being "that guy" or the "rules lawyer" and if everyone is balanced against each other and can contribute enough I can honestly stop worrying about making everyone optimized enough to be able to contribute (which resulted in people thinking that my wizard was weak because all he did was minor DoT/crowd control, long enough for the barbarian to come in and tear shit up).

Of course, I probably just need to learn how to let go, but this might help a little bit.

It feels like a cross between Eberron and Weapons of the Gods flavor- and feel-wise, which is cool. {Art, minor story, ability fluff text, steampunk/mechanika/weaponry etc}.

In my playtest group, even the most rules-averse player was getting it, and doing cool and interesting things with his character. A guy who had never wanted to do anything more complicated than a Fighter in Dungeons & Dragons, came to the table with a multiclassed character (a Paladin/Rogue) that used a neat trick I hadn't even thought of when I read the rules (Fortune's Friend made him very difficult to pin down, on a character who was already handing out some serious pain with his Smites).

And the best part was, he hadn't stumbled on some exploit: it worked, and it worked well, but it wasn't broken. It was an interaction that wasn't obvious, but he overshadowed no one and was overshadowed by no one. I don't know if the designers intended it or not, but I was personally thrilled that this player was doing something different with his character. He'd seriously never done that before.

RPG.net seems to like it.

<snip>
I'm not sure if Chill Touch is supposed to work like that so feel free to say this guy isn't legal. Alternative melee builds include a 40' reach Elven Wardance monk I don't feel like fully writing out.

Chill Touch is partly correct, partly incorrect. Anything that can be delivered "on a melee attack" can be delivered through weapons, gauntlets, or unarmed attacks; however, you can only put it on one attack.

Per round? But...

At will, on a successful melee attack, your target takes 1d4 points of damage, +1d4 per level.

Emphasis mine.

Some of the classes/tracks/whatever are actually pretty surprising. There's one that unabashedly makes you Batman. You get the costume, the Arkham Asylum jump kick, and the Batmobile. Yes, the Batmobile. And it can fly. RAW explicitly ALLOWS you to jump kick people from the Batmobile without getting out of the car.
Speaking of balance issues, everyone has a fourth track that basically gives you magical items at certain levels. Roughly speaking, you wind up with the equivalent of five +1 items, four +2 items, two +3 items, and one +4 item. I'm probably slightly off on that.
My point is, you can trade that in for another ability track, like...oh, I don't know...full spellcasting.

The batmobile? Which class/track is this?

No, they're +1 items with add-on abilities, etc. Compare the artifacts that we've released with 7th-circle abilities and see how they compare, for example. You might be surprised at just how much you give up for Full Buy-In.

Any response to the Batman comment?

[quote="Legend PDF]The Planar Weapon
Description: Last used before the birth of your race, this dreadful slow weapon reaches across time and space at the call of those who wield it. Its effects are visible as a shimmering in the air, and anyone caught inside it finds their very existence beginning to flag.
Benefit: As a free action, once per [Round], you may trigger the weapon. This breaks your stealth, renders
you visible, and suffuses you with a macabre glow. Opponents within [Medium] range and line of sight
of you have their maximum HP reduced by 10 points
per [Round]. This HP reduction persists until the [Encounter] ends.[/quote]

ooookay. Let's play wording clarification time. The way that this is written, it could be interpreted as:

You may trigger the weapon every round.
Every time you trigger the weapon, people within Medium range have their max HP reduced by 10, and by 10 each round thereafter.

Now. Is the Planar Weapon some crazy stacking bullshit, or is it Logistics and Dragons in the sense of "I have to keep triggering it every round even though it's free so that people keep losing hit points" ??

Because if it's the former, then people lose 10 Max HP in the first round, and then 20 max HP in the second round, and then 30 in the third, followed by 40 in the fourth, at which point they've lost 100 HP in 4 rounds. All I have to do is hang out, not die, and keep triggering the weapon.

(Yes, this is an artifact. Yes, this comes online at 17th level. It seems slightly more crazy than intended, even so).

[JesterZero]

The batmobile? Which class/track is this?

It's the Vigilante.

3rd Circle – Signature RideEX: You gain the the ability to call forth a mysterious contraption to ride on. As a part of a move action, you may summon your ride. It provides a 15 ft bonus to your land speed, flight with a mobility of average at a speed equal to your land speed, and a 20% [Miss chance] against all attacks during any [Round] in which you move at least 20 ft, thanks to your speed. Against all expectations, you can still use Brutal Kick while mounted.

I've been trying to figure out the best way to make Batman ever since I got home. The problem is that while you can legitimately make Monkman, Rogueman, Paladinman, and even Rangerman as Batman, I'm not thrilled with the way that any of them synergize with Vigilante, which is really the one that seems to make it fun.

I suppose I could do the Full Buy In route, but I'm taking that guy to heart when he suggested that gadgets were the way to go. I still wish I understood exactly what the rules mean when they say you can only "use" a certain number of magical items, but you can "possess" more. So, is "use" equivalent to "gain the benefit of at a given time?" There's also that "attunement" concept but it seems to be missing a general description in Chapter 11.

Ah well...back to Batman.

[Prak]

looking at the description, I know exactly how you can still use brutal kick while mounted. it's the bat-segway.

[Aktariel]

Pretty sure it's a takeoff on the whole "You can have 8 magical things at any point in time, and some of those things might be powers from a place that you are attuned to" Tome idea of just what an item really is.

More thoughts: why the heck does Signature Ride specify a maneuverability, and so many other items or abilities that just give you fly speed do not? Is that a remnant from when flight speed had maneuverability, and it no longer does because that's more Logistics and Dragons than Legend wants to be? (seems likely... or they just haven't written the rules yet...)

[Prak]

Oh look, I don't have to draw it!

[Judging__Eagle]

JE, you clearly don't know nearly as much about history, anthropology, or much of anything else as you think you do, so you're on ignore.

I know variations of Blackface when I see it. "Drunken Hooligan Scottish Dharas" is just a white wash on the practice of culture appropriation. A seldom discussed element of racism.

When taking only the most superficial parts of an other culture, and using them out of context, or using inappropriately, it basically says that only those stolen parts are worth mentioning. While nothing else of the appropriated culture is worth mentioning. Marginalizing and ignoring other cultures as full and complete societies as a result.

http://fuckyeahculturalappropriation.tumblr.com/

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-cultura ... iation.htm


Funny thing is, not wanting to discuss racist material is probably one of the more racist things that can be done. Since it marginalizes racism, and pretends that it's not a big deal.

Except that it is a huge deal. Still, and every time you don't want to talk about it, or want to ignore it, you're promoting racism.

Granted, having to confront people about their racism or culture approriation is stressful, aggravating and emotionally and psychologically draining. Many people who do see it happen are often afraid, or simply worn out, from having to be bombarded with verbal and non-verbal assaults on their identity as a person.

However, when those confronted about their behaviour choose to ignore it, they don't seem to realize just how harmful, offensive, marginalizing and dehumanizing their actions are to other people.

In not talking about issues of race, one is actually consenting to and promoting its propagation.

http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values ... bout-race/

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/02/ho ... cist-kids/

http://dioncommunications.com/blog/?cat=120

http://dioncommunications.com/blog/?tag ... ont-racism

http://www.shmoop.com/huckleberry-finn/ ... s-all.html

I think the following sums up the fear of discussing any form of racism


From: http://www.illdoctrine.com/2008/07/how_ ... sound.html

Jay,

You're not speaking wrong, but it feels like you're speaking idealistically. You're too right about the conversation being spun to "But I'm NOT A RACIST / HOW DARE YOU."

Thing is they're ALWAYS going to come at it from that point of view, because being called a racist has become more taboo than actually being one. People get more upset about the possibility they might have been called racist than the fact that their actions are racist as hell. They'll harp and linger on all their deeds in the past and what clubs they belong to and who their friends are. They'll START any rebuttal to your first words with that. And in the end you end up talking to yourself or talking to the wind, because they've drawn a crowd to chant the "I AM NOT A RACIST" mantra to the point where any on lookers without reading/listening to the whole thing, think that's what it's all about. Then people start picking sides and - boom- it's all over.

I don't think it's that there are people who don't know how to start the conversation and stay on point (in general). I think it's that people know how the conversation's going to go anyway. So they start off wanting to get that point in first - just so they've said it. Or they start off focusing on actions and once that first sentence is gone, they never get another chance to bring it back. There's no known strategy to get the conversation back on track. Either you're lucky and you get a person who's willing to listen, or you're unlucky.

In this case, it seems that I'm unlucky.

On the other hand. I'm not surprised that a culture appropriating person who is willing to engage in racist dialogue would be willing to ignore and marginalize racism.

I don't need to know a scrap of a shred of a hair about anything to know that not talking about an issue is only going to propagate an issue.

I don't need to know anything about anything to know that taking a stereotype about an other culture, and appropriating it as a shorthand for what that culture is, will be extremely offensive to remotely cognizant sophonts.

The really sad thing is that, TGD is one of the last places that I'd ever think I'd have to talk about this. Usually because the posters here are a lot more culturally, racially and gender aware than many other places I've seen.

[imperialspectre]

Thanks again for the criticism, particularly with such a civil tone. I should note at the top that when I suggest someone may be wrongly evaluating an ability because of a "3.x bias" that may not apply, it's also possible that I have an authorial bias where I don't think something is a problem because I wrote it. This is why we emphasize data collection over shouting matches.

imperialspectre, thanks for coming to answer stuff. Looking it over, I just had one concern that leaped out at me:

You have a lot of races that are +2 to two stats, and classes that seem to require two stats primarily (unless I'm wrong, here?). 4e did the same, and ran into a major issue where if you were playing an archer ranger, you were stupid not to pick an elf. Do you see this being a problem with your system, especially if more races are added?

That's a genuine concern, but I think we have a couple mechanisms to mitigate any potential problem. First, you'll notice that a number of classes have fairly fluid key ability modifiers (Rogue and Sage come to mind as the examples in the core book); in these cases, players have quite a bit of freedom in picking the stats that they care about.

Second, you'll notice that the default tracks in the classes tend to have DCs linked to abilities that are otherwise important for the class. (This is what originally prompted us to move to key abilities. Testing showed that classes with an ability score that linked to attacks, AC, and track features - particularly rangers and rogues - became absurdly powerful in a system that was more tied to the RNG and had fewer hard-counter options available via spellcasting and such. One would have thought we would have recognized the SAD/MAD problem earlier, but it was hard for us to get our heads around rogues reliably defeating even-level spellcasters.) By linking the key abilities for track DCs to the default key abilities for attack/AC in our tracks, we made it much harder for players to badly screw up their ability choices at chargen (or to over-optimize them in a game-breaking way). This also gives players who multiclass into a track with a different key ability the option to grab Multiclass Flexibility and swap out their key ability modifiers.

Third, yeah, there's a net +1 to attacks/AC if you choose to be an Elf Ranger. Or you could be a Dwarf Ranger and lose the +1 to attacks and DCs but get +1 hp/level and +1 to your Fort saves. Ultimately, your racial ability bonuses are unlikely to break your build either way. I can understand avoiding a class because of a racial ability penalty, but this is an issue we plan to address with more racial feats that open up customization options in that regard.

I hope these answers help. It's a known issue, and ultimately we believe that it's a less problematic issue than the alternatives we had available.

Well, I did say I expected to get some things wrong. I'll own up to it when I do.

I appreciate that.

If I were going to explain barbarians whipping out guns, I would point to Ahnold with a minigun. Sometimes it's go big or go home.

Feats are still a bit uneven no matter what that dude says. *wink* Please note I deliberately said "a bit." Not "horribly crazy wrong." Just a bit. Case in point, there's a 9th level feat that gives you +1 to d20 rolls. There's another one that lets you fly.

If a character has access to flight by other means, +1 to d20 rolls can be pretty valuable in a system that just doesn't give out a lot of free bonuses. Some of this apparent disparity may be a 3.x artifact where you're used to flight being a HUGE EARTHSHATTERING THING instead of something that you can get relatively trivially at 9th level by grabbing a feat, an item, a spell, or just being good at the Acrobatics skill.

If I was building a full buy-in Barbarian who didn't train Acrobatics, though, and I was picking my 9th-level feat? Yeah, you're damn right I would pick flight over Bitter Dregs. If this kind of disparity bothers you, I can understand that.

If I can offer any more critical feedback without looking like it stems from sour grapes, I still have no idea how the whole "item track" really works. I originally thought that you simply missed out on "freebies," which might or might not matter depending on your DM/GM/MC/bf/gf/whoever. Now I wonder if it's supposed to instead actually limit how many magical doo-dads you have have at a time. Please note this isn't a criticism of the content, but one of the presentation of the content. By any chance were sections of this chapter removed as part of your incentive program? Are they tucking in an odd place? Am I really that bad of a speed-reader on limited sleep?

Okay, here's how items work. You can have a Batcave full of magic items. As a character, however, there's only so much magic stuff you can effectively use at any given time (as you get ever larger-than-life, this obviously increases). So you can use as many magic items at once as you have slots. This is explained in the chargen chapter at the top of page 20; the item progression table is duplicated on the following page. GMs are expected to make sure that there are at least enough magic items for everyone to max out their slots; if your group wants to play a low-loot game everyone should just Full Buy-In and get the extra track. You'll be happier that way.

If you have a Batcave, you can swap out magic items between [Scenes]. Yes, we could have made these rules more explicit and presented them better; we will try to improve the presentation for the next version of the PDF. A free-to-download/pay-what-you-want PDF with some balance updates, bugfixes, and merged incentive content will be available by the end of the pay-what-you-want period, so don't worry about paying twice or anything like that.

No, we didn't rip out any sections of the book to hold back as incentives. I personally feel like that would be kind of awful. We did, however, slip a couple of unfinished sections to incentive content, because it was better to release a playable game that could use some more content than to hold it back and miss our deadline.

Oh, and your table titles are on the wrong side of the page on 158. Just sayin'.

Uhhhh...yeah. We had the PDF typeset in a way that would make it immediately usable for a paperback book if we had the funding to do a hard-copy release. One of the things that happens as a result is alternating margins, and there wasn't space on the other side of the page. Since our typesetter is a badass who finished the book while he had finals to worry about, we tend to not sweat stuff like that.

Sounds fine. I'm handing this to my DM for our current {fast and loose/steady state heroism/we really cant play all that often} Tome game and I suspect people will adopt it readily. I'm honestly sick of being "that guy" or the "rules lawyer" and if everyone is balanced against each other and can contribute enough I can honestly stop worrying about making everyone optimized enough to be able to contribute (which resulted in people thinking that my wizard was weak because all he did was minor DoT/crowd control, long enough for the barbarian to come in and tear shit up).

Of course, I probably just need to learn how to let go, but this might help a little bit.

I try to avoid attacking F&K on the general principle that they developed some balance concepts that we swear by when doing our testing, so at the very least we owe them a certain amount of respect and credit. If Legend works out well for a group that doesn't care to develop the kind of system knowledge that the Tomes really reward, I'm super glad that we can help you out.

Per round? But...

Legend PDF wrote:
At will, on a successful melee attack, your target takes 1d4 points of damage, +1d4 per level.


Emphasis mine.

All abilities are spell-like abilities and activated via a standard action (unless otherwise noted).

"At will" refers to cooldown, not to activation cost (this is a similarity to 3.5, where some people misread outsiders' at-will teleportation as free-action teleportation, which was even more absurd than at-will teleportation). This is the second time someone has mentioned this concern when reading this track or Elementalist, so I'm pretty sure I just screwed up on presentation and need to include that text in the individual ability descriptions.

The batmobile? Which class/track is this?

Vigilante; it's in the Extra Tracks on page 76.

Any response to the Batman comment?

Obviously Rule of Cool Gaming would never infringe on DC Comics' intellectual property. This track is simply an example of the diverse set of archetypes that Legend offers players. I have no further comment.

ooookay. Let's play wording clarification time. The way that this is written, it could be interpreted as:

You may trigger the weapon every round.
Every time you trigger the weapon, people within Medium range have their max HP reduced by 10, and by 10 each round thereafter.

Now. Is the Planar Weapon some crazy stacking bullshit, or is it Logistics and Dragons in the sense of "I have to keep triggering it every round even though it's free so that people keep losing hit points" ??

Because if it's the former, then people lose 10 Max HP in the first round, and then 20 max HP in the second round, and then 30 in the third, followed by 40 in the fourth, at which point they've lost 100 HP in 4 rounds. All I have to do is hang out, not die, and keep triggering the weapon.

(Yes, this is an artifact. Yes, this comes online at 17th level. It seems slightly more crazy than intended, even so).

The guy who wrote this ability (one of the other author credits, btw) is not online for me to ask right now. As written, I believe that "crazy stacking bullshit" is the correct option. If you take a look at the other artifacts, I do not think it's actually overpowered. Note that by the time the per-round DPS actually gets particularly high, the combat has been going for several rounds; anyone who doesn't focus-fire you by then deserves to take serious auto-damage. Sure, you do 100 damage over 4 rounds. At level 20, that's usually no more than 40% of a target's health, and often much less.

Pretty sure it's a takeoff on the whole "You can have 8 magical things at any point in time, and some of those things might be powers from a place that you are attuned to" Tome idea of just what an item really is.

Correct. We don't set up item slots in the way that F&K did, but the flexibility in how we define items is fairly similar.

More thoughts: why the heck does Signature Ride specify a maneuverability, and so many other items or abilities that just give you fly speed do not? Is that a remnant from when flight speed had maneuverability, and it no longer does because that's more Logistics and Dragons than Legend wants to be? (seems likely... or they just haven't written the rules yet...)

We screwed up. If you check out the flight mechanic (page 110) and the [Flying] condition in the condition list (page 116), you'll see that we abstract flight quite a lot. We didn't update Signature Ride to reflect this, due to a miscommunication while merging various things into the book. We'll fix it for the revised PDF.

In the meantime, just ignore the maneuverability. All the cool kids do these days.

[Prak]

Um, JE, dude. I just looked at the description of Dwarves, and it seems pretty damned glowing. All I saw was a well written, fairly by the book depiction of dwarves (possibly influenced by Discworld), with little more than a footnote saying, basically, "We haven't forgotten about the drunken dwarf stereotype. It's not common, but if you want to play a drunken dwarf, you'll be known as a drunken master/berserker style fighter. If you want to play a drunken master, play a dwarf."

They're not scottish cultural expies. They're fantasy dwarves. Seriously.

As for the elves.... I took a look, and they're... a lot more like this:

(ie, the Simics from Magic's "The whole plane's a city" set that I can't remember the name of)
and nothing like this:
(spoiler because it's huge)

[ModelCitizen]

Chill Touch is partly correct, partly incorrect. Anything that can be delivered "on a melee attack" can be delivered through weapons, gauntlets, or unarmed attacks; however, you can only put it on one attack.

You can't deal [Precision] damage while raging; it's the sentence at the end of the Rage ability, which unfortunately is displaced into the next column.

Other than that, it's a legal build and fairly solid. Nice work.

Thanks for clearing this stuff up. No [precision] while raging thing was the big thing I missed. All my melee build attempts were some version of Path of Rage + precision damage.

[crasskris]

... a footnote saying, basically, "We haven't forgotten about the drunken dwarf stereotype. It's not common, but if you want to play a drunken dwarf, you'll be known as a drunken master/berserker style fighter. If you want to play a drunken master, play a dwarf."

They're not scottish cultural expies. They're fantasy dwarves. Seriously.

Well then they are racist depictions of chinese kung fu masters. Obviously.

[Koumei]

The best way to determine if [thing] is racist is to talk about it in front of [relevant ethnic group/culture]. If you get dirty looks/punched, then it was probably racist.

Obviously, talking about RPGs in general will likely get you confused looks and isn't a great way to fit in.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Since we've apparently got one of the designers posting here, is it intentional that high-level Tactician spells are crappy? Are characters focused on spell casting expected to take both spell tracks and Multiclass Flexibility?

---

There are a lot of odd tricks in this game. As a spell caster you can take Floating Feat, and then starting at 6th level start trading around different versions of Esoteric Adept. That gives a nice versatility boost to both the Tactician and the Shaman.

You can also trade your item progression for a "full buy-in" and then take Open Lesser Binding. At Low levels you're essentially trading a feat for a 1st circle ability.

You could combine the two tactics. You get a single magic item slot (+2 KOM) until 6th level, whereupon you get the second and trade out the first for access to Nature's Power or Glitterdust. I assume that spell casters are still a bit less item-dependent than most characters.

Guild Initiation is another interesting option for a Floating Feat. Even within one guild, you can supposedly select from different tracks. If you can maintain membership in multiple guilds, your weekly options get huge. You could swap around your spells known if you buy into a spell casting track, which might be worth it even if you never bothered with any other tracks.

That said, all the classes seem pretty versatile, and I'm not sure that there's much to be gained except variety for inveterate optimizers.

[imperialspectre]

Since we've apparently got one of the designers posting here, is it intentional that high-level Tactician spells are crappy? Are characters focused on spell casting expected to take both spell tracks and Multiclass Flexibility?

I'll give you that high-level Tactician spells are a lot less flashy than high-level Shaman spells; I don't think that makes them "crappy". Dim Lock synergizes super well with earlier Tactician spells that restrict your movement (note that low-level spells have the same DC as high-level spells, 10 + 1/2 level + ability mod). When we wrote the Tactician spell list, we were very aware of how we were porting a lot of really strong spells that had pretty much shattered Wizard-vs.-Anything balance in 3.5. So there was definitely an intent to focus on utility more than combat dominance at 7th circle when we saw that circles 1-6 all contain at least one really dominant control spell. If you're seeing a severe imbalance here, give me some data and I'll see what we can do about it.

Taking two casting tracks and MC Flex is a valid approach to playing a casting-focused character, but it certainly isn't the only good one. You can also MC into one of the Extra Tracks (Elementalist and Necromancer give Tactician some more offensive options; Mechanist Savant helps both classes but Shaman's ability to help people tank particularly benefits; True Mage can be really effective for both) or into a track from another class that supports casting (Bastion is just amazing for support-oriented casters). On the other hand, there are a number of builds we've seen in which primarily non-casting characters MC or FBI into a casting track for utility spells; Tactician for invisibility and flight has been particularly popular.

There are a lot of odd tricks in this game. As a spell caster you can take Floating Feat, and then starting at 6th level start trading around different versions of Esoteric Adept. That gives a nice versatility boost to both the Tactician and the Shaman.

You can also trade your item progression for a "full buy-in" and then take Open Lesser Binding. At Low levels you're essentially trading a feat for a 1st circle ability.

You could combine the two tactics. You get a single magic item slot (+2 KOM) until 6th level, whereupon you get the second and trade out the first for access to Nature's Power or Glitterdust. I assume that spell casters are still a bit less item-dependent than most characters.

Guild Initiation is another interesting option for a Floating Feat. Even within one guild, you can supposedly select from different tracks. If you can maintain membership in multiple guilds, your weekly options get huge. You could swap around your spells known if you buy into a spell casting track, which might be worth it even if you never bothered with any other tracks.

That said, all the classes seem pretty versatile, and I'm not sure that there's much to be gained except variety for inveterate optimizers

All of this is pretty much intended. I can tell you that so far, the main optimization principle in Legend is action optimization; you typically want something useful to do with your swift action, your move action, and your standard action every round so that you make the most out of your turn.

Item-dependence is a weird thing. In the sense of not necessarily needing an item to fly or teleport, that's true of all classes but casters have the easiest time of getting those abilities via track features. Even so, casters get huge benefits from a lot of items, particularly because they only know one spell per level for each casting track they have.