Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Kaelik]

Materials include blue ice, which is the basis of many exploits

This came up in the 5e thread. I was curious what was so exploitable about blue steel, but I just see mithral that's really cold. So what are the exploits that are based on blue steel?

I think you can use it with some feats or something to give you a constant bonus to your save DCs.

[fectin]

Not sure about blue steel. Blue ice is permanently cold, so it's huge for L&D, plus:

A fun way for Necromancers to boost DCs
The easiest way to boost DCs is to take Snowcasting the Cold Specialization and Improved Cold Specialization feats. If you are willing to carry around ice (like a blue ice lined chest with regular ice), this is a +2 to all your spells for three feats, and your spells are cold subtyped, which is a nice bonus favor for an Uttercold Assault Necromancer.

If you are a Wizard, another option opens up. The 10th level Planar Substitution level of Wizard lets you slap on alignment subtypes onto your spells, and this adds a +1 to caster level and DCs when you cast spells on creatures with the opposed alignment, which upgrades to +2 if the spell naturally has that alignment (like adding Evil to an Evil spell). This is nice, but the real fun is when you get feats like Spell Focus(Evil) or Malign Spell Focus (or both). This adds some nice DCs to all your spells.

Add these two techniques together, which stack with Spell Focus and Improved Spell Focus, and you can take all your feats and set a little fire and dance around it and be the master of Save or Dies at 10th level. Other setting specific-feats can also add to these numbers.

[Prak]

Ah, gotcha.

Another question- what happens with damage caps when a sphere gives a spell at an unusual level? Does the fire sphere's 1st level fireball seriously cap at 5d6?

[Longes]

Well, I don't know about this specific case, but it's a John Wick game. Expect massive levels of DM fuckery.

I'm reading 7th Sea, and goddamn, John Wick. "If you teleport, there's a Save-or-Die check". "NPCs don't follow setting rules". "Captain Reis fucks you". FFFFFFUUUUUU------

[fectin]

So, your next combat should sound like this:
Player: I roll to hit. Succeed. Roll to damage. Ten hit points.
Game Master: The villain grabs your sword arm (dice roll). He succeeds. You can’t use your sword next round because your sword arm is tangled up.
Player: Uh. Okay. Roll for initiative?
Game Master: Sure. But you subtract two from your roll because you’re surprised.
(Dice roll.)
You lose?
Player: Uh, yeah.
Game Master: All right. He twists your arm. He rolls Strength. You roll Stamina. He gets a +5 because he’s got an arm bar on you.
Player: Uh, okay.
(Dice roll.)
Game Master: All right. The villain won. He takes you down to the ground. Now, he’s on top of you. You’re face down on the ground. He’s got your arm behind you, and your shoulder’s making strange sounds. He grabs hold of your hair and pulls your head up just before it comes slamming down into the castle’s stone floor.

[Longes]

EDIT:

I love this one. Whenever I get to take a character away from a player for
a while, explain that they’ve been unconscious and then have them wake
up with blood on their hands is a chance to have some real fun.
I had one of those berserking scrapper guys in my campaign for a short
while. His name was Scrapper (I didn’t pick the name, guys) and he got
hired on at US for only a short while. The player knew all the Champions
loop-holes and he exploited every one. Instead of asking “What kind of
idiot do you think I am?” I let him have his little combat monster, keeping
a steady eye on his Berserk Disadvantage.
After a couple of sessions, I got complaints from players. They
complained that the character was nothing but a walking bundle of
powers, a glory-hound and a bad role-player. I agreed, but asked them
to be patient. After seeing a familiar wicked glint in my eye, they smiled
quietly to themselves and waited for the hammer to fall.
The next session, they encountered one of my favorite villains. His name
is Mindbender, and you can figure out the rest. Mindbender took one
look at Scrapper and he knew what to do. He invoked a little mental
heavy artillery and before Scrapper knew it, I was rolling dice, making
a regretful look and asking him to make his Berserk roll. Now Scrapper
only goes Berserk when he sees red trolley cars (his mother was killed 10 PLAY DIRTY JOHN WICK
by a run-away red trolley car). He knew there were no trolley cars in
Minneapolis and asked me why he was going Berserk. I told him he was
seeing trolley cars wherever he looked and he had no choice but to make
the roll - and make it at -5, at that. After all, he was surrounded by the
bloody things.
He failed the roll, went nuts and I took away his character sheet. At that
moment, Scrapper starting attacking everything in sight, including his
buddies. They had no chance but to defend themselves against a little
rule-bending combat monster who was going at them full tilt. His little
rampage caused a whole lot of damage and took out a small child’s eye
before they got him under control. The parents sued US, Scrapper was
brought up on charges of negligence and reckless endangerment of life
and spent the next twenty years in prison.
I suggested to Scrapper’s player that he should be more careful with his
Disadvantages. Surprisingly enough, the next character he made was a
little more respectful of the rules. Go figure.

EDIT2: This is the strangest document I've ever read

[Longes]

The strangest thing for me about John Wick is how he insists on breaking the rules all the time. IMHO, if you can't tell the story you want to tell using the system you wrote, then you should probably go and fuck yourself. I can understand when you do it occasionally, as no system is perfect, but Wick does this all the bloody time...

EDIT:

For those of you who don’t recognize DNPC, it stands for “Dependent
Non-Player Character”. I understand it’s a fairly common Disadvantage
among players, but after this little stunt, I had a severe shortage of
DNPCs in my campaign.
One of my more resourceful heroes was a young lady named Malice. She
was a martial artist who had a poison touch. She was fast, deadly and very
lucky. She was also a big, fat thorn in Carter’s side. She was getting too
close to his secret, so he decided to retire her.
When she wasn’t running around in black tights, Malice was taking
care of her aging grandmother. Grandmama was not too fond of those
costumed heroes, especially that Malice girl. She looked like a hussy in
that tight little costume. And what right did they have to do a police
man’s job? Grandpa was a police man, after all (and the main inspiration
for Malice to turn to a life of adventuring). In short, it would break
Grandmama’s heart if she found out about her granddaughter’s secret.
By now, you should be getting the picture. Just show Grandmama
pictures of her granddaughter getting into the Malice costume and
everything will be hunky dory, right?
Wrong.
When Carter does things, he does them with style.
On Grandmama’s seventieth birthday, Malice took her out to her
favorite restaurant. In the middle of the meal, one of Malice’s most
hated enemies showed up on the roof with a bomb. Of course, Malice
made an appearance. Her enemy (who knew she would show up) was

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS MAN?!

[Guyr Adamantine]

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS MAN?!

Overcompensation?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Those articles have been discussed before, and they are missing some key info.

The context is that the game was an Ironman campaign in university, where PCs who were eliminated were removed from the pool, and he was trying to run through as many PCs as possible - and these events were at the climax of the campaign and the general fuck-you-it's-the-Iron-Age tone was set early. It's still bullshit, but he was being a dick for a reason and not just in an average game. And that's precisely the kind of contextual information you want at the header of the article since anyone who thinks this is generic good GMing advice from a published RPG designer of some fame is going to learn a lot of shitty lessons about the IMMENSE POWER of fiat GMing:

[fectin]

That's incorrect. Wick describes a number of different campaigns in a number of different settings and systems, and offers similar advice in all cases.

[ishy]

But he's still giving out GM advice equivalent to rocks fall, you die.
Even for a general fuck-you-it's-the-Iron-Age campaign his 'advice' is awful.

All right, how about using a character’s advantages against him?

Luck is a great example. Players buy Luck for their characters all the time. Its like a little security blanket. It makes them feel as if they have something tofall back on if everything goes bad.

The definition of Luck is “… that quality which helps events turn out in the character’s favor.” Okay, that sounds fine, but trust me, a good GM can find bad in just about anything.


Imagine the group getting hit by some area effect weapon. Of course, the Luckster wants to roll his way out of it. You tell him that’s fine and he makes his luck roll. He flies out of the effect and looks back to see his buddies frying.
(Feel free to apply guilt here. After all, he could have grabbed someone to fly out with him, right?)

Then, right after he’s out of the blast radius, have him notice that he’s flown right into a mob of supervillains, just ready and willing to pound on one lone hero. Let’s see him Luck his way out of a combined total of 1,500 points of hard-hitting villains. If only he had stayed behind …

Immunity gives a character supernatural immunity to diseases and poisons. It’s a very popular advantage.

I had his scientists come up with a disease that would kill off anyone with the “super gene” that meta-humans had. [DM PC] had a cure, of course. The only problem was all those super fellows who bought Immunity were, well, immune to it

Oh, you bought immunity to diseases? Well let me kill you off with a deadly disease.
That is even worse than bearworld.

[John Magnum]

Sometimes the Den will mention "asymmetric power gains", or stuff along those lines. Can someone explain exactly what that means, and what makes the kind of power gain referred to asymmetric?

[Blicero]

Sometimes the Den will mention "asymmetric power gains", or stuff along those lines. Can someone explain exactly what that means, and what makes the kind of power gain referred to asymmetric?

An easy example is AD&D-style treasure. The MC uses a mix of loot tables and pre-placed items. So if you ask around, you can learn about the pre-placed items well before you have the opportunity to seek them out. And the key point is that the underlying math doesn't assume you have any of these gewgaws. If you have a system like this, it's only a matter of time before some PC acquires an item that is wildly better than anything anyone else has. Hence the asymmetry. The contrast in this example would be something like WBL or treasure wishlists.

[Orion]

Different things depending on context. In D&D and related, level-based systems, it tends to mean power that comes from sources outside the standard level progression. Asymmetric power is things like excessive piles of magic gear that enable you to outperform npc of comparable level.

[Grek]

Sometimes the Den will mention "asymmetric power gains", or stuff along those lines. Can someone explain exactly what that means, and what makes the kind of power gain referred to asymmetric?

One player gains character power in a way that prevents other players from getting similar power. Example: Only one person can wield the artifact sword, so if the party finds only one, whoever gets it gains asymmetric power compared to the rest of the players and NPCs who were previously similarly powerful.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Anyone run Carrion Crown for Pathfailure? A good friend of mine is trying to run it, and she's a pretty green DM. And I've never ran the thing.

[malak]

Anyone run Carrion Crown for Pathfailure? A good friend of mine is trying to run it, and she's a pretty green DM. And I've never ran the thing.

I ran the first adventure only, as start for a different campaign. Didn't really like the later ones, but the first one is pretty cool, lots of atmospheric encounters, relatively free-flowing and a nice ghost story.

It's a good adventure for a first-time DM, because the player's don't really have to be railroaded, the adventure progresses naturally, unlike many other PF adventure paths.

[RobbyPants]

But he's still giving out GM advice equivalent to rocks fall, you die...

...
The definition of Luck is “… that quality which helps events turn out in the character’s favor.” Okay, that sounds fine, but trust me, a good GM can find bad in just about anything.


Imagine the group getting hit by some area effect weapon. Of course, the Luckster wants to roll his way out of it. You tell him that’s fine and he makes his luck roll. He flies out of the effect and looks back to see his buddies frying.
(Feel free to apply guilt here. After all, he could have grabbed someone to fly out with him, right?)

Then, right after he’s out of the blast radius, have him notice that he’s flown right into a mob of supervillains, just ready and willing to pound on one lone hero. Let’s see him Luck his way out of a combined total of 1,500 points of hard-hitting villains. If only he had stayed behind …

I like how, not only does he feel the need to punish players for powers that they bought ("You paid for an advantage with a disadvantage? Now I can fuck you twice! AHAHAHAHAHAA!"), but he does so by going completely in the opposite direction of luck after he defined it! Luck helps things turn out in your favor... by going from bad to worse! What the shit?

"You took iron skin? Too bad your chest can't expand or contract and you suffocate! AHAHAHAHAHAA!"

"You took eye lasers? Too bad you just fried out your own eyeballs when you used them, went blind, and lost your powers! AHAHAHAHAHAA!"

"You took flight? Too bad you didn't take an ability to land safely! AHAHAHAHAHAA!"

[Count Arioch the 28th]

But he's still giving out GM advice equivalent to rocks fall, you die...

...
The definition of Luck is “… that quality which helps events turn out in the character’s favor.” Okay, that sounds fine, but trust me, a good GM can find bad in just about anything.


Imagine the group getting hit by some area effect weapon. Of course, the Luckster wants to roll his way out of it. You tell him that’s fine and he makes his luck roll. He flies out of the effect and looks back to see his buddies frying.
(Feel free to apply guilt here. After all, he could have grabbed someone to fly out with him, right?)

Then, right after he’s out of the blast radius, have him notice that he’s flown right into a mob of supervillains, just ready and willing to pound on one lone hero. Let’s see him Luck his way out of a combined total of 1,500 points of hard-hitting villains. If only he had stayed behind …

I like how, not only does he feel the need to punish players for powers that they bought ("You paid for an advantage with a disadvantage? Now I can fuck you twice! AHAHAHAHAHAA!"), but he does so by going completely in the opposite direction of luck after he defined it! Luck helps things turn out in your favor... by going from bad to worse! What the shit?

"You took iron skin? Too bad your chest can't expand or contract and you suffocate! AHAHAHAHAHAA!"

"You took eye lasers? Too bad you just fried out your own eyeballs when you used them, went blind, and lost your powers! AHAHAHAHAHAA!"

"You took flight? Too bad you didn't take an ability to land safely! AHAHAHAHAHAA!"

Sounds like almost every DM that I played with that didn't personally train to DM myself.

[mean_liar]

That's incorrect. Wick describes a number of different campaigns in a number of different settings and systems, and offers similar advice in all cases.

Playing Dirty is an ugly and insulting document, but my quote is only referencing the Hero system quotes from that book.

But yes, fuck John Wick for everything he thinks about GMing.

[Prak]

Ok, so let's say someone wants to play d20 Middle Earth (I don't know why either, perhaps they were dropped on their heads as a child and then also really liked the hobbit movies)

It does occur to me that Middle Earth is an inherently low-level setting. Everyone's non-magic users, plot magic users, or magic using celestial DM penis extensions. It's very much a DMFs Rule the Day setting, and you'd obviously want a more robust melee combat system.

But what would you actually need to do to make this work beyond saying "No spellcasters" and explicitly saying that most of the more powerful monsters are exceedingly rare?

[Omegonthesane]

Offhand you'd want there to be a meaningful variety of tactical options for DMFs. Tome feats with a level cap?

[Prak]

Hm, that's a good thought, in theory at least. Though given that LotR probably caps a round level 7 or so, you'd probably want scaling feats to give out stuff much faster up to that point.

[erik]

You don't want no spellcasters, that's not Middle Earth, that's just mundane Earth. You just want to make custom lists/spheres.

Can refer to MERP for what to expect from their spell lists.
http://merp.se/spell_lists.html

[Prak]

Sorry, "No PC Spellcasters." Because Gandalf's not a PC, he's a DMPC.