Backporting Tome to 3.0E

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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik »

I really do not fucking understand all this bullshit about XOXOXOX flanking chains. For fucks sake, initiative delay and Lightning Bolt are things that exist.

I am hard pressed to imagine a single situation ever in any combat in which a flanking chain would ever be either sides optimal move. Things like Stinking Cloud and the ability for you to kill someone in a single full attack make the very idea of wasting even a single action trying to set one up absolutely absurd.
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Post by Scrivener »

What? Who lighting bolts their own people?

Flanking is better than not flanking, you can agree with that right? A +2 is better than a +0. Being next to allies of artillery discourages AoE because most people avoid friendly fire, unless effort has gone to make it inconsequential.

When charging into combat a rational person will attempt to flank, on both sides. So if you have two teams of two, a&b and 1&2, if anyone is flanked like 1a2, the most advantageous charge point is b1a2 or 1a2b. Heck if any of these combatants have sneak attack it makes this configuration more likely.

Now if your point is "why worry about martials?" Sure, they get out classed, but that doesn't mean there aren't issues.
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik »

Scrivener wrote:What? Who lighting bolts their own people?
Hence why I stated that delay exists.
Scrivener wrote:Flanking is better than not flanking, you can agree with that right? A +2 is better than a +0. Being next to allies of artillery discourages AoE because most people avoid friendly fire, unless effort has gone to make it inconsequential.
High Ground is better than not right? So clearly everyone is always fighting on tables.

Your idea is incredibly simplistic and stupid. Stupid because if you are not a Rogue, and the enemy team has any non zero number of Rogues, you are not going to trade your flanking of them for their flanking of you, because they clearly get more out of it.

Simplistic because flanking doesn't have a zero cost to obtain and maintain. If you have to provoke even a single AoO to get flanking it instantly isn't worth it. Also since a full attack kills someone in one turn, the idea of trying to get a flanking bonus to kill and then more kill their corpse is meaningless.
Scrivener wrote:Now if your point is "why worry about martials?" Sure, they get out classed, but that doesn't mean there aren't issues.
No my point is that if there exists a person who can cast stinking cloud on your team, then your best strategy is to form a wall, not let the enemy inside the wall, and fight with them in the stinking cloud and you not in the stinking cloud. And letting them get out of the stinking cloud or going into it yourself just so you have flanking is fucking retarded.

TL;DR: There are so many million things going on in every given battle that are more important than a +2 bonus that I have literally in 10+ years never seen this stupid conga line bullshit, and if you are every finding that a stupid +2 bonus is the most important factor in the combat determining everyone's positioning then you are clearly doing something stupidly wrong, possible using only level 4 warriors on both sides of the fight.
Last edited by Kaelik on Fri Jan 09, 2015 2:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Am I misremembering things or did 3.0E D&D have more detailed and useful rules for cover than 3.5E?
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Am I misremembering things or did 3.0E D&D have more detailed and useful rules for cover than 3.5E?
Yes.

Tower Shields used to grant some amount of cover; then got changed into granting +4 (equivalent of "half cover").
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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle »

Riddle of Steel had an interesting premise for maneuvering in combat called the Terrain Roll. The way it works is...

1) Everyone involved in the melee makes a terrain roll
2) The person who rolled the highest gets to choose who he engages in combat OR chooses that he will not be engaged in combat

So lets say the PC is a knight chasing an injured ork that has been joined by two other fresh orks. Some possible results are

-Knight wins the roll: Knight has managed to outmaneuver the orks and chooses to target the injured one, the other orks cannot attack him for this round.
-Injured ork wins the roll, with knight in 2nd: The ork flees, the knight has to choose which of the two orks left he will engage but he only fights that one ork this round.
-Knight loses to all orks: all 3 orks get to make attacks on the knight this round.

I figure something similar can be adopted to grid-based D&D play
Last edited by OgreBattle on Fri Jan 09, 2015 8:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Koumei »

Judging__Eagle wrote:Tower Shields used to grant some amount of cover; then got changed into granting +4 (equivalent of "half cover").
Yeah, they gave cover, which was really handy for hiding behind them, thus being able to make Hide checks.

And for flat-out negating all Attacks of Opportunity ever. Clerics just never provoked thanks to that one item. The friend who taught me the rules even had this little gesture of raising his arm then lowering it, miming "having a tower shield", for every time the MC mentioned provoking.
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Post by Schleiermacher »

And this was a preferable state of affairs because...?
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ACOS
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Re: Backporting Tome to 3.0E

Post by ACOS »

DeadlyReed wrote:I've decided to go back to 3.0e. Anything I should keep a lookout for in regards to using Tome material?
Facing?
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Ice9
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Post by Ice9 »

I don't remember 3.0 having facing, except perhaps as an alternate rule. It did have pseudo-facing for non-square creatures, in that they could be oriented one way or the other, but that still didn't define a fixed front or back, or have any such rules effect.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

Notably 3.0 shield had heavy pseudo-facing.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Darkness is actually dark in 3.0.
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