Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Roog]

That procedure adds communication steps, and requires both sides to be synchronized.

Compare this to the normal process (including communication) for a full attack or for a fireball on a group.

[Schleiermacher]

Doing that shrinks the RNG and makes all of 3Es prolific bonuses throw you off very quickly.

Obviously, but I thought that was the point?

[RobbyPants]

Doing that shrinks the RNG and makes all of 3Es prolific bonuses throw you off very quickly.

Obviously, but I thought that was the point?

Maybe?

The difference between that and 3d6 is the difference between saying "+/- 5 throws you off the RNG" and "+/- 5 makes the event really likely or really rare".

I'm having a hard time seeing why you would ever want your core dice resolution mechanic to involve not needing to roll dice.

[tussock]

If you want less or weaker crits, use softer crits. The option in the DMG. It works.

If you want bonuses to matter more, you're a crazy person, but OK, use a 1d10+5 and not 3d6. Remember to cut all the high-fixed DCs (like search and stuff) by 5, or just give +5 when "taking 20" so that you still are.


If you want a die each for contests, use higher is better with roll under.

[Prak]

If all Planeswalkers in Magic the Gathering are Mythic Rares, and Mythic Rares have a booster appearance rate of 1:8, what are the odds of opening a Planeswalker in, say, Shadows Over Innistrad where there are 4 Planeswalkers in 287 cards?

[Chamomile]

If all Planeswalkers in Magic the Gathering are Mythic Rares, and Mythic Rares have a booster appearance rate of 1:8, what are the odds of opening a Planeswalker in, say, Shadows Over Innistrad where there are 4 Planeswalkers in 287 cards?

Does this mean that for any given Mythic Rare, there are 7-ish distinct cards of a more common rating in the set? Then that means that the odds of getting a Planeswalker is 4/287, or 1.3%(ish), and that the total number of Mythic Rares in the set must be about 36. On the other hand, does this mean that for any given Mythic Rare there are eight copies of the same common rate card in the set? In that case, it depends on how many cards of each drop rate are in the set, but the answer is much, much lower than 1.3%.

[Username17]

It's not really that complicated. One in eight packs has a mythic instead of a rare. One in four mythics is a planeswalker. So it's one planeswalker per 32 packs. Very slightly more because thosr thirty two packs will also have four foils, and I don't know what the odds of foils being a planeswalker are, but it isn't better than 4/297.

[OgreBattle]

What's the most straightforward house rule for a d20 hitpoints based game like D&D3e to split AC into an evasion and armor element.

Damage reduction, 'armor gives you more hp'?

[RobbyPants]

What's the most straightforward house rule for a d20 hitpoints based game like D&D3e to split AC into an evasion and armor element.

Damage reduction, 'armor gives you more hp'?

Are you talking about a plug-n-play houserule for an existing D&D game? Unearthed Arcana had a Armor as DR variant that is about as problematic as you'd expect. Half of your AC bonus is lost and turned into DR (so fullplate is +4 AC and DR 4/-). The link there gets into a small amount of meta analysis on how this is great against tons of goblins but shit against single hill giants. It tends to hurt the guys who rely on armor the most, which are already the guys who suck the most past low level.

Otherwise, 3E already has mechanics for distinguishing touch attacks from regular attacks. I'm not sure what the purpose is for your rules, but you could resolve certain things as touch attacks (which would involve "evading" them) and others as normal attacks (where your armor helps).

If you don't like the touch AC route, simply use Reflex saves. You might want to make certain classes have a good Reflex progression, and you could apply a penalty (probably smaller than the ACP) to Reflex saves if you wanted to create a disincentive to always wear full plate.

[Schleiermacher]

I am also interested in this, for purposes of a heartbreaker.

Armor as damage reduction is the intuitive way, but making that scale smoothly over 20 levels (classes only go to 15 in my system, but monsters can have up to 20 HD) seems impossible -unless you use percentiles, so that say leather armor takes 20% off each attack -but then you end up with annoying math to do at the table.

[Username17]

It's not really that complicated. One in eight packs has a mythic instead of a rare. One in four mythics is a planeswalker. So it's one planeswalker per 32 packs. Very slightly more because thosr thirty two packs will also have four foils, and I don't know what the odds of foils being a planeswalker are, but it isn't better than 4/297.

Being aware of all internet traditions I think the term is disregard me, I suck cocks.

Arlin is a flippy card and appears in the flip slot. So in 40 packs you get one planeswalker who isn't Arlin and in 121 packs you get an Arlin 8n a different slot. So that is about one Planeswalker per 30 packs.

-Username17

[ishy]

What's the most straightforward house rule for a d20 hitpoints based game like D&D3e to split AC into an evasion and armor element.

Damage reduction, 'armor gives you more hp'?

Ain't this already the case? More AC means you get power attacked for less.

[RobbyPants]

I am also interested in this, for purposes of a heartbreaker.

Armor as damage reduction is the intuitive way, but making that scale smoothly over 20 levels (classes only go to 15 in my system, but monsters can have up to 20 HD) seems impossible -unless you use percentiles, so that say leather armor takes 20% off each attack -but then you end up with annoying math to do at the table.

You could do it by coming up with level-based DR (or at least DR that scales in a level-appropriate way). If your game has certain assumptions for HP per level and damage per level, it's not hard to figure out appropriate DR per level. This gets rid of your annoying percentile math per attack (as it's calculated ahead of time), but it does replace it with what will likely be three-digit subtraction.

Another option is something seen in some dicepool games where you have a static amount of HP, regardless of level. You increase your damage and soak as you gain power, resulting in high level guys gibbing weak ones and being able to take many hits from them in return. Damage taken could be calculated from relatively small differences in attack and defense ratings, rather than directly subtracted from three-digit damage totals.

Ain't this already the case? More AC means you get power attacked for less.

It's certainly similar. AC and DR systems both result in a reduction in damage you take (on average) from hits. But OB is looking for a way to separate "evading attacks" from soaking damage. An AC/DR split is one way. As I mentioned, touch AC and Reflex saves could both be worked into that niche.

[tussock]

AC giving you HP/level instead of DR is the way to go for scaling it, heal it like stun damage so healing fixes both pools. But ... it hits a bit of a conceptual brick wall when someone takes off one suit of armour and puts on a different one, or casts Barkskin.

Not really, because you can just have a rule for that, either
1: AHP is a separate pool that's lost last so people might add armour through the adventure (covering up the sore bits) or
2: AHP is a separate pool that's lost first (after THP, if you like) so they may as well strip armour off once it's gone (because it cramps you when you're hurt).

You really don't want to do division and shit at the table, people get that wrong, adding 65 hit points to a separate pool when someone casts Barkskin at high level is already going to be pretty annoying. And things like rider effects on hits all happen more often, so you might use AHP as a buffer against the annoying ass hit-to-stun and hit-to-stat-drain powers (meaning you get hit for roughly the same amount of rider effects before you die, just later).


Anyway, math-wise you take a bigger percentage change in damage from little guys in big numbers, and a smaller change from big brutes that were hitting you anyway. 1 point of AC => 1 AHP/level is about where it needs to sit.

[OgreBattle]

A hitbox system with a soak roll seems to handle splitting up 'to hit' and 'soak' with less steps than jamming DR into a hitpoint system, so I'll just stick with that.


There any tactical combat game that handles 3D movement in a sane and uncluttered manner or is it just better to handwave it and treat it mechanically as a flat surface.

Does that Star Wars X-Wing dogfighting game do any 3D movement?

[Schleiermacher]

Maybe I should just bite the bullet and do that, but I'm sceptical of inserting such a radical change into what's basically a D&D heartbreaker.

[Hadanelith]

X-Wing pretends that space is a flat plane, as does Armada. That said, Axis and Allies: Angels 20 is a tactical dogfighting game that DOES have altitude involved in reasonably sane manner. Unfortunately, it's a very specific game (fighter combat in WWII), and I can't see those rules being very broadly applicable, sorry.

[OgreBattle]

That Axis & Allies game had a pretty straightforward system, I could see something like 10ft increment 'tokens' for D&D as that's when falling damage increases.

I think D&D3e has a "high ground" bonus for melee attacks, so that could apply to charging from above. Now, how would you handle ranged attacks at someone more than 10ft above or below you? Say shooting arrows from a bow at someone below, or dropping boulders from your pegasus on some amazons.


So rings of protection and magical armor that gives you +X, is it a noticeable effect, like would you swing a sword at someone and just see it deflect off of a force field. Being a 'deflection bonus' makes me think it's a noticeable force field.

[RobbyPants]

I think D&D3e has a "high ground" bonus for melee attacks, so that could apply to charging from above. Now, how would you handle ranged attacks at someone more than 10ft above or below you? Say shooting arrows from a bow at someone below, or dropping boulders from your pegasus on some amazons.

3.5 doesn't have rules for arrows shot from above, but they do have rules for dropping stuff on people. The weight of the object and the distance it falls both come into play.

[Koumei]

As part of putting off finishing the Tome Binder (~50% complete), I was thinking of updating DisgaeaGame. Not just to outdo DisgaeaFinder out of spite (obviously part of it though), but because D5 has a lot of cool stuff and also DisgaeaGame is my best success, something that I really can bust out from time to time and say "Hey, we're playing this!" Probably going a bit further in using custom content and making it use less D&D stuff (though basically keeping the framework there because the basic idea there works for Disgaea).

For a derivative work like this, how much is too much for things like races? Because I count just shy of twenty things that are basically level 1-20 playables:

• "Is essentially a human in the games": Human, Angel, Robot
• Dumb Brutes: Orc, Hog (conceptually similar to Orcs), Gargoyle
• Heeeeey Sexy Lady: Nekomata (with evidence suggesting Werewolves are the male equivalent), Alraune, Succubus, Sea Angel, Kitsune
• Spooky: Pump Kin (with reskins for Children of the Corn etc), Marionette, Vampire (either "like a Human" or "like an Empusa" depending on the game)
• Weird/Misc: Ghost, Pixie, Reaper (arguably just a Ghost who goes Assassin rather than Mage), Haunted Armour (arguably just a Ghost who goes Knight), Moth

(Not included: Minions (Prinny), Monsters/Mounts (Cockatrice), Powerful Creatures for High Levels (Efreeti), One-of-a-Kind (Book, Desco))

And that's a lot if you sit down and open a book. Of course it's not a lot if you sit down and say "I know my D&D, I know the fucking Fiend Folios introduce a new playable race" and count every flavour of elf. Similarly, people who are familiar with Disgaea probably will name whatever their favourite thing happens to be, and if people start by saying what class they want, the nature of Disgaea (where basically all Pump Kins are something in the realm of "Assassin" and you don't care if they don't make good Barbarians), then that means the pool of races is drastically reduced for any given person.

Thoughts?

[radthemad4]

Too many races is a problem? Well, I guess if you're planning on printing it, it could be a page count issue, but as someone who only uses pdfs and websites, I'd say the more the merrier.

[Username17]

Where exactly you want to draw the line between race and class for a Disgaea based game is an open question. Obviously there are a lot of Disgaea monster and humanoid classes that are conceptually just the same race with different skills. A Zombie and a Maid is literally exactly the same thing except one is wearing a maid costume. A Ghost and an Armor is the same thing except one is a caster and one is a warrior. A Slumber Cat and a Nekomata is both just a girl with cat ears, with one being a monk and the other being whatever the fuck you want to call a slumber cat.

Similarly, many Humanoid classes are automatically going to be combined. There's no way in fuck that you're going to write Skull and Mage as different classes, because it's the same character type with only the sex and hat changed.

Anyway, Disgaea 5 has 44 classes in it, and you could do that with 4 classes and 11 races. But what you're actually going to do is to have Basic Races that get to pick from the weird bullshit class like like Kunoichi and Galaxy Mage, and then have major races that only get to pick a basic class (Mage, Fighter, Scout, Healer), and then have a few Fixed Progression Races that have their own fixed progressions and don't let you pick a class at all.

So Human and Cat Girl are Basic Races and you can be an Archer or a Knight if you want. Ghost is a Major Race, and you have to pick a basic class but get Ghost powers for going up in level. And a Dragon is a Fixed Progression Race and you don't get to be anything else.

Basic Races plus Basic Classes are for Followers. So when mooks show up, they can be Human Fighters and they are allowed to suck.

-Username17

[Mechalich]

For Disgaea wouldn't it make sense to treat the in-game classes as races and then make classes based around the weapon types? I mean, for generic characters most of what they do is built around the weapons rather the class abilities, especially early on before you start stacking evilities and unlocking weird class-dependent specials at level 100+.

That actual difference between the classes in the late-game mostly comes down to a small number of dependent specialties (destroy-everything Sage is basically a huge chunk of the D5 endgame) but all can be devastating combatants with a weapons they've mastered (speaking as someone who made Salvatore into a righteous fist-master).

Anyway, if you did it like that you'd have dozens of 'class-races' but only around 10 'weapon-classes,' which seems more manageable.

[Koumei]

A Zombie and a Maid is literally exactly the same thing except one is wearing a maid costume.

Having not seen much in the way of monster skills and such (mainly just videos of special character skills, the spells, and "here are all the things you can create"), thanks for clarifying that - I wasn't even sure what the Maid did and would have just made it a Prestige Class. I feel that doing the "Take ten levels of your class, then Prestige out to a fancy title" thing works pretty well for Disgaea, especially seeing as higher-tier classes flat-out have names that make good prestige classes. Who wouldn't want to write "Genocidaire" on their sheet?

So I feel a Zombie is still a "minion", even if putting one in a maid costume suddenly makes it seem like someone who can talk and pour tea and decide how they want to murder people.

A Slumber Cat and a Nekomata is both just a girl with cat ears, with one being a monk and the other being whatever the fuck you want to call a slumber cat.

I'd use the Slumber Cat as a "minion" thing - you'd have a bunch of them instead of Prinnies, and whereas Prinnies have a bunch of HP and explode when thrown, these run up fast, hit you once (as a Makai Kingdom player, I'd say "with a katana") then die in one hit. Having Leadership just be a thing, with players having bunches of disposable minions, seems very appropriate for the game.

So Human and Cat Girl are Basic Races and you can be an Archer or a Knight if you want. Ghost is a Major Race, and you have to pick a basic class but get Ghost powers for going up in level. And a Dragon is a Fixed Progression Race and you don't get to be anything else.

That sounds reasonable, as an alternative to the prestige class thing. Or would you say "Keep prestige classes for everything that sounds like a crazy title for a specialist, but have the Advanced Classes be the flat-out better versions (Knight and Samurai and Mage Knight > Weapon Master; Monk and Ninja and Archer/Gunner > Scout; Prism Mage > Red Mage)"?

Basic Races plus Basic Classes are for Followers. So when mooks show up, they can be Human Fighters and they are allowed to suck.

That sounds pretty good alongside certain things which just innately suck and don't even get a class (mindless Undead, Prinny Dood!)

Another thing I'm considering, which I turned down when making the original (because it was going beyond the scope of "A D&D plug-in" and D&D classes were already handing out plenty of abilities), is making the Weapon Skills a thing, and if you get "gains weapon skills with X weapon class" as a class feature (so an Archer just GETS bow skills, and a Fighter chooses 3 weapon types), then as your BAB goes up (even through prestige classing), you get the new powers.

So at BAB +1, swords let you Blade Rush, which is basically charging as a Line AoE.
Then at +4, you can do the Hurricane Slice (levitating, flanking with yourself, doing Wind Damage) and the Cross Slash (ranged attack).
At +8 you get to just pull swords out of your ass and make a bunch of attacks at once (there are a few abilities that basically do that) and make a 30' radius "attack everyone" (again, a few abilities, including one iteration of Moon Slash).
At +12 you can X-Dimension, where you stab someone else into another world, and gain Overlord's Wrath, where you can just fly and smash shit as you do it.
At +16 you can turn your sword into a 30' Line of Disintegration/Banishment, cut light into damaging beams (possibly the top MK sword skill actually chops a star up and not just light, I'm okay with that too), or cut the moon in half and cause chunks of space rock to smash the landscape.

On the plus side, two Fighters can work out really differently beyond race choices and stuff, and if someone just HAS to multi-class (which doesn't really seem necessary, but always plan for players wanting to do things) then it still scales. On the downside, that's basically writing up a spell list thing, and even Human Fighter minions will be throwing Megaton Drivers around.

[Aryxbez]

In general to any Disgaeagame, I'd want to play a Prinny Period, that'd be somewhat of a dealbreaker otherwise. Though as I recall, I think you gave a playable entry for people to play Prinny PC's. After all, they were playable in the games (got their own game even), got some of their own Swag-based gimmicks (though I'd settle for being "essentially human" with some special swag, or just free Bag Fannypack of Holding).

Race design in general I can only really offer the obvious, if races limit what you can play, going to need the Raceplosion for variety. If that list of races more or less are different and don't limit you too much, then it could probably work.