Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Blicero]

How many game have explicit retreat mechanics? PCs have a hard time knowing when to call it quits, especially in non-ancient D&D games and their spinoffs. I figure that if there's an express mechanic for fleeing combat in the rules, then players might feel more comfortable running away since they know the GM won't be pulling everything out of their asses.

As Chamomile said, a big issue is player/DM culture assumptions about whether or not retreat is something they could imagine happen. If the PCs try to run away once and the DM has the monsters chase them all down and eat them, that's probably going to leave a sour taste in everyone's mouths. Echoing others, earlier versions of D&D tended to involve larger numbers of combatants than current versions do, and they also had explicit morale rules. In those paradigms, it's generally easier to ensure that retreat is something that occasionally happens, at least on the side of Team Monster. (They also had rules for determining distance between characters and monsters when combat music starts.)

ACKS has explicit chase mechanics, with separate rules for dungeon, wilderness, and naval chases. Dungeon chases more or less keep everything in boardgame mode, with the additional restriction that sharp turns and the like require Reflex saves to avoid falling. There's also this weird line:

A monster will stop chasing the adventurers
if they manage to get out of the monster’s range of vision.

which suggests that you literally only need to turn a single corner before you're safe. Wilderness and naval chases immediately switch out of narrative mode and give probability tables for escape chances. I think the implicit assumption for any of these cases is that there will be a fair amount of magic tea party involved in providing modifiers and adjudications.

tl;dr: Retreat mechanics probably make the most sense when contextualized with further systems for encounter distance, reactions, and morale, but, even then, they're dependent on a variety of "psychologically soft" factors that are difficult to turn into mechanics.

[Prak]

Randomly thinking about whether a 3.5 warlock might be able to get fireball, I decided to see if a wizard could get at will fireball more quickly than a warlock could get effectively an at will fireball (eldritch doom brimstone blast makes for a caster level/half d6 fireball that you drop at your feet and doesn't harm you).

So I went to staves to see what an unlimited staff of fireball might cost.

And staves are literally half the price of wands? Is that right? Wands are SpLv*CL*375 gp and staves are SpLv*CL*375 gp. And staves are better because you can use your caster level if it's higher than the item's.

So.... staves should cost more than wands, right?

(edit: corrected wand cost, corrected my typo on staff cost)

[virgil]

Staves and wands have the same base price for one spell

[Prak]

welp, that's what I get for looking at the chart, not the text.

Still, tho, shouldn't staves be more expensive than wands?

[Orca]

A staff has a minimum spell package size that's a lot larger than a wand, may not be customisable depending on your campaign, and is just plain bigger and more awkward to lug around.

Still, making them a bit different is a decent idea. PF1 did so by making staves 10-charge but easily rechargeable, not all their ideas were bad at that point.

[Username17]

Staves are simply better than Wands. The item creation feat has a higher level requirement, that is the only balancing factor.

I'd get all riled up about it, except that actually spell trigger items are the most broken thing in D&D and K and I tried to come up with a fix for those fucking things for an actual year and just couldn't. Wands and Staves are fundamentally broken and there is no fix.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

Going on a tangent from that, I like that dark souls has wands be the hilt for a magical lightsaber or a staff becomes a lightspear with the right spell

In a revamped DnD I could see implements be like weapons that enhance or change the properties of spells cast through it, might have a double wand spellslinger vs a staff artillerist

[Prak]

Staves are simply better than Wands. The item creation feat has a higher level requirement, that is the only balancing factor.

I'd get all riled up about it, except that actually spell trigger items are the most broken thing in D&D and K and I tried to come up with a fix for those fucking things for an actual year and just couldn't. Wands and Staves are fundamentally broken and there is no fix.

-Username17

Oh definitely. I mean, it says something that rather than having to pour through a bunch of books for a way for a wizard to get at will fireballs sooner and better than a warlock with Brimstone Blast and Eldritch Doom, I just had to check the cost of a staff, double it to reverse the standard "1/2 price for 50 charges" and then check wealth by level.

Now, granted, that's hugely dependent on GM approval, but this whole thing was spurred by "what class would (character from a dating sim) be?" and isn't even for a game, so whatever.

[Kaelik]

Wands can also be activated by by lower level characters with a 100% success rate and by non casters more easily.

But yes, if you are a Wizard, 99 times out of 100 the scaling with your CL and save DC is going to be just better than the Wand allowing a lower level character to activate it without fail.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Echoing others, earlier versions of D&D tended to involve larger numbers of combatants than current versions do, and they also had explicit morale rules. In those paradigms, it's generally easier to ensure that retreat is something that occasionally happens, at least on the side of Team Monster. (They also had rules for determining distance between characters and monsters when combat music starts.)

Yeah, I wound up playing BFRPG last night with a friend of mine in a solo session. One of the NPCs I picked up in town was a Cleric who decided to cast Cause Light Wounds on the party right in the middle of a fight. He also had plate armor, two goons, and a shield, and all my hirelings had gotten murdered by an owlbear. Morale checks starting coming out, the one NPC holding my line started to run, so I bailed too. Turns out it was just a simple Save vs.... Death Spells. To flee. At least I had my Dex bonus, I guess (I still failed and busted my ass).

This could have just been on him, but it still felt like a bit of an ass pull. However, it was far superior to nothing at all, and I knew I had to bail as soon as that cleric turned on me. I didn't really seem to have many options besides "run as fast as possible because gold and food is not the motivating factor here", except I was in armor, so I could barely run.

Team Monster totally fled more than I did, which was definitely neat and something I'd like to emulate more. It helped combat feel slightly more engaging than just running up and hitting shit - I could hit shit so hard it made other dudes run away!

EDIT: I guess since I touched on it a bit, what games have the best morale mechanics? Is rolling 2d6 when shit goes down and looking at a monster's Morale stat the ideal way to go?

[Blicero]

EDIT: I guess since I touched on it a bit, what games have the best morale mechanics? Is rolling 2d6 when shit goes down and looking at a monster's Morale stat the ideal way to go?

I find old D&D style 2d6 rolls to work reasonably well in most cases. They often require a reasonable amount of DM adjudication and magical tea party, but they're simple and fast to apply. Their failure modes mostly crop up when groups consists of different types of enemies of noticeably distinct strengths. I haven't undertaken a comprehensive study of alternative morale systems though.

[Whipstitch]

I think it's one of those areas where it's better to eyeball things and maybe attach some general notes to relevant factions that may exist in your campaign. For example, in Shadowrun I like to tag various groups that exist in my campaign world with a few thematic keywords and a range of professional ratings that are typical for potential combatants. It's easy to have stereotypes ready for the Yakuza and the Mafia ready to go but it can be fun to have the cowardly opportunistic gang and the brave but foolhardy gang.

[OgreBattle]

Going to play Gloomhaven for the first time, what should I know about the game mechanics?

General thoughts on the game?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Everyone I've played Gloomhaven with fatigues out early in their first game, so you should know that you're on a pretty tight clock as far as number of turns per game goes.

The tactical game is fun, and the campaign is cool, but playing it always makes me wish I was playing an actual RPG instead.

[SlyJohnny]

Going to play Gloomhaven for the first time, what should I know about the game mechanics?

General thoughts on the game?

Go easy on the loss cards. You can lose a card (or two cards from discard) to avoid one incident of hp loss/death, but you generally shouldn't unless you absolutely have to. Cards are your Real hp. Monsters drop coins when they die. Make sure you are calculating the scenario difficulty correctly. Making a trap is generally a shitty use of an action. You have to choose your initiative before you play your actions, but your initiative card doesn't have to be the first action you play. Good level 1 items include minor stamina potion, Eagle eye goggles, and boots of striding or levitation.

And don't pick tinkerer, especially if you're playing with less than 4 people.

[OgreBattle]

I chose Tinkerer by random, was expecting more flames than healing but it was nice dropping a 6 damage mine in the path of a really slow enemy.

The "Choose top of one and bottom of another card" mechanic is interesting but in execution I'm not sure how much of a difference it really made. Not super super how to balance such a system too. If there's any good discusison on how that mechanic works I'd like a link to it.

I like that element of scythe, but scythe has a small set of repeated actions. Tinkerer starting with 12 different cards... I just went for the ones that dealt damage. So even though I have a lot of choices, in execution what I want to do in a round is pretty finite:

- Deal damage at range
- Deal AoE damage
- Debuff foe
- Heal
- Move

I only buffed allies when I misread the rules and didn't know every card can be used for a 2 damage melee hit or 2 movement.

The 20 card deck for the 'dice roll' is fun, editing that deck is a neat way to do character growth.

Gloomhaven has a ton of 'stuff', it's a little too much for me though. The tokens get fiddly and spill over on the small damage tracking card.

The "event cards" in Gloomhaven add an element of chance that's interesting. The item system is also very straightforward ("Referesh after long rest or refresh after dungeon") and makes me care about my equipment. Yeah I went straight for Eagle Eye googles and stamina potion.

The characters all felt different, even in action. I saw Scoundrel zip around killing things, Brute knock things aorund killing things, as Tinker I did some AoE, and Brainrat was able to make enemies attack each other.

We didn't apply any stickers, it seems too much for a game that price to buy a whole nother set when you're done.


Overall I like playing warhams Kill team, D&D4th edition than Gloomhaven though, they're faster to set up too.

So if I were to change Gloomhaven...

- Use a Target Number hitbox/wounds system, everything is KO'd at 3-4 wounds. Less fiddly than stacking tokens for 12+ things on the board.

- I like the 20 card deck, focus more on that for class abilities. Like everyone starts with 12 cards then add in 8 class abilities.

- Too many action cards, I want to do a few things and it's more like I'm fighting against the cards than with them, also makes it more difficult to coordinate with allies when I need to learn what their 9+ cards per player does. Monsters actions were easier to track
- Change I'd make... less actions overall, I'm fine with some cards being repeated as the tactical board and when you use an ability is already interesting. I feel the Gloomhaven "every card is unique" system works better for a gridless game, maybe a MtG style battlefield

- Not being able to reset/rest after clearing a room felt weird, I'm discarding cards just for movement to go walk into the next room full of enemies. I'd rather have every room be like the opening rooms where everyone has starting positions. Grabbing loot vs stamina vs mission objectives is interesting but I don't really see why 'roleplay wise' the loot can't be grabbed after we've murderized everyone.

- I could see the road events incorporating more of a gamble, bidding element, like the Game of Thrones board game having you bet power tokens in secret to see if the wildling attacks are repelled. Yeah I'd say I enjoy the Game of Thrones Boardgame more too.

[Thaluikhain]

Is there a good reason why you'd want to have characters speak an alignment language, a species language, "common" and then maybe a regional language?

For that matter, while regional languages make sense, are they desirable? You need all your PCs to speak the same language as each other, and probably of the local NPCs at least most of the time. Exceptions to this would seem to be exceptional, unless I'm missing something.

[Blicero]

Going to play Gloomhaven for the first time, what should I know about the game mechanics?

General thoughts on the game?

There's an app you can get that takes care of most of the initiative and enemy HP bookkeeping, although it requires you to have a big screen near your table, taking up even more space.

I've played it a few times, and I generally like it. The fact that you're not allowed to say exactly what you plan to do on a turn keeps things unpredictable and makes it harder to quarterback. The elements system is a fun way to set up combos between characters. The really harsh turn limits keep everything tense and focused. That being said, it's not at all a D&D substitute for me. The things it does well are not things D&D does well, but the converse also holds. Also, the game fiction has completely failed to grab me.

[Username17]

I only played Gloomhaven once. I was playing with the group that K and my brother in law do regularly and they are pretty ninja about these things. We played a few missions and I started and retired a character with their help. This is evidently something of a feat. We unlocked a Summoner, who I am told is 'basically garbage'; and a Berserker who looked like a fundamentally better version of the Orcesque Fighter I had been playing.

Anyway, I enjoyed the game, and some of the things in it are quite innovative. But I don't think much of the game can be meaningfully ported into an actual RPG. The action economy has no in-world justification. There's no reason that standing around waiting should make you fatigue-out quicker. It's just an in-game mission timer and in the context of an RPG there isn't actually a reason why you couldn't go pick up money after the last bear got stabbed or whatever. Nor is there a reason characters couldn't save their spells and gadgets and eat a sandwich while one of the other characters crossed the map after dealing with a side tunnel. It's an interesting resource management question in the board game, but it has no in-world explanation.

What I will say is that the thing where you select two cards and each has a move action and a standard action on it and when your initiative comes up you get to choose which to use as your move action and which to use as your standard action is pretty sweet. It's a good compromise between declaring actions and then resolving them and choosing actions during your turn. It means most of the option paralysis is done away with when your turn comes up as you pretty much only have two real choices when your turn actually comes up, but it also means that if the plan you had when people were selecting their secret moves goes belly up that you have something to abort to as plan B. I could definitely see that bit being adapted to an RPG. Especially one about giant robot piloting. I'm tempted to adapt it for Sentai Fhtagn honestly.

-Username17

[Emerald]

Is there a good reason why you'd want to have characters speak an alignment language, a species language, "common" and then maybe a regional language?

If by alignment language you mean a generic faction language, and the setting has defined "sides" that most people are on, then probably yes. If orcs, goblins, and uruk-hai all speak Black Speech and Common and hobbits, elves, and dwarves all speak Westron and Common, then speaking each side's language serves as a quick "Are you on my side?" check and speaking Common (presumably more of a pidgin than a language in this case) lets you talk to your enemies if you have to, and then you can have whatever regional/national/species/racial/etc. languages you want for flavor and factionalism without worrying whether all the PCs will be able to talk to each other.

For that matter, while regional languages make sense, are they desirable? You need all your PCs to speak the same language as each other, and probably of the local NPCs at least most of the time. Exceptions to this would seem to be exceptional, unless I'm missing something.

There's definitely a tension there. On the one hand, you want to be able to talk to the vast majority of the NPCs and monsters you run into, 'cause otherwise talking things out isn't an option and things quickly devolve to hack-'n'-slash.

On the other hand, when every sapient creature in existence speaks Common, you lose out on a lot of common language-related plot hooks and tropes like hiring a guide who knows the local language, having a Daniel Jackson-style linguist PC or NPC, having to communicate with a newly-encountered monster with a very limited vocabulary, having fiends speak the tongue of evil instead of just having an "evil accent" in Common, and so forth. That may or may not be a bad thing, depending on your group's tastes, but for instance my current group has one player who loves linguistic puzzles and the "they don't know I speak their language so I can overhear their secret conversations" trope and hates how easy Common and comprehend languages make everything, so everyone has their own preferences.

The issue of PCs all speaking the same language is largely orthogonal to the broader languages issue. That's as simple as having them all hail from the same area and have a starting language in common, and you don't even need that if the group is established to have known each other before and all decided to learn Aquan or some other obscure language as a "battle code" of sorts. And then with local NPCs, it all depends on how much traveling happens; you're likely to stick around the starting area for a couple levels, after which the party can invest in linguistic resources if you've made it known that speaking multiple languages will be a thing that matters.

[OgreBattle]

Alignment langauges seems good for a Judeo-Christian themed story with YHWH and infidels and so on.

So all of the chosen people have a secret language they can identify each other with while taking down the evil empire of false gods who have their own secret alignment languages due to scheming infighting as saturday morning villains.

[OgreBattle]

Found an online transcript of Solo Dungeon Adventures

https://annarchive.com/files/Strv101.pdf

[Iduno]

Found an online transcript of Solo Dungeon Adventures

https://annarchive.com/files/Strv101.pdf

Weird. I always knew them as Tactical Simulations Rules.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Found an online transcript of Solo Dungeon Adventures

https://annarchive.com/files/Strv101.pdf

What an interesting Mind Blast table. At animal intelligence, failing the save just fucking kills you, and being slightly clever stuns you for a few minutes... and being a genius makes you go fucking insane forever. Alright, then.

[Iduno]

What an interesting Mind Blast table. At animal intelligence, failing the save just fucking kills you, and being slightly clever stuns you for a few minutes... and being a genius makes you go fucking insane forever. Alright, then.

Yeah, but it's only a 4/20 chance. 20% is almost 0%, so I'm sure it's fine.

Seriously though, jenkem-huffing dipshit designs a table that spits out 2 variables as results? Either simplify to make it give one set of results, or base the effect of MoS.