Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Emerald]

I used it in my last campaign, a pseudohistorical one where the party wanted combat to be a bit more detailed and lethal. We houseruled the facing rules a bit: instead of freely changing your facing as you moved, you could change it a certain amount per hex, kind of like the flying maneuverability rules; several feats gained additional benefits or restrictions based on facing; casters had Reflex DC penalties for casting into their flanks, just like fighters had attack penalties for the same; and you could "focus" on a particular foe to automatically face them as they moved, at the expense of opening yourself up to others. There were a few other related houserules as well, most relevantly some major improvements to shields and combat maneuvers so they saw more use.

The end result actually worked quite well.

1) The "everyone tries to get behind their target every turn" thing didn't happen, partly because of the facing houserules and partly because it's often more beneficial to stay nearer your party to keep your own rear face covered than to split off and open yourself up.

2) Being able to sneak around behind peoples' backs and have things like "I slip up behind the guard and shank him in the kidneys" have actual mechanical effects was appreciated by more than just the party sneak; it was actually better for the non-sneaky PCs, because the significant stealth bonuses for being in someone's flank or rear helped compensate for low skill ranks, clunky armor, and such.

3) It had a surprising effect on casters, who couldn't just be artillery turrets that swiveled on a dime; the battlefield control caster had to work to keep himself oriented toward enemy groups and stay close enough that he could line up AoEs, and the support caster was a little more vulnerable because he had to stand a little ways off from the party to keep everyone in his front flank. Part of this is, again, due to houserules, but the majority was due to the basic "can't cast into rear face" rule.

4) Monster fights became both easier and harder, depending on the monster. Those without lots of different natural attacks couldn't freely distribute full attacks when surrounded, but those who did had a much easier time getting at least a few attacks off every turn.

5) Stuff like Knowdown and Stand Still became a lot more common, which we found to be a net positive as AoOs started to actually matter once you had enough HP that taking an AoO wouldn't normally bother you much, keeping positioning relevant for longer.

I'd recommend trying it out and seeing how a given group likes it. We're back to normal rules in my current campaign, and there are some aspects of facing that my party misses (mostly the stealth and perception parts, but the party fighter really liked being able to maneuver around shields at low levels) that we might houserule back in on their own.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

You mentioned having plastic men on a grid. Facing while using a grid is very easy. Facing while not using a grid is bullshit.

Okay, yeah, that was so obvious that I thought it was assumed.

We houseruled the facing rules a bit: instead of freely changing your facing as you moved, you could change it a certain amount per hex, kind of like the flying maneuverability rules; several feats gained additional benefits or restrictions based on facing; casters had Reflex DC penalties for casting into their flanks, just like fighters had attack penalties for the same; and you could "focus" on a particular foe to automatically face them as they moved, at the expense of opening yourself up to others. There were a few other related houserules as well, most relevantly some major improvements to shields and combat maneuvers so they saw more use.

That sounds really interesting, do you have those rules written up anywhere?

Odin also has a point in that D&D 3e wasn't really made with facing rules in mind, which is why they're optional. On one hand, having facing rules without minis and grids is pointless, but on the other hand, actually building a game with all that stuff in mind would probably be really cool to people who enjoy tactical combat.

[deaddmwalking]

Facing is fiddly and players don't like it being used against them.

We changed flanking so every additional person threatening you gives you a +1 - you don't have to line up on opposite sides or anything.

[jt]

I use disks on a grid (even when not playing disk-flicking games) so facing is still fiddly bullshit for me even though I use a grid.

I don't think bolting facing onto an existing system is a great idea. It's an extra thing to keep track of for everyone all the time. To make it worth it, you'd have to make it a core part of the system, or the entire shtick of common character archetypes. Like if your shield-fighter class is practically immune to things he's facing, and that's about par for the course for how important facing mechanics are, then I can see a case for tracking it (and a case for going out to find minis that actually show facing well).

[Stahlseele]

I only play one grid based game and that is battletech.
Positioning and thus facing is king in that game . .

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, facing seems important to me, as flanking is a military tactic which was used millennia ago and is used today, and a grid systems seems the best way of doing this if you want to avoid "no, I'm clearly half a degree off being flanked". A grid system does the same to range as well.

Though, makes sense with individuals, not sure if it would work with more than one person in a square.. Outside the scope of this topic, but something I'd been thinking off for a skirmish game I need to get around to working on more.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I'm getting some interestingly mixed signals from you guys on this one.

[deaddmwalking]

I think that 'half a degree off being flanked' is clearly symptomatic of the problem with facing. People always want facing to be to their opponents detriment and never their own. It makes no sense that someone who is coming at you from the 7 o'clock direction is at an appreciable disadvantage then if they came from the 6 o'clock direction if you weren't aware of them. So non-awareness probably should replace flanking. And if flanking represents dealing with threats in multiple directions, 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock probably don't have any special advantages compared to 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock - especially if people are expected to be fluidly changing direction multiple times in the fluff.

Giving people bonuses for ganging up on you in melee covers just about everything you can get with a dedicated facing system with fewer broken friendships.

[Stahlseele]

I'm getting some interestingly mixed signals from you guys on this one.

Grid-Systems simplify combat by a huge degree . . .
But as always, abstraction takes away from realism.

You can not have something with clearcut facing rules be realistic as you can not go analogue.
It is an entirely digital system.
You are either facing the correct direction, or you are not.
You can not turn a half degree to get the shot off.
You can only turn by however many sides the fields on your grid have.
If it is based on squares, you go in 90° steps.
If it is based on hexes, you go in 60° steps.
And if you are off the grid, you end up with arguments about line of sight, facing, ranges and reaches.
And this is on a 2D playing field.
If you add in height differences, it only gets so much worse.

[OgreBattle]

In 'reality', combatants are all moving at the same time, thinking and executing actions in reaction or oblivious to each other's actions and thoughts.

In tabletop we have a perfectly partitioned time and space, so something like facing can't just be plopped in without considering what the abstraction of time/thought/action/reaction in the turn order already is.

With something like D&D, facing doesn't feel right for human speed and sized characters, but would be good for driving a tank

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

With something like D&D, facing doesn't feel right for human speed and sized characters, but would be good for driving a tank

What about flying?

[Foxwarrior]

When it takes half a turn to do a 180, it's just optionally worth the effort to keep track of facing. For tanks and eagles alike.

I think I like facing more for ranged combat than for melee: for ranged combat it means you get better at flanking people when up close, and ranged often kind of lacks in situational modifiers to exploit for victory otherwise. I suppose writing your cover rules right can deal with this pretty well too though.

[Emerald]

We houseruled the facing rules a bit: instead of freely changing your facing as you moved, you could change it a certain amount per hex, kind of like the flying maneuverability rules; several feats gained additional benefits or restrictions based on facing; casters had Reflex DC penalties for casting into their flanks, just like fighters had attack penalties for the same; and you could "focus" on a particular foe to automatically face them as they moved, at the expense of opening yourself up to others. There were a few other related houserules as well, most relevantly some major improvements to shields and combat maneuvers so they saw more use.

That sounds really interesting, do you have those rules written up anywhere?

Yeah, I have a campaign wiki I can copy-paste the relevant snippets from when I get a chance.

You can only turn by however many sides the fields on your grid have.
If it is based on squares, you go in 90° steps.
If it is based on hexes, you go in 60° steps.

Slight nitpick here, you can actually double the degrees of freedom there by writing your rules such that a character can face the point of a square/hex in addition to the side.

F'rinstance, here are the facing diagrams from the 1e DMG:



...and here's the setup my group used:



But yes, by the SRD rules it's faces only.

[OgreBattle]

With something like D&D, facing doesn't feel right for human speed and sized characters, but would be good for driving a tank

What about flying?

There's some neat tabletop games that do flying facings, Wings of War:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHJKxyQBKH8

Altitude is a Y axis factor that can be included or not. Then diving for speed, burning that momentum energy for maneuvers can be done if you want the game to be super into flying maneuvers.

---

Humans are better at quick turning (stable foot, legs rotate in ways many other animals can't do, like the splits) than most other animals, even other bipeds like this guide to melee combat with an ostrich points out:




So you could apply facing to horses, dragons, and so on.

[Prak]

What happens when a creature has a Corrupt spell as a spell-like ability? Do they take the corruption cost, or is the corruption waived like an xp cost?

[Username17]

What happens when a creature has a Corrupt spell as a spell-like ability? Do they take the corruption cost, or is the corruption waived like an xp cost?

By RAW, Spell-like abilities wave an extensive but specific list of costs. Esoteric costs and components like Corruption are not mentioned and by the rules you would still need to provide them.

-Username17

[Prak]

Thanks, Frank.

[Dean]

I've heard the rules in Shadowrun for shopping for gear or asking your contacts to look into stuff for you are good. Could anyone tell me how they work? I can also find the rulebook if that would be the most efficient way to gain that information (very plausible). But if that is viewed as the best option let me know what edition contains those rules in their best form.

[Grek]

Both of those use what's called an extended test. It's the sort of test where you care about how long it takes you to complete a task rather than about whether you eventually complete it at all. Fixing a car, buying drugs, recovering from getting shot, that sort of thing. Each extended test has a certain amount of time (the Interval) that you spend doing whatever it is you're doing and a certain total number of hits you need to finish the job. For every Interval you spend working on it, you roll your dicepool and count up the hits. Once you've got enough total hits (across all rolls), you're finished.

Let's say you're painting a wall. The Interval is one hour and the TN is 3. If you get 3 hits on your first roll, you finish in an hour. If you roll 2 hits, then 2 more hits, you finish in two hours. If you roll 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1 hits you took 6 hours and are some sort of fuck-up when it comes to applying paint.

Gear that is hard to get has an Availability code 4 or 8R or 6F. The number is the TN for the associated Charisma + Negotiations extended test to find someone selling it (with an interval based on how much money it's worth) and the letter is a code indicating how illegal to own that item is. No letter means legal for civilians, R means that it is restricted to people with a license (fake or otherwise) and F means it's totally forbidden and Lone Star doesn't care who your fake ID says you are.

Contacts work the same way, except your contact does the rolling in the background while you do stuff. When they find the answer to your question, they call you in the middle of the scene and you find out if you've been wasting your time doing whatever it was you were doing in the meanwhile.

[Schleiermacher]

So it's part of the RoW setting assumptions that hereditary aristocracies in D&D maintain their power by mentoring their heirs (either personally or by apprenticing them with experienced adventurers) so they grow up to be 5th level wizards and samurai rather than 1st level aristocrats - but how long does that take? How many years of training are required, and how intensive is the training? Is it just a matter of getting training and studying opportunities that most people don't get at all, so it takes the same amount of time that less fortunate folk need to get to 1st level?

[OgreBattle]

This is about a challenge rating 8 encounter in D&D3e yeah?

[Stahlseele]

Only if you can get them all to attack you at once.
And then it becomes death by a thousand scratches.

[Prak]

Nah, they've got the stoned template. Drastically reduces CR.

[Prak]

Ok, I reviewed the Rick and Morty thing. Anyone want to tackle StormBunny's Bloodlines and Black Magic? It's a modified Pathfinder modern horror thing, and I've been interested in taking a look, but... wow is that a lot to sift through. I'd be interested in someone appraising it to the usual Den standards.

[Prak]

I'm going to guess this question is "unanswerable," but a favorite crack character concept of mine has raised an interesting question.

The character concept consists of a Paladin who gets 9th level spells, probably through being epic level and taking Enhanced Spell Access until he has a single 9th level slot, and uses that slot to prepare Exalted Fury-

Uttering a single, awesomely powerful syllable of the Words of Creation, your body erupts in the same holy power that shaped the universe at its birth.
All evil creatures within the area take damage equal to your current hit points +50.
Sacrifice: You die.
You can be raised or resurrected normally.

The reason for this character being a paladin is because they have a d10 hd, maximizing the potential damage (short of weird shenanigans like a barbarian that somehow gets 9th level spells while still having a d12 hd).

It occurred to me that a warforged paladin might be really interesting for this. Because they go inert when they hit 0 hp. Plus it'd be funny ("Initiating Self Destruct") and kinda cool (warforged paladins are just cool).

But it raises the question- can warforged use the spell? Exalted Fury is a Sanctified spell, which means it's a pallet swap of Corrupt spells, so it has a sacrifice cost, and it's generally assumed you have to pay the sacrifice cost to be able to use the spell*. But... do warforged "die?" They go "inert" at -10 hp, and this is treated as specifically being different from "dead," because the warforged can be repaired to be returned to "life."

So, tl;dr- do warforged "die?" If they don't "die" can they use the spell Exalted Fury?

*tho, both Corrupt and Sanctified spells say that the corruption/sacrifice cost is paid at the end of the duration, so... mechanically, I think you could actually use the spell, and then... you just... get charged an irrelevant cost? There's FAQ about corrupt magic that implies Corrupt magic makes you specifically vulnerable to the ability drain even you normally are immune, and that undead who use them take the drain/damage to their charisma. But... there was never official errata for BoVD, and FAQ threads were notoriously... well, WotC.