The Gaming Den

We've been the grognards for a long time.

The grognards reinvented themselves as the modern ones.

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Quick question did anyone compile all of 3.5's prestige classes into one place in alphabetical order? Like a complete prestige book?

A quick search brought up a list of all of them with sources. It'd take some formatting to get what you want.

The alphabetical lists I found were mostly homebrew stuff, so...

check your pms, Redstone

Was thinking about the "Thanoi", the evil, savage walrus people of some frozen parts of the Dragonlance world. Now, I'm only guessing, but assuming they looked at the frozen parts and needed a evil humanoid race to go there, is such a monster worthwhile? Is there an advantage of making a (pretty forgettable) race from scratch for different terrain types, rather than taking, say, goblins or ogres and having variants (either cultural or physical) live in different areas?

If you've got human Ice Folk (they put a lot of effort into that name, I'm thinking), you could have Ice Goblins that are different from not-English goblins in the same way that Ice Folk are different from not-English humans.

OTOH, making up new races gives you more room to do something new and different, but it looks like that wasn't the intent with the Thanoi anyway.

Of course, this is subjective, but was wondering what people thought.

Thaluikhain wrote:Is there an advantage of making a (pretty forgettable) race from scratch for different terrain types, rather than taking, say, goblins or ogres and having variants (either cultural or physical) live in different areas?

It depends how much variance you have. If you make a subrace distinct enough, players are going to relate to them as a different race anyway. If you create a regional strain of ogres with walrus tusks and blubber and a swim speed and Aleut culture tags, the players are probably just going to call them walrus-folk anyway. Having the ogre tag on them is just confusing at that point, and you benefit from dropping it. Where the line of 'distinct enough' falls isn't easy to define, I'll admit.

More races is probably good.

When you fight goblins in the forests and then you fight goblins in the desert and then you fight goblins in the frozen north, it can feel a bit 'samey' in part because the PLAYERS don't really experience the difference in the terrains.

So dealing with goblins in the forest and jawas in the desert and wendigos in the frozen north ends up being a little more different. And if they have terrain thematic abilities, they aren't necessarily that similar anyway.

For myself, I think goblins should be a lot like real-world dogs - they come in endless varieties and you wouldn't really believe that a Great Dane and a Chihuahua are the same 'race', even if they can interbreed. So when you have white fur-covered goblins and whatever this is, I don't know that you gain anything by calling them both goblins, even if they are nearly the same biologically speaking in your game world.

deaddmwalking wrote:For myself, I think goblins should be a lot like real-world dogs - they come in endless varieties and you wouldn't really believe that a Great Dane and a Chihuahua are the same 'race', even if they can interbreed. So when you have white fur-covered goblins and whatever this is, I don't know that you gain anything by calling them both goblins, even if they are nearly the same biologically speaking in your game world.

Hey, I did that!

Conan the barbarian kills ape blooded blonde humans, juju black humans, hook nosed humans, and so on. It felt like more variety for me reading that then "Ok these are orcs and these are goblins and these are gnolls and they're all marked for extermination by goodly races"

So you can have wooly goblins and sand goblins or wooly gnolls and sand orcs, whether they feel the same or different depends on other elements than just name

Are there any systems where being a spellcaster/mage/etc. isn't just winning the game by default or if you try even a little bit? D&D has shitty OP magic, Shadowrun has shitty OP magic, WoD has the shittiest most OP magic, etc.

I'm aware that most systems that do try to balance mages do it with the dumbest shit like "hey here's this RNG you roll every time you cast a spell, it can blow you up", and still allow for broken shit as magic, it's just that you're playing Russian Roulette each time.

So is there a system where magic isn't OP? Additionally, are there any systems where the solution to magical problems isn't "throw more/bigger/better magic at it"?

Ignimortis wrote:Are there any systems where being a spellcaster/mage/etc. isn't just winning the game by default or if you try even a little bit? D&D has shitty OP magic, Shadowrun has shitty OP magic, WoD has the shittiest most OP magic, etc.

I'm aware that most systems that do try to balance mages do it with the dumbest shit like "hey here's this RNG you roll every time you cast a spell, it can blow you up", and still allow for broken shit as magic, it's just that you're playing Russian Roulette each time.

So is there a system where magic isn't OP? Additionally, are there any systems where the solution to magical problems isn't "throw more/bigger/better magic at it"?

A lot of the game systems from the 70s have shitty magic that isn't worth it. In Tunnels & Trolls, every point of "not strength" you have just makes your character worse. Runequest magic isn't worth using, and by extension Call of Cthulhu magic is worse than not having it.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:
A lot of the game systems from the 70s have shitty magic that isn't worth it. In Tunnels & Trolls, every point of "not strength" you have just makes your character worse. Runequest magic isn't worth using, and by extension Call of Cthulhu magic is worse than not having it.

-Username17

With runequest, it depends on the magic-- Divine and Spirit magic aren't worth using, Rune magic is... well, a way to give Fightars some minor super powers, Sorcery is amazing if you devote enough of your character resources to it.

Edit-- That said, a game having four entirely different magic mechanics is less than ideal.

FrankTrollman wrote: A lot of the game systems from the 70s have shitty magic that isn't worth it. In Tunnels & Trolls, every point of "not strength" you have just makes your character worse. Runequest magic isn't worth using, and by extension Call of Cthulhu magic is worse than not having it.

-Username17

Not sure I'd want to take lessons from something made in the 70s. And Call of Cthulhu ties into my theory of three major magic limiters which either do too much or do too little: resource expenditure, corruption, RNG-based. CoC is probably the ur-example of the corruption side of magic limiters.

Should've elaborated on that earlier, but I'm also wondering if there are systems in which magic doesn't suck too bad, but also isn't OP and basically keeps level with martial exploits.

My current idea of "how magic should be" is "magic is generalist, but it does things worse than a real pro can do without magic" - so invisibility is nice, but you can still be heard, or seen with magic detection, whereas a good Stealth specialist just...disappears from those he doesn't want seeing him. Think Darklurker, HIPS (Ex) and maybe even more, so you can't beat that with magic, but you can beat that with equally good Perception, which is basically truesight on steroids?

I'm wondering if someone's done something like that already and if I could learn from that. I mean, there's Exalted, but it just makes everyone a specialist mage, as White Wolf are wont to do.

In lots of games "magic arrow" is worse than "actual arrow." If shooting an arrow of magic costs a scarcer or more important resource than shooting a shaft of wood with a pointy bit at he end, it better do significantly more damage or it's just worse. In most "effects based" systems like Champions or GURPS, magical fire is generally worse than super strength because the damage dice cost the same but the super strength starts with a non-zero amount of base punching damage for free and the magical fire does not.

Then you have games like WFRP where the top end of magic is completely overpowered, but the magic you will actually ever see in the projected lifetime of the game is parlor trick bullshit.

There are lots of ways magic can be too good, and also lots of ways it can be hot garbage. For example: Skills. Most games charge you some amount for skills. And magic in many cases requires you to invest in some magic related skills (whether it's "spellcasting" in Shadowrun to cast your spells or "spellcraft" in D&D to actually learn spells). If you still need the skills the non-casters use, this is a drain on your skill resources. If having the magic skill replaces the need for one or more other skills, this is a boon to your resources.

-Username17

A somewhat unrelated question - am I right in that in SR 3e spirits are way less powerful than in 4e and 5e?

They seem to be very hard to actually disrupt/kill (I only skimmed the rules for relevant information, and ITNW seems way harsher on mundanes), but they do much less damage and in general are more bullet sponges that you can take out with a big gun until Force 8 or so, but rather non-threatening as such, because (Force-2)M damage is like...rather hard to soak at higher forces, but at Force 6 they're not hitting anywhere as hard as a starter somewhat big gun (Remington 950, for instance - 8P/-1AP in 4e, 12P/-2AP in 5e).

4e/5e works out about the same since armor and damage were increased in similar amount, and a 4e spirit at Force 6 does 6P with Elemental Attack, and halves armor. 5e spirit does 12P and has an AP of -6. Both of these are, in general, better than the starter sniper rifle, in 4e less definitively, in 5e indubitably. Meanwhile, 3e Force 6 spirit does either a Flamethrower at 6 Medium if I'm not mistaken, or a melee attack at...also 6M. The same rifle does 9 Serious, so it hits a lot harder?

FrankTrollman wrote:In lots of games "magic arrow" is worse than "actual arrow." If shooting an arrow of magic costs a scarcer or more important resource than shooting a shaft of wood with a pointy bit at he end, it better do significantly more damage or it's just worse. In most "effects based" systems like Champions or GURPS, magical fire is generally worse than super strength because the damage dice cost the same but the super strength starts with a non-zero amount of base punching damage for free and the magical fire does not.

Then you have games like WFRP where the top end of magic is completely overpowered, but the magic you will actually ever see in the projected lifetime of the game is parlor trick bullshit.

There are lots of ways magic can be too good, and also lots of ways it can be hot garbage. For example: Skills. Most games charge you some amount for skills. And magic in many cases requires you to invest in some magic related skills (whether it's "spellcasting" in Shadowrun to cast your spells or "spellcraft" in D&D to actually learn spells). If you still need the skills the non-casters use, this is a drain on your skill resources. If having the magic skill replaces the need for one or more other skills, this is a boon to your resources.

-Username17

Lots of games delegate actual combat magic to second fiddle or sometimes "the AoE situation", because mundanes often do more single-target damage for reasons mentioned and also because they don't run out of Sword/Gun/Fist.

So the problem is usually with utility spells...and with summoning, because summoning usually calls up creatures intended to be a threat to the party as a whole.

Also a mostly Shadowrun problem is that you can dip into mundane stuff as a mage and benefit immensely from it, but you can't dip into magic as a mundane, and even if you did, your investment at the same level of expenses wouldn't be anywhere as good as what mage got.

Earthdawn had the idea of magic usually doing less damage, but having riders that lower physical or magical armor. It's a tresure trove of frequently badly-implemented good ideas.

In Anima Magic is very powerfull, but Ki and Psi are also powerfull...
Magic still has an edge in my opinion.

And the base ruleset is not good...

Ignimortis wrote: So the problem is usually with utility spells...and with summoning, because summoning usually calls up creatures intended to be a threat to the party as a whole.

Would say the problem is more of versatility with summoning/calling effects as well as polymorph/transformation effects as well as anything that allows you to copy powers.

Because it exponentially increases the chance that something will slip through the cracks and prove OP. If nothing else, when you have hundreds of solutions with just a spell, the greater the chance you'll have just the right solution for any specific problem. Water enviroment? Summon an aquatic monster. Need brute force? Summon a big brawny monster. Need stealth scouting? Summon something small and invisible.

Meanwhile in most computer games summoning/calling and self-transformation are rarely thaty problematic because they only have a few if not single choices. A WoW druid can only turn in a bear, a big cat or a tree, they don't just allow you to turn in any animal in the game's massive database, while a D&D druid goes "here's a bunch of monster books with hundreds of valid options, go nuts".

Is there any significant psychological basis for doing "gaining wounds" vs "losing hit boxes/points"?

I've read there's some studies around loss aversion where telling someone they have a chance to win 10 more bux is more appetizing than saying they could lose 10 bux

Just because people don't like losing something they've got doesn't mean that they'll be happier to get a bunch of something they don't want.

If you give someone $10 and deduct charges for shoddy work, they'll feel worse than if you just pay them for the work that they did and the only got $5.50.

$5.50 is more than nothing, so getting something feels good. Getting $10 then taking away $4.50 feels bad because they already had it and now they don't. I'm not sure if one is better from an RPG point of view.

I'm not sure about the psychological effects, but counting damage up versus counting hit points down has a few pros and cons. I had spitballed an idea for 3.X where you count up damage toward your total hit points, and when damage > hp you're only "KO'd" Final Fantasy style instead of facing death.

There was going to be a bunch of overcomplicated shit with being able to get up and fight on until damage > 2xhp and everyone, even mindless creatures, somehow ignoring people that choose to remain KO'd and on and on like that; I never really got it trimmed down to something I wanted to show off, but it was an idea that would've been harder with counting hit points down. I know of at least half a dozen players who get their brain in knots when dealing with negative hp.

I do count the damage up in dnd...

Instead of making mindless creatures and intelligent creatures make bad decisions, just make revivify a 1st level spell with a 1 minute time until use. Then intelligent creatures ignore downed enemies because there is nothing to gain and mindless enemies can savage a corpse while the party finishes it off and then raise their friend.