Legend: some dude's d20 clone

Midnight_v · Post by **Midnight_v** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:44 am

Anyone still looking for this module?

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 7:27 am

More like 3+ modules. They've raised around 11 thousand dollars. I'll give it till the end of the ever-widening donation period before I quit looking at the news page, where all the other donation incentives have gotten articles.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 10:55 pm

The first module (still) hasn't been officially released yet, but the review version was posted in the main legend thread on gitp. It's not especially complex, but it looks fun in a linear sort of way.

The module also includes some "skill challenge" esque systems that look mildly decent. They seem to resemble more the subsystems from Burning Wheel like Range and Cover and such more than they resemble the 4e skillchallenge system. Which can only be a positive.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Aug 09, 2012 7:58 am

Update. First module was eventually released, but at their update pace it might be 2015 before everything gets done.

Currently, I find Legend interesting in a number of areas, but disappointing overall. It is difficult to MC the kind of games I am interested in without varied toolsets for noncombat challenges, ways to get asymmetric power to influence the world, or some kind of minion leading game. Non of these are addressed to the degree I would like.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Thu Aug 09, 2012 8:19 am

I agree with that. Everything is written as though everyone were the same sort of combat monkey with some skills and a bit of "social encounters" crap that may or may not work.

There are no awesome relics, nothing even planned for a magic item guide (they've got point-buy weapons/armor and a list of high-powered item, but that's it), and progress seems to have slowed to a crawl with their coming 1.0 release. Hopefully it'll pick up and enough people will complain about plot devices that such things get made. Right now it's just a "Hey look at this D&D thing I saw!" module, though.

Duke Flauros · Post by **Duke Flauros** » Fri Aug 10, 2012 3:44 am

...You Lost Me wrote:Right now it's just a "Hey look at this D&D thing I saw!" module, though.

I'd give them a little more credit than that, though. It looks like they tried to fix 3e's flaws, and failed. It's still better than 4e/5e.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Aug 10, 2012 4:27 am

Legend is certainly better than 4e. And if you just want a straightforward game where people move from one level-appropriate combat encounter to the next, it's better than 3.5.

However, it lacks the ability to do things I really want to be able to see in my games. If the game breaks when PCs try to gather a warband to fight for them, I will be disappointed. If there aren't ways for the PCs to make an impact on the world without negotiating every point of the matter with Mister Cavern beforehand, I will be disappointed.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 3:32 am

I'm designing a Legend PC for a game Akula is thinking about running, and tt looks like the Fire Elemental track could have ridiculous synergy if everyone in the party has it. Everyone is on fire and getting healed by it, plus bonus healing from being near flaming creatures. [HP Reduction] attacks would still be threatening though.

crasskris · Post by **crasskris** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 5:01 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:I'm designing a Legend PC for a game Akula is thinking about running, and tt looks like the Fire Elemental track could have ridiculous synergy if everyone in the party has it. Everyone is on fire and getting healed by it, plus bonus healing from being near flaming creatures. [HP Reduction] attacks would still be threatening though.

It's also a really strong incentive to the MC to run a naval campaign from session 2 onwards.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 5:03 am

I have to say, I was really excited by this at first. Now... I lost the interest. Which is a shame, because it did seem interesting (despite the fact that as far as I can tell the game is still going to be as much of a bookkeeping nightmare as K pointed out).

I might still play around with it at some point, even if just for a one-off or something.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 5:32 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:I'm designing a Legend PC for a game Akula is thinking about running, and tt looks like the Fire Elemental track could have ridiculous synergy if everyone in the party has it. Everyone is on fire and getting healed by it, plus bonus healing from being near flaming creatures. [HP Reduction] attacks would still be threatening though.

I actually asked about that specific issue. Instead of addressing it, they're using the words that were in RAW already and saying "The [On fire] condition doesn't have a damage type, so you can't heal from it," because [On fire] is actually burning of any kind and could range from acid to spirit draining magic to actual fire. And if it needs to be abstracted that way, then obviously being on fire can't deal fire damage and it's not that there's something wrong with their system that needs to be changed.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 5:35 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:I'm designing a Legend PC for a game Akula is thinking about running, and tt looks like the Fire Elemental track could have ridiculous synergy if everyone in the party has it. Everyone is on fire and getting healed by it, plus bonus healing from being near flaming creatures. [HP Reduction] attacks would still be threatening though.

I actually asked about the specific issue of healing while [On fire] because if you just light yourself on fire, you can burn on and on and hit 1000000d6 of damage every turn to infinite healing. Instead of addressing it, they used the words that were in RAW and said the [On fire] condition doesn't have a damage type, because [On fire] is actually burning of any kind and could range from acid to spirit draining magic to actual fire, and thus you can't heal from it. And if it needs to be abstracted that way, then obviously being on fire can't deal fire damage, because that makes so much more sense than maybe putting a line in there about not healing from the [On fire] status.

Dumb.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 5:35 am

...You Lost Me wrote:Instead of addressing it...
...and it's not that there's something wrong with their system that needs to be changed.

That's very disappointing.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 5:56 am

So it follows that in Legend I can run up to a fire elemental with a flaming torch, set it on fire and watch it burn to death. Because obviously being on fire doesn't deal fire damage.

Why don't people ever think of the long term effects of their bullshit rationalisations?

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 3:08 pm

Just 'cause somebody's made of fire doesn't mean any and all fire will be good for him.

You're made of meat, does that give you meat-immunity? No, if I stick you with foreign meat, you are not going to regain hit points. It might hurt you.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 7:27 pm

But the fire elemental is immune to fire damage. So you could drop a fireball on him and he'd heal, you could stab him with an [Fire] [Brutal 2] weapon and he'd heal.

You could submerge him in lava, dealing huge fire damage over time, which he will ignore and even heal from. But as soon as he exits the lava, he's [On fire], and will take 1d6 damage this round despite the fact that he's burning from the same source that just healed him.

If the fire elemental didn't heal off of fire damage, this might be less stupid.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 8:26 pm

OgreBattle wrote:You're made of meat, does that give you meat-immunity? No, if I stick you with foreign meat, you are not going to regain hit points. It might hurt you.

Incorrect. I've played enough video games to know that if I eat a porkchop any and all life threatening injuries I may have sustained will be instantly healed.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 9:22 pm

I remember one time I halfway finished writing a castlevania-inspired prestige class for D&D 3.x

One of the most unique abilities was the power to find turkey legs inexplicably hidden in walls and eat them for magical healing.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Aug 25, 2012 12:07 am

I found myself putting together a list of unusual ways to use fire resistance to one's advantage in between answering questions at the library. My shift is almost over, so I'm posting what I came up with in the thread that seems most appropriate (with all the fire elemental discussion).

1. Smear tar on yourself before a fight, set it ablaze for a pauper’s Fire Shield
2. Heat up metal weapons in a fire before you take them into battle.
3. Avoid exhaustion from excessive heat when working in kitchens or forges
4. Sleep with your feet in the campfire so you can stand in a good defensive spot if surprised.
5. Scoop up lava in your bare hands and chuck it at stuff.
6. Don’t bother waiting for tea/coffee/soup to cool down before ingesting it.
7. Do welding and other jobs involving open flames or molten metal without protective gear.
8. Coat parts of yourself in molten metal for improvised armor when it cools. Melt the metal off again when you don’t need it.
9. If you think an area might turn into a battlefield, leave a coating of flammable material in areas you’d like to make into favorable terrain.
10. Let allies use area-effect fire damage without worrying about significantly hurting you.
11. When calling upon unreliable planar support, select for ones that depend on fire in case they turn on you.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Sat Aug 25, 2012 2:31 am

6. Don’t bother waiting for tea/coffee/soup to cool down before ingesting it.

Definitely OP. Nerf please.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Aug 25, 2012 4:10 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:One of the most unique abilities was the power to find turkey legs inexplicably hidden in walls and eat them for magical healing.

Eat them? Or tread on them?

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Aug 25, 2012 5:19 am

Once per night, you could use Remove Curse. It was sort of a melted together mass of jokes about various games in the series and parodies thereof. I'm kind of sad my searches for belmont.doc are unsuccessful thus far.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Aug 27, 2012 10:14 pm

So I was looking at the "Legendary abilities" thing. Several of the abilities are of the form where taking the ability means the GM gives you a quest, with completion doing something specific (based on which one you took). Now I feel like all of these might be somewhat pointless - if the GM is cool with doing your sidequest, you can just ask them to, and if they're not, then they'll half-ass it if forced to. And it's not like the abilities specify anything at all about the quests.

But especially meaningless is the one where the result of the quest is "you destroy a city". You don't need an ability, or even a cooperative GM for that! You just go attack the city, and it either fights back or doesn't. Now maybe if the ability was in the form of "you know the linchpin of the city - which three people or things you must destroy for the entire city to crumble" or something like that, then it would have some purpose. But as it is, it's just "take this feat, now you're able to attack something and have the GM fight back, just like you normally would". WTF, Legend?

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Dec 25, 2012 12:42 am

Has anyone done an in-depth review of the first Legend module yet? I am faintly tempted.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/det_1/OSS-Beta.pdf

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Tue Dec 25, 2012 1:44 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:Has anyone done an in-depth review of the first Legend module yet? I am faintly tempted.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/det_1/OSS-Beta.pdf

I skimmed through it when it first came out and again maybe a month ago.

My impressions were that it seemed a bit heavy on the railroad-y side. Which is to be expected for a module, but not commended. The main plot did not seem especially engrossing, but I wasn't a huge fan of their choice of fluff and setting, so perhaps I'm not the intended audience.

I did not do a super-thorough read-through of their skill challenge system. I'm guessing that everything works out fairly well numerically, because numeric balance is one of Legend's main schticks. But the skill challenge system did not seem as open-ended as a game of this type might require.

For example, the sniping minigame: The actions your party chooses from are:

1. Hide
2. Move
3. Snipe
4. Bait
5. Trap

Note that this list of actions is entirely made up of things you might seen in a movie like Enemy at the Gates. In which the characters are completely mundane people. But, of course, Legend characters are from the real world. Even in modern settings, the genre to which they belong is hairy and wild and full of magic. They can do shit like teleport and jump super-high and make energy shields and so on. Tragically the rules do not address non-orthodox possibilities like that. And that is something I find to be more than a little problematic.