Legend: some dude's d20 clone

[...You Lost Me]

Catharz just mentioned Legend and I looked back at it. New things: KDM goes to HP, so Con is useless. Except it's only kind of useless, since it's now associated with the skill Vigor which is all about granting temp HP. HP is already super-bloated, so I'm not sure if I like that or not.

I'm liking the idea of handing out character advancement in three-level chunks, so you grant all of the abilities at one time and numbers feel more significant since Legend is super miserly with its numbers.

Initiative is still dumb. Why is it based on Dex and not on BAB or something?

[CatharzGodfoot]

For me, the concept of KOM and KDM really are anathema. Those are two numbers that should probably just some arcane transformation of 'level'. If you want paladins to be charismatic and strong, you can build a strength and charisma boost into the class.

Using dexterity for initiative, however, is a good thing if you want to distinguish between fast and slow characters. If you make it level-based, you might as well just make it a coin flip.

[...You Lost Me]

They really are a weird thing to preserve, especially since the only thing that attributes affect otherwise is skills, which means you're probably (at most) getting a +2 on some skills of choice by investing in certain attributes.

Also, I meant to say Dex+BAB or something, not straight BAB. They just implemented speed boosts by level because higher-level characters are "inherently faster" or something, yet those same high-level characters that move ridiculously fast can still be 20% less likely to act in combat compared to a level 1 assassin.

[Blicero]

It's always possible that Initiative is more than just +Dex in the semi-mythical 1.0 release version that has been about to come out for the past six months, at least. If this were the case, though, the release team would be forbidden from telling anyone about it, because of RoC's really kind of bizarre code of secrecy.

I'm liking the idea of handing out character advancement in three-level chunks, so you grant all of the abilities at one time and numbers feel more significant since Legend is super miserly with its numbers.

Are you saying that Legend now recommends that players level up three levels at a time? Where are you getting that impression? (Because I don't see it anywhere in the section on Advancement.) Or is that just something you'd want to do if you ever ran Legend?

[...You Lost Me]

They have a series of google docs that they link for public consumption on the IRC chat, so it's not really secret what happens and what doesn't. From my browsing, I can't seem to find anything on the list of changes that would suggest this, though.

And it was just something I want to do. Getting +3 to hit and three new abilities feels sufficiently badass but you can still be hit by someone a full circle below you.

[Blicero]

They have a series of google docs that they link for public consumption on the IRC chat, so it's not really secret what happens and what doesn't. From my browsing, I can't seem to find anything on the list of changes that would suggest this, though.

Yeah, that's the weird bit. People are expressly forbidden from giving specific details from/linking to the googledocs stuff on the forum. But just about anyone who wants to can go on the IRC and get links to the googledocs or talk about the newest revisions there. Perhaps I am just being dense, but that seems like a really silly and bizarre way of handling new release material.

[Blicero]

If anyone cares, it looks like they finally released the 1.0 version of Legend. It's still free, which is nice. They've Core-ized their "skill games" system and some other rules that are supposed to let the game do a bit more than simulate exciting fantasy superhero combat. But I suspect that the full release is not going to sell Legend to people who didn't like the beta.

[TarkisFlux]

I can't decide how I feel about the skill games. It's a pretty abstracted system where you make some scale-to-level DC skill checks to acquire tokens, your foes make checks against the same DC to acquire their own tokens, and then you spend those tokens on actions that sort of scale to level. It's reasonably quick and avoids the 4e skill challenge failure setup, since any success by anyone adds to the pool and no number of failures causes you to lose the game. The scale to level check DC thing also sort of works since higher level foes just get more tokens and lower level ones get fewer, so you still do more stuff against weaker foes and less against stronger ones. They have separate skill games for Interrogation, Investigation, Negotiation, and Parkour.

They also have a system for social encounters, which is not a "skill game" and has vs. opponent's level DCs instead of the scaling ones, but does use tokens. You should probably track the tokens in this game over the long term since you can build them up whenever you want and save them for later. Just not in interrogate or negotiate circumstances, because those aren't social encounters and use a different system. The lack of unified skill game mechanics and token pools for socially stuff is annoying.

[Prak]

Ok, so I've been reading through Legend because I want to give it a test, but I am completely confused as to how, exactly, the Monk "Poison the Blood" ability works precisely.

Each time you deal [Precision] damage to an opponent with Close Meridian, Disarm, Grapple, Neutralize, Open Gate, Pin, Pushing Blow, or Trip during an attack action, or an opponent fails a save against any of those combat maneuvers, that opponent gains an [Imbalance]. These [Imbalances] cause the opponent to gain various conditions, as below, and have no other effects on the opponent.
[Imbalances] disappear at the end of each attack action, but conditions your opponents have gained from this ability do not disappear when [Imbalances] do.

• Two [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Battered] for 2 [Rounds].
• Four [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Blinded] for 1 [Round].
• Six [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Slowed] for 1 [Round].
• Eight [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Nauseated] for 1 [Round].
• Ten [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Stunned] for 1 [Round].

Basically, when you deal [precision] damage with, or force a save and your opponent fails with one of a handful of certain manuevers, they gain an imbalance. That's clear enough. But what isn't clear is how you inflict more than two imbalance levels. I don't know if this is a typo, or if they're accounting for a party full of monks.

[ishy]

Technically they don't say that the manoeuvre, that your opponent fails a save against, has to come from you.

How many times can you deal damage &, or force them to save during an attack action (including buffs like haste, if legend has those)?

[CatharzGodfoot]

Ok, so I've been reading through Legend because I want to give it a test, but I am completely confused as to how, exactly, the Monk "Poison the Blood" ability works precisely.

Each time you deal [Precision] damage to an opponent with Close Meridian, Disarm, Grapple, Neutralize, Open Gate, Pin, Pushing Blow, or Trip during an attack action, or an opponent fails a save against any of those combat maneuvers, that opponent gains an [Imbalance]. These [Imbalances] cause the opponent to gain various conditions, as below, and have no other effects on the opponent.
[Imbalances] disappear at the end of each attack action, but conditions your opponents have gained from this ability do not disappear when [Imbalances] do.

• Two [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Battered] for 2 [Rounds].
• Four [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Blinded] for 1 [Round].
• Six [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Slowed] for 1 [Round].
• Eight [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Nauseated] for 1 [Round].
• Ten [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Stunned] for 1 [Round].

Basically, when you deal [precision] damage with, or force a save and your opponent fails with one of a handful of certain manuevers, they gain an imbalance. That's clear enough. But what isn't clear is how you inflict more than two imbalance levels. I don't know if this is a typo, or if they're accounting for a party full of monks.

In Legend, an "attack action" is when you take a standard action to make your full set of iterative attacks. So you can get four iterative attacks, plus one bonus attack. A disarm, trip, pin, or grapple will force a saving throw and deal precision damage. If your opponent fails the save and takes damage, they get two imbalances. Ceaseless Flow lets you replace all of your attacks with bullshit like Close Meridian. So with a lot of luck, you can slap an opponent with 10 imbalances in an "attack action".

[Edit] Before you all start talking about allied monks, remember that the imbalances expire at the end of the attack action. [/Edit]

[BearsAreBrown]

Ok, so I've been reading through Legend because I want to give it a test, but I am completely confused as to how, exactly, the Monk "Poison the Blood" ability works precisely.

Each time you deal [Precision] damage to an opponent with Close Meridian, Disarm, Grapple, Neutralize, Open Gate, Pin, Pushing Blow, or Trip during an attack action, or an opponent fails a save against any of those combat maneuvers, that opponent gains an [Imbalance]. These [Imbalances] cause the opponent to gain various conditions, as below, and have no other effects on the opponent.
[Imbalances] disappear at the end of each attack action, but conditions your opponents have gained from this ability do not disappear when [Imbalances] do.

• Two [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Battered] for 2 [Rounds].
• Four [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Blinded] for 1 [Round].
• Six [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Slowed] for 1 [Round].
• Eight [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Nauseated] for 1 [Round].
• Ten [Imbalances]: The opponent is [Stunned] for 1 [Round].

Basically, when you deal [precision] damage with, or force a save and your opponent fails with one of a handful of certain manuevers, they gain an imbalance. That's clear enough. But what isn't clear is how you inflict more than two imbalance levels. I don't know if this is a typo, or if they're accounting for a party full of monks.

I think it accounts for multiple attacks per turn. For one you could Trip then Ceaseless Flow -> Open Gate someone. Then at high levels you just spam Ceaseless Flow and Stun people if you have enough attacks.

[Prak]

[Imbalances] disappear at the end of each attack action

Unless an attack action includes all attacks made in the round (which it may, I'm reading cover to cover, so I haven't gone into the combat stuff in depth yet), that wouldn't work.

But then, it kind of makes sense that "Attack Action" includes all your iterative and bonus attacks, rather than iterative attacks giving you more actions, so perhaps that's it.

[BearsAreBrown]

Yes that is an attack action, taken as a Standard.

[Prak]

Ok, yeah, that's the case. This makes more sense now.

Attack action: As a standard action, you may make all attacks you are entitled to, including iterative attacks from having a high Base Attack Bonus and [Bonus attacks].

So, yeah, and the monk has Full BAB, meaning that when you get Poison the Blood, you get four attacks as an "Attack Action." Except I'm still confused, because everyone of those maneuvers is a standard action of it's own. So I guess the list goes to 10 Imbalances to account for when you gain On Power, and can use maneuvers in place of normal attacks.

It's initially really confusing, but the insight of "well, what happens three levels later when you can inflict imbalances with every attack you make?" being in the original ability description is nice.

[ishy]

When you read Legend, do you think the [] brackets are a good idea or not really?
It seems like it makes things a little bit clearer, but reads like shit to me.

[Prak]

The brackets are good.

Whoever wrote it, however, absolutely sucks at writing naturalistic, easy to understand rules. I'm starting to wonder if one of the writers is a law student.

[Aharon]

I think the creators are mainly from the STEM sciences. Jake Kurzer (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jake-kurzer/a/b80/70a) has a BA in computer science.

The non-natural language style is intended IIRC - it is hard to read at first, but clearer and not as prone to abuse as some phrases in DnD classes.

[Prak]

Yeah, I have noticed that, in general, things are a lot more clear. I read one thing last night, one of the shaman abilities which was worded poorly enough that it could be interpreted as saying "total all damage you just did to enemies at (range). Deal that much damage to each of those enemies." but obviously should not do that because that is insane and leads to "bag of rats" abuse.

[Blicero]

Yeah, the rules are aggressively formal, which can make casual grokking kind of difficult. They also try to dissociate their crunch writing from the fluff as much as possible, to make the system as setting-generic as possible. If you read much on their forum, you'll notice that "This is just an abstract mechanic, so you can fluff it however you might like" verges on a religious mantra for many of the posters.

[Prak]

In general, I think that's actually a good thing, though it does lead to weirdness like "All bards are Rangers with a Chirurgic Poet multiclass and possible Guild Initiation:Arcane Lore wielding the back most weapon in the below image"

I am also struck that, depending on party composition, it would be a very good idea to have markers when you play Legend. Poker chips would probably work well, but you need some way to say "ok, this guy is protected by a fire shield this round" or "all of these guys are shaken." I would honestly be very tempted to see if I could get a large number of an arbitrarily large number of colours of 1" poker chips.

[CatharzGodfoot]

When you read Legend, do you think the [] brackets are a good idea or not really?
It seems like it makes things a little bit clearer, but reads like shit to me.

It removes the ability to use brackets the normal way, and is a big eyesore. But the biggest issue is that the use of brackets seems inconsistent and undefined.

If brackets are used at all, it would probably be better to surround mechanical phrases rather than individual words: "[The attack deals levelD6 fire damage.]" or "The attack deals [levelD6 fire damage]." Vs "The attack deals levelD6 [fire] damage".

[*]Boldface, italics, underlining, color (as long as it is as colorblind friendly as possible), or SMALL CAPS would work great:
As a swift action, if you are not fatigued or exhausted, or in a rage, you can enter a rage, which lasts for a maximum number of rounds equal to 3 + your Constitution modifier (if positive).

[*]Figure out which game terms should be emphasized. (Why "rounds" and "fatigued" but not "swift", "rage", or "Constitution"?) It's pretty clear that states/conditions are intended to be emphasized. The game could do just fine if those were the only emphasized things, and [large] and [rounds] were told to fuck themselves:
As a swift action, if you are not fatigued or exhausted, or in a rage, you can enter a rage, which lasts for a maximum number of rounds equal to 3 + your Constitution modifier (if positive).

[*]If possible, get an editor:
If you are not fatigued, exhausted, or already enraged, you can spend a swift action to become enraged for a number of rounds equal to 3 + your constitution modifier (if positive).
(The ambiguity about whether a person with a negative constitution modifier can enter a rage is still present.)

[Previn]

I 100% agree with CatharzGodfoot.

I also want to add on to his inconsistent statement with an example. [Rounds] are bracketed. Round, as in the unit of time, is not. I'm not sure why plurality warranted [], but singular didn't.

I also don't see a point to have [Fire] if [Fire] doesn't actually have any specific mechanics with it. I have to expect a certain level of reading comprehension for ttrpg that includes being able to differentiate from fire that burns and fire in terms of shooting things.

[tussock]

Wouldn't an editor suggest your fatigue line had a refreshed condition on it? And that you not do math in the middle of a declaration?

While Fresh you can Swiftly become Enraged for 5 rounds. When a Rage ends you become Fatigued. The duration cannot be extended by normal means.

Then get rid of the last condition and let Rage activation overlap-and-not-stack like everything else in the game. The brackets are ass, BTW, that's not how anything is written.

[OgreBattle]

when should brackets be used?