The Gaming Den

[Lokathor]

You can do things besides damage even to non-bloodied targets you know. Sleep could be -2 to attacks and checks for 1 minute/level on a failed save, for example.
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[sigma999]

Damage was the only thing I could think of that works alongside what noncasters do, so everyone is working together to bring their opponents down to Bloodied before the final effects come out.

Otherwise if Sleep just gave penalties, you'd never get to Bloodied by that alone.

[ishy]

[sigma999]

[Schwarzkopf]

[Ice9]

Sort of a side note, but I think if going this route there should be a rule where targets X-amount weaker than you count as bloodied right off the bat.
Because Obi-Wan-Enchanter should be able to wave his hand and Charm or Sleep some mook guards without beating them up first.

[Lokathor]

[ModelCitizen]

Sleep (pre-4e) instantly kicks low level creatures into unconsciousness and isn't useful against mid level creatures. If you wanted to standardize its effect and remove some of the MTP involved in when the targets wake up, having Sleep do nonlethal damage makes a lot of sense.

However, if you want people to be able to Sleep low level guards to stop them from sounding an alarm, then Sleep needs to do enough damage to kick them instantly into bloodied. Assume it needs to be able to instantly shut down a gnoll or a 1st level fighter, it'd do something like this:

Sleep
Targets in 10' burst take 2d6 nonlethal damage. If they are then Bloodied, they [fall asleep / take nonlethal damage equal to their bloodied value]. Will negates, mind-affecting.


That works, but it's a 1st level spell and at level 20 it will still better-than-2-shot enemies. (Well, any chumps who somehow got to level 20 without figuring out how to be immune to mind-affecting, but still). To offer better spells at higher levels you're going to have to put higher damage numbers on Deep Slumber and Confusion and Phantasmal Killer. You probably wouldn't have Phantasmal Killer one-shot a 7th level fighter like Sleep does to a 1st level fighter (1st level is really deadly and there aren't any lower-level targets yet), but you do have to commit to SoLs taking out an equal level target with 2/3 to 3/4 of its HP left. That means direct damage needs to do the same to keep up.

In 3e that works really well. 2/3 of equal level target's HP is what we expect from low op rogues and warmages and blaster psions. If you wanted to make a game where attacks 2-3 shot enemies you'd need to use condition tracks or fixed thresholds or a bloodied value < 1/2. But for 3e checking Bloodied value after a small amount of damage seems to hit the right numbers.

[sigma999]

[sigma999]

I found the perfect solution for "almost asleep but not quite", then we can more on to other spells. Seriously, fuckin tired of talking about Sleep.

I present to you the Bard cantrip Lullaby.

[ishy]

[OgreBattle]

Relating to previous discussions on conditions, condition tracks and whatever, perhaps "you are fatigued/sleepy" should be a standard part of the rules and so the Sleep spell forces fatigue on the target.

So the penalties inflicted would be similar to what the rogue gets when he sneaks up on a sleep guard, or what happens to you if you've been marching for over 24 hours.
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[FrankTrollman]

[Lokathor]

If spell slots don't have levels any more, we can get rid of spell levels too. A spell's "level" is the level you get it at, and the DC to save against a spell is just the same as a DC for any other type of ability (10 + 1/2 level + Stat Mod). Doesn't do much mechanically, but it reduces the cognitive load of the game by just a tiny little bit (I'm always looking to make games easier to teach to new players when possible).
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[FrankTrollman]

[sigma999]

[virgil]

Here are a few ideas as for making different tracks.
Fear Track

• Shaken
• Frightened
• Panicked

Sleep Track

• Fatigued
• Exhausted
• Sleep

Damage Track

• Bloodied
• Staggered
• Disabled

Health Track

• Sickened
• Nauseated
• Staggered

Charm Track

• Distracted (see lullaby)
• Fascinated
• Charmed

Grapple Track

• Entangled
• Pinned

Movement Track

• Slowed
• Checked
• Paralyzed

Sanity Track

• Confused
• Insane
• Cowering

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[sigma999]

One more

Brained Track
• Dazed
• Stunned
• Paralyzed

I couldn't think of a better name for it.


EDIT: At this point I think comparing level of caster to HP of the target, checking to see if the former surpasses the latter for an automatic power boost, shouldn't be done.
It should be on a basis of levels.
The problem is deciding the level difference.

I'd go with how Improved Uncanny Dodge works, in that a Rogue 4 levels higher can negate it.

A character at least 4 levels higher than the target treats them as if they are Bloodied or to paraphrase Frank "in the first tier of effect"

This difference as a condition could be called "Overwhelm"


EDIT 2: The 'tiers' of effects should be called degrees. First degree, second degree, etc. Tier system is already in use for comparing class effectiveness and would only cause confusion.

[FrankTrollman]

It's going to want to look more like a literal tree than a D&D Feat Tree. That is, the goal is to have a finite number of conditions that people can remember at each level. And also to have the conditions at each level branch out into a bunch of possible improvements. Ideally, you'd want it to be that if one person is playing a Corsair, and another person is playing a Necromancer, and the third player is playing a Psion that they can all do something to work together for great justice.

So basically you have three tiers:

• First Tier conditions are a mild annoyance, but they last the remainder of combat. Examples are Sickened, Shaken, and Dazzled. The default is Bloodied. Unlike horseshit from 3e that isn't worth mentioning, a First Tier condition does not go away before combat ends unless it is healed somehow. The singular exception would be Flat Footed, which goes away as soon as you get an action in the current combat.
  
  
• Second Tier conditions drop your ass out of combat, but clear up quickly. Examples are stunned, held, and pinned. The default is Staggered. If you end your turn and have a 2nd tier condition going, it clears.
  
  
• Third Tier conditions end the fucking fight altogether. Petrified, Eradicated, Dead. The default is Unconscious.

And the idea is that when you have a thing that hands out a 3rd tier condition (that is to say: a Save or Die), it can trigger off like a third of the available first tier conditions. Abilities that hand out 2nd tier conditions should mostly be riders to normal attacks, and trigger off of a bunch of 1st tiers as well.

The weird one are the 1st tiers like Slow. It's actually fairly serious, and you can ratchet it up to stuff like Petrified and Staggered. But it's still 1st Tier. The thing is that the spells that lay it on don't do anything else for the most part. So you'd cast Slow, and it would inflict the Slow on everyone in the area who fails their save.

-Frank

[deanruel87]

If you make it clear that damage can represent more than just stab wounds, which it already does, you can make improvements here. If you make it very clear that any effect which weakens you physically or mentally is dealing you damage then you can tie everything into it. Poison deals damage, stabs deal damage, and sweet burns deal damage whether they are from fire or someone's scathing wit.

Then you say that every effect has 3 applications. What it does when you're fine, what it does when you're bloodied, and what it does when you're defeated (meaning down to 0hp). So something like

Sleep
(Single target, close range)
Deal 1d6 Stun damage per level
Target Bloodied: Save or fall unconscious for 1 minute
Target Defeated: Fall unconscious for 8 hours

Fireball
(20ft Burst, medium range)
Deal 2d6 Fire damage per level, save for half damage
Target Bloodied: failure to save also causes you to catch fire
Target Defeated: Fall unconscious and catch fire

Blind
(Single target, close range)
Deal 1d6 Stun damage per level, save or go Blind for 1 round
Target Bloodied: failure to save causes blindness for 1 minute
Target Defeated: Target is permanently blinded


Why would this not be better than a system of 30 status effects in a byzantine pyramid?
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[sigma999]

Only one qualm with that; Fireball dealing 2d6 per level is enough to bring most Barbarians to near-death with one failed save.
I'm not trying for Tome levels of rocket tag here.
I want spells to require at least two castings each to defeat an opponent with about d8s for HP (the median), and that's assuming they fail both saves.

There's also the chance of the caster rolling all 6s for damage and outright killing the character, anyone really, especially someone with d4s for HP.

At least cap it at (1d6 +3) per level. That's enough to get to Bloodied.

This is why I don't design fistfuls of dice for spell effect; it's too unpredictable.

Other than that, happy St. Patrick's Day, I'm off to go celebrate my Irish heritage.

[Stubbazubba]

I think deanruel's idea has merit. While yes, you could design a very cool chart where each effect can build off of different effects, but not certain other effects, you gain more in simplicity and flexibility than you lose in synergy between certain effects when you just switch it to all HP-based.
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PhoneLobster wrote: He is like a living warning to all RPG designers of what happens when you talk about RPG design for too long without sitting down and actually trying to test some of your insane ideas in practice. That's unfair. By which I mean it probably applies to most posters on this forum, so it's unfair to single one of us out with it.

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03/23: Cinematic combat without damage or HP? Challenge accepted!

[John Magnum]

How much of this is just reproducing the discussions people already had about CAN?

I'm kind of resistant to the idea of a single Bloodied condition that generically improves all your abilities. It seems like it's leading down a road where everyone piles on damage for a round or two, then everyone piles on status effects for a round, and then the combat's over.

If you abstract everything into "all status-effect stuff does damage because HP is a super abstraction not just buckets of blood", and you just have two generic abstract statuses, then I think everything becomes the sort of washed-out blahery of 4e where even if your powers have flavor text, they're not really doing anything game-mechanically interesting they're just piling on HP damage and flipping a "Your powers work better now" switch.
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-JM

[FrankTrollman]

[Whatever]

Right. You can make a case for Charm coming after conditions like Dazzled, Fatigued, Confused, even Shaken (good cop/bad cop style). But you don't want it coming after Bloodied or Entangled. Unless you're playing FATAL.