Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Laertes]

Are the various versions of Ars Magicka gradual improvements, or is it DnD/Shadowrun-style wildly different every time?

Either way, what is the best edition?

The magic system and XP system is a gradual improvement over successive editions; the combat system is completely rewritten for every edition.

5th is the best, unless you like systems which have obviously correct answers that experienced players can solve and everyone else can't so you can feel smug, in which case play 3rd and put everything into Concentration.

[fectin]

@Laertes,
Perfect answer; thanks!

Yeah, I suppose at the point where you admit that people have "a bunch of hit points" and that stabbing someone moves them closer to death in the same exact way that setting them on fire does, realism is out the window.

Perhaps I should have said "So you have a game where people have hit points, and you want medikits to restore hit points. How do you describe it without actually mentioning hit points?"

I'm willing to accept that they actually don't actually do anything that would equate to "regaining hit points", merely "stopping additional complications from rocking up and killing you later on".

"Injecting a hypo of medical nanites can cure a wide variety of physical damage. Microscopic fractures or cuts in muscle and bone are knitted together, chemical imbalances created by poison or fatigue are counterbalanced, and lost biomass is replenished."

"Replenishes natural reserves of acutely-pluripotent stem cells," maybe?

[Prak]

So, last session of my Greyhawk game was kind of BS heavy, since we didn't want to get into a new adventure the session before a player was supposed to return.

Then today we found out that due to a kitty emergence, she will not be able to return this week. So now it's on me to decide what to do about this week's session.

I'd like to still run, but I'm again hesitant to get most of the party underground on the next adventure, only to have to figure out how to get the rogue out to them (I mean, other than handwaving, and kind of preferably without resorting to cardboard cutout-ing).

So one thought I had was to do a simple one shot to occupy the rest of the group, and intro the new player we're also getting, but I'm not sure what to do for a one shot. Anyone have thoughts?

My other idea was to use the opportunity to try out another game as a one shot, and if I do that, I might shanghai my players into trying out After Sundown, since it's relatively simple, and I still haven't gotten an opportunity.

[Laertes]

The undisputed king of one-shots is Paranoia. It is known, khaleesi.

[Username17]

Are the various versions of Ars Magicka gradual improvements, or is it DnD/Shadowrun-style wildly different every time?

Either way, what is the best edition?

Uh... that's complicated. The universe gets more and more unworkable as you get farther into the editions. In early Ars Magica, the game takes place in the early part of the second millennium, and your character's knowledge of natural philosophy is limited to period appropriate concepts. You don't get to invent nitrocellulose, genetics, or the steam train, get on with the game. And that's fine.

In the later editions they go so deeply into bullshit naval gazing that they attempt to make period appropriate natural philosophy literally true. So um... thrown objects don't travel in parabolic arcs, heavy objects fall faster than light ones, insects are created by rotten apples rather than hatching from eggs, a man's sperm has a very tiny baby in that grows into a regular baby if planted in an appropriate place (such as a woman's womb), the planets roll around on crystal spheres surrounding the Earth, and so on and so on.

This is completely retarded and also completely unworkable. As you'll recall, those theories were eventually abandoned because they not only failed to explain the world around us but also weren't internally consistent. I have no idea how I would even get a rope up a wall in a universe where putting a weight at the end of the rope made it harder instead of easier to throw a rope onto a ledge. And the honest answer is that no one else does either, because that was a big fucking myster in the 1200s.

So what actually happens is that at some point peoples' minds rebel or they run out of knowledge of period appropriate stupid ideas about how the world worked and then they fill in the rest with real physics, chemistry, biology, and math. When you cut someone's carotid, blood shoots out because your storyguide doesn't know that arteries are supposed to be filled with air. People don't become less angry when they vomit because your storyguide doesn't understand humorism. And so on.

Otherwise Laertes is pretty much spot on. Just remember that while the magic system is incrementally improved in 5th edition, the world building has been completely shat upon by so much inane hipster bullshit that the game becomes unplayable if you are even passively familiar with Aristotle, Euclid, and Galen.

-Username17

[Prak]

Unfortunately, I neither have a copy of Paranoia, nor do I know how to play it, and I'm thinking at least half my players are unfamiliar with it as well. I'm basically looking at d20, something that plays similar to it (like M&M), or something similar to Storyteller (like AS), since that's the stuff I know everyone is fairly familiar with.

[Hicks]

Unfortunately, I neither have a copy of Paranoia, nor do I know how to play it, and I'm thinking at least half my players are unfamiliar with it as well.

That's ok. Actually knowing the rules in Paranoia is treasonous and un-fun. Friend Computer discourages all treasonous actions/thoughts/clothing with fun death. It has to be fun because [INSUFFICIENT SECURITY CLEARENCE] and fun is mandatory; Friend Computer said so!

[Prak]

I made a flowchart for my group to grok AS combat a bit better, but I want to make sure I grokked it right, so someone tell me if I misunderstood anything:

[Grek]

Dodge is half of Agility + Combat. Your chart doesn't specify what to do if hits = threshold. Your healing sections omits healing rolls, which are super important.

[Prak]

Ah, thank you. How's this:

[radthemad4]

I don't have a steady group irl, but sometimes I get extra players who are probably not going to show up often. I play Tome with a large dose of Pathfinder (a Tome feat every odd level, monsters, spells and equipment from either 3.5 or Pathfinder).

Would it be a good idea to let Guest Star party members pick a monster of the same CR as the PCs? If so, should they get Tome feats? Some extra equipment? Or just use a monster as is?

While the answer is probably, 'depends on the monster', some general guidelines would be neat.

[Prak]

After Sundown makes reference to WoD's highly ambiguous game segment terms, but doesn't define them for itself (and I don't have any WoD books on hand).

What would be considered a chronicle, chapter, etc? Is it something like Chronicle=Campaign, Chapter=adventure, or what?

[Username17]

After Sundown makes reference to WoD's highly ambiguous game segment terms, but doesn't define them for itself (and I don't have any WoD books on hand).

What would be considered a chronicle, chapter, etc? Is it something like Chronicle=Campaign, Chapter=adventure, or what?

Chronicles are campaigns, Chapters are adventures, yeah. A Chapter is necessarily ambiguous, sometimes being a single session and sometimes being longer than that, depending on session length and story pace.

-Username17

[Prak]

Ok, thanks. I'm also not sure how quickly my players should transform. I've got a Reborn, an Android, and a player slated to become an Icarid, and one who, by a quiz, is slated to become a Strigoi in an origin story. At the end of the last session, I gave the reborn his first flashback and Quickness and the Android realized one of her memories was fake and gained Clout, but that's all I've done because apparently mirror goblins aren't quite the pushovers I expected.

[Grek]

In the campaign I ran, I contrived to get everyone's origin stories to occur in a single session. But I could see a more gradual transformation being interesting.

[Prak]

I was hoping to do that.

then we spent two hours on character creation after I'd made (three of the four) characters for them...

[Prak]

Another AS question- Am I correct in assuming that the properly thematic thing to happen to clothes when a character takes war form or giant form (or large beast form) is for clothes to rip and shred, unless they're very baggy or remarkably stretchy?

[TiaC]

Unless they are wearing purple shorts.

[Sam]

Would it be a good idea to let Guest Star party members to pick a monster of the same CR as the PCs? If so, should they get Tome feats? Some extra equipment? Or just use a monster as is?

While the answer is probably, 'depends on the monster', some general guidelines would be neat.

If it's a one-shot thing, then just grabbing a CR appropriate enemy is fine, as long as they're the right kind of monster:

Monsters tend to be build along four kinds of design philosophies.

1. 
   
2. Characters: This is the “as a character” philosophy, which makes monsters at a certain CR where they are perfectly suited to fight parties of characters at that level, but might overpower a weaker party or single character or be a total pushover to more powerful individuals or parties. Giants, gnolls, yuanti, goblinoids and other monsters who are expect to use PC-level tactics and equipment fall into this category.
   
   
3. Glass Jaws and Sucker Punches AKA Suckers: These monsters, which we’ll just call “Suckers” for their ability to suck and sucker punch. Usually they have an extremely powerful attack that can sucker punch a party, but they have some glaring weakness that means that they will go down extremely quickly if you exploit this weakness. Sprites, with their fabulously low HPs and powerful magic are a fine example of this monster. “Closet trolls” like trolls and Pouncing dire animals fall into this category because they are extremely dangerous in enclosed spaces (better than any three fighting characters of their CR), but they die easily if you can attack them at range and stay at a distance.
   
   
4. Puzzle Monsters: These monsters are in fact more puzzle than monster. They usually are unbeatable unless you know their one weakness, meaning that players who don’t know the right Monster Manual by heart usually die to these things. Classic examples from old editions of DnD like the Windwalkers would only die to a single spell from the spell list which you may or may not know or have on hand, but 3.x has from eased away from this level of arbitrariness. Now we have monsters like Swarms and incorporeal monsters who may be immune to all your normal weapon attacks (a killer for a party without a damage-capable spellcaster) and several kind of plants or oozes that seem to have random and crazy defenses when you attack them (like splitting into more monsters).
   
   
5. Awesome Because Its Awesome AKA Player Killers (PKs): Some Monsters are just built to make players cry. Dragons are the classic example, as they are traditionally CRed about two to four lower than they should be, and some other monsters have also been unofficially given the [awesome] subtype, meaning that players will always remember these monsters for being Party Killers. Angels, beholders, monsters with PC spellcasting, and drow typically fall into this category.
   

Can you see the problem with making these creatures into playable and balanced characters? Character monsters and PKs can be easily modified into playable characters by modifying raw stats, but Suckers and Puzzle Monsters need massive rewrites before they can be playable characters.

(from here, which also has guidelines on how to make NPCs into playable and fair characters.).

[zugschef]

How exactly does the Abyssal Specialist acf from DotU work? For example, If I ban enchantment, do I get access to enchantment spells with the descriptors/subschools I'm specialized in (chaotic, compulsion, darkness, evil, and fear) or not?

[radthemad4]

Would it be a good idea to let Guest Star party members pick a monster of the same CR as the PCs? If so, should they get Tome feats? Some extra equipment? Or just use a monster as is?

While the answer is probably, 'depends on the monster', some general guidelines would be neat.

If it's a one-shot thing, then just grabbing a CR appropriate enemy is fine, as long as they're the right kind of monster:

Monsters tend to be build along four kinds of design philosophies.

1. 
   
2. Characters: This is the “as a character” philosophy, which makes monsters at a certain CR where they are perfectly suited to fight parties of characters at that level, but might overpower a weaker party or single character or be a total pushover to more powerful individuals or parties. Giants, gnolls, yuanti, goblinoids and other monsters who are expect to use PC-level tactics and equipment fall into this category.
   
   
3. Glass Jaws and Sucker Punches AKA Suckers: These monsters, which we’ll just call “Suckers” for their ability to suck and sucker punch. Usually they have an extremely powerful attack that can sucker punch a party, but they have some glaring weakness that means that they will go down extremely quickly if you exploit this weakness. Sprites, with their fabulously low HPs and powerful magic are a fine example of this monster. “Closet trolls” like trolls and Pouncing dire animals fall into this category because they are extremely dangerous in enclosed spaces (better than any three fighting characters of their CR), but they die easily if you can attack them at range and stay at a distance.
   
   
4. Puzzle Monsters: These monsters are in fact more puzzle than monster. They usually are unbeatable unless you know their one weakness, meaning that players who don’t know the right Monster Manual by heart usually die to these things. Classic examples from old editions of DnD like the Windwalkers would only die to a single spell from the spell list which you may or may not know or have on hand, but 3.x has from eased away from this level of arbitrariness. Now we have monsters like Swarms and incorporeal monsters who may be immune to all your normal weapon attacks (a killer for a party without a damage-capable spellcaster) and several kind of plants or oozes that seem to have random and crazy defenses when you attack them (like splitting into more monsters).
   
   
5. Awesome Because Its Awesome AKA Player Killers (PKs): Some Monsters are just built to make players cry. Dragons are the classic example, as they are traditionally CRed about two to four lower than they should be, and some other monsters have also been unofficially given the [awesome] subtype, meaning that players will always remember these monsters for being Party Killers. Angels, beholders, monsters with PC spellcasting, and drow typically fall into this category.
   

Can you see the problem with making these creatures into playable and balanced characters? Character monsters and PKs can be easily modified into playable characters by modifying raw stats, but Suckers and Puzzle Monsters need massive rewrites before they can be playable characters.

Yeah, it's for one shot players who don't show up often, but are good friends with the the regulars and want to participate when they do show up. This way, I don't need to keep thinking of unusual circumstances for allies to suddenly leave the party and/or return. The irregular players would be picking a different one each time, unless the party revisits an area or something. Additionally, they don't feel like making their own characters so this saves me some trouble.

Thanks for the link. It's been a while since I've read the Tomes and forgot about that part.

(from here, which also has guidelines on how to make NPCs into playable and fair characters.)

Sorry, which part are you referring to?

[Sam]

The "converting monsters into characters" section follows immediately after the portion I quoted.

For one-shot players, I'd focus on monsters with one or two interesting abilities, and perhaps one memorable magic item. Don't bother with tome feats, that's too much bookkeeping for a single session.

[virgil]

A friend of mine has been Jonesing for a game lately, so he took up a friend's offer for an online game. This guy tld everyone to make PL 15 M&M (3rd edition) characters. After half a week, he apparently changed his mind because he was finding the rules too complicated.

New game: Marvel Super Heroes (the FASERIP version). He's telling everyone to make their character with 50 points for physical abilities, 30 for mental, and either one power at Excellent (20) or two powers at Good (10) with a restriction of no exceptional powers (Image Generation, Shapeshifting, Teleportation, and Mind Control). For those who don't know the rules, he can be marginally better than a college student in stats; or be as strong as Spider Man if heavily focuses on Strength.

He seems set on playing, which makes him more brave than I. I'm trying to suggest that he should choose two unique weapons; one with Shrinking and one with something like Magnetic Control.

[radthemad4]

The "converting monsters into characters" section follows immediately after the portion I quoted.

For one-shot players, I'd focus on monsters with one or two interesting abilities, and perhaps one memorable magic item. Don't bother with tome feats, that's too much bookkeeping for a single session.

Ah, okay. So stuff like Quicklings, Dark Slayers and Fire Nymphs?

[Avoraciopoctules]

I played a Fire Nymph as a guest star in someone's game, it's fun as long as you don't run into something fire resistant. Doesn't scale very well either, you slap on a level of fighter for Rapid Shot with Produce Flame and that's about it.

Dark Slayers are basically a straight upgrade to a comparable CR rogue, but as a guest star that's less of a problem. Light Blindness is only really a problem if the enemies know to flashbomb you.

Quickling feels like it might be a little too much of a puzzle monster.

We play with monster characters a lot in my group's games, if you want suggestions for a particular level, I could probably look through my old notes.