Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Lokathor]

Is the 3.5 OGL still usable?

section (4) Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.

So, yes, they can't ever just revoke it. That's part of why 4e is so extremely incompatible with 3e and not OGL, because they were getting upset that companies were releasing their own complete RPGs using the SRD as a base and just adding in some level up rules and setting stuff.

So basically an "optimal" level 1 Build would be a Strongheart Halfling with Halfling Rogue substitution level (although really, you don't have the money for flasks when you just start, so you will some daggers or something) and feats of TWFing and Quick Draw.

So the Tome version would be something like
1: Two-weapon Fighting
3: Point Blank Shot
6: Sniper
9: ???
10(rogue bonus): profit!!!

[Kaelik]

So the Tome version would be something like
1: Two-weapon Fighting
3: Point Blank Shot
6: Sniper
9: ???
10(rogue bonus): profit!!!

If you already have Tome TWFing, you want to use your first special ability on an actual special ability, usually the 2 str damage, since that applies even if the enemy is immune to crits, so it allows you to use your pile of attacks to shut down elementals and people with fortification armor.

[momothefiddler]

So there's a lot of discussion around here on which classes are badly designed and which classes can't keep up and which classes aren't fun to play without pity (and arguably not fun with because pity).

And I get that and appreciate it.

But I'm running a Pathfinder game now and I need some practical advice for how to deal with it when someone, for instance, really thinks they want to play, for instance, a time thief. All of my players are new to Pathfinder and all but one is new to D&D, so it's an understandable thing, and I don't wanna be all "You can only play this thing this way" but I also don't wanna let them trap themselves in something that just isn't fun and/or can't keep up (and thus isn't fun). It's important to me that the people playing my game have fun. How do I make that happen?

[Kaelik]

Did you just link to a podcast with no locational identifier to explain a concept that is vague and could mean any of 100 things?


Because that is fucking garbage, and I'm not even going to click play to confirm that the first 30 seconds of that audio file have nothing to do with time thieves.

[momothefiddler]

Whoah I am sorry for posting the wrong url there that's really dumb.

I, er, fixed that now. It's a link to d20pfsrd. Text.

Again, sorry.

[Lokathor]

It's important to me that the people playing my game have fun. How do I make that happen?

If they play weak classes, you give weak situations.
else-if they play strong classes, you give strong situations.
else-if they have some weak and some strong classes you wait to see if the group notices this.
{
If they do notice, you try to either (1) subtlely shift things in the favor of the weak classes (eg: artifact swords) or (2) talk to the players about it explicitly and say "hey we need a change up because people aren't having fun".
Else they don't notice and you just go with it. When they don't care, you don't have to care.
}

I think that covers all the possible situations.

DnD is pretty much all about facing level-appropriate threats at all the right times to let the PCs feel like they're in danger but actually they're going to win the day. The art of GMing is a lot of misdirection and bluffing and hamming it up so that the PCs can feel cool about doing things, even if a rational observer with perfect knowledge might say "yeah they're probably going to just win". In some sense it's like the opposite of an action movie: Instead of impossible situations happening one after another to let the hero win, you have to massage the effects a little to make it seem hard even when it's not. If it's actually hard then the PCs probably just all die, which is why it can't actually be that hard.

[momothefiddler]

(2) talk to the players about it explicitly and say "hey we need a change up because people aren't having fun".

The art of GMing is a lot of misdirection and bluffing and hamming it up so that the PCs can feel cool about doing things

My question is largely about how to balance these two things. On one hand I'm generally a major advocate of explicit communication, but on the other I do acknowledge that in some cases (e.g. stage magicians) that's not conducive to fun. Mostly I worry that if I pick your option 1, someone will notice and resent it even though to some extent it's my job to deceive? Urgh.

[Dean]

One question first. Do you think the player would be receptive to using a different class if it was able to portray the same concept? A Psion is capable of portraying the Chronomancer concept in a build that can also compete. If you take some Clairistence powers, action economy powers, and some super speed powers you have the total Time Thief package in a more viable build.

Perhaps the player can be sold on a conceptually identical but mechanically improved version of his original idea. I've done that before and the player liked it. People like power and when you show them a more powerful version of something with its own more powerful versions of the same tricks its hard for people to go back. I'm sure you can build well, mock up a Xth level Clairistence Psion with Synchronicity, Hustle, Dimension Door and whatever else and see if your players digs it.

[momothefiddler]

Maybe! I'll give that a shot.

[LeadPal]

Some players will be offended by the suggestion that they play the same concept in a different class, so tread lightly. It's possibly safer to bolt on some real abilities to the original.

In fact, I once witnessed this exact situation with this exact class. The GM explained to the player, very mildly, that the time thief would need a power-up to be viable in his game, and they proceeded to hash out a new and improved version. Knowing the player's sore points, he didn't dump on the concept at all, or imply anything about optimization. It was merely an earnest attempt to make the game more fun.

I'm not sure of the specifics of the final class, except that it had full sneak attack. I doubt the time thief is fully salvageable--it feels like it's stolen my time just glancing over it--but it shouldn't be hard to cobble together something that works for one character at the level range you're expecting.

[Kaelik]

I'm not sure of the specifics of the final class, except that it had full sneak attack. I doubt the time thief is fully salvageable--it feels like it's stolen my time just glancing over it

This. You said something about good and bad ways to play the class to keep up, but if there is a good way to play the Time Thief that involves taking levels of Time Thief I have no idea what it is.

[Antariuk]

TGD-related question: can someone point me to the thread where someone - I believe Frank - wrote a sample Q&A sequence for character generation (where the results point to class X or Y). Sorry for being so vague, but it's all I remember and Google nets me nothing so far.

This one?

That's it, thanks ishy. Have yourself one intarwebz today!

[LeadPal]

This. You said something about good and bad ways to play the class to keep up, but if there is a good way to play the Time Thief that involves taking levels of Time Thief I have no idea what it is.

I'm suggesting that momo try bolting on some real class features while paying lip service to the time thief's crap. Say, adding partial spellcasting and sneak attack so that they're actually playing a vivisectionist. Obviously this is worse than just playing a real class with the same concept, but the point is to cater to a touchy player who absolutely must play this cool class they found don't you dare say it sucks boo-hoo waa-waa. Which was the actual situation I saw.

[Kaelik]

This. You said something about good and bad ways to play the class to keep up, but if there is a good way to play the Time Thief that involves taking levels of Time Thief I have no idea what it is.

I'm suggesting that momo try bolting on some real class features while paying lip service to the time thief's crap. Say, adding partial spellcasting and sneak attack so that they're actually playing a vivisectionist. Obviously this is worse than just playing a real class with the same concept, but the point is to cater to a touchy player who absolutely must play this cool class they found don't you dare say it sucks boo-hoo waa-waa. Which was the actual situation I saw.

Sorry, I was unclear. I was agreeing with you, and when I said "You" in the above quote, I was actually referring to momo, and how earlier he said something about playing the class right, and I was wondering wtf he was talking about because the only right way to play that class is make a level 10 character, kill yourself, and have your next character loot your gear.

EDIT: However on rereading, it is clear what he means when he says "Play this only this way" "this" means D&D, not the Time Thief class. So he wasn't saying there was a right way to play the Time Thief class like I initially thought.

[OgreBattle]

There were some threads on here about "how to balance ranged vs melee attacks in D&D" but I can't seem to find it again.

One of the problems that was brought up was how if you have one melee 'defender' and 3 ranged attackers, that one melee guy is going to get attacked by all of the monsters while the ranged dudes are attacking from a distance.

From what I can recall various solutions were
-Melee+ranged synergy: there should be some mechanical benefit from melee guys and ranged guys hitting the same dude. Removing friendly fire penalties also helps
-Ranged is significantly less accurate/fast/damaging: So the risk of going into melee is because melee finishes the job faster. The counterpoint to this is "doing tiny damage while the enemy can't hit you back" is still a potential advantage

Though ideally I think "I am a swordsman" type characters should also be carrying a bow around in case they run into centaurs on the open plains and "I am legolas" types should carry a short sword for when the goblin swarm gets the jump on them, so I don't think "melee guy" and "bow guy" are exclusive concepts.

[RadiantPhoenix]

IMO, the way to balance "melee" and "ranged" is to have abilities that allow melee characters to close with ranged characters.

Whether you limit the use of those abilities to unengaged melee characters, or just allow ranged characters to fight in melee is up to you.

[RelentlessImp]

Why are people such morons when it comes to a game system and insist that their house rules are the way the rules actually are?

[momothefiddler]

EDIT: However on rereading, it is clear what he means when he says "Play this only this way" "this" means D&D, not the Time Thief class. So he wasn't saying there was a right way to play the Time Thief class like I initially thought.

To be precise, I meant "Play only this class and play it only this one way" (e.g. play a wizard but not a blaster wizard, etc.) But no, at no point did I intend to claim that there's a viable treatment of Time Thief.

[Pixels]

Why are people such morons when it comes to a game system and insist that their house rules are the way the rules actually are?

D&D is a large and complicated ruleset. It should not be surprising that people playing the same way for years can mess up which bits were really in the books and which were not. Doubly so when they play in a great variety of games each with its own homerules.

[Ice9]

For a class with so many fiddly abilities, the Time Thief accomplishes amazingly little. So in other words, it may be 3PP but it really has the Paizo touch!

But the comments ... Yep, a class that's directly worse than the Rogue is overpowered, because it can emulate a few spells a few times a day, usually later than a caster would get them.

[OgreBattle]

I was looking up warhorse speed in actual combat and found for the napoleonic era it was...

Warhorse speed
Walk 97-107 m/min or 5.8-6.4 Km/h
Trot 194-214 m/min or 11.6-12.8 Km/h
Gallop 300 m/min or 18 Km/h

With warhorses moving at a trot during cavalry charges. It actually matches D&D3e speeds quite well.

Something I've been looking for is the impact force of a lance from horseback or sword from horseback, and info on what kind of armor lances and halberds from horseback can pierce/crush.

[OgreBattle]

Are the rules in D&D for breaking shit via strength checks or hitting things with hardness good, or do they need revision?

Generally I don't like the idea of breaking a stone wall and killing a stone golem to have different rules, as the wall has hardness while the golem has AC even though both are solid stone.

[Ice9]

They're ... ok. If you're talking about 3.x. The main issue is that if you make it at all possible to destroy shit in combat time, then people can kool-aid man their way through the entire fortress in a few minutes.

Hardness is certainly a better solution than 4E has (multiplying the HP based on material) - at least it means that only moderately elite people can kool-aid man their way through things. But the base issue still remains.

Maybe if you baked some kind of encounter resources (adrenalin surge?) into the rules where everybody gets that, then you could have people smash through a door and look cool, without then smashing through a couple dozen more doors and walls in the space of five minutes.

[Orion]

A d20 is way too big to use it for breaking things with strength.

[OgreBattle]

Do D&D dragons have lungs like mammals, reptiles, or birds?