Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Aug 08, 2016 8:14 pm

Just threaten to use Gate while standing next to something unsafe?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Aug 08, 2016 9:41 pm

The various members of Suicide Squad are all capable of breaking out of Belle Reeve if they really want to. They're part of the squad voluntarily, because they get something out of it, a legitimate pardon, which gives them more options than just being on the run would.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Tue Aug 09, 2016 2:57 pm

It's a case of carrot and stick, really. I'm certain Prak would be incentivizing the PCs with some kind of upshot along with the coercive pressure.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Aug 09, 2016 8:33 pm

That's a good point. I'd been primarily focusing on the bomb implant analogue, because that's a mechanical thing I need to figure.

I'm planning on making at least twice as many characters as I'll have players, do up sort of prisoner files on them, and let my players pick from them. This not only cuts out the lengthy character creation session (and the annoyance of one of my frequent players bitching about making his character with everyone else...), it also means that I can work with their backstories more easily, being in control of at least portions of them.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Aug 15, 2016 7:52 am

So let's say you're every character from the early 90sa cyber-ninja. The kind that looks human so they can pretend to be anyone else in your cyberpunk dystopia.

Once you're in the top-secret research facility, doing the "Hi, I'm Susan from IT. One of the machines here set up a warning flag of a data underflow, can you let me in to fix it? Here's my ID" routine or whatever, they let you in, and now you throw your disguise off so you can crawl through air vents and kick the heads off security robots and all that stuff...

What is the optimal clothing for that phase, now that you're not concerned with "looking like you belong here"? Loose-fitting stuff that allows for a fair degree of movement? Tight lycra-like stuff that won't get caught on things? Really hard-wearing things that won't tear and provide some friction (ala fatigues, gi)? Flimsy stuff that will tear instead of catching on things?

(Assume you will want to: crawl around in small spaces with little room, climb with and without proper handholds, dangle from ceilings, wall-jump, double-jump, slide-kick, air-dash, punch, kick, fire guns, strangle people, throw grenades, throw shuriken.)

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Aug 15, 2016 8:02 am

Koumei wrote: What is the optimal clothing for that phase, now that you're not concerned with "looking like you belong here"? Loose-fitting stuff that allows for a fair degree of movement? Tight lycra-like stuff that won't get caught on things? Really hard-wearing things that won't tear and provide some friction (ala fatigues, gi)? Flimsy stuff that will tear instead of catching on things?

(Assume you will want to: crawl around in small spaces with little room, climb with and without proper handholds, dangle from ceilings, wall-jump, double-jump, slide-kick, air-dash, punch, kick, fire guns, strangle people, throw grenades, throw shuriken.)

Skin tight sneaking suit with straps for pouches to carry your espionage gubbins. Skin tight also means you can do a quick "I throw off my lab coast disguise revealing my cyber-ninja gear underneath" scene in one go.

It also looks good for when you encounter the military grade armored cyber ninja being built in the lab.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Aug 15, 2016 8:05 am

I think, in general, fit and cut are more important than style. In perhaps his only positive contribution to the world, Chuck Norris designed slim fit jeans that had gussets in the groin so you could actually, you know, be useful in them.

So you could be wearing some sort of futuristic ultra durable spandex sort of thing with similar design.

I imagine you'd want a material that dries quickly and is breathable, though.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Aug 15, 2016 9:54 am

That seems fairly reasonable - and good point on being able to wear it underneath basically any disguise. Although even now, every time I close my eyes, I still see the Future Wars buttocks, vacuum-sealed in tight pants. It haunts my every moment.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Aug 16, 2016 12:37 pm

Open multiclassing is a wonky failure of D&D 3e and derivatives. But if you never go above level 6 so no PC's will have access to 4th level spells and you're mostly fighting wyverns, ettin, pyrohydras, and the occasional incubus. In that environment open multiclassing isn't as huge of a penalty because nobody is slinging black tentacles anyways.

So has anyone designed D&D3.5/PF's classes with the intent of a E6 capped game? I've seen some "made for E6" custom classes that are meant to be single level with capstones so that's the opposite of what I'm looking for. There'd also need to be some revamp of how BAB and Saves are handled so you don't end up with +2 BAB because you 1 level dipped BAB3/4th classes.

Something like "Here is a Fighter, Mage, and Thief class, take any combination of levels in them up to 6 and they're roughly on par with one another in usefulness"

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Tue Aug 16, 2016 1:57 pm

If you use fractional base attack and saves (as in, add up all your levels that have the same progression in each of bab, fort, ref, will before calculating the bonus) and give Fighters 6 skill points per level and a real skill list, the 3.5 core classes work pretty well for that as is.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Tue Aug 16, 2016 2:17 pm

E: I was going to give it a try, but decided it was a lot of work for a proof of concept. So instead here's a sketch of how it would work, if you wanted to make your own.

Warrior Abilities (Ex): At each level, the warrior gains one class ability. All warriors may select this ability from List A. Warriors of character level 3 or higher may select this ability from List D. Warriors of character level 5 or higher may select this ability from List G. An ability choice must be taken at the character level it is first acquired. A character with warrior as their starting class gains +3 to Fortitude saves and +1 to all saves at character levels 3 and 6.

Rogue Abilities (Ex): At each level, the rogue gains one class ability. All rogue may select this ability from List B. Rogues of character level 3 or higher may select this ability from List E. Rogues of character level 5 or higher may select this ability from List H. An ability choice must be taken at the character level it is first acquired. A character with rouge as their starting class gains +3 to Reflex saves and +1 to all saves at character levels 3 and 6.

Mage Abilities (Ex): At each level, the mage gains one class ability. All magi may select this ability from List C. Magi of character level 3 or higher may select this ability from List F. Magi of character level 5 or higher may select this ability from List I. An ability choice must be taken at the character level it is first acquired. A character with mage as their starting class gains +3 to Will saves and +1 to all saves at character levels 3 and 6.

Each list has 5 abilities. Lists ABC have abilities on par with 1st level spells, DEF with 2nd level spells and GHI with 3rd level.

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 1:23 am

Is there any good way to do XP-per-action that doesn't degenerate into complete idiocy?

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 2:09 am

No. There is not.

Roog · Post by **Roog** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 2:51 am

GnomeWorks wrote:Is there any good way to do XP-per-action that doesn't degenerate into complete idiocy?

You could do this in a restricted environment (like a board game), where characters have strictly limited numbers of actions.

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 2:59 am

deaddmwalking wrote:No. There is not.

I had kind of come to that conclusion on my own, after toying around with the idea for awhile. I figured someone around here might have some ideas, or - at least - get more solid confirmation that it's just not tenable.

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 4:10 am

The PS2 tactical RPG Eternal Poison awards XP for every act aside from just moving. In that system all actions aside from conducting a basic attack and moving are limited use in a given stage. The system creates the perverse incentive in-game to use up any and all extraneous actions before completing a stage in order to maximize XP gain, which leads to a lot of standing around with 1 isolated enemy remaining trying to burn off and unused buffs or heals and occasionally to launch acts that will be highly resisted so as to burn off more attacks. It's a highly restricted game with a set number of stages and no opportunity for grinding at all.

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 5:27 am

The initial impetus behind my wanting to do XP-per-action was because of Final Fantasy Tactics, which had very similar problems to what you're describing.

My first thought to try to limit those kind of shenanigans was to take a page out of 4e and have "XP surges," so you had some kind of daily limit on how much XP you could gain. Someone pointed out to me that they would just immediately spend them on every action they took until they were out, which is sensible: you wouldn't not spend one if you had one, so it basically became just needless accounting. I feel like the idea might have merit, but the amount of work necessary to make it function might not be worth it; I'm also not convinced that whatever you get out of it would be worth the extra paperwork and accounting.

To be more clear, the idea was that you would still have XP and get that in the usual ways, and that determined character level. But rather than have strict class progressions, all class features (and feats) would be worth some number of points of some other type, and taking actions would give you those points that you could then spend to buy things like more spells known or whatever. So the "XP surges" would have been for the class points, not actual XP.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 7:48 pm

In the WH40K Universe.
Why, of all factions, does the Adeptus Mechanicus NOT make any use of Dreadnoughts?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 8:52 pm

GnomeWorks wrote:The initial impetus behind my wanting to do XP-per-action was because of Final Fantasy Tactics, which had very similar problems to what you're describing.

My first thought to try to limit those kind of shenanigans was to take a page out of 4e and have "XP surges," so you had some kind of daily limit on how much XP you could gain. Someone pointed out to me that they would just immediately spend them on every action they took until they were out, which is sensible: you wouldn't not spend one if you had one, so it basically became just needless accounting. I feel like the idea might have merit, but the amount of work necessary to make it function might not be worth it; I'm also not convinced that whatever you get out of it would be worth the extra paperwork and accounting.

To be more clear, the idea was that you would still have XP and get that in the usual ways, and that determined character level. But rather than have strict class progressions, all class features (and feats) would be worth some number of points of some other type, and taking actions would give you those points that you could then spend to buy things like more spells known or whatever. So the "XP surges" would have been for the class points, not actual XP.

"You just landed the killing blow on Tiamat. That would be worth ten million XP, if you had any XP surges left. Unfortunately, you spent them all on 5XP Use Rope actions at the beginning of the day.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 9:32 pm

hyzmarca wrote: "You just landed the killing blow on Tiamat. That would be worth ten million XP, if you had any XP surges left. Unfortunately, you spent them all on 5XP Use Rope actions at the beginning of the day.

Just the thought of the stress this system would induce in me as a player is mildly revolting.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 10:32 pm

Mechalich wrote:The PS2 tactical RPG Eternal Poison awards XP for every act aside from just moving. In that system all actions aside from conducting a basic attack and moving are limited use in a given stage. The system creates the perverse incentive in-game to use up any and all extraneous actions before completing a stage in order to maximize XP gain, which leads to a lot of standing around with 1 isolated enemy remaining trying to burn off and unused buffs or heals and occasionally to launch acts that will be highly resisted so as to burn off more attacks. It's a highly restricted game with a set number of stages and no opportunity for grinding at all.

--Tangent---

Even if you don't do that, the game is pretty easy. I even did an video LP of the game.(shameless plug)

--edit--
included plug

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 11:35 pm

Come on, man, if you're going to do a shameless plug you may as well go all the way and link it.

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 12:40 am

hyzmarca wrote:You just landed the killing blow on Tiamat. That would be worth ten million XP, if you had any XP surges left. Unfortunately, you spent them all on 5XP Use Rope actions at the beginning of the day.

Well that's the stupidest fucking thing I've read all day.

XP != "class XP", in my example, and they are used for different things. Normal XP - like the shit you get for killing Tiamat - would work as normal in d20.

"Class XP" would be something like "you killed Tiamat using a mage spell, so you get mage xp" or "you punched Tiamat to death with your fist, so you get monk xp" or even just "you threw magic missile at Tiamat, so you get mage xp." The target or effect of the action wouldn't have an impact on how much class xp you gain.

I even fucking said the base idea functioned like in FFT. If you don't get the reference, just ask instead of making an idiot of yourself.

That said, it does sound like the concept doesn't hold water, or - if it does - the amount of work to get there would probably be a giant pain in the ass and the benefit would probably be outweighed by the extra bookkeeping.

Hadanelith · Post by **Hadanelith** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:22 am

Stahlseele wrote:In the WH40K Universe.
Why, of all factions, does the Adeptus Mechanicus NOT make any use of Dreadnoughts?

Because Dreadnaughts are Spehss Meringue tech. Only SMs can use them. Because reasons.

Besides, the AdMech got two different reasonably cool mechs in their new books within the last year. Plus actualfax robots. Honestly, SM Dreadnaughts are getting kinda long in the tooth, aesthetically. Why complain?

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 6:14 am

GnomeWorks wrote:
"Class XP" would be something like "you killed Tiamat using a mage spell, so you get mage xp" or "you punched Tiamat to death with your fist, so you get monk xp" or even just "you threw magic missile at Tiamat, so you get mage xp." The target or effect of the action wouldn't have an impact on how much class xp you gain.

I even fucking said the base idea functioned like in FFT. If you don't get the reference, just ask instead of making an idiot of yourself.

That said, it does sound like the concept doesn't hold water, or - if it does - the amount of work to get there would probably be a giant pain in the ass and the benefit would probably be outweighed by the extra bookkeeping.

In FFT the Playstation does all the bookkeeping. It's just too much for players and DMs to handle in reality.
So, you're right, it won't work.