Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 2:06 am

XP per action is dumb for many, many reasons. But mostly because it doesn't do anything you want it to.

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 4:19 am

deaddmwalking wrote:XP per action is dumb for many, many reasons. But mostly because it doesn't do anything you want it to.

Can you give me a stronger reason than "it's dumb"? I mean, if there are "many, many reasons," surely you can provide a few, or at least links to these arguments/discussions?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 8:06 am

XP per action encourages you to grind. That is literally one hundred percent of what it does. It gives a concrete mechanical benefit for rolling dice more than you strictly have to. It rewards players for having their characters do things that are strictly speaking more difficult than they have to be and for using up more table time than they need to.

XP per action is unfair, slows the game down, and promotes behavior which is stupid both in and out of character. It's terrible. Everything about it is terrible. It has no advantages, only drawbacks. It was a bad idea when RuneQuest was doing it before I was born, it's a bad idea now, it has been a bad diea continuously at every intermediate stage between then and now, and it will continue to be a bad idea for as long as day follows night and night follows day.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 9:28 am

Kind of thinking about doing a one shot game for Halloween with zombies. Leaning towards just doing AS, but maybe taking an opportunity to run a playtest of Dead Man's Hand.

What systems do you guys like for 1) zombie games and 2) one shots?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 10:00 am

GnomeWorks wrote:
deaddmwalking wrote:XP per action is dumb for many, many reasons. But mostly because it doesn't do anything you want it to.
Can you give me a stronger reason than "it's dumb"? I mean, if there are "many, many reasons," surely you can provide a few, or at least links to these arguments/discussions?

Would something like "you only get class xp if you are in a situation in which you could not take 10 on skill checks" be a good starting point...

Lets use Burning Wheel as an example. In Burning Wheel you level up skills by making a number of checks that are equal or harder than your level of skill. What this means in practice is that high level medics who want to advance their medical skill will go out of their way to perform as many open heart surgeries as they can while blindfolded, with one hand tied behind the back, using a rusty spork instead of a scalpel. This is the kind of behavior xp-per-action systems incentivize.

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 10:29 am

Prak wrote:Kind of thinking about doing a one shot game for Halloween with zombies. Leaning towards just doing AS, but maybe taking an opportunity to run a playtest of Dead Man's Hand.

What systems do you guys like for 1) zombie games and 2) one shots?

My best zombie gaming has actually been in Deadlands: Hell on Earth but I can't credit that to the system. (Although I kind of like it in spite of all its excesses.)

I'd say the choice of system depends on what kind of zombie game you want. Action, horror or post-apocalypse? (All of those can be hybridized but I think you get what I mean)

For high-action one shots, I like Feng Shui. I use Feng Shui 1 with a few house rules that parallel changes in 2 - like Defense scores that are separate from Main AV.

For horror I can't think of anything that would work better than After Sundown.

If you want survival in the zombie post-apocalypse you want a system that can give the proper amount of stakes and detail to conflicts that have nothing to do with violence, and there aren't many of those. I suggest FATE. (Also a good system for one-shots).

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Sun Sep 25, 2016 10:57 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:XP per action encourages you to grind. That is literally one hundred percent of what it does. It gives a concrete mechanical benefit for rolling dice more than you strictly have to. It rewards players for having their characters do things that are strictly speaking more difficult than they have to be and for using up more table time than they need to.

Okay. So that pretty much means that idea is inherently flawed - there's no way to implement it that doesn't suck.

Are there any good implementations of the core idea I'm getting at?: instead of one currency (XP) used to increase both power height and width, divide it into two currencies, one for height, one for width? Are there even good reasons to do it?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:03 pm

Like a lot of bad mechanics, XP per Action seems to be enjoyed by a lot of players, despite it's flaws, and most groups don't go too overboard on the logical conclusion. In general, I see players using down time to practice a skill that they want to upgrade, rather than spending all their time beating on a wooden dummy to the exclusion of adventuring.

This is purely anecdotal, though, and I think the "only works when you'd be unable to take 10" modifier could make it a bit more workable.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Mon Sep 26, 2016 12:35 am

GnomeWorks wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:XP per action encourages you to grind. That is literally one hundred percent of what it does. It gives a concrete mechanical benefit for rolling dice more than you strictly have to. It rewards players for having their characters do things that are strictly speaking more difficult than they have to be and for using up more table time than they need to.
Okay. So that pretty much means that idea is inherently flawed - there's no way to implement it that doesn't suck.

Are there any good implementations of the core idea I'm getting at?: instead of one currency (XP) used to increase both power height and width, divide it into two currencies, one for height, one for width? Are there even good reasons to do it?

It is something that can be done, and there are reasons you might consider it, but you want to think long and hard before implementing it.

Take the following case: advancing to 3rd level is vertical advancement - until you achieve 3rd level there are things that you just can't do. You can't advance a skill past 6 ranks. You can't take a feat that requires more than a +2 BAB. But let's say you can (eventually) get every class ability of 2nd level or lower.

Some point systems work like this - you put a cap on what the 'best tier ability' available is, but players can get abilities up to that cap. With enough points, they could theoretically acquire every available ability.

Now, in practice that degrades the significance of classes - eventually anyone could gain all the abilities (which is why it is usually a point system). The other concern is that if one player has twice as many horizontal advancement points as another, they'll have twice the available options. It'd be like one player being Gestalt and the others.. not. If you're not okay with differing advancement rates (even if only horizontal), any 'per action' advancement isn't going to work. And if you want everyone to advance simultaneously, you're better giving them 'slots' that they select later. For example, you could give every player two feat slots each time they advance a level, with the understanding that when they choose to do something that would require the feat, they automatically get it. This would allow some players to feel that advancement is based on the decisions they make. As long as players get to 'fill' all their slots, any power discrepancy is likely to be temporary.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Sep 26, 2016 5:30 am

Schleiermacher wrote:
Prak wrote:Kind of thinking about doing a one shot game for Halloween with zombies. Leaning towards just doing AS, but maybe taking an opportunity to run a playtest of Dead Man's Hand.

What systems do you guys like for 1) zombie games and 2) one shots?
My best zombie gaming has actually been in Deadlands: Hell on Earth but I can't credit that to the system. (Although I kind of like it in spite of all its excesses.)

I'd say the choice of system depends on what kind of zombie game you want. Action, horror or post-apocalypse? (All of those can be hybridized but I think you get what I mean)

For high-action one shots, I like Feng Shui. I use Feng Shui 1 with a few house rules that parallel changes in 2 - like Defense scores that are separate from Main AV.

For horror I can't think of anything that would work better than After Sundown.

If you want survival in the zombie post-apocalypse you want a system that can give the proper amount of stakes and detail to conflicts that have nothing to do with violence, and there aren't many of those. I suggest FATE. (Also a good system for one-shots).

Well, I guess I'm shooting for a sort of mix of action/horror.

I'm leaning towards AS because I am familiar with it, and my likely players are familiar with it. Which greatly recommends it. I'd consider trying Feng Shui, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one of my current group who's even heard of it.

To be honest, "fitting" is a secondary consideration to "my group will play it with a minimum of whining" for obvious reasons. Which... might lead to me running a zombie one-shot in d20 Modern, and if that's what people want, fuck it, I'll do it, but OUT OF SPITE. Maybe that'll teach them that d20 is not a gaming panacea.

But, anyway, the idea I'm working on atm is one I'm calling ZombieCon, basically, zombie outbreak at a convention. Because it's the fun kind of stupid idea. I'm just trying to figure out the specifics beyond that.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Oct 02, 2016 8:16 am

Ok, lets say I want to do something dumb and play a wizard that focuses on the Bigby spells. Ie, an evoker with a theme. Obviously, being any kind of wizard at all means I won't suck, per se, but it is a sub-optimal kind of wizard.

What are good and bad options for this sort of character?

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 1:18 am

Prak wrote:Ok, lets say I want to do something dumb and play a wizard that focuses on the Bigby spells.

Why not just specialize in any other school and avoid having Evoc as forbidden school? That way you have spells that aren't crap AND the Bigby spells you aim for (and won't be able to get for 10 levels anyway).

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 1:44 am

Prak wrote:Ok, lets say I want to do something dumb and play a wizard that focuses on the Bigby spells. Ie, an evoker with a theme. Obviously, being any kind of wizard at all means I won't suck, per se, but it is a sub-optimal kind of wizard.

What are good and bad options for this sort of character?

The simple option is to play Bigby.

Assuming that you can talk your DM into allowing it.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 3:59 am

I mean build options, hyz. And specializing in something other than evocation, and just not banning evocation, is admittedly a good idea.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 4:49 pm

Best thing is probably to play a Force Potentate.

Anyway, assuming that's not an option, Argent Savant might be worth looking into if you can get your DM to waive the lost casting progression or get it back via burning a feat or something.

Spell Thematics can turn all your spells into hands, but you could also just refluff them.

Bigby's Tripping Hand is nice against flyers.

Also not a bigby spell, but might be worth picking up Halaster's Shaking Hand

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 6:11 pm

Prak wrote:Ok, lets say I want to do something dumb and play a wizard that focuses on the Bigby spells. Ie, an evoker with a theme. Obviously, being any kind of wizard at all means I won't suck, per se, but it is a sub-optimal kind of wizard.

What are good and bad options for this sort of character?

3.5, or Pathfinder? In the latter, there's a kind of neat interaction between Evoker (Generation) and the Lingering Spell feat that lets you turn your AoE spells into lasting BFC. If you meant literally the Hand series though, that won't help.

In the former ... well, it's still difficult to do much with the Hand spells in particular, but if you're willing to flavor some force spells like Orb of Force and/or Wings of Flurry as made of hands, then you can go the "shitloads of metamagic" route and kill things quite effectively.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:05 pm

3.5, and yeah, I was thinking about at least refluffing some other hand-based spells, like Spectral Hand and Crushing Fist of Spite as Bigby spells.

All I really have in mind is to play a character related to Bigby. I asked the GM if Bigby existed in his world, and he said "not per se," so basically I get to make up whatever I want about Bigby. So the idea is to play a woman (Eleanor) who was engaged to the famed wizard Bigby, but Bigby was killed sometime around their wedding, and she's basically taken his spellbook and is seeking revenge against the killers.

Looking on dndtools, there's at least 1 Bigby spell at every level other than 4th. Which is obviously not enough for a wizard to rely on fully, but at least I have as much tie to the concept as a cleric with a particular domain, and actually a little more since there's 2 or 3 of them for each of 1st and 2nd level. I think the GM would be cool with me refluffing even more spells to be hand-themed, too, so there's that.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 6:30 am

Working on premade characters for the Innistrad-set D&D one shot I want to run. I'm looking at ten total, two to represent each color-

White[/i]
Avacynian priest (cleric)
Inquisitor (paladin)
Blue
Investigator (beguiler)
Necro-alchemist/skaberan, basically Dr. Frankenstein (???)
Black
Assassin (assassin)
Witch (Witch?)
Red
Artificer (???)
Soldier or Berserker (Duskblade or Barbarian?)
Green
Ranger (ranger)
Druid (not sure...)

First, any suggestions for different character concepts? They're all human, but I'm going to allow the option of switching out a character's medium item for a color-thematic enhancement, so the red or green characters could be werewolves (following the idea of monsters as "items"), the red and black characters can be vampires, etc.

Second, I need class suggestions for a couple of these, specifically the skaberan/necro-alchemist. D&D doesn't really have an alchemist class normally, and the one's people have made here aren't entirely fitting for Innistrad. I'm tempted to just use a prepared caster that's been refluffed. It would work for the one shot.

I need to look at the various witch classes, but I'm sure I'm going to at least use something called witch. If not, spherelock will work fine. The artificer, I'm leaning towards Koumei's Gadgeteer, but basically it just needs to feel like a guy who uses ghosts and chemicals in cans to make flame throwers and shit (Innistrad doesn't have a lot of thopters).

After the skaberan, my big concern is the druid, since Innistrad druids aren't known for running around turning into animals, unless they're also werewolves. Which means I need to at least find an ACF that swaps out wild shape, and probably look at a difference class entirely.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 8:11 am

I'd definitely want to play as a vampire or werewolf or frankenstein monster and maybe a geist in an Innistrad setting, making it humans only feels restrictive for an MtG setting and some of the colors have little human presence. So my suggestion would be...

White[/i]
Avacyn empowered human (cleric probably)
Geist that's able to move around and adventure

Blue
Super science body horror guy
Super science stitcher necromancer
Super science geistpowered stuff guy
Skaab frankenstein monster that's able to move around and adventure

Black
Markov Vampire assassin/shaman/etc.
Ghoulcaller necromancer
Skirsdag demon cultist so he can summon or be possessed, use black magic and stuff
Unaligned swamp witches (or are they all Skirsdag? I haven't read all the flavor text)

Red
Those non-Markov wild vampire raiders/bandits
Werewolf that hangs around rocky places or in cities

Green
Human woodsman dude with pets
Nature magic human
Werewolf that lives in the woods

Unaligned
Artificer
Soldier/Warrior dude with lots of equipment

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 9:21 am

For a full Innistrad setting, I'd totally allow all of those. Geists are primarily blue and white and would probably get a level equivalence, vampires come in four flavors and are all red or black, and your flavor tells you what your in-theme vampire magic is like you're in WoD, zombies are black for traditional necromancy zombies and blue for frankenstein's monster animated-by-science zombies, and werewolves are red and green.

But I'm working on a zombie-centric one shot adventure with a ghoulcaller (black necromancer) killing skaberan to steal their notes because ghoulcalling isn't powerful enough for them anymore. I want to focus on human investigators and such, and I'm only including a skaberan because necro-alchemy, strangely, doesn't involve a lot of stealing control of other peoples' zombies. Werewolves and vampires are very iconic, and easier to incorporate than geists or zombies, since they can pretend to be human, so I'm going to put them in as an option.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 10:29 am

Current lore is that Avacyn went crazy and now all the priests of Avacyn either turned evil, gave up and joined Thalia's agnostic crusade, or turned to the worship of Sigarda, the last of the Archangels not corrupted by Emrakul. So the current priest of goodness is a Sigardian Priest rather than an Avacynian Priest. Just a heads up.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 10:34 am

Yeah. I'm... iffy on the whole Zendikar Sticks It's Tentacle-y Litomancer Dick Emrakul in Innistrad thing. So I'm basically going for some agnostic period of time before the angels go insane.

I think I'm the person in my group that is most up on Innistrad goings on, so it shouldn't be an issue.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 7:08 pm

When your halfling uses a lance to charge someone from their riding dog, do they have to stop once the lance attack is made? If they do, then the dog can't attack when it charges because it doesn't have reach.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 7:52 pm

More an exasperated yell than a question, but why the fuck do TTRPG playtesters and designers think they can release games with missing or broken rules they self-patch?

It's not even paying for imagination anymore, it's deliberately putting out a shoddy product. Any other industry, these people would be run out on a rail. And people in the industry wonder why it's so shit.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 8:50 pm

virgil wrote:When your halfling uses a lance to charge someone from their riding dog, do they have to stop once the lance attack is made? If they do, then the dog can't attack when it charges because it doesn't have reach.

Ideally, you would need Ride By Attack to continue moving after the charge. However, the 3.5 charge revisions were so bad and actually make such actions technically impossible so you almost certainly use some kind of mind caulk. What actually happens at your game is that fucking nobody uses the 3.5 charge rules revisions as written because they are fucking awful - which means we are basically at "ask your DM" territory.

-Username17