Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Poll

What is your preferred system?

Any D&D/D20
Shadowrun
World of Darkness
Palladium
Other (feel free to post about it)

Pages: 1 ... 501 502 [503] 504 505 ... 622

Author Topic: Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: COBRA!!!  (Read 825446 times)

Grim Portent

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7530 on: November 26, 2019, 04:33:12 pm »

Interestingly Awaken doesn't even work on all beasts in 5e. Apes have Int 6 and are therefore not valid targets.

Neither are Baboons, Giant Apes, Giant Elk, Giant Octopus, Giant Vultures, Giant Weasels, Deinonychus or Velociraptors.

For reference Ogres are dumber than several creatures on that list and Orcs are tied with some of them.
Logged
There once was a dwarf in a cave,
who many would consider brave.
With a head like a block
he went out for a sock,
his ass I won't bother to save.

Egan_BW

  • Bay Watcher
  • Perhaps I'll
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7531 on: November 26, 2019, 05:15:23 pm »

iirc while wildshape doesn't change your int, wis, and cha, polymorph does change your mental stats. But not your alignment and personality. So if your character is polymorphed into a chicken, you'll have to roleplay a non-sapient version of your character, with the same attitude and presumably memories as before, but unable to think abstractly or understand languages.

...If you were polymorphed then awakened, I'd rule that you only have the stats of an awakened beast until you get un-polymorphed.
Logged
Down at the bottom of the ocean. Beneath tons of brine which would crush you down. Not into broken and splintered flesh, but into thin soup. Into just more of the sea water. Where things live that aren't so different from you, but you will never live to touch them and they will never live to touch you.

Superdorf

  • Bay Watcher
  • Soothly we live in mighty years!
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7532 on: November 26, 2019, 07:25:27 pm »

The lips thing is very odd, but hey, whatever floats your boat.
I think this doesn't raise any major flags for balance. The Hit Die heal is nice. I'd note these things, though.
- The Wildling subrace sounds like it should have a wisdom boon rather than charisma. Which would suggest druids and clerics, most likely - which I think makes sense with the whole healing part of trolls. It'd make monks more likely as well, which would make the unarmed attacks useless.
- One advantage per long rest is a very weak ability. To keep it, I'd bump it up to a short rest.
-Thick Hide is fine, but most racial natural armor is portrayed as an AC plus dex instead. Basically free armor - Tortle have 18AC, and Draconic Sorcerers get like 12+dex.

...The lips thing is pretty bizarre, yeah. I was trying to lend the race an alien sort of feel-- inhuman and strange-- it may not have worked quite so well as I hoped.  ::)

- I'm looking to build the wildling subrace with wild-magic sorcerers in mind; hence the Charisma boost rather than Wisdom... I could perhaps retool the subrace ability tho. I can certainly bump it up to a short-rest recharge!

- That's a good point about the natural armor. I'm thinking... what, 16 AC? Does that sound about right?
Logged
Falling angel met the rising ape, and the sound it made was

klonk
tormenting the player is important
Sigtext

delphonso

  • Bay Watcher
  • menaces with spikes of pine
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7533 on: November 26, 2019, 07:48:32 pm »

...The lips thing is pretty bizarre, yeah. I was trying to lend the race an alien sort of feel-- inhuman and strange-- it may not have worked quite so well as I hoped.  ::)

- I'm looking to build the wildling subrace with wild-magic sorcerers in mind; hence the Charisma boost rather than Wisdom... I could perhaps retool the subrace ability tho. I can certainly bump it up to a short-rest recharge!

- That's a good point about the natural armor. I'm thinking... what, 16 AC? Does that sound about right?

16 sounds great. Or 14+dex would be really good.

I'd link their description closer to magic then, rather than the wilderness. Another power to consider is Lucky from halflings. Maybe a free reroll or rerolling ones.

Iduno

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7534 on: November 29, 2019, 02:03:46 pm »

Has anyone played Earthdawn? It's not a perfect system, but none of them are. It has a lot of interesting systems (many of which D&D created bad adaptations of for third edition, but standardizing the every other stat point above 10 gaining you a +1 is a good adaptation). It's also one of the ideas the Fallout devs were looking at before eventually creating Fallout, and you can see some of the ideas from Earthdawn if you know what to look for.

It's somewhere in between a cookie-cutter class system like AD&D (in that you have classes which determine which abilities you can choose from) and a freeform point-buy system like Shadowrun or Gurps (you spend xp directly to upgrade skills, talents, stats, or magic weapons). Yes, you can level up magic weapons, if you threadweaving (using magic items/magic talent) is higher than the level of the weapon currently. You usually get extra damage or to-hit early from upgrading weapons, with neat powers coming online later. Every 2 weapon upgrades requires research into the history of the weapon, and possibly a small sidequest. You can choose to increase your circle (level) or not when you have a certain number of skills at the next level, which gets you more choices of abilities and some extra HP. You can also just choose a few skills you like and keep increasing them without ever increasing your level. The game doesn't care.

The dice are...interesting. There is a table that tells you which dice you roll (your skill or talent level plus a number based on the relevant stat), but you mostly roll the same dice each time you do that action (Skill 3 and stat bonus of 2 is always a total of 5, and that's always a d8. That sounds more complicated than it is. The reasons for this are giving you the equivalent of +1 when you increase things without moving you off the RNG (remember in 3rd edition D&D when you'd have d20+30 or whatever? Or now when the d20 matters more than your skill?) and to make sure anyone can succeed or fail at any task. You gain the equivalent of +1 on average to your roll by moving up from a d6 to a d8 to a d10, etc. How can you succeed in getting a 10 on a d6? When you roll the maximum on a die, you get an extra die of that type, even if that die was already a bonus die. It's possible to keep rolling maximum on a die forever, but the odds are not great. So your average roll on a d6 isn't 3.5, it's ~4, so the table puts the d6 in the stat bonus + skill = 4 slot. Lower-end characters use smaller dice, so they've got the best chance of getting extra rolls. If you really need to succeed, you've got a certain number of dice per day you can add to rolls. You just say you're using one before the roll, and add an extra (I think) d6. You only critically fail if all of your dice are 1s, so adding an extra die is a good way to avoid that early. You critically succeed by beating the target number/DC by (again, I think) 5. A critical success on an attack gets extra damage, spells give extra duration or buffs/debuffs depending on the spell, etc.

Also, because it's a FASA game there's a mountain of maps, lore, history, plot hooks, political factions, and explanation in every book. At one point, there were some characters from Earthdawn re-used in Shadowrun, but that ended back in first edition (ED is now in 4th edition). It was designed as a D&D-like game where everything is explained. Why are there dungeons? Magic is cyclical (like in Arcanum), increasing then decreasing like a sine wave. When the level of magic in the world gets strong enough, powerful spirits called Horrors are able to enter our world and prey on life here. People knew about this in advance (which is also explained in-game), and built various forms of shelters to protect them (domed cities, underground cave structures, entire forests of thorns, underwater villages, etc. Remember when I mentioned Fallout?). Some of them were unsuccessful and now contain monsters. Why are there monsters? Creatures who were attacked by the Horrors were corrupted. Why are there classes? That's how you were trained to make use of your magic (even fighters are powered by magic, and have interesting abilities). Why is it called Earthdawn? That's the name of the airship the dwarves sent out to start letting the shelters know it was safe to leave. You adventure to gain more renown, because that's how you increase your abilities. And your characters know that. Now that the magic level has fallen enough, the strongest Horrors are forced back to their world, and the shelters are opening.
Logged

Cruxador

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7535 on: November 29, 2019, 07:18:29 pm »

I've never played or properly read through Earthdawn, but every time I hear about it, it seems quite excellent. Or as the kids say, based and red pilled. Your description only furthers that impression. Kind of makes me wonder why it never took off to a greater degree.
Logged

Iduno

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7536 on: December 02, 2019, 08:42:53 am »

I've never played or properly read through Earthdawn, but every time I hear about it, it seems quite excellent. Or as the kids say, based and red pilled. Your description only furthers that impression. Kind of makes me wonder why it never took off to a greater degree.

I think there were a lot of big games coming out at the same time. White Wolf was big, having released werewolf the prior year and mage the same year (Street Fighter and Wraith the next year kinda don't count). D&D was in decline at the end of TSR, so being D&D but different wasn't a huge selling point. That's probably why there was a halfassed attempt to tie it in with Shadowrun.

Edit: I've also read complaints that the step chart is too complicated, and you need to look up what dice to roll every time (you write the new number on your character sheet to prevent looking it up, sometime like 7/d12 or 8/2d6). You take your stat bonus (which might change once during your career), and add it to your skill. See if you can spot the pattern for when you increase a step by one. A starting character's primary skills would be ~step 7-8, with a few lower. Steps in the 20 range are end-game levels, although some items add to it. With dice rollers being a thing that has existed since ICQ, I'm surprised nobody else has tried anything like it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: December 02, 2019, 10:57:44 am by Iduno »
Logged

Mephisto

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7537 on: December 02, 2019, 10:53:26 am »

Kind of makes me wonder why it never took off to a greater degree.

I suspect it's the same reason that pretty much none of the other crunchy systems made it big. Huge books (3XX pages isn't too bad but the most recent two editions had 6XX and 10XX respectively if you combine GM and player books), chart references to determine how many/which dice to roll, generally bad-ish mechanics overall.

I've heard the setting is pretty great and the snippets I've read reinforce that but the whole bespoke magic item thing and built-in grimdark setting assumptions probably weren't doing it any favors either. D&D sort of had a setting (or multiple, but generally one per edition was "the" setting) but the core books were pure generic Tolkien-ish fantasy.
Logged

Iduno

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7538 on: December 02, 2019, 11:04:09 am »

Kind of makes me wonder why it never took off to a greater degree.

I suspect it's the same reason that pretty much none of the other crunchy systems made it big. Huge books (3XX pages isn't too bad but the most recent two editions had 6XX and 10XX respectively if you combine GM and player books), chart references to determine how many/which dice to roll, generally bad-ish mechanics overall.

Yeah, the change to a novel-sized book for the GM and player books made the page count higher. I think it's meant to be played with a pdf, where the size means 2 pages fit on the screen at a readable resolution at a time. It's an unusual decision, but I prefer pdf, so...
Logged

Mephisto

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7539 on: December 02, 2019, 11:56:53 am »

Unrelated to Earthdawn but completely within the realm of potentially bad mechanics...

If you've got an account on the -Geek network, go cast your ballot. Don't ask if I have an entry or which one is mine. Also don't make an account just to vote. I think that's completely allowed if you really want but I hate being asked to create a one-off account for things and I won't ask people to do things I don't like to do.
Logged

Kagus

  • Bay Watcher
  • Olive oil. Don't you?
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7540 on: December 07, 2019, 07:10:25 am »

So, I'm a little bit enamored with the concept of a war priest with a bow. If we're allowing feats, a variant human with 16 dex would be able to, at level 2, shoot something 600 feet away for 1d8+13 damage with +10 tohit.

I mean, sure, it's once per short rest... But that's still kinda funky fresh, I'd say.

delphonso

  • Bay Watcher
  • menaces with spikes of pine
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7541 on: December 07, 2019, 07:35:17 am »

I mean, with Great Weapon Fighting a barbarian could - at second level - deal 1d12+15 at +0 but with advantage and swing again if they drop the enemy. And that's every round as long as rage lasts (then in falls to a measly 1d12+13, still at advantage)

I just reached level 4 in the first game where we've used feats (just never was asked or offered in other games in 5e). In the first combat, my Barbarian took down 5 hobgoblins before they managed to deal any damage to us.

Kagus

  • Bay Watcher
  • Olive oil. Don't you?
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7542 on: December 07, 2019, 07:52:14 am »

Sure, but that's somehow not quite the same as just reaching out and touching someone 600' away hiding behind three other guys and a chest-high wall...

delphonso

  • Bay Watcher
  • menaces with spikes of pine
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7543 on: December 07, 2019, 08:01:30 am »

Very true. That's like hitting a gumball two football fields away.

Kagus

  • Bay Watcher
  • Olive oil. Don't you?
    • View Profile
Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #7544 on: December 07, 2019, 08:21:59 am »

Very true. That's like hitting a gumball two football fields away.
With a washing machine!
Pages: 1 ... 501 502 [503] 504 505 ... 622