TRPG General Chat

12:31 AM

@doppelgreener - unendingraeg.tumblr.com/post/98267293439/…

12:57 AM

@Lord_Gareth "One-shotting most creatures" - maybe specify via damage? some might consider something like 'sleep' landing to be a one-shot: boom, you're gone.

(in my own lingo I'd consider anything that makes me win if it lands to be a one-shot)

Lord_Gareth

Done

TL;DR damage is terrible

doppelgreener

Crusader sounds fun. Is that a ToB class?

Lord_Gareth

Correct

And the only true 'tank' in 3.5

Crusader gives real incentives to be targeted over softer party members

doppelgreener

Hehehe. I like how that chain of thought worked out completely accurate.

Lord_Gareth

Starting with debuffs and proceeding into providing healing, locking down an area and dealing respectable damage

doppelgreener

1:01 AM

It's a melee class + It sounds fun + It sounds like it doesn't suck -> Must be Tome of Battle

@Lord_Gareth it sounds like they might have taken learning from this directly into 4e

because that's what the fighter and paladin do, and a lot of other defenders

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener ToB is often accused of being beta testing for 4e

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth "accused"? c(:

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener I phrased that in the fashion in which the statement is used.

doppelgreener

@Metool @RedRiderX y'all are making me wish even more I could play this game

@Lord_Gareth I believe it, haha

RedRiderX

@doppelgreener Heh, do you have a higher end Android tablet?

Because emulation can be a thing

Or on PC, I guess

doppelgreener

1:08 AM

@RedRiderX i have a PC!

@Metool hm yes i see

RedRiderX

Promoting Emulators isn't a problem, promoting copyrighted ROMs or ISOs is.

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth I like Tome of Battle a lot for what it stands for: some people decided to investigate the question, "what if it is actually bad design to have melee classes automatically suck compared to anything with magic? what if we designed melee classes that didn't?" (or at least, it seems that's at least part of what they were doing)

trogdor

@doppelgreener I enjoy this concept being applied to 3.5 too

I don't think it is generally a good idea to just have underpowered classes in any game

doppelgreener

@trogdor agreed! [sidelong glance at a publisher who shall not be named here]

Metool

@doppelgreener Nonsense. You know they will be eventually.

trogdor

1:14 AM

though I do admit it may be a bit hard to balance some things,... it goes well beyond that point in 3.5 when you compare a non caster class to a caster class

doppelgreener

I have a visual image here that I'm sure is not completely new: in place of a golf bag of weapons, someone who has those weapons floating behind them in kinda winged arrays, and has features designed for utilising weapons not in their hands and adapting weaponry to the specific vulnerabilities of their targets.

(Sure would not make a viable class all on its own, I at least know that much from the soulknife)

Miniman

@doppelgreener Isn't that from an anime? :P

doppelgreener

@Miniman no idea, wouldn't be surprised if it was, it fits.

Miniman

@doppelgreener Pretty sure I've seen something like it, but I don't remember when

doppelgreener

(I know Mistogan from Fairy Tail who has a golfbag of magic staves, and Cloud from Final Fantasy Advent Children who has a bike full of swords and a sword full of swords.)

Lord_Gareth

1:18 AM

@doppelgreener WHITE WOOOOOOOOOOLFFFF

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth i wasn't thinking of that one, but i was wondering if they committed this sin too

(i know that the games aren't really designed to cross them together, and that certain types of characters just win compared to others if you do)

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener Mages win everything. Even those things. And yes, even those other things.

The thing is, the powers granted to PC mages start destroying the expectations of the setting at character creation

so even in mage, Mages Win

doppelgreener

Some of the earliest WOD questions I took note of here were ones where someone was asking: "So we're playing with Werewolf and Vampire, are the Vampires and Werewolves seriously supposed to be able to do this stuff to each other?" to which the response was "No, they aren't! The werewolves in Vampire and vampires in Werewolf aren't the same as the PC types from each!"

Lord_Gareth

I think the only other splat that can theoretically wade into a conflict of any kind with a mage is a Mummy

doppelgreener

(one of those books might not have actually contained the other, idk)

Lord_Gareth

1:22 AM

Which, okay

Mummy?

May be one of the best experiments in RPG design that WW has ever done

nWoD Mummy is a storytelling game about old age

You shamble out of the crypt as a walking god loaded down with XP, power, supernatural advantages, powers spilling out your wrappings left and right

And as the game progresses you weaken gradually w hile still trying to accomplish your goals

Until eventually you cryptify again

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth wait, what? are you suggesting the setting expects mages to not have X, and then at character creation, mages have X?

Miniman

@Lord_Gareth What, you become really hard to understand?

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth that is an excellent sounding experiment

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener They don't walk through the implications of X

doppelgreener

Could you give me a small example? I'm having a hard time understanding how this could happen.

Lord_Gareth

1:28 AM

@doppelgreener You can make gold at will.

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth Ok I can see how this would be an issue.

"We need a car." "Goooold!" "We need to get the hell out of here, go halfway around the world, and hide out somewhere remote and lay low for a while." "Gooooooooold!" "We need to bait a dragon into that guy's lair." "GOOOOOOOOLD!"

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener Good. Now, here's an example of some crap I can do at character creation

"This reporter is going to publish all of my secrets and get me followed by the press so I can't work any magic. I'm going to use my mastery of Life and Matter to put slivers of rusty iron in her blood"

Don't want to touch her? Space 2 lets you do that from your basement

Actually Space 2 in general is just problematic

Since now all the stuff you do can be done from across the planet

doppelgreener

Vampires are challenged by the issue of humanity and hunters by the issue of morality, is there something mages are challenged by? (I'm presuming it won't really stop them being demigods.)

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener Hubris

Mages have this problem where they go mad with power and lose their magic

Or they screw up a spell and lose their magic

Or they blast their soul across reality and lose their magic

Or they walk into the Hedge, figure out too late that their magic stopped working, get their soul torn to shreds, and lose their magic

You see a theme

Adeptus

I remember one of the rotes for Virtual Adepts, "Semi-auto CAD/CAM". Lets you combine 2 guns into one, swapping one attribute from the other for each success on your roll. Revolver x machinegun. 2 successes, gets you something pocket-size, with high per-shot damage, high capacity, and full-auto.

Lord_Gareth

1:41 AM

Oh god old mage

Get it away

Back you monster

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth is it the losing their magic and 90% chance of inflicting horrible death upon themselves?

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener Yes!

doppelgreener

Oh boy!

@Adeptus Can you continue to do this? (And thus compact a rocket launcher into the revolver/machinegun?)

@Lord_Gareth Do they gain Hubris by using magic?

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener Yes/no. Many uses of magic are sins against Wisdom. Hit 0 (out of 10) and you go crazy and lose your magic

Vulgar uses of magic cause Paradox, which can do anything from damage you to summoning your very own custom-built demon spat forth specifically to drag your soul into a great nihilistic void

Adeptus

@doppelgreener Don't know. Depends if a rocket launcher counts as a "gun". I can't remember the exact wording used.

doppelgreener

1:54 AM

@Lord_Gareth I'm getting that OWOD "you fail and lose everything you love" vibe pretty strongly.

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener nWoD has controls to mitigate these effects. It's very possible to play an ethical, cautious mage

Part of the delicious irony of the game is that no one ever does

doppelgreener

I kinda want to play this just to find out.

Lord_Gareth

You want Mage: the Awakening

doppelgreener

yes, i will be unlikely to play OWOD

afroakuma

manifests

Quick question for whoever wants to answer

Puzzles and riddles during an adventure. Who's for, who's against

doppelgreener

2:07 AM

yes, they can be pretty fun

i am not very practiced at riddles myself but i enjoy a good puzzle

something to consider might be providing an alternate path for the GM who isn't confident their group would enjoy puzzles and/or riddles

"if your group hates this stuff, replace this section of the adventure with this other thing"

afroakuma

nod

any other inputs?

Lord_Gareth

I'll concur with the previous statement. Something White Wolf did very correctly, actually, when designing their pre-mades

doppelgreener

also be careful to train the puzzle-solvers well. like portal did. portal is basically a giant tutorial on how to play portal.

demonstration of individual, small ideas, and how they combine, and building up mental cues (box -> button, white wall = portal, jump through = keep moving)

Adeptus

2:29 AM

OMG. A Tarrasque is a Magical beast. That means you can use Wild Empathy on it.

Lord_Gareth

2:43 AM

And now Leeg time

trogdor

@Adeptus doesn't that require like,... 10 minutes of it not killing you?

Metool

2:54 AM

@trogdor Only the one, actually!

And then you wait a day to do it again.

trogdor

oh ok

still though,.. thats a great opportunity to die

and you need to roll for it too

Adeptus

Hostile -> friendly = DC35. Roll is d20 + level + CHA. At level 20, with CHA bonus of 5, that's a 50/50 chance.

Better odds than most ways of defeating a Tarrasque. Though, you do need to survive for 1 minute...

trogdor

yeah

that's the thing

a Tarrasque is seriously scary

Adeptus

And even a 25 will shift it to Indifferent, which should stop it attacking at least...

trogdor

there is not a large abundance of ways to make sure it doesn't kill you for that long

I dunno, aren't they motivated by continual hunger?

Metool

3:08 AM

Ack.

Just took down this thing. Why is this thing a thing?

(it's a giant!)

Magician

@Adeptus Just fly over its head.

Adeptus

3:24 AM

Aww no, "...can also use this ability to influence a magical beast with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2, but she takes a –4 penalty on the check." A Tarrasque has Int 3. :(

Magician

Feeblemind it?

Miniman

@Magician You could just kill it with Feeblemind

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