It's the manner of the death, not the death itself, which makes save-or-die a poor fit for most RPG contexts. Important outcomes should generally be drawn out into longer mechanics. More rolls when more's at stake, as a broad rule of thumb.
On an unrelated note, I like the fact that SE chatrooms are public. I can send people over to the deadEarth room to witness the ridiculous horror themselves.
It's why we roll each attack separately --and its damage separate from that-- in so many systems: it creates incremental choice-driven movement toward an important outcome. If a single imposed roll kills you outside of the attack/damage context (as a Word of Death or what-have-you), that subverts the game's own choice-to-outcome-over-time paradigm.
Again, it really depends on the people playing and what sort of experience they want. I don't think you can make rules of thumbs for how much "hit shappens" a game should or should not allow.
I've been toying around an idea of an extremely cruel RPG that features plenty of PC deaths and new characters. Not like Paranoia where you essentially have extra lives.
@GMNoob It is not possible to have a constructive dialogue when one person's approach is to claim that "not everyone feels that way so it's not useful to talk about."
See above where I argue that it subverts the system's own primary mechanics, which has nothing to do with group choice. See also that I never made any blanket statements that "everyone" wanted this kind of experience. And see also my repeated attempts over the last weeks to have this kind of conversation where your response is regularly to trivialise my contributions by re-framing my observations and opinions as universal claims.
Naturally, this cruel approach means any long-term effort to improve one's character would probably end miserably, so character improvement has to be fast and effective. You get a rifle at level 1, a missile launcher at level 2 and a death day at level 3.
When did I say it's not useful to talk about? :( It just so happen that my group really LOVES sudden death. Fights at low levels are sometimes resolved with 1 dice roll because HP and Damage are within the same dice range.
@GMNoob You're not engaging with what I'm saying, or what @lisardggY is saying. You're just saying, over and over again, that you don't play that way. How is that not telling us that you don't think we should talk about it?
@BESW No, not deadEarth - I'd still try to preserve some degree of meaningfulness in character deaths. For example, powerful kamikaze moves to help out friends in a pinch.
This could be a different kind of party dynamic: everyone sacrificing their characters to protect the one guy who actually got to level 4, which would probably be a Gatling BFG mounted on a cyborg war elephant.
I really don't get how me saying that I dissagree that a game element is "crappy" is me telling you to not talk about something. I don't see how saying that a game element is crappy that I really enjoy, is somehow NOT telling me that I'm having fun wrong, and I shouldn't be allowed to talk about it.
@GMNoob "a poor fit for most RPG contexts;" "a broad rule of thumb;" "outcomes should generally be drawn out;" "subverts the game's own paradigm;" how are these statements of mine universally dismissing any other playstyle? You've been in this chat long enough to see me say at least twice that there's no wrong way to play RPGs so long as everyone's safe and happy.
I'm trying to present my views cogently, with clear support, so that we can discuss them.
Having different opinions doesn't suppress conversation; it enhances it. But only if there's something to discuss.
I have nothing to work with on "I like playing this way" repeated over and over. It quickly starts looking like "LALALA I can't hear you" rather than a dialogue.
Whether that's intended or not, it's what it comes out seeming like and you've asked to be told when you're coming off as aggressive and shutting down the conversation.
You wanna talk to me about what it is about having the attack-to-damage-to-outcome paradigm subverted that you like? I'd love to listen.
honestly, I think you are reading that into what I wrote. Because I was specifically clarifying where the point of dissagreement was. Nothing I wrote said "la la la " I can't hear you" Or anything close to it.
@lisardggY I agree that some things should not be swingy. I don't agree that a stray bullet (or gaze from medusa) ending your life suddenly makes your previous choices meaningless.
See how I specifcally responded to the quote.
This conversation isn't just about your responses. I'm also responding to other people.
@GMNoob Mmm. That's the second and last time you responded to someone other than myself in this conversation, and it's a response to his comment a couple lines down from the one you quoted.
And if I'm singling you out it's because of the pattern I see in these conversations, as I tried to make clear at the very start.
You have specifically requested to be told when it seems like you're being aggressive. I saw a pattern that I thought would be good to bring to your attention.
@GMNoob Aye, and my response was to that, which seemed to be misunderstanding the core problem we have with save-or-die: it's not the death, TPKs happen all the time. It's the death outside the normal flow of outcome resolution condensed to a single roll.
I'm taking it not in the context of a gaming group, but in the context of a gaming system which has a firmly established resolution mechanic and then another one which trivialises the first.
It's more dramatic to draw it out. Perhaps when it's applied, combat slows for a moment while everyone watches to see if the player can succeed on a short skill challenge.
You still get the sudden shock of having it applied to you!
But then you also get the delicious drawing-out of the moment, like a slow-mo shot of Sean Bean getting peppered with arrows.
It's a matter of the system's goals and purposes, and I feel that D&D's save-or-die mechanics are at odds with the ethos of the rest of the system. That doesn't mean it's an inherently bad mechanic, though it's not one I'm fond of in any system.
@BESW I can't agree with that. Maybe it happened in 3e, where otherwise there was lots of HP, (but I never really experienced the save or die in 3e) But many things in the game were resolved around a single die roll. One of the reason that skills felt better as percentages was that you had proper odds and expectations of how rare success was going to be. (that was mitigated by giant bonsues in 3.x) But I'm not seeing how 2 dice rolls vs 1 dice roll, subverts anything :(
For us, success was rare and complete failure could come at any moment. The trick was to minimize actions that were uncertain.
@GMNoob This right here. "Minimise actions that were uncertain." That does not sound to me like the mechanics created an environment conducive to the heroic action D&D espouses as its default mode of play.
Again--not saying it's wrong to play that way.
Just that it feels like D&D shot itself in the foot on designing a system to support its own gameplay goals (not yours).
We could list heroic characters with wildly different attitudes all day and it wouldn't change the fact that I said "the heroic action D&D espouses" rather than just "heroic action."
@GMNoob Higher levels create less attack-and-damage TPK opportunities, but introduce more save-or-die effects.
If save-or-die effects are what encourage your desired "minimise uncertain actions" playstyle, which seems to be what you indicated above, then I don't see how higher levels would lead to greater risk-taking.
@BESW For the players against the monsters, but the monsters odds of succeeding got low. I can't remember how low, but I never died to save or die after level 8
@BESW It doesn't. What before was almost impossible to succeed at, at higher levels becomes very likley. But you still want to minimize your uncertain actions.
@BESW Yes, I'm talking about 2e. As I said above, I don't have much experience with 3e save or die stuff at all.
My level 28 Rakshasa died (no save, no attack roll) the first fight he got into. My next character only survived a no-save, no-attack trap because he was a freaking lich who could regenerate his body (lost all his stuff, though).
@GMNoob The rakshasa died of a spell which said "if you meet X criterion, you die," which criterion he could not fail to meet. The lich met a sticky end by using water walking to cross what appeared to be a totally normal puddle of water.
After that I got cracking on breaking the game wide open because the GM wasn't pulling punches so I wouldn't either.
So I showed them to him. Brutally. My next character was a shapeshifter which could become literally anything with 32 or less HD as a free action an infinite number of times every turn; could carry an infinite amount of gear; could equip/stow gear as part of the free-action shapeshifting....
I've been reading forum posts and blogs who mention "my guy" syndrome as a specific type of difficult player, but I can't seem to find a solid definition for the term. Can someone explain this particular kind of problem player to me?
I could fool detect spells non-magically and found combat forms which summoned infinite minions or let me add multiple of my highest ability scores to attacks/defences/damage.
I played Scham the Any-Faced until my lich regenerated so I could return to my normal grumpy librarian.
(He was built to kill everyone in a city without damaging a single book in the place.)
(Epic level D&D is insane, and I only scratched the surface; for example, I wasn't using save-or-die effects as the basis for any of my builds.)
Plus time stop and other cheese, but the central conceit was being able to modify damage spells to use whatever damage type would leave the inanimate substances of the area untouched.
Nonlethal damage is the key: it deals no damage to non-creatures, but it's still lethal to creatures in high enough doses (roughly double what it'd take to kill them with lethal damage).
@JonathanHobbs In 3.5 non-lethal damage is effectively a second health bar equal to your normal HP total which can be attacked separately. When your non-lethal damage equals to amount of regular HP you currently have, you fall unconscious and all further non-lethal damage becomes lethal.
So we are trying to balance a power I designed for a character of mine in pathfinder. The power uses the Magus Spell point pool and for ever 2 points you get an extra attack at your highest bab. This is meant to be a last ditch attack. What we do right now is give the character the exhausted condition after and the effects of 2 crit cards if they make sense. (So a card that causes something like a limb to be cut off doesn't apply instead draw another)
The exhausted condition is also not able to be cured it can be temporarily suppressed but only for 1d8 rounds.
There seems to be a consensus that spears are underpowered in D&D - how do folks here feel about that? Long spears in 3.5/Pathfinder do have better reach than one-handed melee weapons, do the same damage as swords, and they're cheaper. The longer reach makes longspears really nasty - a spear wielder gets that extra attack of opportunity against foes in a threatened square. The one drawback is putting spears in the two-handed category. Historically they were often used one-handed w/ a shield.
@Grubermensch I think we can answer it if the category is narrowed
I suspect that those claiming are saying "You need someone to run the game" and he is going "Why? Create your own adventure books and Skyrim count!", or some such variant.
@GMNoob - according to 3.5 PH spears are also two-handed, while longspears are two-handed + have reach. There are also one-handed spears but they only do 1d6 damage & have no reach.
I very strongly feel "words are meaningless, just do what you think is fun" is an abjectly terrible answer both for Stack Exchange in particular and life in general (impetus)
It is essentially saying to the asker "your problem is not a legitimate problem".
No, I think the str mod is added in before multiplying. Actually, my calcs are wrong. The x2 and x3 in the 3.5 weapons table doesn't mean you multiply damage inflicted - rather if you score a critical hit (natural 20 or natural 19- for longsword) you auto. hit. Then make critical to-hit roll: if you hit again vs. target AC then you roll for dmg more than once (there's no multiplying).
Yep, 19-20/x2 crit range does inflict slightly more damage on average than 20/x3 crit range. So swords are better than spears in that respect, but the longspears reach may more than compensate for that when fighting low-level mooks where a first hit is lethal.
The Kick Attack maneuver in Arsenal p160 reads:
A staple of many martial arts, kicking has a greater range and power
than punching. The attacker receives +1 Reach on Unarmed Combat Tests
when using a Kick Attack.
No requirement, straight bonus, no malus.
From a mechanics point of view,...
That's correct. Short spear is one-handed, does 1d6 damage x2 on crit. Spear is two-handed, does 1d8 x3 on crit. Longspear is two-handed, does 1d8 x3 on crit plus can reach into 2 squares.
Avg Longsword damage with zero Str mod = (17/20)*0 + (1/20)*4.5 + (2/20)*[(17/20)*4.5 + (3/20)*9.0] = 0.7425 hp, right?
Avg Spear damage with zero Str mod = (17/20)*0 + (2/20)*4.5 + (1/20)*[(17/20)*4.5 + (3/20)*13.5] = 0.7425 hp - ok you're right. Argh, shame on WotC for confusing and obfuscating weapon damage when they could make it simpler by giving each weapon the same natural 20/x2 crit range!
mmmh average weapon damage is the same for all strikes and the average damage of a critical is just the average damage of a regular strike, multiplied. Strenght is just multiplied, so are most other bonuses, so you can just use the average weapon damage (excluding extra dice) and that's the base
then, extra dice get only applied once per hit and if the hit chance is the same it's not relevant to the equation
so, Str is also not in the equation.
but!
when the hit chance is low, things might change
uhm no they actually don't
except for the time x3 wins
but you shouldn't ccompare lance with longsword, you should compare lance with greatsword.
So let's suppose we have two identical weapons, which only difference is one is a sword (18-20/x2) and one is an axe (20/x3)
the chances of hitting are the same, let's say 50%
the chancess of confirming a critical hit also are 50%
statistically, rolling more than 50% on the 5% of the rolls or on the 10% of the rolls is the same. With a sword you get to roll twice the number of confirmation rolls but with the axe you add the weapon damage figure twice, so the two things equal out.
Solution: mooks that only hit on a 20 should use axes, if everything else is the same (if it's not the same, 1/400 chance to do a crit is usually not enough to matter)
Hmm, the 3.5 PH is unclear - on p. 114 it reads: 18–20/×2: The weapon scores a threat on a natural roll of 18, 19, or 20 (instead of just on a 20) and deals double damage on a critical hit. (The weapon has a threat range of 18–20.)
of course, greataxes average 0.5 damage lower than greatswords, so greatswords are better, especially if that 0.5 is a large part of the average damage. Scythes are better than Falchions. Another relevant thing is that dealing 4d4+10 damage to an enmy that has 14 HP left or doing 8d4+20 damage has the same result, so the scythe is better for the occasional spike damage (which happens on random targets), but the falchion is more consistent.
But then, at the bottom of p. 140 it reads: Increased Threat Range: Sometimes your threat range is greater than 20. That is, you can score a threat on a lower number. Longswords, for instance, give you a thread on a natural attack roll of 19 or 20. In such cases, a roll of lower than 20 is not an automatic hit. Any attack roll that doesn’t result in a hit is not a threat.
@RobertF also, this says nothing about how to confirm a critical. It talks about threatening one and how much damage is dealt if it's confirmed. The two snippets are therefore compatible.
I asked a question with a straightforward title and a mostly straightforward body, and got a straightforward answer, which I accepted because they answered the question as I wrote it.
But I failed to make in clear I was interested in more than just that narrow answer. Perhaps a better question w...
And what situations should I try and avoid in regards to wildlife and areas prone to hazards in the UK?
Edited my question to cover the other answers more as they were very good additions to the wildlife aspect.
i think the fact someone can even ask this about another country and expect specific information rather than a pointer to the country's wildlife index is a clear indicator of how different Australia is
I was told the developer of dampes8n.com/levelup is here, so I just wanted to say that the game gets ridiculously slow at later quests and imho, something should be done about it.
@Dampes8n the quest "Deathmarch Five" (100,000 kills before boss) takes way too long without cheating, I've been running the game for over a month iirc (usually not running when I sleep) and I've been on Deathmarch Five quest for more than a week now
the prices of everything went up exponentially as well, so buying things with gold or sp takes forever now as well
@Grubermensch fortunately it doesn't eat up much CPU power, unlike some other idle games I've ran, so I don't mind an extra tab open between my other 20'ish tabs :P
but I haven't interacted with the game for such a long time, I'm starting to considering closing the tab...
I've been reading forum posts and blogs who mention "my guy" syndrome as a specific type of difficult player, but I can't seem to find a solid definition for the term. Can someone explain this particular kind of problem player to me?
The Kick Attack maneuver in Arsenal p160 reads:
A staple of many martial arts, kicking has a greater range and power
than punching. The attacker receives +1 Reach on Unarmed Combat Tests
when using a Kick Attack.
No requirement, straight bonus, no malus.
From a mechanics point of view,...
And what situations should I try and avoid in regards to wildlife and areas prone to hazards in the UK?
Edited my question to cover the other answers more as they were very good additions to the wildlife aspect.
