@GeorgeSpiceland that comment discussion is getting off-topic and over-long, so I'm moving us to chat. The point isn't that it was an unjustified link, it's that the question was incomplete with just a link, because the link doesn't actually directly answer the question. It gives some reasons why the feat wound up as powerful as it did, but that wasn't the question.
@KRyan I'm in agreement with you at that, but he's since edited the answer to at least be at least a little more complete. My disagreement stems from the idea of "authorial intent" in this case, that's all.
@GeorgeSpiceland yes, I agree that the comments are now obsolete; the only reason I hadn't flagged them as such is because I wanted to make sure you saw them
which is basically what I believe @Lord_Gareth was saying: just because mxyzplk established that the author didn't intend for the feat to lack any spell level adjustment, doesn't automatically mean that it's broken without that adjustment. Indeed, I haven't upvoted his answer because I'm not convinced that the spell level adjustment is enough to balance the feat
@BrianBallsun-Stanton the Greenbound Summoning question, mxyzplk's answer. I'll flag Lord_Gareth's and delete my own
I don't really think I ever argued that...what I am willing to argue is that authorial intent doesn't apply in the case of the author stating that there was a typographical error. A typographical error that changes the power of an ability could be considered "broken" however because an unwitting and unwilling omission increased the ability without due balance and without proper consideration. This depends of course on how you apply "broken"
It is broken for the reasons you note (way, way awesome results from a first level spell for having one feat - better than any other summoning augmentation available). There's a good reason for this - the author intended it to be a +2 level metamagic feat but that was omitted when it appeared in...
In my case, I use "broken" to mean something that's "broken" not something that's overpowered necessarily but something that doesn't work correctly. Not something that doesn't work as intended assuming that it works correctly however. So, far's it goes, this falls into my definition of "broken by typographical omission."
@GeorgeSpiceland the feat does work if you run it as written, there's nothing about it that fails to make sense or leads to an undefined or even ambiguous case, it's just overpowered
and it's overpowered in part because part of the intended cost of the feat didn't make it into the final printing
@KRyan I guess? Personally when I read it I assumed there was something wrong with it. Yes, it works, but it works exactly as the question originally stated, providing a druid with the ability to basically be a single-person party by around level 6.
@GeorgeSpiceland the Druid's more-or-less capable of that by level 1 anyway
the class is ridiculous
the very first game I ever played with, at level 3, with people who hadn't played in decades if at all, everyone picked up on how much the druid was owning everything
the ranger and fighter barely managed to keep up with his wolf animal companion
and the ranger was abusing the hell out of Drow knock-out poison
Generally speaking as much as I love ascension, I agree with this sentiment as far as rules go. Part of why we just made stuff up when we played that...and why I don't know the rules for Awakening very well.
Core and FAE are pretty easy to write for, though. There's some third-party being generated even before the pdf went public, including publication KSes to support them.
The fact that it's a debate, and a fairly juicy one? Over the years I've had players who enjoy philosophical debates, or trying to talk the villains into changing their ways, or just arguing...
@Trogdor - My players did that to a diabolist once. They encountered him again as a Remmanon with wizard levels, doing secretarial work for the Ministry of Tactics.
@BrianBallsun-Stanton My players no longer trust any of my NPCs that start getting intellectual with them. Even the ones that end up being on their side tend to have a funny way of showing it.
Nothing quite like finding out the wanted criminal who's been backing you up is using you as chess pieces to try and break up an alliance between five gods that also, incidentally, want all of you dead.
"Chilis being transported to the Nagaland's chili competition. Gloves need to be worn because the chili oils can harm the skin. (Aaron Joel Santos / Novus Select) "ummm
there we go.
nagaland. Chilies. That sounds like a horrible plot.
okay, that is a silly. silly. article.
I've got to figure out how to make that a game, somehow..
But comon: "He smokes a hand-rolled cigarette and carries a machete that resembles a scaled-down dao—the traditional Naga implement of head-taking (and, in calmer moments, men’s haircuts)." What a perfect NPC.
@waxeagle the question is back up for reopen. I posted a related link to the linked meta question - "off-topic influences" such as my vampire lore question or someone else's dire creature question
these questions might fall under the "I wuz wonderin'" clause, but each question shouldn't require an explanation as to it's use
that would be bad.
for the record, my vamp question was so I could make rulings based on the relevant lore in D&D 3.5 games - but the fact that it was more about vampires than RPGs initially was "off-topic." Who's to say XP was even an RPG thing? If that's the case, RPG experts are no less qualified to answer it than anyone else
@LitheOhm I agree that it's easy to say a question's off-topic because we can't easily see a way that it would be relevant based on our own experience, and that this leads to closing some questions that were actually quite appropriate. But it's easy to go the other way and say that anything is on-topic because RPGs can encompass so many subjects.
I have Opinions on where and how to draw that line, but I'm happy to leave the final decisions to the mods whose duties I neither want nor envy; they're in a better position than I am to know what's going on, and have more experience about the results various actions and reactions are going to have.
So I may not always be happy about the actions taken, but I'm very happy I'm not the one who has to decide whether and how to take them.
The Good:
You can do anything with Hero. Literally. A wizard throwing fireballs, a spaceship shooting lasers, and Superman's Heat-ray eyes are all the energy projection power. The system is written to be VERY vague for this reason. You apply the mechanics to your character, then supply all ...
the comments there are just...
::comes in with soot stains on his face:: That was an ugly one. What's next?
My character is a Halfing Rogue specializing in lying and ranged sneak kills with a concealed crossbow. With the Childlike and Pass for Human feats plus max ranks in Bluff I'm crazy good at a believable lie if I act like a child and in theory I could eat the impossible bluff check with the -20, ...
I very rarely feel the inclination to play a female character, I have played an effeminate looking male tiefling though,.... mostly because most pictures I found had tiefling males looking like steroid abusers
but I also did find it amusing
strangely enough, the party didn't make a big deal out of it
[shrug] I'm trying to figure out what, exactly, my father's computer contains and why nothing on this list seems to be a graphics card, so I'm a bit distracted.
I saw the release announcement for the FATE pdf. it sounds very free form. Is that right? Or is more that it's a big sandbox and up to the GM to make a concrete universe
The biggest thing was custom-designing NPCs and monsters to be simpler to track; cutting down on save-ends and using more "until end of next turn" durations, that kind of thing.
@Timingila In terms of world/setting, Fate prefers to have the GM work with the players to loosely define the world and then the GM creates sketchy settings which the players fill in during the scenes.
But yes, all of the mechanics are designed to basically be extensions of the narrative, and to drive the story forward in interesting directions.
For example, instead of ability stats your character's defining qualities are a handful of pithy phrases that describe him and his relationship to the world and other people, like "Wizard Private Eye" or "I Am Not My Father."
You can spend game currency to get bonuses to rolls whenever one of the phrases would be helpful in what you're trying to do, and you get game currency whenever you choose to make things more complicated/harder for your character in a way related to a phrase.
I find Fate to be the simplest, most elegant and adaptable implementation of this idea, but other systems use it as well.
Dogs in the Vineyard has a similar concept, but instead attaches a number of dice to each phrase. In a conflict everyone rolls the dice connected to relephant phrases, and uses the results of the dice as currency for rounds of betting to determine the outcome of a conflict.
@Timingila Yeah, I've seen discussions here that sound similar to it.
@Timingila Fate Core is pretty cool. Pick up the Accelerated version too; it's a lot simpler, stripped to the very essence of the Fate system. The Core book has more system philosophy and dials.
For that, I would simply refer you to the Fate Fractal.
If something about the game setting is important enough to have mechanical presence, treat it more or less as a character: from giving it an aspect, to giving it skills to attack and defend with and Fate points that it can invoke.
The "problem" is that the instant you make it an aspect, the players gain a measure of narrative control over that element: they can resist compels, for instance.
So if you want it to be a truly all-pervasive concept, making it an aspect might not be the best way to go. However, if you've got cooperative players who think the idea is cool, it can be really awesome.
They'll have motivation to act in accordance with the concept, so they can invoke it for bonuses and take compels for Fate points.
