TRPG General Chat

12:00 AM

@Shalvenay Eeyup.

Save-or-die and enemy control are some of the easiest cheese potential to spot.

I suppose what stops people from complaining about them is the rather gaping lack of options for dealing with undead otherwise

BESW

The second-best debuff is death. The best debuff is "He's on our side now."

8

This analysis of combat conditions is relephant.

Turn undead is also less of a problem because it has a pretty narrow application range.

Miniman

@Shalvenay I'd suggest that what stops people from complaining about them is that you generally don't have a session consisting purely of fighting undead.

Shalvenay

:P yeah, generally, no you don't

@Miniman -- I'm wondering if "leveling" the pet on the Beast Master Ranger would fix the balance concerns (either allowing it to go up in CR as the Ranger levels, or allowing higher level Rangers to have higher CR pets)

Miniman

@Shalvenay If a session plays to one character's strengths and another character's weaknesses, players don't usually complain about it anyway. (That other guy is having fun, so I'll keep quiet even though I'm not enjoying myself that much.)

Shalvenay

12:09 AM

right

Miniman

@Shalvenay The thing is that if you look at the answer I linked above, the Beast Master really doesn't end up that far behind. So adding scaling might be a good idea, but you'd have to be extremely careful not to end up making it overpowered.

Shalvenay

right.

Miniman

@Airatome Sorry, I should've pinged you when I linked this answer which explains why this restriction exists.

Shalvenay

12:33 AM

ugh -- why is it that I keep coming up with crazy ways to break other folks' plots?

Miniman

@Shalvenay Because it's fun?

Grubermensch

@Miniman But this isn't actually a good thing. It just means you'll be more surprised when the player finally decides to bow out of the game.

Shalvenay

1:09 AM

@Grubermensch -- yeah -- it's one of my most obnoxious habits as a RPer, at least for narrativist types

Miniman

2:23 AM

VTC - not a question, just a blog post.

-1

Q: Handling complex skill check - D20 and DnD 5th edition

I´d like to share an alternative way of solving complex skill checks in a different way as other ways I've seen posted over the web. So far they are working fine with my group and I would like to share it with the community so I can get some outside feedback and perhaps some people find it fun a...

Scrollreader

Yeah. That's ... something

Shalvenay

yeah, somebody doesn't get how SE works

Scrollreader

2:43 AM

But the tour and explainer are solid.

It is pretty unique, if you're coming at it from the 'generic roleplaying information on the internet' side of things

Magician

4:45 AM

Greetings!

I'm all outta mornings.

El Suscriptor Justiciero

8:22 AM

Regarding a debate between @IronHeart and I regarding whether D&D 4th Ed's Powers eschewed or embraced the concept of 'Vancian magic'. I'm of the opinion that Powers are rather Vancian (in other words, I think 4e replaced Vancian Magic with Vancian Everything). The logic I follow is based on this:

Traditional D&D Vancian magic:
- A spell is a static block that is cast always the same. If there's any variation it's already described in the spell.
- Spells are split into (spell) levels that a character could gain access to as it goes up in (character) levels.

BESW

Not really. You've picked some very specific bits of Vancian magic and ignored others. Primarily, Vancian casting is prepared casting, and almost all 4e powers aren't even flavoured that way.

If instead I define Vancian magic (like TV Tropes does) as being predicated on "distinctly packaged spells," which are "chosen and prepared in advance" and "expended when used, unavailable until chosen and prepared again." 4e only fits the first point neatly. The second point is moot, as powers are never chosen per rest period. The third point is debatable in mechanical terms, but flavoured very differently.

(The TV Tropes' entry for 4e argues the points at length, and ultimately only proves that 4e is enough like Vancian magic and enough unlike it that either case can be made depending on which bits we pick to focus on and which conclusion we want to reach.)

Vancian magic is also responsible for the "magic as an elite-access-only overlay on physical combat systems" concept, which 4e has rooted out entirely.

The 4e power system owes a lot more to the keyword-and-cooldown model of computer RPGs like World of Warcraft, honestly: timed cooldowns of varying lengths match the power refresh mechanics of 4e more closely than they match the per-day "choose and prepare all spells at once" concept of earlier D&D editions.

The Vancian concept of mutually exclusive "schools" of magic to organise spells (often considered a key component of the Vancian magic system) was replaced with stackable keyword associations...

So... yeah, 4e has many elements reminiscent of Vancian magic. It is not entirely non-Vancian, not by a long shot. But it also marks a dramatic departure from many of the core Vancian notions. Instead, the 4e power system seems to draw more heavily on CRPG concepts which themselves evolved from Vancian-inspired systems but underwent significant mutation in the MMORPG cauldron until they are no longer Vancian in form--only Vancian in heritage.

El Suscriptor Justiciero

9:15 AM

So in short, it's debatable enough that whether one thinks D&D 4e is "Vancian" will depend on what one's idea of what D&D's "Vancian" means.

(Unless one's idea of "Vancian" is Jack Vance's books' Vancian, in which case 4e's Powers probably aren't Vancian at all)

BESW

10:02 AM

Aye.

Thing is: In the Venn diagram of "magic system styles," 4e powers overlap with Vancian magic less than with, say, WoW magic (which has similar overlap with Vancian magic, but more overlap with 4e powers).

So whether 4e magic Vancian depends on whether the specific Vancian traits it contains are, for the individual making the analysis, the core Vancian traits. And WoW magic would be Vancian too, under those criteria.

BESW

10:53 AM

On an entirely different note:

Happy Ayyám-i-Há!

2

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

11:06 AM

Happy Days of Ha

Zachiel

11:57 AM

@ElSuscriptorJusticiero Not even 3.x spells were vancian, then. Where's the "I will cast this very powerful spell because the risk spellcasting involves is less than the risk not casting this occurrence of the spell involves"?

@BESW Yet when they made Neverwinter (D&D 4e - the mmorpg) they radiaclly changed how mechanics worked, because 1/day wouldn't have been fun.

BESW

@Zachiel Well, yes. CRPG and TRPG mechanics don't transliterate well. When I say 4e "draws on" WoW-like CRPG mechanics, I mean exactly that: it takes inspiration from them.

Zachiel

Meanwhile, I regret not buying a luckstone

I have a D&D 3.5e scout and I can full attack with skirmish by passing a tumble check, DC40, to make a 10' step instead of a 5' one, right?

My tumble modifier is a +38

Guess what I rolled, during both turns of the last combat we played?

Iron Heart

12:37 PM

2.

Zachiel

no, 1. Both times.

damage dealt during those turns: 0

@IronHeart by the way, do you have any idea of how I could frame a building help request without incurring in the usual "don't bait discussions on your misery" on the Legend chat? (I'd ask others too but you're the one who happens to be here). I know the first step is providing all the houserules, and there's a ton of them - I'm also worried about people asking me why something is banned instead of just not suggesting related solutions.

Iron Heart

I do not, sorry...

Zachiel

Don't worry. (Also, some problems are just unsolvable)