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Splicer posted:A while back, and not a direct attack on you you're just the last person in the conversation, but every argument against keeping con and str separate can be used for splitting up dex into agility and fingerwork, and splitting up wisdom/charisma into cunning, perception, willpower, and charm. Merging or dicing up stats are both fine, the important thing is to keep things that cost equal resources have equivalent* utility. D&D's various methods of choosing your ability scores works best when each ability score is a discrete package containing thematic passive and active combat and rp benefits. I love ability checks, and have done that before with other stats. I ran "Dex" as three stats (speed, agility, dexterity), Con as two (endurance, constitution), Int as two (intelligence, perception), and Wis as two (wisdom, will). This was an experiment with experienced players who were very used to the crunching, and it made for some fun nuance. (I also re-added "comeliness" from 1eUA, but just let the players assign a number of their choice, unless they wanted >16 or <6.) The expanded list of stats with a generous amount of points let everyone be really good at couple things without totally overlapping, which they liked. - edit - I do not think that experiment is a reasonable course for core rules, just saying it worked as a fun thing in our case at the time FRINGE fucked around with this message at 10:00 on Apr 17, 2018 |
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Apr 17, 2018 09:55
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FRINGE posted:I love ability checks, and have done that before with other stats. I ran "Dex" as three stats (speed, agility, dexterity), Con as two (endurance, constitution), Int as two (intelligence, perception), and Wis as two (wisdom, will). This was an experiment with experienced players who were very used to the crunching, and it made for some fun nuance. (I also re-added "comeliness" from 1eUA, but just let the players assign a number of their choice, unless they wanted >16 or <6.)
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Apr 17, 2018 10:22
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Splicer posted:They really dropped the ball here not leveraging archetypes into being the multiclass system. "A bit of Wizard" should be a generic archetype available to everyone. If you get sick of being a Fighter who Wizards you can swap out at level X to be a Wizard who Fighters. Then you can frontload classes as much as you want because the archetype progression doesn't have to match the class progression. A cool way to do this would be to have a "multiclass" section in each class, then allow any other class to take that as their archetype. Shunt everything that's not fighter/thief/wizard/cleric into archetypes of those, and you'll echo what 2nd ed looked like on release, where you couldn't multiclass stuff like Bard or Specialist Wizard, get Weapon Specialistion unless you were a plain Fighter, or be a Druid/Paladin/Wizard/Bard. And yeah, that automatically means that you don't have to think "what if someone dips a level (or X levels)" during the design process, because you can remove any problem abilities from the multiclass archetype. FRINGE posted:I love ability checks, and have done that before with other stats. I ran "Dex" as three stats (speed, agility, dexterity), Con as two (endurance, constitution), Int as two (intelligence, perception), and Wis as two (wisdom, will). This was an experiment with experienced players who were very used to the crunching, and it made for some fun nuance. (I also re-added "comeliness" from 1eUA, but just let the players assign a number of their choice, unless they wanted >16 or <6.) Nah, that'd be OK for core rules. I don't think it matters whether you go more or less granular, as long as no one stat does heaps more than any other. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Apr 17, 2018 |
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Apr 17, 2018 10:57
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Elysiume posted:Good deities created races with free will--a human, dwarf, or elf who is evil could become good, much like a person who is good could become evil. Evil deities did not. Evil aligned races can be good, but they are "inclined towards evil" and "struggle against [their] innate tendencies [toward evil]." Woah. So a god that creates a race that is compelled to do good (which I’m defining as “betterment of all”) is considered evil due to the race’s lack of free will? I kinda get it, but at the same time, kinda don’t...
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Apr 17, 2018 13:01
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Pollyanna posted:Woah. So a god that creates a race that is compelled to do good (which I’m defining as “betterment of all”) is considered evil due to the race’s lack of free will? I kinda get it, but at the same time, kinda don’t... If you use the outer planar stuff at all, even as a backdrop, then "actual evil" cant really be attained by most things. Like on a spectrum from "actually neutral" (lets say a mindless slime) to "holy poo poo true evil" (an ultroloth), the nastiest orc in the world is probably like 1/2 way between the two. At least thats my take on it. The entities that are built out of the fundamental attributes of the "alignment" planes are the end of the continuum.
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Apr 17, 2018 13:17
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lotta :orctruths: in this thread
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Apr 17, 2018 13:18
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okay so when I wrote about how a Goblin is always going to be evil because the book says so, my underlying point was that you probably shouldn't concern yourself with alignment too much, because it leads you down a path of "we should just massacre every goblin ever because they're all and always evil", along with the ethical vortex that is the orcish baby.
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Apr 17, 2018 13:24
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FRINGE posted:I think that they were saying that (in this incarnation of DnD or the setting or whatever) good deities gave their various muppets free will. So while many of their creatures choose to emulate their gods (being good), they do not have any built-in compulsions to do so. If you're making up a cosmology for a game of play pretend elves though then yeah that's how it works.
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Apr 17, 2018 13:27
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gradenko_2000 posted:okay so when I wrote about how a Goblin is always going to be evil because the book says so, my underlying point was that you probably shouldn't concern yourself with alignment too much, because it leads you down a path of "we should just massacre every goblin ever because they're all and always evil", along with the ethical vortex that is the orcish baby. But I feel like murdering every goblin you see is what the game wants you to do.
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Apr 17, 2018 13:30
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Splicer posted:This is, of course, bullshit, since most of what we consider "normal" behaviour is cobbled together from millennia of competing berry-gathering algorythms. Anyone building a sapient mind from scratch would have to make a bunch of baffling, not to say horrifying, design choices to end up with the human capacity for what we call evil #galaxybrain #edgeyteenagerthoughts #evopsyche101 But for their idea, yeah, when there are fundamental forces of good/law/chaos/evil and planes nominally made out of the stuff, then by comparative design you (as a god) could predispose your project-critter to "being a certain way", because there is some kind of template for what that "way" is. (And that is even more refined when youre the "god of X", and you want them to be like "X".)
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Apr 17, 2018 13:34
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yes, see these ridges on the goblin skull, right there above the eyes? that means they will never be able to live alongside humans and must be exterminated on sight without hesitation
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Apr 17, 2018 13:34
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kidkissinger posted:But I feel like murdering every goblin you see is what the game wants you to do. I mean, you could, but if that's the assumption going in then you shouldn't really need (or want) to interrogate a moral or ethical reason for why (or why not), either.
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Apr 17, 2018 13:34
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Serf posted:yes, see these ridges on the goblin skull, right there above the eyes? that means they will never be able to live alongside humans and must be exterminated on sight without hesitation Unless your dm starts with "theyre evil, nothing to discuss" and then whatever.
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Apr 17, 2018 13:38
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The way D&D cosmology is set up and what it implies for alignment raises a lot of questions that don't have any good answers for anyone with a modern sense of moral philosophy. I generally ignore the outer planes all together for this reason. On a separate note, I unironically enjoy playing in the Sword Coast because I grew up playing Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, so it's cool to have recognizable set pieces.
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Apr 17, 2018 14:07
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Evil is whatever my lights up my detect evil spell. AKA Circle of protection from philosophy.
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Apr 17, 2018 14:08
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detect confirmation bias
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Apr 17, 2018 14:09
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Apr 17, 2018 14:16
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i'm just picturing a goblin paladin of bhaal casting detect evil on a human cleric of pelor and watching the fireworks
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Apr 17, 2018 14:19
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Serf posted:i'm just picturing a goblin paladin of bhaal casting detect evil on a human cleric of pelor and watching the fireworks "From a certain point of view, The Paladins of Kord are evil...." EDIT: I'll say it in code: Blalignment Blis Blupid. Torchlighter fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Apr 17, 2018 |
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Apr 17, 2018 14:44
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Torchlighter posted:"From a certain point of view, The Paladins of Kord are evil...." Then you are lost! alignment blows and should die but never will
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Apr 17, 2018 14:55
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does that mean we're the baddies?- adventurers finding out everything they've killed was just a guy living his life in peace
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Apr 17, 2018 14:56
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So what would be the best class to play a fake-paladin? That is, a character who goes around telling everyone they're a paladin and declaring people Evil? Need... heavy armour, minor healing ability. A horse. Any class, then, with a couple of feats. drat, now I want to run a plotline about a Big Bad who floods the land with false paladins.
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Apr 17, 2018 15:02
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Just make them real paladins who follow an evil deity that also the big bad follows and was gifted the paladins by the deity to ${generic.fantasy.motivation}.
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Apr 17, 2018 15:09
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lofi posted:So what would be the best class to play a fake-paladin? That is, a character who goes around telling everyone they're a paladin and declaring people Evil? Make them real Paladins of the Oath of Colonization (Conquest). They're enlightened advanced peoples not like those primitive savages who have to shown the light. By force.
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Apr 17, 2018 15:16
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Xae posted:Make them real Paladins of the Oath of Colonization (Conquest). if only there was a hardcover adventure that'd fit that theme
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Apr 17, 2018 15:32
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Kaysette posted:if only there was a hardcover adventure that'd fit that theme i think its out of print but you could always try your luck... 
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Apr 17, 2018 15:34
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Serf posted:i think its out of print but you could always try your luck... Oh you sweet summer child, it's even print-on-demand http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/177832/X8-Drums-on-Fire-Mountain-Basic
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Apr 17, 2018 15:39
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gradenko_2000 posted:Oh you sweet summer child, it's even print-on-demand 
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Apr 17, 2018 15:41
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See, all this "goblins/orcs are evil and are always evil murder them" talk is why I was real happy when I noticed that Volo's in the section about kobolds threw in some fluff about communities sometimes having understandings with local kobolds where they have the little buggers dig them tunnels and sewers and stuff and they let them live in their little burrows under the city where it's safe. Why can't they touch on peaceful interactions with the other monster races? Why can't kingdoms hire orcish mercenaries and stuff instead of them always, exclusively, being marauding savages that burn and kill everything they encounter. Also makes it so they don't have to keep dancing around the way half-orcs are made if people can get along with orcs.
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Apr 17, 2018 15:50
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Serf posted:i think its out of print but you could always try your luck... i was trying to do a tomb of annihilation goof but 
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Apr 17, 2018 15:53
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imagine this: humans, kobolds and orcs living side by side in the same communities
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Apr 17, 2018 15:54
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It's almost as if the work from which all high fantasy is derived is really racist
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Apr 17, 2018 15:59
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All those [stone] cunning dwarves
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Apr 17, 2018 16:01
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Serf posted:imagine this: humans, kobolds and orcs living side by side in the same communities As long as goblins stick to their stinking holes
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Apr 17, 2018 16:01
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Alignment talk makes me miss Planescape as a setting, where too many people acting the wrong alignment in a gate town can slide it into another plane.
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Apr 17, 2018 16:35
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Glagha posted:See, all this "goblins/orcs are evil and are always evil murder them" talk is why I was real happy when I noticed that Volo's in the section about kobolds threw in some fluff about communities sometimes having understandings with local kobolds where they have the little buggers dig them tunnels and sewers and stuff and they let them live in their little burrows under the city where it's safe. Why can't they touch on peaceful interactions with the other monster races? Why can't kingdoms hire orcish mercenaries and stuff instead of them always, exclusively, being marauding savages that burn and kill everything they encounter. Also makes it so they don't have to keep dancing around the way half-orcs are made if people can get along with orcs. Because racism is real and correct in dungeons and dragons
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Apr 17, 2018 16:37
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Serf posted:imagine this: humans, kobolds and orcs living side by side in the same communities I'm starting up a Strike game where the bad guy won and the world was wrecked and the kingdoms of man were scattered and now everybody lives together with monsters and fairies in a rennaisance-era social democracy
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Apr 17, 2018 16:40
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Serf posted:imagine this: humans, kobolds and orcs living side by side in the same communities I don't wanna
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Apr 17, 2018 18:26
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I always hate the idea that evil is just a switch in your brain that evil deities turn on in their creations. Evil is obviously about cultural beliefs. Of course down that road lies, "are we the real monsters" so I just have my players fight skeletons instead.
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Apr 17, 2018 18:36
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mastershakeman posted:I don't wanna well yes we all knew that already
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Apr 17, 2018 18:39
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