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I think Fireball has explicitly lacked concussive force in its "detonation" for editions now and we all just impart that to it because fiery explosions are cooler than fiery eruptions.
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Oct 6, 2020 17:55
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SuperKlaus posted:I think Fireball has explicitly lacked concussive force in its "detonation" for editions now and we all just impart that to it because fiery explosions are cooler than fiery eruptions. How does the Fireball do damage, if it somehow doesnt even knock over glasses, or set Exploding barrels on fire? I mean...obviously the answer is "Magic" but
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Oct 6, 2020 18:01
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SuperKlaus posted:I think Fireball has explicitly lacked concussive force in its "detonation" for editions now and we all just impart that to it because fiery explosions are cooler than fiery eruptions. Doesn't Meteor Swarm do bludgeoning/force damage? I wish fireball actually did damage to perishables, though. At least they get ignited, so that setting off a fireball in a wooden cottage will still eventually burn it down. Poil posted:It is also hilariously broken and pointlessly overcomplicated, like so much else Shadowrun. Shadowrun has the highest ratio to "oh poo poo all of these ideas are rad!" to "oh poo poo these rules are a mess!" of any pnp I've played.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:06
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Poil posted:It is also hilariously broken and pointlessly overcomplicated, like so much else Shadowrun. You have to roll and calculate the blast radius, bounce it off a surface, then back the distance to the opposite surface, bounce it back again etc for the entire blast range and calculate the damage on each pass and then do that for all eight directions. Just imagine a grenade with 10m radius going off in the middle of a 2m wide and 2.5m high corridor (only 6 directions). The end result is tons and tons more damage than any character can soak so splat. Hell if the ruling applies to flashbangs they would instagib the beefiest of trolls into a fine paste. Oh and I almost forgot, you also need to make barrier armor and soak rolls for the walls, floor, ceiling of course. Shadowrun's rules are so terrible that when my group decided to play it my reaction was to create an entirely new system to run it because that would be less work.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:09
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Yeah that's very possible. I've been in a game where the DM had converted another system into SR, it was ok except it couldn't handle anything other than human characters at all (a troll could throw rocks several kilometers at almost no penalty).habeasdorkus posted:Shadowrun has the highest ratio to "oh poo poo all of these ideas are rad!" to "oh poo poo these rules are a mess!" of any pnp I've played.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:21
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I believe in the old days (I mean AD&D, I'm not quite THAT old) Fireball expressly stated it did not explode, but I do not think in the old days it expressly stated it wouldn't light flammables on fire. That might be a 3e-ism. I believe the idea in 2e was that it was a spell to make an area get extremely, uniformly hot for a moment (no expansion from a central point) and please don't worry about the physics of it thanks. Kind of a Flame Strike. I don't have my 2e PHB handy to check.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:28
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Yeah, it's just that if you start thinking too hard you arrive at absurdities, like that you could literally hang a curtain made of paper in front of yourself to protect yourself from a fireball. Person A: Just around a corner of a 10 ft thick stone wall. Hit Person B: Standing in the middle of a waterfall of gasoline: not hit.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:34
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loving magic, not behaving rationally and all. "Look at me, I'm a wizard, I cast spells that make no sense at all! The way in which I disrupt and bypass the natural order does not follow the laws of physics!"
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Oct 6, 2020 18:41
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Cat Mattress posted:loving magic, not behaving rationally and all. "Look at me, I'm a wizard, I cast spells that make no sense at all! The way in which I disrupt and bypass the natural order does not follow the laws of physics!" My favorite interpretation of magic is like a distributed trickster god that does what it wants not what you want. It only obeys the apparent laws of magic because it feels like it.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:43
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When I roll around on the floor it doesn't put the magical fire out 
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Oct 6, 2020 18:45
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SuperKlaus posted:I believe in the old days (I mean AD&D, I'm not quite THAT old) Fireball expressly stated it did not explode, but I do not think in the old days it expressly stated it wouldn't light flammables on fire. That might be a 3e-ism. I believe the idea in 2e was that it was a spell to make an area get extremely, uniformly hot for a moment (no expansion from a central point) and please don't worry about the physics of it thanks. Kind of a Flame Strike. I don't have my 2e PHB handy to check. I do. Hang on a sec. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook (Second Printing, May 1995) posted:A fireball is an explosive burst of flame, which detonates with a low roar and delivers damage proportional to the level of the wizard who cast it - 1d6 points of damage for each level of experience of the spellcaster (up to a maximum of 10d6). The burst of the fireball creates little pressure and generally conforms to the shape of the area in which it occurs. The fireball fills an area equal to its normal spherical volume (roughly 33,000 cubic feet - thirty-three 10-foot x 10-foot x 10-foot cubes). Besides causing damage to creatures, the fireball ignites all combustible materials within its burst radius, and the heat of the fireball melts soft metals such as gold, copper, silver, etc. Exposed items require saving throws vs. magical fire to determine if they are affected, but items in the possession of a creature that rolls a successful saving throw are unaffected by the fireball. So it does explode, but the pressure released is not significant enough to do damage in addition to the damage the fire causes. It will also set everything flammable in the area on fire, and will also explode prematurely if something interrupts its trajectory towards its designated target point.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:49
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Fire can do damage without being concussive, and a concussive explosion doesn't need to be firey. Hollywood has lied to you. A lot of clarifications about spells sound like they're Wizards of the Coast yelling "stop having fun" at players constructing weird magical nonsense out of default spells, although I wonder if that specifically was some rear end in a top hat arguing that fireball is an explosion and therefore exempt from protection from fire. I wonder if there's a roleplay system where players have to construct spells from scratch out of base elements, because I've seen online a lot of people who want to do complex things with creative uses of spells and real-world physics, and D&D seems not intended for that form of gameplay.
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Oct 6, 2020 19:13
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3.5 D&D has that once you hit level 20. It was... poorly implemented.
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Oct 6, 2020 19:15
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ikanreed posted:3.5 D&D has that once you hit level 20. It does provide a nice storytelling hook, though, for epic NPC casters. Things like Cloister, Familicide, etc. Xykon's primary epic spell, Superb Dispelling, speaks to his general anti-wizard build, so it's thematically relevant even though it's a stock epic spell.
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Oct 6, 2020 19:19
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Poil posted:I'm really disappointed they didn't do a 6th edition. The rules could use some love and care by at least somewhat competent developers.
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Oct 6, 2020 19:31
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SlothfulCobra posted:I wonder if there's a roleplay system where players have to construct spells from scratch out of base elements, because I've seen online a lot of people who want to do complex things with creative uses of spells and real-world physics, and D&D seems not intended for that form of gameplay. I think it'd be more the province of something like Mage: the Ascension. Get a party from the technocratic conventions, or at least the borderline-technomancer traditions (Order of Hermes, Sons of Ether, Virtual Adept) and you're ready to get a lot of this kind of nerdery.
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Oct 6, 2020 21:06
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I think a lot of DND stuff is “ hey what sounds cool?” And not much is thought about it. Like, the melting point of copper is 1084 Celsius and 1983 F. Like, it also depends on if it means. “ deforms” or “ is a puddle of molten metal”. So to have copper/gold melt from a fireball in a. Open room and not in a forge, requires Goddamn I’m not even going to pretend that I even know where’ to start on the physics Yes, I know it’s magic, but I prefer Magic, while capable of bending and breaking the Laws of physics, Sill exists and manipulates said laws.
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Oct 6, 2020 21:13
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SlothfulCobra posted:I wonder if there's a roleplay system where players have to construct spells from scratch out of base elements, because I've seen online a lot of people who want to do complex things with creative uses of spells and real-world physics, and D&D seems not intended for that form of gameplay. Ars Magica is very much about that - even more than its more popular descendant Mage: The Ascension. wikipedia posted:The centerpiece of Ars Magica is the system of Hermetic Magic devised by Bonisagus. It consists of 15 Arts, divided into 5 Techniques and 10 Forms. This is sometimes called a "Verb/Noun" system: the Technique is the verb (what effect the magic has), and the Form is the noun (the entity, object or substance that is affected or brought forth). These 'verb-noun' combinations can be used to cast both Formulaic spells (which are recorded in texts, are learned through study and mastered through experience, and have known, fixed effects) and Spontaneous spells (which a caster improvises with no prior knowledge other than the Arts themselves, giving the potential results greater flexibility but lower potency). Every apprentice (with a few Ex Miscellanea exceptions) is "opened" in all 15 Arts before fully joining the Order; each Art begins with a Score of 0 and a mage may usually only increase one of them during a season (see below). It's the RPG I've always wanted to run, but it's kind of the opposite of a one-shot game - it's all about a stable group of players alternating roles and growing their home base over the in-game decades.
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Oct 6, 2020 21:35
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I used to play mage with ars magicka spells, worked really well.
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Oct 6, 2020 21:39
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If only there was some sort of person in charge of a game - a "Game Master", if you will - who could make on the spot rulings instead of having to strictly apply RAW even when nonsensical results happen. Oh well!
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Oct 6, 2020 22:23
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So we all agree this is 100% going to be the door they need now, right?
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Oct 6, 2020 22:56
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Like a DM is not going to let someone cobble together Locate City: Bomb on the fly.
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Oct 6, 2020 22:59
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SlothfulCobra posted:I wonder if there's a roleplay system where players have to construct spells from scratch out of base elements, because I've seen online a lot of people who want to do complex things with creative uses of spells and real-world physics, Unknown Armies lets you completely make poo poo up provided there's a thematic/symbolic justification for it. It's like Tim Powers Novels: The RPG. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Oct 6, 2020 |
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Oct 6, 2020 23:15
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Eifert Posting posted:So we all agree this is 100% going to be the door they need now, right? We have spent several pages disagreeing about this
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Oct 7, 2020 00:02
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ikanreed posted:We have spent several pages disagreeing about this Wow, apparently half of y'all are real dumb.
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Oct 7, 2020 00:45
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Johnny Aztec posted:I think a lot of DND stuff is “ hey what sounds cool?” And not much is thought about it. Nah, it's cooler that it's bullshit otherwise all you have is just casters doing everythign and I prefer it when she is like "The fighter blinks 30 ft forward by sheer speed and ignites their blade in freezing fire through sheer force of will and determination" instead of having to haggle over the physics of bullshit fantasy stories.
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Oct 7, 2020 02:17
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cargohills posted:If only there was some sort of person in charge of a game - a "Game Master", if you will - who could make on the spot rulings instead of having to strictly apply RAW even when nonsensical results happen. Oh well! if only it was possible to write a game that didn't systematically prompt the gm to only make the stupidest and most fiddly calls based on 40 years of cruft and gaming formats that no longer exist in the wild, rather than writing a story and speaking of story they are absolutely finding out the sabotage here, but whoever said it was even odds of blaming monster or thinking dwarves did it is probably approximating rightness. there are probably also even odds of it being The Door
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Oct 7, 2020 02:22
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Eifert Posting posted:Wow, apparently half of y'all are real dumb. I sarcastically agree, implying it is actually the other half that are the dumb ones.
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Oct 7, 2020 02:29
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Door leads to the world inside the snarl. Xykon and co pass through a bunch of coats, then trees, and then come to a lamp post. The question of who marked it gets dropped as soon as the faun attacks.
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Oct 7, 2020 02:58
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Can Durkon and Minrah hear or in any way perceive what's being said and done above them while they're in the ground?
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Oct 7, 2020 10:20
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jeebus bob posted:Can Durkon and Minrah hear or in any way perceive what's being said and done above them while they're in the ground? Yes, Hearing's allowed by 3.5e's Meld into Stone Spell. "Nothing that goes on outside the stone can be seen, but the character can still hear what happens around the character."
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Oct 7, 2020 10:55
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Eifert Posting posted:So we all agree this is 100% going to be the door they need now, right? It's possible, but I feel like it's a bit too early for them to find the gate. Why? Because as the stage is currently set, there's no reason for the Order to follow Xykon through that door. They're not going to charge in blind after the baddies without a compelling reason, and they currently have no reason to think the gate might be behind that door. This is definitely going to be a fake-X door, which will stir discord and distrust in the members of Team Xykon and leave them beat-up and pissed as hell, but I'm guessing it's also going to pull them off-stage long enough for Team Roy to poke around the area looking for clues and accidentally run into our mysterious third group.
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Oct 9, 2020 16:18
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Yeah, there’s been a running theme of intra-Evil conflict through the whole comic. That all coming to a head right now, just before the end, is probably the best time for it.
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Oct 9, 2020 20:10
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Vizuyos posted:It's possible, but I feel like it's a bit too early for them to find the gate. that's a good point, it's a plausible reason for them to be offstage for a while and also a plausible reason for them not to optimally hunt out and kill the OOTS (since zykon is sick of redcloak and just wants to blow stuff up). We've had a good meaty first encounter, so it's a good time to get the group back together. Roy is going to be so, so mad. Of course that's not to say that's how it's gonna happen, my guesses around this are always woefully wrong.
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Oct 9, 2020 20:25
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There's gonna be a big confrontation between Roy and Durkon, but Durkon's going to win by pointing out that there are cosmic stakes.
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Oct 9, 2020 20:27
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Take a look at 1150 again. The part at the end where Durkon calls out the rest of the party feels like just an end-of-strip joke, but before he got vamped there's no way Durkon would've done that. He was always completely passive and just supporting the rest of the group, but I'm taking this as an early sign that he's prepared to be forceful now when appropriate. And since he has direct orders from Thor, there will be a lot of appropriate moments.
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Oct 9, 2020 20:32
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Forgot how good "In my defense, I am not very smart" was.
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Oct 9, 2020 20:52
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ultrafilter posted:Take a look at 1150 again. The part at the end where Durkon calls out the rest of the party feels like just an end-of-strip joke, but before he got vamped there's no way Durkon would've done that. He was always completely passive and just supporting the rest of the group, but I'm taking this as an early sign that he's prepared to be forceful now when appropriate. And since he has direct orders from Thor, there will be a lot of appropriate moments. The problem is this first time he tried it, it was a complete unmitigated disaster he apparently had no good out for.
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Oct 9, 2020 20:56
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Kerning Chameleon posted:The problem is this first time he tried it, it was a complete unmitigated disaster he apparently had no good out for. classic oots 1151 is also a good strip
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Oct 9, 2020 21:05
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sebmojo posted:classic oots Honestly, Belkar might be one of my favorite characters just because of the roundabout, awkward path he's taken to becoming, if not a good person, then at least a normal, reasonable one. "Munchkin has to learn how to roleplay" is a pretty great character arc.
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Oct 9, 2020 21:27
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