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Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
imo anything with a duration outside of combat lasts for "a scene," 4E isn't B/X

e: wow this is a terrible snipe

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Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Splicer posted:

Encounter is purely how long until you can cast it again, it isn't a duration except for things that say "last until the end of the encounter". That wall will last until you stop sustaining it, and after 5 minutes you can pop up another wall and sustain it with a crunched move action, and 5 minutes later a third wall sustained with your crunched action.

Presumably falling asleep turns them all off.

No, this is a daily power that says you can sustain it until the end of the encounter, so I'm pretty sure you can concentrate it for up to 5 minutes and then it vanishes.

I don't think your plan works for a sustainable encounter power, either, because it's not clear to me that taking a "sustain" action is compatible with taking a short rest.

Nickoten
Oct 16, 2005

Now there'll be some quiet in this town.
Honestly that does strike me as a legitimate example of a 4e spell having less problem-solving and I don't think inferring things not in the book really helps. That said, that is still a really good comparison to look at because clearly the duration is doing a lot of work there, much moreso than 3.5e's verbose rules writing style.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Ferrinus posted:

No, this is a daily power that says you can sustain it until the end of the encounter, so I'm pretty sure you can concentrate it for up to 5 minutes and then it vanishes.

I don't think your plan works for a sustainable encounter power, either, because it's not clear to me that taking a "sustain" action is compatible with taking a short rest.
yes but have you considered that I can't read

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Splicer posted:

yes but have you considered that I can't read

I couldn't tell if you were joking and thought I was walking into a trap by writing that response!

Nickoten posted:

Honestly that does strike me as a legitimate example of a 4e spell having less problem-solving and I don't think inferring things not in the book really helps. That said, that is still a really good comparison to look at because clearly the duration is doing a lot of work there, much moreso than 3.5e's verbose rules writing style.

What do you mean by "less problem-solving", though? The wall's temporary rather than indefinite, but at that point you're just haggling, right? It'd be more convenient if it was longer lasting, and also more convenient if it was per encounter, or whatever, but likewise the 3e spell could be level 2 or 3 instead of 4, or rewrite the memories of onlookers. And there are indefinite illusions in 4e, they just have ritual cast times.

Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Dec 23, 2022

S.J.
May 19, 2008

Just who the hell do you think we are?

The 4e version has less problem solving in the sense that if you came up against a problem the illusory wall would solve, you'd actually have to consider how to use the 4e version correctly rather than just using your spells as a blank "I beat the scenario" card.

Err, wait

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Ferrinus posted:

I couldn't tell if you were joking and thought I was walking into a trap by writing that response!
The trap is that I'm quite ill and should probably stop trying to do things that involve thinking.

Nickoten
Oct 16, 2005

Now there'll be some quiet in this town.

Ferrinus posted:

I couldn't tell if you were joking and thought I was walking into a trap by writing that response!

What do you mean by "less problem-solving", though? The wall's temporary rather than indefinite, but at that point you're just haggling, right? It'd be more convenient if it was longer lasting, and also more convenient if it was per encounter, or whatever, but likewise the 3e spell could be level 2 or 3 instead of 4, or rewrite the memories of onlookers. And there are indefinite illusions in 4e, they just have ritual cast times.

Sorry, I should have said less problem-solving potential. As in, the number of situations where I might be able to have some significant impact on the environment using an illusory wall for 6 seconds is a lot narrower than with, say, 10 minutes or an hour or something. It's not simply a matter of convenience but what kinds of play can emerge from using a wall for 6 seconds versus being able to put one somewhere for a longer period of time. Even just a minute would turn that spell into something you could cast while waiting for someone to approach the illusion from like another room or down the street or something like that. In other words, something you could develop some kind of plan around.

If there are indefinite illusions in 4e that's great. But I didn't make the choice to compare those two spells specifically; someone else did with the assurance that it was a fair comparison. If it's not, take it up with them.

S.J. posted:

The 4e version has less problem solving in the sense that if you came up against a problem the illusory wall would solve, you'd actually have to consider how to use the 4e version correctly rather than just using your spells as a blank "I beat the scenario" card.

Err, wait

Not sure I see how the difference between 6 seconds and something longer is the difference between solving problems outright without thought and "using the the spell correctly." What scenarios are people using an illusory wall alone to beat?

Nickoten fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Dec 23, 2022

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Nickoten posted:

Sorry, I should have said less problem-solving potential. As in, the number of situations where I might be able to have some significant impact on the environment using an illusory wall for 6 seconds is a lot narrower than with, say, 10 minutes or an hour or something. It's not simply a matter of convenience but what kinds of play can emerge from using a wall for 6 seconds versus being able to put one somewhere for a longer period of time.

If there are indefinite illusions in 4e that's great. But I didn't make the choice to compare those two spells specifically; someone else did with the assurance that it was a fair comparison. If it's not, take it up with them.

I gotcha. Well, in that sense I agree, since the 4e wall doesn't last as long; it's better for emergencies than camouflage. (On the other hand, the 4e wall is much longer; you'd need to memorize and cast multiple copies of 3.5e Illusory Wall if you wanted to hide a big gap). However, you're only right in the sense that the 3.5e Illusory Wall has less problem-solving potential than 3.5e Fabricate or 3.5e Wish; the salient differences here are in-character properties of the magic itself which might render it more or less convenient, more or less powerful, etc.

The reason I put them side by side was to examine an attitude I keep running into that 4e utility magic isn't just slower or otherwise less convenient to use on average but less "real", like it doesn't have the same narrative presence or isn't even supposed to be used.

Nickoten
Oct 16, 2005

Now there'll be some quiet in this town.

Ferrinus posted:

I gotcha. Well, in that sense I agree, since the 4e wall doesn't last as long; it's better for emergencies than camouflage. (On the other hand, the 4e wall is much longer; you'd need to memorize and cast multiple copies of 3.5e Illusory Wall if you wanted to hide a big gap). However, you're only right in the sense that the 3.5e Illusory Wall has less problem-solving potential than 3.5e Fabricate or 3.5e Wish; the salient differences here are in-character properties of the magic itself which might render it more or less convenient, more or less powerful, etc.

The reason I put them side by side was to examine an attitude I keep running into that 4e utility magic isn't just slower or otherwise less convenient to use on average but less "real", like it doesn't have the same narrative presence or isn't even supposed to be used.

Oh, I missed that it was you who posted it in the first place. And yeah I always found it a little silly to say that the thing described is less "real" if there aren't rules describing its realness with precision. It's enough to say both spells make a wall appear that seems real to others.

The point about problem solving assumed (based on this comparison being chosen) that this is what you would use in 4e if you wanted to make some kind of illusion. Based on what you're saying, it sounds like you'd use some other ability instead if you wanted to do that outside of combat?

Edit: I do want to distinguish this "problem solving potential" thing from like a spell's overall utility. Of course Wish or Fabricate solve more problems and are more powerful. What I mean when I say that is to look at a spell and think about what kind of interesting play might emerge from having it, its limitations, etc. In other words, what does the ability inspire the player to try? I guess what I'm using "problem solving potential" here to mean is the potential to aid in and enhance problem-solving play, not to eradicate it. The best problem-solving spells change your decision-making by creating some kind of new opportunity or method, rather than just bypassing a thing straightforwardly.

For me, I think 6 seconds feels too short to really get the gears turning, but that doesn't mean it has to be indefinite or just generally more powerful. Spells with interesting limitations are what make for fun problem-solving play, not necessarily just stronger or more widely applicable spells. The line is arbitrary and table-dependent, of course, 6 seconds being too short is just my opinion on that.

Nickoten fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Dec 23, 2022

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Nickoten posted:

Oh, I missed that it was you who posted it in the first place. And yeah I always found it a little silly to say that the thing described is less "real" if there aren't rules describing its realness with precision. It's enough to say both spells make a wall appear that seems real to others.

The point about problem solving assumed (based on this comparison being chosen) that this is what you would use in 4e if you wanted to make some kind of illusion. Based on what you're saying, it sounds like you'd use some other ability instead if you wanted to do that outside of combat?

Yeah, in 4e longstanding illusions and other environment-sculpting effects are usually produced by rituals with minutes-long cast times that cost small amounts of gold (or alchemical, herbal, etc. components that themselves are measured in gp). Here's the most relevant example:



It lasts only twenty four hours and onlookers have a chance to spot that something's wrong with it as soon as they see it, but on the other hand it's bigger and you can create it as early as 5th level. I actually like the immediate rolloff because it answers some questions that would otherwise be ambiguous with 3.5e-era illusions, e.g. the party hides in a dungeon hallway behind an illusory wall to make sure a monster patrol passes them by. ...but do the monsters remember that there should be a doorway there? Is the illusory wall actually flush with the walls and ceilings? Do its illusory bricks appear to line up correctly with the brickwork around it? Is it preventing light and shadows from being cast across it? What should I roll to resolve the question?

Nickoten posted:

Edit: I do want to distinguish this "problem solving potential" thing from like a spell's overall utility. Of course Wish or Fabricate solve more problems and are more powerful. What I mean when I say that is to look at a spell and think about what kind of interesting play might emerge from having it, its limitations, etc. In other words, what does the ability inspire the player to try? I guess what I'm using "problem solving potential" here to mean is the potential to aid in and enhance problem-solving play, not to eradicate it. The best problem-solving spells change your decision-making by creating some kind of new opportunity or method, rather than just bypassing a thing straight-forwardly.

For me, I think 6 seconds feels too short to really get the gears turning, but that doesn't mean it has to be indefinite or just generally more powerful. Spells with interesting limitations are what make for fun problem-solving play, not necessarily just stronger or more widely applicable spells. The line is arbitrary and table-dependent, of course, 6 seconds being too short is just my opinion on that.

It's five minutes, not six seconds. You just have to spend a "minor action" to concentrate on it on subsequent turns to keep it standing for those full five minutes. At six seconds it'd barely even be useful as a combat tool!

Nickoten
Oct 16, 2005

Now there'll be some quiet in this town.

Ferrinus posted:

Yeah, in 4e longstanding illusions and other environment-sculpting effects are usually produced by rituals with minutes-long cast times that cost small amounts of gold (or alchemical, herbal, etc. components that themselves are measured in gp). Here's the most relevant example:



It lasts only twenty four hours and onlookers have a chance to spot that something's wrong with it as soon as they see it, but on the other hand it's bigger and you can create it as early as 5th level. I actually like the immediate rolloff because it answers some questions that would otherwise be ambiguous with 3.5e-era illusions, e.g. the party hides in a dungeon hallway behind an illusory wall to make sure a monster patrol passes them by. ...but do the monsters remember that there should be a doorway there? Is the illusory wall actually flush with the walls and ceilings? Do its illusory bricks appear to line up correctly with the brickwork around it? Is it preventing light and shadows from being cast across it? What should I roll to resolve the question?

It's five minutes, not six seconds. You just have to spend a "minor action" to concentrate on it on subsequent turns to keep it standing for those full five minutes. At six seconds it'd barely even be useful as a combat tool!

Oh, then yeah that is totally a more appropriate thing to compare for a problem-solving play discussion. That seems much easier to use and just as creatively interesting as the 3.5 version. The one thing I wish that spell block answered was how you'd know if someone would think the illusion is off enough to warrant an insight roll in the first place (the "entitled to" language makes me think it's not automatic), but that's a much smaller problem to solve than what the 3.5 text asks of you.

Ferrinus posted:

Yeah, in 4e longstanding illusions and other environment-sculpting effects are usually produced by rituals with minutes-long cast times that cost small amounts of gold (or alchemical, herbal, etc. components that themselves are measured in gp). Here's the most relevant example:



It lasts only twenty four hours and onlookers have a chance to spot that something's wrong with it as soon as they see it, but on the other hand it's bigger and you can create it as early as 5th level. I actually like the immediate rolloff because it answers some questions that would otherwise be ambiguous with 3.5e-era illusions, e.g. the party hides in a dungeon hallway behind an illusory wall to make sure a monster patrol passes them by. ...but do the monsters remember that there should be a doorway there? Is the illusory wall actually flush with the walls and ceilings? Do its illusory bricks appear to line up correctly with the brickwork around it? Is it preventing light and shadows from being cast across it? What should I roll to resolve the question?

It's five minutes, not six seconds. You just have to spend a "minor action" to concentrate on it on subsequent turns to keep it standing for those full five minutes. At six seconds it'd barely even be useful as a combat tool!

Oh, d'oh. Yeah 5 minutes still has a lot of possibilities.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Nickoten posted:

Oh, then yeah that is totally a more appropriate thing to compare for a problem-solving play discussion. That seems much easier to use and just as creatively interesting as the 3.5 version. The one thing I wish that spell block answered was how you'd know if someone would think the illusion is off enough to warrant an insight roll in the first place (the "entitled to" language makes me think it's not automatic), but that's a much smaller problem to solve than what the 3.5 text asks of you.

I think "view" means they immediately get one insight check (presumably to notice stuff like that its shadow is off or that it's clipping through the floor) and once that fails they're pretty much fooled or not until they try to touch it since I'm not sure how else one is going to "interact" with an illusory object meaningfully. Maybe closely read an illusory placard?

Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Dec 23, 2022

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

trapstar posted:

Would "Ma Baker" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8NcQzMQN_U) and her sons be a good concept for the basis of villains in a campaign?


I mean they're the basis for the Beagle clan in the Duck comics so yes.

Nickoten
Oct 16, 2005

Now there'll be some quiet in this town.

Ferrinus posted:

I think "view" means they immediately get one insight check (presumably to notice stuff like its shadow is off or it's clipping through the floor or whatever) and once that fails they're pretty much fooled or not until they try to touch it since I'm not sure how else one is going to "interact" with an illusory object meaningfully. Maybe closely read an illusory placard?

Oh, so you'd read it to mean that anyone who looks at it immediately makes a check. My instinct was that only someone with reason to find it weird would stop to think about it.

GreenBuckanneer
Sep 15, 2007

If you all get holiday presents and get minis or boardgames you should share what they were imo

Tarnop
Nov 25, 2013

Pull me out

I've bought my parents Wingspan. They love birds and card games so I hope it's a winner

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Nickoten posted:

Oh, so you'd read it to mean that anyone who looks at it immediately makes a check. My instinct was that only someone with reason to find it weird would stop to think about it.

That'd make sense, but the "first time they see the illusion" is what convinced me the slightly harsher/more fragile reading is the correct one. The ritual does have the advantage that someone who realizes it's fake still has their line of sight obstructed, though.

...

I genuinely am interested in the answer to the question I asked at the end of my post, though: can Scorching Ray set something on fire? The precedent set by some but not all fire evocations clarifying that they do in fact ignite stuff really does put it in question and I can imagine scenarios in which a player and a GM are on either side of the argument (apprentice wizard misses their ranged touch attack while fighting an attacker in the academy library - do they get in trouble for burning down the stacks?). It just really strikes me as a concern localized to the D&D community, which is why you get people specifying that Eldritch Blast says "target: one creature" and that's why you can't use it to cut a rope or knock a bottle off a fence.

Tarnop
Nov 25, 2013

Pull me out

When I was running 4E, my answer was always yes if it seemed cool. However, I had spoken to the players at the start to say that if me saying yes as often as possible set precedents that were then abused I retained the right to start saying no to that thing.

Basically, if a rule seems too restrictive then we can bypass it in the name of fun but if we later discover that the rule existed because some players can't help themselves from making a one-off cool cinematic moment into part of their default combat opener then we go back to following the rule.

My preference was generally for the player's reputation in combat to spread and for smarter opponents to be ready for their tricks

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

GreenBuckanneer posted:

If you all get holiday presents and get minis or boardgames you should share what they were imo

Assorted gaming stuff I gave folks:

Scout (Oink version)
Deep Sea Adventure
Mork Borg
The 2nd edition Kingmaker AP (as a shared gift)
The DIE graphic novel omnibus

Tarnop
Nov 25, 2013

Pull me out

Those are all lovely gifts but DIE especially

My goal for this year is to get my group to play the DIE RPG but I can already see them rolling their eyes at the nested character thing so I'm lending them my comics first

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

I think spells can/should be ruled as creatively flexible outside of combat (e.g. you can set something on fire with scorching ray) to approximately the same extent that other character classes' abilities (not skills or feats, but class features, analogous to spells) can also be flexible outside of combat. I'm discounting skills and feats here because magic using character classes also get skills and feats, but arguably class-limited feat access plus giving nonmagic characters as many of those feats as magic characters get noncombat spell options could get you there.

To put it more clearly, I don't see why the GM shouldn't let the wizard light things on fire with Scorching Ray as long as the ranger gets to light things on fire by improvising a burning arrow, in about the same amount of time and with about the same amount of cost/effort/risk. If the Scorching Ray automatically hits but the ranger has to make an attack roll, and the ranger also has to have a torch or a flint and steel, and the ranger's shot takes minutes to set up, etc. etc. that kind of sucks right.

I think this is all coming from a place of active imagination and the fact that "magic" as an imaginary thing is obviously very flexible whereas character actions and abilities that seem to be analogous to what real world people can or did do is more restrictive of the imagination. It's easy to imagine how a wizard could magic up an illusory wall that hides everyone with a moment's concentration, but hard to imagine how a fighter could use Power Attack or Great Cleave or her experience with tower shields to do the same thing. Or even a rogue, who has to make one or more very difficult skill rolls, hiding in plain sight because there's nothing to hide behind, and this also doesn't help the rest of the party, even though hiding is obviously more in the rogue's domain than the wizard's.

In conclusion D&D spells should be liberally ruled as applicable for solving problems, but also the GM and players should agree that a fighter's power and toughness and puissance are just as supernatural, and he can totally hold up his shield, get everyone behind him, and be so brilliantly guarded that the passing patrol can't even think to look that direction and notice that there's someone there. And the barbarian's fiery disposition is so incendiary that she can concentrate on the rope on the other side of the room and literally set it aflame with her anger!

...ok I just obviously want a different game, right, I know, but hopefully this is illustrating a point somehow: Magic is bullshit.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
What compels me is a scenario like I gestured at previously: your apprentice wizard character is in the library when a monster attacks. They cast Scorching Ray, releasing two rays, one of which hits the monster and kills it but the other of which misses. The DM is like, your second ray goes wide, rakes one of the bookshelves, and starts a fire! Now you're in trouble!

And the player is like wait one loving second. Scorching ray does not ignite flammable materials. If it did it'd say so right there. And anyway, where does it say in the rules that missing a touch attack means I hit something else? Wouldn't I have to hit that unattended object's separate AC? And it's not like I get extra actions! You can't do this to me!

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

Tarnop posted:

My goal for this year is to get my group to play the DIE RPG but I can already see them rolling their eyes at the nested character thing so I'm lending them my comics first

Yea, that was a tricky one. I was rather disappointed that it didn't give details of the comic setting and just let you play a regular fantasy game with the variant classes. I mean, I know you can do that but you have to do all the work of the setting yourself, and all the defaults assume you're doing the weird two-level meta-game version.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Ferrinus posted:

What compels me is a scenario like I gestured at previously: your apprentice wizard character is in the library when a monster attacks. They cast Scorching Ray, releasing two rays, one of which hits the monster and kills it but the other of which misses. The DM is like, your second ray goes wide, rakes one of the bookshelves, and starts a fire! Now you're in trouble!

And the player is like wait one loving second. Scorching ray does not ignite flammable materials. If it did it'd say so right there. And anyway, where does it say in the rules that missing a touch attack means I hit something else? Wouldn't I have to hit that unattended object's separate AC? And it's not like I get extra actions! You can't do this to me!

I’d say that there’s interesting design space there, but in D&D (most to possibly all of them) it’d be a lot like playing with toys you got from the junkyard and hoping there isn’t broken glass : the well’s been too poisoned with decades of gotchya bullshit to make that interesting without more house-ruling than there’d be work in a page one rewrite.

Pretty interested in that page one rewrite though. Especially because I’m interested in how you’d have to cut up the narrative space so you maintain some semblance of balance between different kinds of magic. (I’m thinking about nWoD Mage Mind magic having a giant leg up by being able to attack without being vulgar while Forces got hosed, for instance.)

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer
I’m increasingly convinced that there are two versions of D&D that can never fully be reconciled.

One is the high-lethality dungeon crawling murderhobo game where getting in straight-up combats is a fatal error and life is cheap and you’re in it for the loot and loot alone. And the other is high fantasy action adventure where you’re Aragorn Stark of Melnibone and you’re on a quest to save the realm and combat is a test of skill between rounds of romancing the local nobility.

And like these are both fine styles of play. But they can’t really share the same rules. I adore 4e but it was very much heroic action fantasy and not brutal gritty dungeon crawling.

If I were WotC I’d be tempted to go back to the old brand split but it’s not necessarily about rules complexity because some folks who want heroic adventure want simple rules but so do the life-is-cheap folks. But the folks who want complex rules also kinda split. And, like, it’s a hard identity crisis to reconcile.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Ferrinus posted:

I think "view" means they immediately get one insight check (presumably to notice stuff like that its shadow is off or that it's clipping through the floor) and once that fails they're pretty much fooled or not until they try to touch it since I'm not sure how else one is going to "interact" with an illusory object meaningfully. Maybe closely read an illusory placard?
The last line elaborates on "view" to say that yeah as soon as you see it you get a check. I'd say "interacting" is a catchall to cover any situation where'd the GM feels the NPC has a reason to get a second shot at it; if you've created an illusory painting in place of one you've just stolen then someone just walking into the room immediately gets a shot at it but that's it. Someone walking into the room explicitly to show off his cool painting will get a roll chance when he walks in, and a second chance when he's pointing out the distinctive signature of the artist that you may or may not have duplicated correctly.

Lemon-Lime
Aug 6, 2009

Maxwell Lord posted:

I’m increasingly convinced that there are two versions of D&D that can never fully be reconciled.

One is the high-lethality dungeon crawling murderhobo game where getting in straight-up combats is a fatal error and life is cheap and you’re in it for the loot and loot alone. And the other is high fantasy action adventure where you’re Aragorn Stark of Melnibone and you’re on a quest to save the realm and combat is a test of skill between rounds of romancing the local nobility.

Gritty dungeon crawling hasn't been the thing D&D does for over 20 years now, arguably even longer depending on what AD&D2 splats you were running.

It has no interest in doing the former, and you have the entire OSR copycatting OD&D if you want to do level 0 funnel murderhobo loot-is-XP stuff.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Lemon-Lime posted:

Gritty dungeon crawling hasn't been the thing D&D does for over 20 years now, arguably even longer depending on what AD&D2 splats you were running.

It has no interest in doing the former, and you have the entire OSR copycatting OD&D if you want to do level 0 funnel murderhobo loot-is-XP stuff.
It still puts forward the illusion of supporting it, to the detriment of the rest of the game. There's a refusal to lock down what D&D-style play actually is because they (they being both the designers and a big chunk of the playerbase) are absolutely desperate to pretend D&D is a "generic" game system (except of course when someone adds something they don't like, in which case the added thing is "not D&D"). It's very important to a very vocal chunk of the playerbase that D&D "support" shitfarmer play, even if it absolutely does not actually support it.

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer
I mean that’s the thing, but there is this very strong contingent that believes that is what D&D should be.

Like I started with the Mentzer box set and the art for that is a warrior facing down a big dragon. There’s no sense that this is a game about being careful and tactical and avoiding unnecessary fights. It’s when you actually engage with the rules and realize first level characters are easily one-shot that you start to get what the game is supposed to be.

And like 3e and 4e leaned into heroic adventure and 5e tries to be a little like that with it being hard to straight up kill a character, but it’s also a while before getting in a big fight is a good idea. It really wants to occupy both spaces. And, well, that ain’t happening.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Maxwell Lord posted:

I’m increasingly convinced that there are two versions of D&D that can never fully be reconciled.

One is the high-lethality dungeon crawling murderhobo game where getting in straight-up combats is a fatal error and life is cheap and you’re in it for the loot and loot alone. And the other is high fantasy action adventure where you’re Aragorn Stark of Melnibone and you’re on a quest to save the realm and combat is a test of skill between rounds of romancing the local nobility.

And like these are both fine styles of play. But they can’t really share the same rules. I adore 4e but it was very much heroic action fantasy and not brutal gritty dungeon crawling.

If I were WotC I’d be tempted to go back to the old brand split but it’s not necessarily about rules complexity because some folks who want heroic adventure want simple rules but so do the life-is-cheap folks. But the folks who want complex rules also kinda split. And, like, it’s a hard identity crisis to reconcile.

I don't actually agree they can't share the same rules. Like, if you want a version of D&D in which actually getting into a straight fight is a failure state and it's up to you to either avoid or at least maximally tilt in your favor any combat ever, you can just run 4e but increase the level of every monster by 10. The degree to which combat is fun or lethal is a matter of degree and can be tweaked by just turning a single knob left or right within the same basic mechanical framework. And either way you'd have mutually-antagonistic groups of players reading the rules as though they were clauses in a divorce settlement or something. No, it says right here one creature, not one target--

juggalo baby coffin
Dec 2, 2007

How would the dog wear goggles and even more than that, who makes the goggles?


plagiarising monte cook for my worldbuilding and you will not believe how many non-stacking +1 modifiers the characters will have by the end of the novel

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Ferrinus posted:

I don't actually agree they can't share the same rules. Like, if you want a version of D&D in which actually getting into a straight fight is a failure state and it's up to you to either avoid or at least maximally tilt in your favor any combat ever, you can just run 4e but increase the level of every monster by 10. The degree to which combat is fun or lethal is a matter of degree and can be tweaked by just turning a single knob left or right within the same basic mechanical framework. And either way you'd have mutually-antagonistic groups of players reading the rules as though they were clauses in a divorce settlement or something. No, it says right here one creature, not one target--
Dialling up the lethality =/= a game designed for that level of lethality. D&D, any version since at least 3.0, is not designed to facilitate that level of lethality. Building new characters is complex, the initiative system actively fights against organically running away from an existing combat, and the entire rest of the game assumes "and then we started fighting" is the default resolution to most mechanics. A (good) game where fights are things to avoid has easy new character creation and/or ways to blow resources on avoiding or escaping fights where you're in over your head and/or will make the fights you do end up in still fun, even if character death is a likelyhood. Taking a game that otherwise assumes you're going to be in a lot of fights and making the fights impossible to win is not a "high lethality system".

Like you're genuinely just being silly here.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Splicer posted:

Dialling up the lethality =/= a game designed for that level of lethality. D&D, any version since at least 3.0, is not designed to facilitate that level of lethality. Building new characters is complex, the initiative system actively fights against organically running away from an existing combat, and the entire rest of the game assumes "and then we started fighting" is the default resolution to most mechanics. A (good) game where fights are things to avoid has easy new character creation and/or ways to blow resources on avoiding or escaping fights where you're in over your head and/or will make the fights you do end up in still fun, even if character death is a likelyhood. Taking a game that otherwise assumes you're going to be in a lot of fights and making the fights impossible to win is not a "high lethality system".

Like you're genuinely just being silly here.

If building a new character is complex (which it is, but is quite fast once you have experience; I did a lot of one-shots over 4e's lifetime) that just gives you that much more incentive not to get killed. An initiative/OA system that makes combatants sticky is an incentive not to get into fights in the first place, and so on. Since the actual rules for out-of-combat task resolution have always been incredibly bare-bones, it's not really credible to claim that just because an edition has, for once, a passable CR system - that is, a system for measuring whether a fight is hard - that that edition is suddenly the one that only works if CRs are low on average.

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


Ferrinus posted:

That'd make sense, but the "first time they see the illusion" is what convinced me the slightly harsher/more fragile reading is the correct one. The ritual does have the advantage that someone who realizes it's fake still has their line of sight obstructed, though.

...

I genuinely am interested in the answer to the question I asked at the end of my post, though: can Scorching Ray set something on fire? The precedent set by some but not all fire evocations clarifying that they do in fact ignite stuff really does put it in question and I can imagine scenarios in which a player and a GM are on either side of the argument (apprentice wizard misses their ranged touch attack while fighting an attacker in the academy library - do they get in trouble for burning down the stacks?). It just really strikes me as a concern localized to the D&D community, which is why you get people specifying that Eldritch Blast says "target: one creature" and that's why you can't use it to cut a rope or knock a bottle off a fence.

This is one of those things that's really funny to me because it feels like its coming from a totally different paradigm of RPGs than the one I exist in, like I'm tempted to say this is a uniquely DnD problem. In the majority of RPGs I play, this is covered quite explicitly by the rules: Scorching Ray sets things on fire if there is a reason for the GM make that happen. Its what would happen in Nice Marines if you rolled an 8 or in Dungeon World if you rolled an 8 or in some weird violent Wanderhome knockoff if the player didn't spend a token or in All of The Strengths if the player took on Risk.

Seems like the DnD players are not alright.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Tulip posted:

This is one of those things that's really funny to me because it feels like its coming from a totally different paradigm of RPGs than the one I exist in, like I'm tempted to say this is a uniquely DnD problem. In the majority of RPGs I play, this is covered quite explicitly by the rules: Scorching Ray sets things on fire if there is a reason for the GM make that happen. Its what would happen in Nice Marines if you rolled an 8 or in Dungeon World if you rolled an 8 or in some weird violent Wanderhome knockoff if the player didn't spend a token or in All of The Strengths if the player took on Risk.

Seems like the DnD players are not alright.

Nah there’s perfectly good design space you’re ceding solely to GM fiat there, and storygames can play around in that space too.

We could be having the same conversation in many ways in a PbtA-kind of space with the tag system a la the best tag : messy. For a refresher, the messy tag is usually on things like giant axes and chainsaws and monsters and represents lopping off limbs and exploding heads and stuff, without actually increasing the harm : but any good player will naturally engage with that fiction* and fiction is the fuel that powers PbtA’s engine. There’s a vaguely congruent possible parallel conversation we could be having about a set of spells in a narrative game that might or might not have the inflammable** tag.

Hello, may I introduce you to my pet idea of narrative crunch. It involves doing a lot of math so that you could hypothetically get a balanced game with absolutely no numbers.


*not necessarily in a visceral or horror way ; conversations about tone are important

**this isn’t the correct word and it’s killing me. I want an adjective for “able to cause something to be on fire” and someone has rudely failed to organize a dictionary in reverse.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Ferrinus posted:

If building a new character is complex (which it is, but is quite fast once you have experience; I did a lot of one-shots over 4e's lifetime) that just gives you that much more incentive not to get killed.

I feel like a good balance would be maybe to start considering that other things than death could happen if the players lose a fight.

Maybe their characters get some permanent or semi-permanent damage/scarring, maybe they're beaten unconscious and some place they care about gets lit on fire while they're out cold, maybe they wake up in Emperor Sinistor's dungeons, or something.

That way you can have your high, uh, defeatability, without needing to sacrifice mechanical detail.

Because like, ultimately, is random PC death actually interesting to anyone? Is a TPK? A character death or even TPK really only makes for a story people will remember and think back on fondly if it was part of some heroic sacrifice or a fitting cap to a character's personal arc or something. No one ever thinks back fondly on "that time a goblin rolled a natural 20 and Bob's character that almost made it to level 2 got killed instantly," except perhaps a particular breed of insufferable GM. in charge of the debacle.

NGDBSS
Dec 30, 2009






Xiahou Dun posted:

**this isn’t the correct word and it’s killing me. I want an adjective for “able to cause something to be on fire” and someone has rudely failed to organize a dictionary in reverse.
Off the top of my head, you probably want either "accelerant" or "hypergolic".

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



NGDBSS posted:

Off the top of my head, you probably want either "accelerant" or "hypergolic".

No those are “makes burn very much” and “capable of spontaneously combusting” which are getting really close but neither is encoding the causative nature. Wouldn’t want to trample over all the inchoate fire’s niche.

(That is a joke. Also “hypergolic” was new to me so thanks for that. gently caress yeah, new word.)

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lightrook
Nov 7, 2016

Pin 188

Xiahou Dun posted:

No those are “makes burn very much” and “capable of spontaneously combusting” which are getting really close but neither is encoding the causative nature. Wouldn’t want to trample over all the inchoate fire’s niche.

(That is a joke. Also “hypergolic” was new to me so thanks for that. gently caress yeah, new word.)

Incendiary, maybe? Or maybe phlogistic would be more appropriate.

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