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quote:To be fair, even a 5th level character in D&D has abilities that are far beyond those of normal people That's the point. Why does killing a lot of goblins eventually make you immune to roofs falling on you? It makes no sense. Telling a good story in the D&D verse will inevitably be full of elegantly skidding around that sort of thing.
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Mar 5, 2013 14:13
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Triple Elation posted:That's the point. Why does killing a lot of goblins eventually make you immune to roofs falling on you? The blow is cushioned by the treacly mist of goblin ghosts surrounding you.
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Mar 5, 2013 14:18
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Wait, people actually think that Thog is for real dead?
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Mar 5, 2013 14:25
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Triple Elation posted:That's the point. Why does killing a lot of goblins eventually make you immune to roofs falling on you? It makes no sense. Telling a good story in the D&D verse will inevitably be full of elegantly skidding around that sort of thing. Because the kind of mythic dude tough enough to carve his way through hordes of monsters isn't going to stop just because some rocks fell on him?
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Mar 5, 2013 14:28
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Was that all nine of the nine, by the way, or are there a couple left?
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Mar 5, 2013 14:41
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It looks like it started with #871 on Feb 25th, so it looks like there's one left.
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Mar 5, 2013 14:53
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Good, I want some vampire Durkon dialogue. Although it's just as likely to be left a cliffhanger by switching to another character. The Order of the Stake. As for who is to blame in all this, this is kind of all Roy's fault. Talks about not letting the party split up this time and being at full strength, then when V runs of says "Oh well, let him do whatever and chill". If they stuck with him they might not have been ambushed, and wouldn't have to further split the party because of a monster trap.
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Mar 5, 2013 15:05
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Heh, I was rereading old strips and came across this. Note what V says on the second page.
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Mar 5, 2013 15:26
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I agree, Roy, Elan, and Haley's best chance for survival is for Xykon to come wreck the Linear Guild's poo poo. Their best chance of survival from Xykon is for the Linear Guild to sufficiently him and Redcloak long enough they can retreat. It's funny as powerful as Malack is, he wouldn't stand a chance against Redcloak.
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Mar 5, 2013 15:43
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ConfusedUs posted:I read Malack's "secret" grapple technique as just another way of saying "I took Improved Grapple", which is totally a real thing. I read it as, "I'm a snake with arms, surprise!" In practice his secret technique was coiling around Durkon with just his body/tail which left Malack's hands free to do whatever he wanted.
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Mar 5, 2013 15:57
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quote:Why does killing a lot of goblins eventually make you immune to roofs falling on you? quote:Because the kind of mythic dude tough enough to carve his way through hordes of monsters isn't going to stop just because some rocks fell on him? Shoo, solid mechanics! Out with ye, laws of cause and effect!
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Mar 5, 2013 16:58
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Well DnD doesn't make any pretenses about not being high fantasy.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:19
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wiegieman posted:At this point, it probably is. That's why Clerics and Wizards win out. ikanreed posted:Even lich casters don't have much defense against sunder attempts and grapple checks. A fighter half his level could easily do that.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:29
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The Star Wars d20 RPG modified the "hit point" mechanics a bit by basically making them dodge points. When an attack deals hit point damage, you're not actually hit -- just narrowly missed. Once your hit points reach 0, then your luck runs out and if you're hit again, this time it'll deal damage to your actual health points, which have a total equal to your constitution score. In this system, your character survives a roof collapsing because he kinda rolled out of the way or found the one spot in which he was mostly under cover from the falling rubble thanks to some jutting piece of architecture or some sturdy furniture or whatever. It's certainly a better visual representation than "the axe blow slices through your flesh and shatters your clavicle, dealing 27 points of damage; but I guess since you still have 12 hit points remaining this has no further consequences" as some D&D DM have been using.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:32
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A_Raving_Loon posted:Because the kind of mythic dude tough enough to carve his way through hordes of monsters isn't going to stop just because some rocks fell on him? I always considered it a sort of "relative toughness" thing. Like someone who was down to their last 3 HP might be too battered and beat to successfully avoid a killing blow aimed at his head, but the same character at full HP has enough wherewithal to react, turning what would be a fatal attack into merely a graze on his arm. It's not that the damage amount of the attack changes, it's just that a character's HP total represents their ability to react and reduce the consequences.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:40
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Zereth posted:Clerics more so, since they get access to it the instant it's published while wizards have to manually track it down and add it to their spellbook. I have to imagine Xykon has the still and silent casting feats just in case some death warded mook grapples him in a Silence 10' radius. Mind you that increases the spell level a bit, but it isn't going to prevent him from dimension dooring or dispelling magic. What you really need is a death warded aquatic mook grappling him underwater in an anti magic zone that for some reason doesn't affect his death ward. Can a steel golem operate in an anti magic zone? Can't energy drain that.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:42
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Colonel Cool posted:Well DnD doesn't make any pretenses about not being high fantasy. I remember somebody saying that while there's been efforts to make it resemble one or another kind of fantasy, what D&D resembles is mostly D&D.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:49
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ZnCu posted:I always considered it a sort of "relative toughness" thing. Like someone who was down to their last 3 HP might be too battered and beat to successfully avoid a killing blow aimed at his head, but the same character at full HP has enough wherewithal to react, turning what would be a fatal attack into merely a graze on his arm. It's not that the damage amount of the attack changes, it's just that a character's HP total represents their ability to react and reduce the consequences. The problem with that thinking has always been these
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Mar 5, 2013 17:50
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Those are just spell names, though. You can always change them. The fact that these "cure wounds" spell explicitly do not regenerate non-abstract wounds such as missing limbs would help in this respect. Cure Serious Blues. Pope Guilty posted:I remember somebody saying that while there's been efforts to make it resemble one or another kind of fantasy, what D&D resembles is mostly D&D. Which I personally do not see as a problem.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:54
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Pope Guilty posted:I remember somebody saying that while there's been efforts to make it resemble one or another kind of fantasy, what D&D resembles is mostly D&D. The only time you could make a coherent argument for D&D not being High Fantasy is in Darksun. Otherwise it remains a game about Big drat Heroes in Really drat Magical places.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:59
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 over a bunch of decade-old game rules is fun and all, but let's get back to Durkula. What will be his personality upon awaking? Broody, black coat king-of-pain? Undead and evil, but driven to his duty? I'm actually hoping to see him go buck-wild, the transformation being the catalyst that makes him snap after years of moral repression.
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Mar 5, 2013 18:03
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That's ameliorated somewhat in 4th edition where hit points are replenished through "second winds" and "surges"(admittedly "healing surges" but the mechanic would be more accurately described as an adrenaline surge), with clerical healing abilities giving you more of these. I think they're going back to a more traditional HP system though.
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Mar 5, 2013 18:17
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greatn posted:That's ameliorated somewhat in 4th edition where hit points are replenished through "second winds" and "surges"(admittedly "healing surges" but the mechanic would be more accurately described as an adrenaline surge), with clerical healing abilities giving you more of these. It also explains how bards and warlords can "heal" with motivational words. And my experience with the D&D Next playtest was that it was closer to 1st edition than anything else. Ultra-simple, but not necessarily in a bad way. As for the new Durkon, it remains to be seen how much of the old Durkon is left. Does vamping someone automatically remove the revulsion most living creatures have against the idea of being vamped? I wouldn't be surprised if the new Durkon just suicided as soon as he got control over himself... it reminds me of the scene from Dusk 'Til Dawn where the infected priest says it's not suicide if you're already dead.
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Mar 5, 2013 18:43
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Another interesting question is going to be how will Nale react to this? There has to have been a reason he killed Malack's original spawns, if he's generally opposed to vampirism this incarnation of the Linear Guild isn't long for this world (and neither is Nale if it comes down to that).
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Mar 5, 2013 18:48
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My Lovely Horse posted:Another interesting question is going to be how will Nale react to this? There has to have been a reason he killed Malack's original spawns, if he's generally opposed to vampirism this incarnation of the Linear Guild isn't long for this world (and neither is Nale if it comes down to that). He's literally having sex with a devil. Nale doesn't give a drat about vampirism, he killed Malak's kids because he's evil and they were in his way. Or just because he was evil.
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Mar 5, 2013 18:56
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My Lovely Horse posted:Another interesting question is going to be how will Nale react to this? There has to have been a reason he killed Malack's original spawns, if he's generally opposed to vampirism this incarnation of the Linear Guild isn't long for this world (and neither is Nale if it comes down to that). Nale has to know that Malack is a vampire. Presumably he killed Malack's kids during his failed coup. I suspect that Nale doesn't care about vampires one way or the other. On the other hand, once its shown that Xykon doesn't care who Nale is and the supposed negotiation advantage he brings is bullshit, then there will be no reason for Malack...or Durkon, or especially vamped Belkar if it goes that way, not to execute Nale out of hand.
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Mar 5, 2013 18:58
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jng2058 posted:On the other hand, once its shown that Xykon doesn't care who Nale is and the supposed negotiation advantage he brings is bullshit,  Xykon isn't the one he needs to make a deal withOf course it remains to be seen whether or not they'll just get snuffed out the moment Xykon appears on the scene or whether they (and Hinjo) are being positioned for the endgame at the final gate. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 19:08
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Alchenar posted:
Except that Nale and Tarquin are both humans, and Redcloak is even less likely than Xykon to cut a deal with them.
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Mar 5, 2013 19:17
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jng2058 posted:Except that Nale and Tarquin are both humans, and Redcloak is even less likely than Xykon to cut a deal with them. They're humans who are part of an evil continental multi-species empire. All Tarquin has to do is offer a fair share to Redcloak and he has a partner, and we know that Redcloak has an endgame problem with the fact that his aims diverge from Xykon's and he's prepping his exit strategy.
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Mar 5, 2013 19:21
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Cat Mattress posted:The Star Wars d20 RPG modified the "hit point" mechanics a bit by basically making them dodge points. When an attack deals hit point damage, you're not actually hit -- just narrowly missed. Once your hit points reach 0, then your luck runs out and if you're hit again, this time it'll deal damage to your actual health points, which have a total equal to your constitution score. Problem is that critical hits bypassed your luck health (Vitality) and went straight for your real health (Wounds). An average character with 10 Constitution had 10 wounds and died at -10 wounds. Which meant that a 20 damage critical hit was instant death. Your average stormtrooper had a rifle that did 3d8 damage (3 to 24) and while 20+ damage only showed up maybe less than 10% of the time and odds weren't that great of a critical hit, the sheer number of fights a player character went through in a 1 to 20 campaign meant that you had maybe a one in three chance of dying to some random chump who got lucky during a campaign. Odds went down if you had armor and more Constitution, but you still could get chumped incredibly easy by a critical hit. While "death out of nowhere" mechanics are interesting for certain games, they're not quite as in the spirit for Star Wars (or most games of D&D).
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Mar 5, 2013 19:53
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Didn't they have a force point mechanic to get out of those kind of situations?
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Mar 5, 2013 19:56
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Yeah, I find the stories about how lethal Star Wars: Revised was to players compared to other games to be over-wrought. I never saw a PC die to a crit...or at all, for that matter...in a campaign that we played in for years. Yeah, you had to keep some Force Points on hand just in case, but other than that, it was no big deal.
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Mar 5, 2013 20:03
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I don't think Force points block critical hits though. At least, there's no section in the RCR about it under either Critical Hits or Force Points. It has been ages, so I might have forgotten the rules. But this is even more of a derail than normal. Speaking of weird rules, for those who are interested in such things, the Traditional Games forum has a thread for some of the weird game rule logic that rises up when you take these things way too seriously.
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Mar 5, 2013 20:33
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RickoniX posted:The problem with that thinking has always been these How is that a problem in the slightest? The spell takes away exhaustion and heals bruises and small cuts.
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Mar 5, 2013 20:46
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See that's exactly why these games have GM's. Regardless of whether or not the Rules as Written allow it, any reasonable GM who wants his players to have fun will make that very minor shift to say "this difficult to renew resource can keep you from dying" (which I'm pretty sure was the case regardless.) To make a somewhat more elegant pivot back to the thread topic than just "we're derailing", let me add that using GM discretion for the sake of the fun is exactly what Rich is doing with the various Malack exceptions to get to vampire Durkon right now. Granted in a game context this would be pretty objectionable, since he's using GM fiat to gently caress over the players. You don't want to do that in a real game, lest the players stop having fun and thus, you stop having a game at all. However, in a story context, this is fine. Drama happens when you, the author, let bad things happen to your characters and have them try to deal with it. If Rich stuck to the rules of the game, vampire Durkon would be out of the scenario since we're pretty sure that the business at Girard's gate will be long since wrapped up before three days goes by. Instead, by house ruling past the limit, Rich gets us the drama of the Order dealing with vamp-Durkon RIGHT NOW, and that's much more fun for us, the readers. Which is exactly what he should do, just as a good GM gives the rules a kick to keep the game fun as well.
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Mar 5, 2013 20:47
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JosephWongKS posted:There's resistance to GitP-style grognardism even on the GitP forums: I think putting a story into a game system has some quite big benefits too. You have a framework of rules that define how the world works, and a story that follows such constrictions seems more realistic since there's less of a risk of random Deus Ex Machinas sneaking in.
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Mar 5, 2013 21:21
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It's not a random Deus Ex Machina if the character in question has the resources and a very good reason to possess the spells/magical thingygummy he has.
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Mar 5, 2013 21:23
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Malack specifically mentions learning from Tarquin several times during the fight. Given Tarquin's whole shtick is being a hyper aware Mary Sue DMPC, it only makes sense his close friend, who he's adventured and fought with and ruled empires together, would pick up on some of his effective qualities. The only bit that seemed improperly foreshadowed was the backdoor in Mass Death Ward. But the whole irony of the spell Malack helped research protecting Durkon from him was evident, and it made sense that Malack would have placed a backdoor... we had just never been given an indication that sort of thing was possible. Malack revealed as being a snake with arms after being revealed as concealing his true nature as a vampire, or having a certain custom magic spell that doesn't have any novel effects, just seemed pretty well contextualized.
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Mar 5, 2013 21:32
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Danzou posted:Malack specifically mentions learning from Tarquin several times during the fight. Given Tarquin's whole shtick is being a hyper aware Mary Sue DMPC, it only makes sense his close friend, who he's adventured and fought with and ruled empires together, would pick up on some of his effective qualities. A nice (though tiny) detail is that the Speed Vampirism spell is actually contained in his staff - something you can totally do under D&D rules! - rather than being a spell he prepared for the day. It's just a little bit of gap filling but it's kind of cool that Rich noticed that it would make no sense for Malack to prepare such a spell ahead of time and instead put it in a magical item that he would just happen to have with him.
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Mar 5, 2013 21:49
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It was also mentioned that to create those mummies, he burned charges on his staff to create those.
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Mar 5, 2013 22:03
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