|
Can someone talk to me about the game design behind "saving throws" and defending against spells in general for D&D-esque games? I understand that some sort of chance to resist a debilitating effect is necessary, since such things tend to be more powerful than raw damage. I also understand that there's some sort of expectation built around (direct damage) spells being defended against by a stat that's NOT Armor Class. What I'm not quite getting is "a successful save causes half damage, a failed save causes full damage", apart from simply being the way that such a thing has always been done. To add context, I was tinkering with math and spreadsheets over the weekend, trying to figure out how much damage a "caster"-type enemy should be dealing to the players with a generic "he shoots you with a blast of energy" attack, since the "DPR vs AC" calculations were obviously going to be different. As I was computing average damage between "full damage, failed save hits" and "half damage, successful save hits", it just struck me that there wasn't really any particular rhyme or reason why it had to be like that. I could justify a "Spell Defense" number that was separate from AC so that the Fighter-type character wasn't necessarily less vulnerable to a Fireball than a Wizard, but why not just boil that down to a plain hit-or-miss mechanic?
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2014 13:00
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 05:20 |
|
|
Thanks for the input. I do think I will just go with a binary mechanic, then.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2014 14:27
|
|
|
Covok posted:It does seem a bit backwards, in hindsight. You'd think the creature would have to roll well to hit you with a fireball, not you have to roll well to have the creature miss. I'm not saying systems where you make defense rolls don't make sense, but the creature rolling to hit you would be more in line with how the rest of the game functions. That was the first thing I changed: I found it really inconsistent that every other action is "player rolls d20 to beat a number" but then saving throws reverse it. Kai Tave posted:Well I'm pretty sure that's some of the reason why, for example, spells traditionally call for the target to make a saving throw rather than the Wizard to make an attack check of some sort, because the idea is that Wizards just don't fail to cast a spell properly, they are masters of the arcane arts thank you, if something goes wrong then it was (literally) out of their hands. Yeah that's the other thing that I'm having to arbitrate: when the Wizard casts Mage Hand to pull off some trick I have to decide whether I still need to make him roll to succeed or just let it happen. I try to justify it by the particular spell system I'm using costing the Wizard HP to cast his spells, but still.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 07:16
|
|
|
I definitely do want to play with a "Wound Track"-type system like Mini Six or True20 eventually, just to see what that's like. As well as play in a non-Fantasy campaign.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 11:49
|
|
|
I do recall reading somewhere that armor class was descending because as it was derived from naval wargaming, it was a measure of rank. That is, an armor class of 1 meant "first-class, top-quality" armor. Also, THAC0 was purely a fan-made invention from people that didn't want to work with a matrix/write down the to-hit number for multiple sets of armor classes. D&D just ran with it in later editions. One wonders what might have happened if people thought of "Target 20" first/instead.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2014 15:20
|
|
|
SageNytell posted:Nobody has mentioned RPPR yet and that makes me sad. They are just dandy for Actual Plays, and it's run by local goon ClockworkJoe! Seconding love for RPPR. I just finished their Iron Heroes campaign last month and it was incredible.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2014 16:40
|
|
|
BrainParasite posted:My favorite RPG podcast is the The Walking Eye. They play one game for around four sessions and then have a review. They also discuss gaming issues and some bits of game design. Unfortunately, they seem to be on a bit of a hiatus but the back catalog is worth looking into. The In A Wicked Age or the first Dungeon World stuff would be a good place to start. I thought their review of Numenera was really honest, and they had a couple of good generic discussions like Gaming Commandments and Geek Social Fallacies, and they were even willing to revisit and revise their review of Dungeon World, but I had to turn off their DnD Next episode something like 5 minutes in because it was just 4E-was-a-videogame grog right off the bat.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2014 20:34
|
|
|
I think it's another way to approach the trope of "characters start off as weak shitfarmers, but then graduate to being epic heroes by the end of the campaign", as contrasted to "characters are already capable and competent heroes, but become even more powerful as you go on" A play-as-yourself game seems like it'd be fairly discouraging if you just stayed yourself, but if you defined yourself as a, say, 50 or 75-point GURPS character and gained another 20-30 points per session you could definitely go somewhere with it by the end.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 9, 2014 06:55
|
|
|
I'd love a map thread - one of my biggest hurdles is making up rooms and room lay-outs and "interesting terrain" on the fly.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2014 09:51
|
|
|
I don't know a whole lot about Pokemon beyond watching friends play it on Game Boys back in high school, but I think that a game about fantastical animals engaging in sanctioned duels would be just about perfect for lots of social combat: backroom dealings and match rigging and betting and bookies. Don King: The Game, with small magical animals.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2014 10:09
|
|
|
NachtSieger posted:Was this the mustard mafia guy? Because gently caress that story, the GM is so terrible at it (GMing). Man that guy was awesome. The idea of having to go through painstaking lengths just to open up a plot, it'd be like a show pilot with an hour long cold open.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 15, 2014 16:52
|
|
|
Froghammer posted:I've lost count of the number of times I've had this argument, but "a bunch of people liked it" has never, ever been a successful barometer for a given product's quality. Ever. In the history of anything. I've not entirely sure why sales figures are relevant to anything other than talking about what has the broadest appeal. It's not that people are using 4E sales figures as proof that it was a good game, it's just a counterargument to the idea that 4E was a bad game because it didn't sell well.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2014 06:13
|
|
|
About the only thing I'm sure of is that between Paizo's marketing and ~the internet~ and grognards, we probably will never get a clear picture of just how successful 4E really was because the discourse has been really poisoned.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2014 09:31
|
|
|
I've heard it said that 3.5s Tome of Battle Book of 9 Swords was a sort of testbed for ideas that would eventually become 4th edition. Anyone want to elaborate on that?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 21, 2014 02:06
|
|
|
Nuns with Guns posted:Like the others have said, Tome of Battle gives melee characters martial maneuvers besides the standard combat ones. On a wider level, the three classes introduced are "fixes" for three troubled core classes from 3e: Warblade -> Fighter, Crusader -> Paladin, and Swordsage is an interesting variant of the Gish (melee/magic) type melee-class, though they provide the option to make the class into an unarmed fighter that's considered superior to the Monk in every way. The maneuvers do the same sort of thing the attacks of 4e classes do: provide bonuses to things, let you move in unusual ways, deal extra damage, etc. The big difference is there are also stances that provide a constant benefit to something, which didn't migrate over. Maneuvers are also a bit more similar to Vancian spellcasting in that you prepare and lose each maneuver, though you can regain them with a short rest or get one or two back with an action in combat. Thanks for all the answers. "Martial classes but with Vancian casted anime moves" sounds cool as hell.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 21, 2014 18:04
|
|
|
PresidentBeard posted:3.x and Pathfinder have good games buried in them. Unfortunately if any of your classes or mechanics share names with something from AD&D you haven't found the good parts yet. I was actually going through the D20 SRD and I found this little thing: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm posted:Extraordinary Abilities (Ex) They've had a working justification for martial classes being capable of doing all sorts of caster-level stuff sitting there on the shelf for years! They just didn't want to use it.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2014 21:10
|
|
|
I just wanted to greet this thread and subforum a Merry Christmas. I only started the hobby in April this year, but it's been a ton of fun and I'm really looking forward to traditional-gaming a lot more in 2015. I've kicked my Steam sale habit, I'm getting to play with my dad and brother and long-time friends, I'm reading more, gaining a better understanding of game design concepts and generally just have the mental gears turning a lot more constantly on top of all the socialization.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2014 20:39
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 05:20 |
|
|
Can someone give me the elevator pitch/lowdown on Iron Kingdoms? I tried looking it up on F&F but it never got to the mechanics.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 29, 2014 06:40
|
|