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Silver2195 posted:I feel like "players don't have to be able to access every possible thing" and "there are surprising magics in the world that they've never heard of" are two different things. At the very least, rolling high enough on an Arcana check should give you some idea of how the enemy spellcaster's powers work, right? Or am I missing the point? I'd say those are two things with some overlap. And yeah if we're talking about a spell or spell-like effect, and a character uses Arcana to identify it, the DC of that check could be related to how common or rare that effect is, and the resulting information can help the players decide what to do. But: even a successful check doesn't mean the characters have access to that spell or effect themselves, in the sense that it's in the official spell list and they can at least in theory gain levels and learn it.
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Apr 16, 2024 21:15
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Jack B Nimble posted:I think the only part of this that bears repeating at this point is that Gort pointed out that the GP cost of magic items, when used as a points value for equipping enemies, gets wonky when you start buying potions and scrolls instead of weapons and armor. And that's true, that's a good point. So don't give each of the enemy mercenaries 2k in items with fighter having +1 armor, the archer having a +1 bow, and the mage having a dozen scrolls. Don't do that and think they're all the same, because they're not!
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Apr 16, 2024 21:15
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When I was a kid a DM of a game I was in didn't like how quickly a fight went against a boss of his so he had the boss use his turn to take out a wand he was carrying and snap it in half. He was just starting to destroy loot because the DM was mad, it was a weird moment. Didn't even feel too out of character, like that particular warlord of the ogre clans just knew his number was up and he might as well spite his killers by pissing on his treasure before he went, but it was still pretty obvious what was going on.
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Apr 16, 2024 21:21
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Leperflesh posted:I'd say those are two things with some overlap. And yeah if we're talking about a spell or spell-like effect, and a character uses Arcana to identify it, the DC of that check could be related to how common or rare that effect is, and the resulting information can help the players decide what to do. But: even a successful check doesn't mean the characters have access to that spell or effect themselves, in the sense that it's in the official spell list and they can at least in theory gain levels and learn it.  Can I cast Acid Splash at something 70 feet away? No. Well that's fair. Can I cast Orcy The Orc's Orcy The Orc Spell That Only Orcy The Orc Can Cast, which you insisted on naming in full every round for the past hour? No. Why not?
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Apr 16, 2024 21:24
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theironjef posted:I mostly just don't get how that's different than any other D&D-adjacent dungeon crawlfest with a monster manual and a potion list. theironjef posted:Was there something special in D&D 3.x that precluded an orc from chugging a potion? theironjef posted:It just feels like you're slapping the roof of a car and saying "Yessir, this baby has the hottest new thing, wheels!"
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Apr 16, 2024 21:31
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or even like "Can we get magic that makes us fly?" "Not yet, you're 3rd level, too low level to cast Fly." "Last week we fought a kobold and it was flying around. It couldn't have been more than 5th or 6th level, right?" "Sure" "So then why come they can fly and we can't?" "Magic is mysterious and inscrutable. That kobold wizard musta had something. Maybe its god likes to make them fly, or maybe it ate a weird magic bug." "I start worshipping the kobold god and we're gonna scour the caves for weird bugs for the next two sessions." "No, don't do that. You won't get Fly before the appropriate level. That's how this game works. But wasn't it fun fighting that flying kobold tho?" "...yeah actually"
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Apr 16, 2024 21:34
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mellonbread posted:I only played a single session of 3.5 way back in high school, so I couldn't tell you. So no then. There's nothing you know about that makes Pathfinder especially unique in this one regard. That's fine obviously. Let me just switch from argumentative to informative and tell you that great news, you can have a monster chug a potion, and you've been able to have a monster do that in D&D style games for as long as there have been D&D games, and I think that might be where at least a few people's confusion is stemming from, like the probably unintended suggestion that Paizo invented monsters activating magic items in 2009. Like in general you probably shouldn't want to, it'd be easier to just incorporate the mechanics of having chugged a potion (or like the action of drinking a heal potion or whatever) into the statline of the monster in the first place, so as to preemptively solve encounter balance issues, and because there's not fundamentally a difference between "This goblin regains a D8 HP as a quick action when bloodied" and "this goblin has a heal potion" except when it comes to loot assignation, which is a potentially degenerate incentive to build around (monsters are mechanically if not thematically built to die, so the most efficient thing they could do if they had consumable items would be to just destroy or use them immediately to deny PCs the value of them). theironjef fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Apr 16, 2024 |
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Apr 16, 2024 21:36
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mellonbread posted:Great. I have no idea what the gently caress you're saying, so I'm not going to waste any more time arguing why NPCs should be allowed to drink potions. In D&D 3.x GMs shouldn't swap out NPCs' equipment for an equivalent shop value of consumables, and, more generally, encounter design guidelines should function as encounter design guidelines. PF1's NPCs and PCs are not symmetric in anything but the shallowest, most naive interpretation of the term. You seem to be having trouble holding all three of these facts in your head and keep saying things like "Oranges are a fruit. Fruits can be used to craft tarts or eaten raw. Many oranges are filled entirely with live wasps, placed there in secret by the men from the orange factory. This is an unavoidable benefit of eating oranges."
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Apr 16, 2024 21:38
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I mean, in this analogy, Gort's original post was "Oranges are bullshit. They have skin, which conceals the flesh. If men from the factory fill the skin full of wasps they jump out and sting your face" but the answer to this wasn't to go to bat for the men from the orange factory what the gently caress am I even typing any more
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Apr 16, 2024 21:46
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I remember something in the 1E DMG where Gygax said intelligent monsters would make use of the magic gear they had in their loot pile. I know that in my younger days humanoid NPCs would use magic weapons and armor, not just in my games but in published modules, and in one adventure my PCs shivved a wizard to get a Staff of Power or a Staff of the Arch-Mage, don’t remember which, so this issue has been around since ‘78 or so. Just giving the history, not weighing in further.
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Apr 16, 2024 21:47
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I do personally draw a line with healing potions, because I think there's not a lot worse you can do in a D&D style fight than add in a mechanic that makes it last longer but doesn't change anything about it.
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Apr 16, 2024 21:49
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theironjef posted:I do personally draw a line with healing potions, because I think there's not a lot worse you can do in a D&D style fight than add in a mechanic that makes it last longer but doesn't change anything about it. Funnily enough, outside of, like, an item that replicates the Heal spell or at the very first couple levels when health values are low, in 3.5 and PF1 having an NPC spend their turn drinking a healing potion will probably make the fight go faster most of the time. The amount you get back is just so small compared to what even as single combatant can do, so unless the party is specifically struggling with damaging the NPC, it's pretty much a skipped turn (or even worse than a skipped turn, because the whole thing provokes attacks of opportunity).
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Apr 16, 2024 23:55
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in some games chugging a potion is a minor action that said, yes, it just extends the fight; IMO if a guy needs to chug a potion he's gonna skeedaddle too, because he's just used his last lifeline, unless he's already clearly winning or has reason to think he is.
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Apr 17, 2024 01:27
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NPCs shouldn't have items. or levels for that matter. maybe not names? science has yet to find an answer.
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Apr 17, 2024 01:40
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Doc Hawkins posted:NPCs shouldn't have items. or levels for that matter. maybe not names? science has yet to find an answer. I've been doing a fun thing where - in order to help the players know who is from what made-up fantasy country - NPCs all have names that start with the same first letter as the place they are from. I like it so far!
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Apr 17, 2024 01:55
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Thanlis posted:Katana, schmatana. granny's hard af, goddamn
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Apr 17, 2024 11:03
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relevant, but a player asked me why the magic item they got from a bad guy worked differently for them. Magic items are semi sentient, like a roomba, so I told them different users get different stuff unlocked
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Apr 17, 2024 13:22
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Ominous Jazz posted:relevant, but a player asked me why the magic item they got from a bad guy worked differently for them. Magic items are semi sentient, like a roomba, so I told them different users get different stuff unlocked This was something that Evocations would do in Exalted 3, but of course it was basically just made into a regular extension of the main Charm system (also a 3e fumble) so it's not nearly as individualized as it could have been.
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Apr 17, 2024 13:36
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Ominous Jazz posted:relevant, but a player asked me why the magic item they got from a bad guy worked differently for them. Magic items are semi sentient, like a roomba, so I told them different users get different stuff unlocked Yes this does mean if you use the same fire sword for a long time it might change colour and pick up new abilities. No it's not a cheap setup for me to pick an arbitrary event to flip you into super sonic mode mid-combat at some point in the future.
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Apr 17, 2024 13:43
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That's way more like how magic works in nearly all fantasy anyway.
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Apr 18, 2024 03:03
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Anyone have any experience with Alice is Missing? This forever DM is playing in it as a PC this weekend and I’m just looking for any spoiler free tips to bring my best game to the table (or text, I suppose). I already pulled out an oversized hoodie and a band tee so that I can put myself in teenage weekly font headspace.
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Apr 18, 2024 17:54
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weekly font posted:Anyone have any experience with Alice is Missing? This forever DM is playing in it as a PC this weekend and I’m just looking for any spoiler free tips to bring my best game to the table (or text, I suppose). I already pulled out an oversized hoodie and a band tee so that I can put myself in teenage weekly font headspace. The game works best when everyone is (via text) chatting to each other, even if it's not about the latest plot development. Find reasons to talk to other characters.
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Apr 19, 2024 01:32
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bewilderment posted:The game works best when everyone is (via text) chatting to each other, even if it's not about the latest plot development. Find reasons to talk to other characters. Also, always be theorizing. Try and link clues to other clues, even if you're guessing and tell other people your guesses.
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Apr 19, 2024 23:59
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I loved it the first time i played it but (don't read unless you've played it at least once) the random nature of the prompts and result kind of killed it for me
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Apr 20, 2024 08:30
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Anyone here played the Sentinel Comics RPG? My friend is planning to run a campaign and I'm interested to know what to expect
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Apr 23, 2024 21:59
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It's my favorite RPG these days. The character creation random system is a ton of fun. Turns and initiative are player chosen (after it's your turn you choose who goes next) and the enemy and environment both get turns that need to be handed out as well. Dice are vaguely reminiscent of Cortex but play quite differently, and don't worry about rolling high during character creation, lots of the higher number archetypes are more complicated instead of more powerful or fun or anything.
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Apr 23, 2024 22:25
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Oh cool, we're doing random generation rather than pre-gens or whatever, so it's good to hear that it works well
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Apr 23, 2024 22:35
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I looked at it and the six modules ('issues') that exist for it are strings of setpiece fights which looked like they'd be on rails but maybe fun if you knew that was what you were getting into. If your friend is writing his own stuff, this doesn't mean anything to you. The intended tone is four color and PG-13 and the mechanics reflect that; no one important will be dying unless the players and GM want them to. The chargen is kind of a randomized lifepath system. You wouldn't be point-buying a precise copy of your favorite superhero, but on the upside, it's so easy to make a character there's this one-click superhero generator for it. The system handles power levels by being somewhat narrative about it and once the characters have been made there's no further leveling up.
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Apr 23, 2024 22:42
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Megazver posted:once the characters have been made there's no further leveling up. Do characters change mechanically without gaining power?
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Apr 23, 2024 22:47
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Tarnop posted:Do characters change mechanically without gaining power? Yes. You gain a sort of XP mechanic called Back Issues and Collections that can be spent during a game to adjust some rolls or between sessions to change stuff around (give up something old for something new) swap some numbers. You never get more powerful than you started, instead think like "you get a 90s makeover and trade your invisibility for a big energy rifle for a while." Even the most powerful in universe NPC heroes like Legacy are built in the game using the same tools a starting player has, they definitely give you enough.
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Apr 23, 2024 23:09
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That sounds neat! I'm looking forward to playing
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Apr 23, 2024 23:25
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If you ever wanted a small continent to be generated with towns, inns, NPCs, factions, dungeons and more with OSR statistics, try the FREE generator Hexroll, 2nd edition. Frankly I am very impressed. https://hexroll.app/ Everything is hyperlinked so you can explore relationships between things. For example I examined the town of Millrock and looked at a Baker there, expecting baked goods. Evidently the Baker Aurelianus is a member of the faction The Dark Wyverns, a syndicate conspiring to collect protection money for an unknown purpose based in a different town. Also Aurelianus has received a mysterious box and is afraid to open it. Could the box be from The Dark Wyverns ordering the Baker to do something nefarious and the Baker wants out of the organization? Instant plot hooks.   It also describes dungeons, area by area. This is a dungeon adjacent to Millrock called The Temple of Infernal Pits. Random encounters include rats and harpies.  Hexroll also claims to have a VTT integrated into it's dungeon map. I can see this being very useful for Solo roleplaying. Also there is the possiblity of modding this program. Guidebook is here: https://docs.hexroll.app/
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Apr 24, 2024 02:32
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The sheer density makes any homebrew seem miniscule, it's simultaneously awesome and almost a little disheartening.
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Apr 24, 2024 03:23
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your players will only ever actually interact with a tiny fraction of what you get when you generate an entire country down to that level, and auto-generated stuff tends to have certain cycling patterns of repeated chunks that you can eventually start to see if you interact with a lot of it. Homebrew lets you respond to the creative input and decisions of your own players, and focus only on creating the stuff that they're going to actually interact with rather than wasting hours detailing what's going on in some far away place they'll decide not to visit or creating dungeons they never explore. IMO the biggest benefits of these kinds of tools are for solo play, for filling in a gap when you don't have time to work up something yourself, or for generating ideas that you modify when you find yourself stuck for ideas.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:53
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Tarnop posted:Anyone here played the Sentinel Comics RPG? My friend is planning to run a campaign and I'm interested to know what to expect It's somewhere between fine and pretty good? Its core mechanics are awesome. The GYRO system of escalating abilities and danger is fantastic. Its character generation is best in class for superheros. It's a vaunted addition to my RPG collection. I ended up dropping it for two reasons... 1. Non-action mechanics are essentially non-existent. This probably goes back to its inspiration - Silver Age - but it's rough that there's zero mechanics for interacting with the world outside of high stakes action. There are a ton of fan made adaptations of the rules (not even "homebrewing" but just "here's how I'd apply RAW to an investigation or to a dinner party or whatever"), but it's tough when your players want to do something that doesn't involve punching or powers and you have to be like... "Maybe? But you're probably terrible at it?" 2. Boring Action Rolls. I could have dealt with #1, but #2 was a deal-breaker. The core mechanic allows players (and villains) to always succeed, with no side effects, no matter the task attempted. There are no modifications made to a roll for difficulty, stakes, circumstances, etc. It's just "Roll your dice, apply the results." So you can roll lower and do less, but if you're rolling to do hit, you always hit. Now, there's an argument to be made that Spider-Man doesn't usually miss, circumstances just conspire against him. And I feel like Spectaculars is far superior in this regard. In Spectaculars you roll a number and apply the results (always and forever, no difficulty), but there are circumstantial dice that can make the roll better or worse. So you can increase the negative circumstantial dice if they're doing something wild. As a GM, it was pretty lackluster to never interpret the players' actions. "I'm going to do [wild thing]" was always met with "Okay, roll damage". It just didn't sit well with me. I'd recommend it as a superhero action system for anybody who wanted to play in a campaign that was too long for Spectaculars; don't know if I'd run it again.
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Apr 24, 2024 19:04
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Any particular reason we don't have a Roll20 thread? Could be useful. I hate having to dig through reddit and roll20 for answers. Like here is the question " how do you create a world map that you can put a group token on and then move thay token around to reveal the map" I figured it out but it took a while. Here's the answer Create a player character that is available to all characters, then make a token for that then set its token view distance. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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Apr 24, 2024 19:54
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It is sorta weird we don't have a VTT thread. I think it could cover all the VTTs, not just Roll20. Would you like to make one? It doesn't need to be a giant effortpost OP, just "tell me about the VTTs and help others with their VTT questions" would be cool and good. IMO.
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Apr 24, 2024 20:12
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Leperflesh posted:It is sorta weird we don't have a VTT thread. I think it could cover all the VTTs, not just Roll20. Would you like to make one? It doesn't need to be a giant effortpost OP, just "tell me about the VTTs and help others with their VTT questions" would be cool and good. IMO. Yeah sounds good to me. I'll make it. I think Virtual Tabletop, Roll 20 , Fantasy grounds are the ones I can think of
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Apr 24, 2024 20:30
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Given that Discord is integrating Roll20 as an activity, it likely a good idea. https://blog.roll20.net/posts/roll2...el=tw-553552636
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Apr 24, 2024 20:32
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Hollismason posted:Yeah sounds good to me. I'll make it. I think Virtual Tabletop, Roll 20 , Fantasy grounds are the ones I can think of There is also foundry
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Apr 24, 2024 20:35
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