The Gaming Den

Will someone please explain to me how Rowling's morality was black and white? One of the big points of the series was that this is, in fact, not the case. Or at least, that people are not black and white. You know, on second though, don't, because that's disastrously off topic. Handling Avada Kedavr...

If Wizards really is directionless at the moment (and frankly the dry up of web content doesn't neccesarily mean that, though I'm going to assume it is for the moment) then it's because of the complete backlash towards 4E from the grog community. Wizards is in a possiton where they have to attract n...

Why shouldn't they take those grognards seriously? They might not be the majority, but they are probably more than a third of their former customer base. It's not like that third were entirely unwilling to compromise either ... they are playing Pathfinder for god's sake. Because there's no point in...

Thoughts: 1: I will check my books but I am 90% sure Kaelik is wrong. THere are two levels of Patronus charm, the regular one and the "corporeal" one (which is incorporeal). I'm pretty sure we are informed that there are wizarding adults who can't cast a corporeal patronus (though every m...

It really depends on what genre you're looking at. I've not got much experience with Dice Pool systems but I like Wushu. It's extremely Rules Lite, but it can be flavored for any genre. You increase your dicepool, literally, by adding more cool flourishes to your action. The only draw back is that i...

Yeah, I've done some reading on the balance issues and it doesn't really frighten me so much. Nobody in our group is, to my knowedge, optimised with the collective knoweldge of the internet gaming gods, our power-gamer mercifully unable to participate because of school work. But I don't make the rul...

Ick. Well, my current game, as I mentioned in the other thread, isn't allowing Essentials (or anything beyond PHB 1 and 2) just because most of the group can't afford to buy a bunch of books and I will personally destroy them all if we resort to mass piracy. Sooooo those are issues I'll deal with an...

It also occurs to me that FATE would be good because of Aspects, which could be invoked or compelled to push characters into emotional states outside their norms, thus perhaps allowing a decent chap to cast Avada Kedavra or a miserable person to cast a Patronus in a pinch.

The silliness of making vampires a class aside, I'd be all over Essentials if it weren't disallowed from my current game because my GM being wary of power creep.

Did you even read the books? Mental states being key to getting spells right one of the core conciets of Rowling's world. Also even if I didn't have canon backing me up 100% (I do), if I was just assuming, that's sort of irrelevant because an RPG doesn't have to simulate the source material with com...

Kaelik would be right if he weren't ignoring some salient points. Avada Kedavra is not an easy spell to cast; it requires hatred to fuel it. It's also illegal to use on humans outside of life threatening situations. Same goes for Crucio and Imperio. I think a better way to handle it, if you insist, ...

I'm not an Insider subscriber, but I can imagine this bites. OTOH I can see how it would be difficult to keep putting out quality content month after month, especially when its so easy to pirate. On the other hand, I just got PHB2 and an extremely excited about the options presented here. Finally so...

Worst case scenario is if they take the complaining of grognards seriously and start reverting 4E's numerous improvements to the formula back to their 3.X-or-earlier status. Best case scenario is if they learn from 4E's flaws and make a 5E at some point in the next ten or so years that rocks everyon...

I'd like to run a game that spans several generations. I'd still use DnD though because I don't want to make all my players learn that Camelot system.

Rip-off is not the right word to use here. The art similarities, while problably intentionally, don't really make up for the fact that High Elves are an old, old trope that dates back at least to Tolkien, maybe furhter. Blizzard tried to do something unique by making theirs evil and addicted and wha...

The Eladrin exist because the term 'Eldar' is copyrighted.

The bard class is basically already a gish in DnD, though the musical nature makes them sort of eccentric compared to something like a Swordmage. I wonder if you could develop a Ninja class that basically works like the Ninja from Naruto... they have what is essentially magic by another name, be it ...

Lord of the Rings still had a fairly wide gulf between actual wizards (who were the cosmological equivalent of angels in Tolkien's work) and Fighting Men. Sure, there were some Elves who could both fight and cast spells, but those spells weren't anything like the stuff Gandalf had in his repoitore. ...

Even if it worked, it might be fun for the player with Finger of Death. Not fun for the rest of the party. Plus if you're designing the encounter and the entire session in advance, you could set the entire thing-up well before the landscape-size monster appeared. It's obviously a contrived solution,...

Some games do skills better than others. Unless you're just particularly attached to 3.5, there's no reason not to use one of them. Or at the very least, use their innovations to fix the 3.5 skill system you percieve to be broken. ??? Do you smoke crack or something? Clearly. A) If you are claiming...

Kaelik wrote:I would just use Finger of Death. But that's because I'm smart like that.

I think the general question was about making the encounter... you know, fun.

Some games do skills better than others. Unless you're just particularly attached to 3.5, there's no reason not to use one of them. Or at the very least, use their innovations to fix the 3.5 skill system you percieve to be broken. I didn't say my list of games were neccesarily comparable to 3.5, jus...

Alternatively, you could create a set piece or unique item that lets your PCs fight the terrain-sized monsters in a credible way, such as using a charm spell to lead it into a valley, then causing a land-slide or flood to bring it down. Populate the set piece with man-sized threats to keep your part...

I just realized the gunslinger can't even full attack unless he blows quite a few grit points. Of course you can; you just have 50 pistols preloaded (at a cost of 1000 gp per non-magical pistol) and you Quick Draw them all. It's just that simple! Search a 'backwards compaitble' splatbook for a Feat...

I'm asking from a game designer's standpoint as I am designing a game. This is one of the brick walls I have yet to overcome. Right now I've been leaning on something like Ice9's first suggestion. I will work on this counter thing along with other abilities in a similar fashion until I can find an ...