The Gaming Den

So 'nova-centric' is just like Spell Points from Unearthed Arcana. If the mana (or spell points) recharge either during the fight or between fights, that's the non-nova version. Ie, if you have 40 spell points at 'full', but you gain 1 spell point per round, you could quickly blow through your spell...

I think the fact that Josh_Kablack is stepping up to provide some suggestions for the class is great and worthy of accolades. I also think that if you're giving your player a 'new' class, it's worth kicking the tires a little to see what shakes out. Regarding the 'can't put it down' ability - I don'...

While Acid as an 'energy type' is stupid, that was required to ensure it would work with other energy types that are less stupid. Protection From Energy (and others) need to be able to resist fire or electricity. If they didn't cover Acid as well, Acid would be the superior option. Likewise, if Acid...

I think using a spell point system (ie Unearthed Arcana) would be the way to go. Rather than using the wizard as a basis (which is the only choice that usually makes sense, use the sorcerer instead). Every time he 'finds a rune' or some spell from a book, he adds it to his 'spells known'. Like a sor...

Does someone mind describing how that works?

From the quote about the door remaining DC 17, I'm getting a totally different vibe. Basically, they're saying that the DC for breaking down a door is a static DC. If you get better at breaking down doors, you'll have an easier time breaking down doors at higher level. This is a repudiation of the 4...

This does mean that you have to boost the underlying generic defensive numbers at a faster rate than the offensive numbers unless you want your game to tilt to Rocket Launcher Tag over time. I agree with most of the suppositions, but I'm not convinced that the prescription is necessary. Particularl...

I fucking hate Mana points and can prove with charts that they don't actually do the things that people say they want them for. But the reality is that people do like them, and for that reason a mana points class (or several) should be included. It's basically just a system where you get unlimited ...

So my wife's friend's awful husband ... TLDR - Is it worth going to a playtest of this run by someone like Mearls? That depends on whether your wife wants to go because she's friends with the doofus's wife. If she wants to go, man up and go along. If she doesn't want to go, volunteer to be the excu...

Grabbing People The purpose of the grab varies depending on the relative power of the characters doing the grab. Major villains want to grab the princess and carry her away. Guards want to grab the Ogre just to slow him down while other people get some kind of real resistance together. The hero and...

You are seriously arguing that tossing the ring that turns people invisible, attracts undead ghost sorcerer kings, and corrupts everyone who gets near into the fires of the mountain where it was forged just so happened to result in a volcanic eruption that coincidentally caused the collapse of Bara...

I am flabbergasted at how idiotic deaddmwalking is being. Feel free to explain to me why I'm being idiotic (and be sure to use small words). My point regarding the level of magic in Lord of the Rings is that, yes, it is a magical fantasy world. However, we accept that magic 'a priori' - if the tale...

Yeah, the destruction of the Ring just happens to coincide with the immediate destruction of Sauron's fortress of Barad-dur, the Ringwraiths, the land of Mordor itself, and causing all of his forces to apparently forget why they were there and run off as if coming out of a spell. Either there was a...

I don't know what part of this isn't clear - DragonChild did not try to claim that everything about the character generation system in World of Warcraft is good, or even that all of their design ideals were applied equally. He said something akin: the way these things work are good as an example . H...

One area that I think 3.5 got wrong was with nested attacks of opportunity. Imagine, for a moment, two characters with 6 AoO each (combat reflexes, +5 dex modifier). Character A moves through Character B's threatened Area. Character B decides to attempt to Disarm Character A (not a weapon), but does...

I don't play WoW, but I think DragonChild's actual points may be valid - he doesn't compare the rogue to the Death Knight - he describes how the options a Death Knight has are balanced against their other choices at those levels. The fact that a class has meaningful choices without the ability to ma...

While this is just feeding the derail (discussion of magic-level in LotR has nothing to do with whether guns can exist in fantasy) the point about the corruption is worth looking at. It didn't have any corrupting power that tugged on the people around Frodo, and certainly didn't turn Frodo to Sauron...

Ok, so Diablo III came out and people are playing it. Several things came to my attention: 1. Everyone has an option for combat control, defense, healing, AoE attacks, single target. Everyone can solo things. 2. Everything uses a mana-like resource that is specific to the class and some attacks add...

More importantly, how does the DM adjudicate either one? Unless he is both a great battlefield tactician and a Renaissance thinker, how does he decide if what they're suggesting is a good or bad thing? And, of course, there must be guidelines about what either one would allow a character to accompli...

LotR is low- level , not low magic. I'll take that. There is a fair amount of 'magic' that PROBABLY exists, but isn't definitive. But there's enough definitely there that it doesn't qualify as low-magic. I don't buy that Ents have to be a magical race (or that other races were necessarily created b...

Actually, I already have a system I play where everyone can learn spells. But, as you say, wizards are the best, by far. But I thought I'd throw out some ideas that might work under the 3rd edition rules.

My 4 year old has been having a blast watching My Little Pony. I say yes.

No. In standard D&D, only a few classes have access to spell-casting. In the case of clerics, it makes sense that only true devotion allows someone to cast the divine spells granted as a gift by a very real and knowable deity. But wizardly fluff makes it sound like a skill that anyone can learn ...

If magic is something you learn by training, it makes sense that anyone should be able to cast spells. Giving everyone access to learning spells is not a bad thing. I'd prefer that other classes have the ability to learn a small number of spells that they could actually cast in combat. Like the rogu...

The world of Lord of the Rings has magic in it - clearly as a feature of the world. The funny thing about some magic is that you can't actually tell if it works or not. Belief in magic is still strong in the modern world, and may have been stronger in earlier times. Tying a charm around your neck th...