The Gaming Den

Charming and mind controlling could also have the danger of overloading the target's mind. Too many mind control effects, and the target can lose its mind, becoming berserk or catatonic. Maybe make it so that once the number of charm spells passes the wisdom modifier, any failed Will save means the ...

Alan Dean Foster had "The Damned" trilogy where we were the best fighters the good guy alien coalition could find. Even random shmoes taken from random managed to open up a can of whoopass. Our adrenal system, durability, and balanced abilities made of terrifying to all involved, allies i...

In 3e, the system this thread is supposedly addressing, at least, you have a problem where this stops stacking charm person twice but doesn't stop me throwing on another charm monster which is a different spell except for having all pertinent effects the same and a different name, and then followin...

Ignore doesn't solve the problem of threads getting derailed by ignored users, or people quoting posts of an ignored poster.

RLT works pretty well in Shadowrun. I have no problem with bosses dieing quickly - I like that. Nothing worse than some dragged out "whittle them down" fight that reminds me of MMOG boss fights. The "Fate point" mechanic can keep PC atrition in check. Ditto for TPKs. Initiative c...

My last campaign arc (lasted a year) had the PCs in the City of Brass (Necromancer games version) and supporting a rebellion/coup to make it easier to recover the artifact the Sultan and his pals from Set had stolen from the PCs' church. When it came to the final confrontation I had the failure cons...

Levels make it easier to keep everyone at the same table at the same power level. The same goes for opponents. Er. No. That's something classes do. Levels exist to allow differentiation of power level so characters (usually PCs) can progress in power and rather intentionally not stay at the same po...

I don't know who is the bigger masochist - E for wanting to play a game where characters die left and right just so he can feel like a hero the one time the character makes it to level 10, or the people who are trying to discuss game design and math with him.

You could replace technology with magic items/artificed stuff.

"Detect targets for Smite"?

As I said - I do not play with people who think like you. And I am grateful for that each time I read one of your posts.

Tell me that you genuinely think you would genuinely be frightened if you found that things that were killing your buddies right and left were not leaving you scratched, and that kept happening over and over and over and over again. Is this a trick question? Of course I am frightened of such things...

Man, I remember when I looked through the 4E PHB and discovered that Meteor Swarm, the most powerful attack I could find in that book and one of the most famous evocations from the last edition, doing 32d6 points of damage in 3.5, now did 8d6+int mod points of damage. 8d6. Not, like, 18, or 80. Eig...

No, I'm pointing out that when a PC has no reason to suspect that he's better able to survive than anyone else (he's wearing the same level of armor, he's as far as he knows about as tough and experienced and everything else), but "miraculously" survives...time and after time...it is damn...

D&D has some difficulties with ransoming people because losing your gear is often worse than death anyway (Unless you go to great lengths to make the game less gear-/loot-dependent).

Why would you worry before facing combat when you have never been in genuine danger of dying, even though all the people around you (NPCs) have been killed or maimed or otherwise screwed over. You're metagaming again. A PC would not know he had never been in a genuine danger of dieing, just that he...

As I said - I do not play with people who cannot play a character without applying the metagame knowledge of the players. Do you wonder why an actor can play a character fearing death even though he knows neither he nor the character will die, since he read the script? Do you wonder how an author ca...

So how do you intend to make it look like characters are in peril when you make it so they never are? By good DMing, of course, and by playing with people who have their characters act to the dangers the charactes perceive. By not playing with players who cannot separate player and character knowle...

If you want people to press on, then it has to be mechanically better to press on than to rest. So, the game mechanics have to make it a better choice. That could be done by increasing the reward (aka XP and treasure) for risky actions, could be done by rewarding risky actions with advantages in pla...

Let me be more precise: You , as the player, are not a hero, nor are you doing anything heroically when you direct your character, no matter what the odds and rules are. Whether you risk your character's deth, or play it safe is meaningless - you won't be a hero. Your character may be a hero in his ...

I have to point out that what a player does is not heroic, no matter the rules and odds. Player characters do heroic stuff within their imaginary setting.

I rarely if ever plan out my adventures too detailedly just in case the players bring up a curveball, so I usually limit my preparations to defining who wants what with what ressources, and see what happens. I don't like to script/railroad stuff. Some players prefer it when his characters get told w...

I run my D&D adventures like this: There's an overall goal, and how the PCs tackle it is up to them. The way I handle the social "Minigames" is by making a lot more skill rolls, for a lot details. So, instead of "roll diplomacy, DC 25. Succeed? The Duke agrees to support your expe...

I take another approach when I DM. When handling the "typical" "storm the BBEG's base and rescue X" adventure, I don't run a series of encounters, starting at the gate. I want to avoid the "there's a decent (=party level)challenge at the gate, which you should manage without...

I started playing D&D with 2E in 1992, and played weekly since then. When I heard there was going to be a 3E, my gut instinct was "why should I change? What I have works!". One player brought the PHB first printing to the table, right when it came out, and I looked through it, and afte...