The Gaming Den

In general, spells make a good guideline. As much as people bitch about overpowered casters, spells do scale in a level appropriate manner. Flight for example is level 3 (short term, with wings), 5 (short term, no wings), or 9 (long term, no wings). Note, however, that the reason (somebody correct ...

On the other end of the design spectrum, you have the MMORPG paradigm, where it is assumed that you go into every fight with every buff you can bring to the table hot and ready--even the ones that are relatively short-lasting. When you "check" an enemy and the game says they're an even mat...

you just have to get a feel for it by reading the powers given to the various CR'd monsters and spell effects? I believe that this is really the best way to determine what is considered "level-appropriate." It is easily possible to exceed level-appropriate parameters through various chees...

It's fine to have marginal advantage, but when you get into RPS determinism in a game where you are effectively the rock or scissors you change it into a game of "Look for A while running the fuck away from B every single time" and that isn't a good game. Yeah, in a game where you as a si...

The game itself divides attacks into special and physical, and by the current generation type doesn't determine that (so you can have a physical fire move, such as Fire Punch, and a special fire move, like Flamethrower). If you don't want to keep the original type chart as-is, you might consider hav...

The idea of there being non-human races that have prominence in the setting raises an interesting divide. There are a lot of Pokémon that are essentially humanoid beings. Does this mean that there's a city constructed and run by Hitmonlees somewhere? Because if you're going to have orcs and sahuagin...

I figured there would be some differentiation between the abilities, but my thought is that it would be easy to pick some appropriate damage point and then just vary the "special effects" for a couple basic moves that each type might have. Obviously, you don't want to do the 4e thing where...

A lot of moves in Pokémon are essentially palette swaps of one another--they have the same attack power and only differ in type. Examples: -Quick Attack (normal) -Aqua Jet (water) -Bullet Punch (steel) -Ice Shard (ice) -Mach Punch (fighting) -Shadow Sneak (dark) -Vacuum Wave (fighting) In-game, they...

Wow, Crissa, that's the worst cop-out ever on his/her part. The game world is described by the rules. Full stop. Anything the rules don't describe you're supposed to extrapolate from what the rules do describe. When the entire world in question is a construct that you have created inside your own mi...

ubernoob wrote:You do realize that "race" means the same thing in D&D as "species" does in star trek, right?

And, as a result, it might be better to say that a fighter the way you're defining it stays within the baseline limits for that particular character's race.

Why is there such resistance towards accepting things like the above, and why do the people who point such things out, getting called names such as trolls, munchkins, etc.? Most of the people who are going to respond that way can't assess the situation without thinking about it in a personal contex...

Actually, yeah, I do. I play for the fighting...Except now everytime I swing my sword it's like casting a spell. I don't want to pick a target, then pick a power, then calculate effects. That's playing a caster, in my eyes. I just want to walk up to my opponent and whonk them as hard as I can. I wa...

Seriously, go to the plane of "I win D&D." There's gotta be one. And if not, you can always find a way to create it.

One has to remember that the philosophy behind GURPS seems to have been to make a realistic game rather than a playable one. Yet at the same time it is very modular so that you can potentially ignore sections which are giving you problems. It really is more a toolkit to make up your own games. I'll...

Get the Martial Arts supplement, as it goes into a lot of detail on how to bonk people over the head. Following this, emphasize the sidebar note that a good swordsman isn't someone who has Broadsword-25. Even if you have DX 16, Broadsword-25 would cost 64 points! He might have Broadsword-16 or Broa...

I ran a (very brief) GURPS 3rd edition game in a fantasy setting. A bit of research into 4th edition suggests that a lot of things are pretty similar, so here's my take. How the game plays is going to depend very heavily on the starting point totals for PCs. If you're doing standard 100-point charac...

This is not an acceptable template for a role playing game in which one or more player characters are expected to go their whole adventuring careers without ever learning any spells. I remember reading a D&D supplement for casters (3.0 Tome and Blood, maybe?) that had a brief section talking ab...

I'm with Lago. Budget GMing for the win. The most expensive part of my gaming setup is a Chessex mat with 1" squares on one side and 1" hexes on the other. You can draw on it with water-soluble markers and then wipe it down with a moistened paper towel. I have each of my players bring some...

Since your game is going to end at level 6, there's really no harm in just putting a 20 in strength. It's extra damage, attack, and righteous brand benefit. I also recommend getting an orc or a goliath, that way you can afford scale armor proficiency and maybe even plate armor proficiency. If you'r...

Archmage’s example is poor because while the character died, unless he was acting alone (well he was a rogue, not always the brightest in the pack, “shut up and get out of my way, you’re ruining my surprise”) the other players would have noticed the trap floor in front of the door because they woul...

A potentially fun option if you don't want to go with the Power of Skill domain feat is the Power of Tyranny domain feat. It causes your Astral Seal to grant a -2 penalty to saving throws against the enemy even if you miss . If your wizard is using the right powers, he's going to love you. Another o...

Isn't a statue being present int he room, some the player needs to think about, rather than hand it over to the character? But that doesn't make any sense. My character lives in a world where statues are quite frequently monsters. He might know this because he has studied them (he's trained in Arca...

Perception: Why do you need perception? Why can the DM not just state what the PC thinks it sees? Are you trying to find a way to give some automatic ability to disbelieve an illusion? What if there's a monster hiding in the room--like a gargoyle pretending to be a statue? Having a Perception check...

I think it refers to a race/species of humans that is similar to but not exactly identical to those that exist in the real world. Because they cannot be exactly the same. The worlds are too different; evolutionary pressures aren't going to be the same, for example. It is totally unreasonable to assu...

Well GURPS is fairly easily adjustable in terms of damage ratings. A medieval style campaign isn't going to be very deadly in general, since swords probably won't kill someone in one shot, unless you hit them in the neck. If you're using guns, things become a lot more deadly, but honestly, if you'r...