Weaning people off of the Martial power source.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 7:58 am

Orion wrote:Actually, I'm pretty sure K's thing is consistent.

You can take whatever abilities you want. When you take them, you explain how you got them. This can be training, an item, ancestry, or some sort of transformation that's been done to you.

It's unclear whether the GM is supposed to seed a bunch of items, or whether the player is allowed to arbitrarily declare that the last session's loot included a fire sword. But it doesn't matter because he can just as easily declare that he's suddenly re-discovered his Efreeti ancestry, or that he's taken vows to serve the God of Fire, or whatever.

No. That's an example of being totally inconsistent. There is a totally defensible but totally binary choice to require a lightning spear or magic tome to utilize the plane shift power. It's fine either way, but you cannot have it both ways.

If you need the lightning spear, then when you get captured and your lightning spear is taken away, you can't plane hop and you have to fight your way out the normal way. If you don't need the lightning spear, then you can tear your way out directly from your cell. It's a totally different set of possible stories. If you "need" the lightning spear, but you get to decide that you don't need the lightning spear after you lose it, then you seriously never really needed it in the first place. It's literally impossible to both require and not require that object to use your powers.

Now there's a whole different proposal on the table, which is to make lightning spears be kind of like motorcycles. Where if they are lost, they can plausibly be replaced even without devoting screen time to doing so. And for a high magic scenario that is fine. And I would argue that if you're going to require a Fighter to use a lightning spear to get level appropriate powers at any point, you're pretty much required to go that route.

Requiring that non-magical warriors get magic weapons and armor to compete with spellcasters at any point in the story requires that you be in a world that is so high in magic that you can just ambiently have that magical equipment. It's perfectly reasonable to have a character who is a trick rider and can't actually design, create, or repair a motorcycle - but only because modernity assumes a level of science and industry so high that you can assume a motorcycle is available without really worrying about where it specifically came from. If magic items were in any way special, then Warriors need to be able to fight Bavmorda without them or make them on their own.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:15 am

Orion wrote: It's unclear whether the GM is supposed to seed a bunch of items, or whether the player is allowed to arbitrarily declare that the last session's loot included a fire sword. But it doesn't matter because he can just as easily declare that he's suddenly re-discovered his Efreeti ancestry, or that he's taken vows to serve the God of Fire, or whatever.

Yeh, if you have some dedicated item-lovers who can't plan out characters to save their lives and flip-flop on their choices of powers, the DM might have to seed a bit. Since I expect players will be leaving magic swords in the bloody hands of their slain enemies, I don't see it being an issue.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:28 am

K wrote:
And that's it. The thematic cost you pay can seriously be a thing you start your character with.

Here are some ideas:

-a magic item.
-some heritage
-an NPC who follows you around to use the ability, and otherwise stays out of the fray. Think of every character in Inuyasha that is not Inuyasha or a BBEG.
-study of a magical tradition
-some investment of power from a supernatural
-monster organ grafted onto you.
Its not a hard concept to grok, but people seem to be flipping out.

You pick your powers as you level. When you do that, you pick a source for your "magic" powers. Some people use lightning powers because they studied at the Inverted Tower and use them as spells, some people have a lightning sword and shoot them out of a sword, and some people are the direct male descendants of djinn and breath them out. Whatever.

Done.

Under this system, would there be any mechanical difference between the following Fire Waves beyond how easily the story could take them away from you and what Class abilities they advanced you towards getting?

1. You have a Fire Mage who follows you around and shoots what you say
2. You have a magical tattoo on one arm
3. You whip up special incendiary shells for your custom scattergun during your downtime
4. You learned how to use a Fire Sword for it

If those are fundamentally similar except in what class or classes they advance you towards getting abilities for, this idea intrigues me.

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:36 am

How about adding spell atop the normal Fighter. Entirely new spells that magically buff weapons but still remain apart of the weapon (IE, you still need to make a melee attack with a melee weapon) and the actual buff scales with the BAB. Or make it feats, possibly Fighter exclusive, despite ubernoob's incorgible hatred of bonus feats as a class feature.

What you get in the end is less Fighter and more... well, Magic Fighter. Fighter, magic.

K · Post by K » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:50 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
If you need the lightning spear, then when you get captured and your lightning spear is taken away, you can't plane hop and you have to fight your way out the normal way. If you don't need the lightning spear, then you can tear your way out directly from your cell. It's a totally different set of possible stories. If you "need" the lightning spear, but you get to decide that you don't need the lightning spear after you lose it, then you seriously never really needed it in the first place. It's literally impossible to both require and not require that object to use your powers.

So you get into a fight with a Blackstone golem or something out of one of the lesser used MMs, and he breaks your lightning spear.

Your options are:

-take the shards and reforge it. It worked for Aragorn and Lion-O and the Dragonlance guys and it should work for you too. You don't need a high-magic campaign to have a famous magicsmith somewhere on the planet.

-find an alternate source. Cut off from your powers, you forge a pact with the Storm Lord. He gets his bowl of rice and you get juice.

-get another [Lightning] item and rededicate it. You found a Shock Amulet two adventures back and you dig it out of your batcave and do a training montage on a mountain. Maybe with a rock-alt soundtrack.

-get another lightning spear. Like off a rack. Maybe in a shop or maybe you pull in a favor from the Inverted Tower. Obvious a high-magic setting. Do a training montage. End.

-if you are near a level, you might get enough new abilities to qualify as a real spellcaster. Heck, maybe you want and can train out some old abilities so you can qualify for spellcasting. You never needed the feather Dumbo!

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:53 am

I dunno, K, most of those abilities sound sort of lame.

I'm tempted to go the other route. If eve inherent magic pwoers can be shut down or neutralized--and having just written aWoD, we should know how to do this--then there's still parity. If wizard prisoners can be injected with anti-magic serum, then it's okay that imprisoned fighters can have their spears confiscated.

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:58 am

Here's a pretty off-the-top-of-my-head example of what I mean.

Fireblade [Fighter, melee]
"Shit man, your sword's on fire!"

Prereq: Fighter

Special: Take as a bonus Fighter feat.

BAB: Benefit

+1: Your weapon is treated as a Firey weapon.

+6: Fireyburst

+12: Some other firey bullshit.

+16: By this point it's a lightsaber.

Something to this affect. This is using the regular PHB Fighter.

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:58 am

Orion wrote:I dunno, K, most of those abilities sound sort of lame.

I'm tempted to go the other route. If eve inherent magic pwoers can be shut down or neutralized--and having just written aWoD, we should know how to do this--then there's still parity. If wizard prisoners can be injected with anti-magic serum, then it's okay that imprisoned fighters can have their spears confiscated.

Anti-magic prisons and manacles. Injections seem over-the-top.

K · Post by K » Fri Dec 04, 2009 9:05 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote: Under this system, would there be any mechanical difference between the following Fire Waves beyond how easily the story could take them away from you and what Class abilities they advanced you towards getting?

1. You have a Fire Mage who follows you around and shoots what you say
2. You have a magical tattoo on one arm
3. You whip up special incendiary shells for your custom scattergun during your downtime
4. You learned how to use a Fire Sword for it

If those are fundamentally similar except in what class or classes they advance you towards getting abilities for, this idea intrigues me.

Basically, everything is going to have a "way to be taken from you." Someone might cover your tattoos, take your fire sword or keep you away from your portable lab, or tie your Mage's hands or knock him out so he can't cast. Ideally, they should be the same difficulty to take away both in and out of combat.

As for Advancement, they are all [Fire]. I envision [Fire] being one of the way to qualify for multiple classes, but you pick your class and only count a [Fire] ability once for that one.

So, as a arbitrary example lets say to be a Wizard you need 5 [magic] abilities(and [fire] is a subset of [magic] abilities) and to be a Priest of Fire you need 5 [fire] abilities. You have 3 [Illusion] abilities and 2 [Fire], and are a Wizard, and would need 5 more [Fire] to be a Fire Priest/Wizard. I could also see your source of magic also being a requirement to some classes (can't be a Fire Priest without a pact with the God of Fire), and some classes getting you a new source (Wizards can cast any magic with spells).

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 9:10 am

how can qualifying for a class label give you "a new power source"? I thought ANYONE could declare at a given level-up they were learning a spell, so how can becoming a wizard give you "access" to spells?

If you DO only get access to certain sources, fighters are screwed by needing loot again.

K · Post by K » Fri Dec 04, 2009 9:26 am

Orion wrote:how can qualifying for a class label give you "a new power source"? I thought ANYONE could declare at a given level-up they were learning a spell, so how can becoming a wizard give you "access" to spells?

If you DO only get access to certain sources, fighters are screwed by needing loot again.

I'd like spellcasting as a source be reserved for dedicated spellcasters. I mean, anyone else can get their power so they need something to feel special. Iconic Wizard stuff is shooting fire out of your hands, and when everyone is doing that then they need some flavor skin on their abilities.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:29 am

K wrote:
Orion wrote: If you DO only get access to certain sources, fighters are screwed by needing loot again.
I'd like spellcasting as a source be reserved for dedicated spellcasters. I mean, anyone else can get their power so they need something to feel special. Iconic Wizard stuff is shooting fire out of your hands, and when everyone is doing that then they need some flavor skin on their abilities.

That's just you shifting goalposts. It's a relatively simple choice ahead of you:

You have to choose to be "a spellcaster" who gets to have all the crap off the arcane power list or a "non-spellcaster" who fucking doesn't.

or
You don't.

There is no option three. If you reserve shit for "wizards" you're right back to "fighters can't have nice things" and all the circular discussion you've had about needing but not really needing fire swords is completely meaningless. Whatever the fuck it is you're reserving for the "wizard" is something that the other guys don't get and is a way that writing "wizard" on your character sheet makes you better than other characters.

Again and still: your choices are fairly limited once you accept Bavmorda as part of the game. You must give Bavmorda levels of power to the armored knight once he gets high enough level that Bavmorda is an even challenge. And that means your only choice if you want to keep the warrior at the level of Val Kilmer is to fucking end the campaign before Val Kilmer gains a level.

You can have everyone be equipment limited like Megaman, or equipment limited like James Bond, or not meaningfully equipment limited like Cyclops. But you know that monks aren't balanced and can't be. Since the assumption is that whatever the equipment limits are, that people are not running into battle naked, the ability to run into battle naked is worth so little that actually paying any effectiveness for it is a shit deal - and yet it does have real value so it's broken on first principles if people get it for free.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:50 am

How many times do I have to say it? There is no "different lists." Access to powers is not limited.

I'll quote myself again.

Its not a hard concept to grok, but people seem to be flipping out.

You pick your powers as you level. When you do that, you pick a source for your "magic" powers. Some people use lightning powers because they studied at the Inverted Tower and use them as spells, some people have a lightning sword and shoot them out of a sword, and some people are the direct male descendants of djinn and breath them out. Whatever.

Done.

That being said, keeping a single source limited is pretty meaningless from a game balance standpoint. It seriously is a flavor ability consideration.

I'm reserving the "Wizard flavor" for Wizards. Not a big deal.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:22 am

K wrote:
That being said, keeping a single source limited is pretty meaningless from a game balance standpoint. It seriously is a flavor ability consideration.

I'm reserving the "Wizard flavor" for Wizards. Not a big deal.

No. That is a big deal, because you basically defined "Wizard Flavor" as being able to turn Val Kilmer and his entire side into mindless pigs during the opening monologues phase from outside archery range.

Which goes back to the entire point of the entire thread, which is that "Wizard Flavor" is a statement indistinguishable from "level appropriate" after you reach a certain power point. There are roller coasters where the entrance bar seriously is "Wizard Flavor" to ride. And in D&D land, we call those rides "anything over 10th level."

-Username17

K · Post by K » Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:27 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
K wrote:
That being said, keeping a single source limited is pretty meaningless from a game balance standpoint. It seriously is a flavor ability consideration.

I'm reserving the "Wizard flavor" for Wizards. Not a big deal.
No. That is a big deal, because you basically defined "Wizard Flavor" as being able to turn Val Kilmer and his entire side into mindless pigs during the opening monologues phase from outside archery range.

Which goes back to the entire point of the entire thread, which is that "Wizard Flavor" is a statement indistinguishable from "level appropriate" after you reach a certain power point. There are roller coasters where the entrance bar seriously is "Wizard Flavor" to ride. And in D&D land, we call those rides "anything over 10th level."

-Username17

Fine. I'll quote myself for the third time.

How many times do I have to say it? There is no "different lists." Access to powers is not limited.

This means the fighter can change people into pigs with an amulet, or a pact, or some other damned thing. Just not a spell. Unless he becomes a Wizard.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:59 am

I think I know what K is talking about. Let's say the system has four classes, Fighter, Wizard, Sorcerer and Monk.

The Fighter has a Lightning Spear and a Magic Helmet. Some of his powers need the spear, others need the Helmet. If he looses one, he cannot use his powers until he gets it back.

The Wizard needs to read from his Spellbook once a day for some powers and wave his Magic Wand for the rest. If he looses the spellbook, he has a day to find it before he looses those powers. To balance that, he needs both an hour per day and an item to prepare the powers. The magic wand is basically a reskinned weapon; You need to have it in your hand or the powers don't work.

The Sorcerer gets all of his powers by charging up his magic with eye of newt and wool of bat. He needs a steady supply of this stuff, or his powers run out. The items are consumed, but they are also easy to get.

The Monk gets his powers by meditating regularly. He doesn't need anything to do this, just some time to sit with his eyes closed and go "ommmm" If he's not allowed to meditate on inner peace, his kung-fu becomes weak.

For the "Turn people into pigs" example, K seems to want the following sources for the "Turn people into pigs" power:

-You are followed by a guy who does it with his magical powers.
-You have a pile of pixie dust that turns people into pigs.
-You have a magic amulet lets you cast "Baleful Polymorph".
-You have a magical spell that does it somewhere in your spellbook.

And the fourth option is "Wizard Only" for thematic reasons.

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 7:05 pm

Polymorph Strike [Fighter]
"Your sword cannot hurt me! I am Balgor the Invincible!"
"In about a second you're about to be Balgor the Toad."

Prereq: Fighter. A properly some level. Say, six? I'm-a go with Fighter level six off the top of my head.

BAB: Benefit

+6: Upon a succesful strike, the strikee must make some sort of save or get their ass Baleful Polymorphed.

+12: Hey, what's worse but thematically in line with Baleful Polymorph?

+18: Because I honestly don't know.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 7:56 pm

Grek wrote:The Fighter has a Lightning Spear and a Magic Helmet. Some of his powers need the spear, others need the Helmet. If he looses one, he cannot use his powers until he gets it back.

The Wizard needs to read from his Spellbook once a day for some powers and wave his Magic Wand for the rest. If he looses the spellbook, he has a day to find it before he looses those powers. To balance that, he needs both an hour per day and an item to prepare the powers. The magic wand is basically a reskinned weapon; You need to have it in your hand or the powers don't work.

I'd like to think that was what K was talking about, because that would be obviously balanced and totally make sense. But every time I say that, K goes off about how I am misrepresenting him. So obviously that's not what he means.

Assuming that being "a spell" means anything at all, which is a good assumption because otherwise K's objections boil down to "I am reserving [wearing a purple hat] for the characters of players who say that their character [wears a purple hat]!" then it seems like K is insisting that everyone get mostly equal stuff: except Wizards who also get a maraschino cherry on top and some free whipped cream. I honestly don't understand what the fuck K is going on about at this point. But it may have something to do with the fact that we were exchanging posts when it was noon out here, and therefore 3AM over on the West Coast.

But yeah, it's trivially true that if a power "being a spell" means anything, and you're reserving it for Wizards, then Wizards are better than you. So if some powers are spells and some aren't, then we're still at the point where you have to retire or transform the non-wizards at some point. Sooner or later, you'll hit a wall and say "Sorry dude, you have to upgrade your Knight into a Wizard Knight, there are no non-Wizard Paragon Progressions for you to have."

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:13 pm

Frank wrote:So if some powers are spells and some aren't, then we're still at the point where you have to retire or transform the non-wizards at some point.

I guess things sort of work out like the Frenzied Berseker/Super-Charger where you can't do a whole lot of things but the one thing you do do is so hardcore that it makes you equal somehow?

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:22 pm

So I'm talkin' at a wall aren't I? If my idea is bad, can somebody tell me so I'll stop wasting our precious time?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:35 pm

I really can't give a rat's ass towards peoples' attempts to prop up the 3E fighter, GoA.

I think people are just in denial about the whole thing out of a misplaced sense of nostalgia, same for Pluto and the Brontosaurus and the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, so attempts to implement incremental changes without addressing the underlying problem are going to get a

from me.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:38 pm

God_of_Awesome wrote:So I'm talkin' at a wall aren't I? If my idea is bad, can somebody tell me so I'll stop wasting our precious time?

You're bringing up that is not germain(sp?) to the conversation anymore. And Baleful Polymorph at level 6 seems a bit much.

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:58 pm

Oh alright.

So throw out the Fighter is a go-go?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:53 am

I liked my FF7 pistol which turned everything into frogs.

-Crissa

K · Post by K » Sat Dec 05, 2009 10:13 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
Grek wrote:The Fighter has a Lightning Spear and a Magic Helmet. Some of his powers need the spear, others need the Helmet. If he looses one, he cannot use his powers until he gets it back.

The Wizard needs to read from his Spellbook once a day for some powers and wave his Magic Wand for the rest. If he looses the spellbook, he has a day to find it before he looses those powers. To balance that, he needs both an hour per day and an item to prepare the powers. The magic wand is basically a reskinned weapon; You need to have it in your hand or the powers don't work.
I'd like to think that was what K was talking about, because that would be obviously balanced and totally make sense. But every time I say that, K goes off about how I am misrepresenting him. So obviously that's not what he means.

Assuming that being "a spell" means anything at all, which is a good assumption because otherwise K's objections boil down to "I am reserving [wearing a purple hat] for the characters of players who say that their character [wears a purple hat]!" then it seems like K is insisting that everyone get mostly equal stuff: except Wizards who also get a maraschino cherry on top and some free whipped cream. I honestly don't understand what the fuck K is going on about at this point. But it may have something to do with the fact that we were exchanging posts when it was noon out here, and therefore 3AM over on the West Coast.

But yeah, it's trivially true that if a power "being a spell" means anything, and you're reserving it for Wizards, then Wizards are better than you. So if some powers are spells and some aren't, then we're still at the point where you have to retire or transform the non-wizards at some point. Sooner or later, you'll hit a wall and say "Sorry dude, you have to upgrade your Knight into a Wizard Knight, there are no non-Wizard Paragon Progressions for you to have."

-Username17

I honestly don't get that chain of logic. You just can't get from "abilities are not limited" to "abilities will be limited." Its like you don't believe me when I say that.

So let me say this in baby-talk:

1. Abilities are not limited by class.

2. "Class" is a set of benefits you get for taking a fixed number of abilities.

3. Wizard is a class.

4. "Spells" is a alternate thematic cost you can use to pay for "magic" abilities. Like every other thematic cost, it will will have its own merits and flaws.

5. You get access to spells as a potential thematic cost by having the Wizard class.

That's all, but let me say it again:

At no point am I saying that any level-appropriate abilities are limited to certain classes. Exclusive flavor abilities will be necessarily limited to certain classes.

Every class will have flavor abilities as a way to make them special. Wizards are going to have spell-related flavor benefits. One of those will be "spells" as a power source so that wizards won't have to do stuff like graft demon hands onto their arm stumps to use Plane Shift.

So as a sample, lets say that I'm a high powered Fighting guy. I want to get Plane Shift. I might have a magic item with the [Extraplanar] tag, I might want to make oaths to any gods who deal with that, I might want to find out that I have demon blood in me, I might want a mage casting it for me, or some other thematic cost off the list. One of my choices is NOT spells, because I am not a Wizard.

If I was a Wizard, one of my choices would be Spells.

Some classes will have exclusive flavor abilities. For example, fire resistance as a class ability will be exclusive to Efreet-born (but of course, as a magic item ability it will be common). This means that the the only people who can run naked through lava caves are Efreet-born, and everyone else needs to wear Fire Rings.

But it is 3am in the morning, so I'm off to bed.