Lago's Kickass D&D-Book Marketing Strategy!

[mlangsdorf]

GURPS Action uses a skill-challenge like system for a lot of its non-combat minigames. The GM sets a base difficulty (usually -1 to -10, sometimes twice that) that is applied to the lead PC's skill (usually 14 to 22+, roll under on a 3d6). Other PCs can provide assistance with complementary skills by rolling under their unpenalized skill, or if the challenge is really great, they take a minor penalty.

In practice, this means that when the Infiltrator is sneaking into the top secret research lab, he's rolling a base Stealth of 18, -8 for the effectiveness of the security patrols, but at +3 because the Hacker stole the security plans from a database, the Face Man is providing a distraction, and the Investigator came up with a really good plan. 13 or less on 3d6 is an acceptable chance of success, especially when the Gunman is waiting in the wings to respond to any security.

So it works okay in GURPS. Why it completely fails in D&D is beyond me.

[A Man In Black]

So it works okay in GURPS. Why it completely fails in D&D is beyond me.

Because people aren't penalized for trying to help and difficult challenges aren't incredibly time-consuming. It's basically more-complicated Aid Another, not a 4e-style "challenge".

[hogarth]

So it works okay in GURPS. Why it completely fails in D&D is beyond me.

Because people aren't penalized for trying to help and difficult challenges aren't incredibly time-consuming. It's basically more-complicated Aid Another, not a 4e-style "challenge".

Not to mention that it sounds like it suffers from the same problems as Aid Another (e.g. ten people each contributing a puny modifier can turn a Herculean task into a trivial one, unless the GM cock-blocks the attempt).

[Username17]

The Skill Challenge System is an attempt to get people to collaborate on projects. This is a worthy goal, because every project that has everyone's input is a project where no one is wandering off to go play Smash Brothers. Of course, the Skill Challenge System is a complete fucking tragic failure at this. The reasons for this are extensive, and Have Been Gone Over At Length. But the idea is solid.

In general, there are only a couple of successful strategies to integrate multiple players into the same task:

• The Camel's Straw: In this model, there is a final chance of overall success or failure, and every player can contribute something that shifts that chance up or down. This is Aid Another, writ large. Get enough players doing "stuff" and everyone wins. All the time. It has problems, most notably that people feel cheated if they roll a 17 and contribute +2 to a player who rolls a 6.
• The Hydra's Head: In this model, a task requires multiple different actions to complete, and ideally since these are different tasks, different players will want to participate.

In general, 3e D&D uses Camel Straw and Shadowrun uses Hydra Heads. Both work. Just pick one and run with it. The big failure of the 4e Skill Challenge was that it was multiple actions, but it didn't have to (or even want to) be different actions. So optimal play was always just one guy rolling dice 12 times in a row while the other players tried to figure out if they could kill themselves with nothing but cheetohs and a 20 sided die.

There is of course a whole other question of whether the skills that players are adding to these are supposed to be open ended skills that players use "creatively" or exactingly defined skills that players use "tactically." For example, the iconic "creative" example would be in Black Forest where a character wants to find a small clue because they have "Tailor" and therefore are used to finding small objects on the ground like needles. As a counter example, the iconic counter example for "tactical" skill is how in aWoD you use Perception to find small clues, because that's the skill that you find small clues with.

The Mass Market Project being worked on here should, I think, be dedicated to Tactical Skills and go for Hydra Head mass challenges. Which would actually be called "skill challenges." Because Yathrinshee, the iconic Drow Necromancer has a bunch of skills like "poison" and "spirits" while Lidda the iconic Halfling Rogue also has "poison" but has "shadowing" and doesn't have "spirits". So that kind of skill overlap allows players to divvy up tasks separately. Just off hand, I would suggest throwing out a finite number of rounds to take care of all the hydra heads in the challenge rather than tracking successes and failures, so characters with poor rolls are encouraged to take long shots.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why do you want to have players use their skills tactically instead of creatively? Is it because the creative use special effects rewards people with more awesome special effects like Yathrinsee?

I support open-ended skills used creatively simply because it's less reading for new players to use and shrinks the character sheet. It also shuts up the people who whine about social skills being reduced to a skill check because the people 'think' about how their Knowledge/Planes skills convinces people rather than just roll Diplomacy hardcore.

[Starmaker]

Why do you want to have players use their skills tactically instead of creatively?

My guess is "because D&D is a tactical game". Skills are going to be used alongside with shit that is clearly defined, so they have to be also clearly defined.

[Ganbare Gincun]

So would you want to have a "wizard class" for every type of magic? We have Elementalists and Necromancers - do we also want certain kinds of old-school magic specialists to like Illusionists and Diviners to be represented? Or does that just end up muddling the conceptual space and reintroducing types of spells that have have traditionally either had severe mechanical issues or outright ruined adventures?

[Username17]

So would you want to have a "wizard class" for every type of magic? We have Elementalists and Necromancers - do we also want certain kinds of old-school magic specialists to like Illusionists and Diviners to be represented? Or does that just end up muddling the conceptual space and reintroducing types of spells that have have traditionally either had severe mechanical issues or outright ruined adventures?

People seem pretty happy with the mix of powers on the Beguiler, and that would be the seed for the Bard. So there would be a character who hard spells that were Illusions, Charms, Divinations, and stuff like that. But you're right that some people would want an Illusionist, which would go in Book of Gears I guess. It would be an alternate caster class that did illusions and summonings. It would have a whole "shadow conjuration" line where it made pets that were illusionary and a "phantasmal killer" line where it made pets that were illusory and only visible to the target (yes, I think Phantasmal Killer should go back to being a phantom monster that makes attack rolls and shit).

Why do you want to have players use their skills tactically instead of creatively?

As Starmaker supposes, D&D is and always has been a tactical game. The target audience is people who are new to roleplaying and people trying to put together a pick up game. Trying to justify finding structural weaknesses in brickwork with your pottery skill is not the kind of thing you want to be doing with a group of people you don't know.

D&D gives up having a world that is particularly deep the moment it signs on for having over a dozen races each with their own writeup. The same pagespace devoted to a world with just humans, or with humans and goblins, or even a small handful of species, could have trade routes and economies and philosophies and political factions and social injustices and all kinds of crap. The 31st Century of Battletech is much much deeper than the Galaxy Far Far Away of Starwars even though there are less books! Star Wars has an alien race that has two heads and is used as a one-off as a sports announcer joke. Battletech has a world which is famous for its textiles and has to import fuel because it's poor in radioactives where the local planetary viceroy is unpopular because he wants to impose his own religion on the planet and the people have a long tradition of religious ambivalence and tolerance. And so on.

D&D is thus necessarily shallow. Elaborate reasoning about what your character can do in some situation or another is essentially impossible - because your character is an Ibixian and the artists can't even make up their minds how your fucking knees work. Your whole species is a page of fluff description, a half page of art of like two members of your species in action poses, a short list of iconic racial abilities, a tiny chart of basic agedemographics, and a badass quote that is apparently from some member of your species. But seriously, how "goatlike" is your species? The writeup probably doesn't mention whether you can eat rope or not, so there's really no way for the DM to fairly rule whether it is reasonable to use your "culinary expertise" to escape from your bonds.

Going for explicit skill writeups is a necessary path in that instance, because the kind of in-depth analysis required to make an in-world case for how one would use skills in a creative fashion is basically impossible in a world shallow enough to have five different flavors of playable reptile man (not even an exaggeration: Ophidian, Yuan-Ti, Kobold, Lizardfolk, and Troglodyte. It's 7 if you count Anathema as separate and Sahuagin as reptilian).

-Username17

[Username17]

Speaking of which: how would the pets of the Necromancer, the Warlock, and the Druid differ from one another in your design concept? I assume that the Warlock is going to have some kind of hard-hitting, high HP demonic warrior, but what did you envision for the Necromancer and the Druid?

If we've learned one thing from 4e, it's that a class having three directions to go in (ex: Starlock, Inferlock, Feylock) feels like a choice, while a class having two directions to go in (ex: Tron Paladin, Grind Paladin) does not. Furthermore, we've seen that locking someone on the rails forever leads to boring characters and frustrated players. And so it is that we really need to not only provide three different paths for each of the pet classes (and all of the other classes), we also need to provide additional paths later on.

And I don't mean "path branching" - because while that's satisfying, it's actually no more satisfying than just getting a new path selection and it's three times as much work. Literally. If you give a choice of three and then a later unrelated choice of three, you have ultimately 9 possibilities, and you had to do 6 writeups. If you give a choice of three that each branch into a choice of 3, you still ultimately have 9 possibilities, but you had to do twelve writeups. It's just not an efficient use of page space, considering that more people will - by definition - be confronted by the first choice than by the second.

So the Warlock has three paths of Conjuring:

• Imp: You basically get a gun turret that shoots fireblasts at people and floats around your head. Tactically it lets you focus ranged fire on things and possibly watches your back.
• Succubus: You get a hot demon girlfriend. She has some stunlocks and a weak vampiric melee attack. She's here tactically to hold people down while you fill them full of demon fire.
• Barbazu: You get a burning brute whose main purpose is to fill up space. He has some melee attacks, and he's large and imposing. And he's pretty tough.

So yes, you get the choice of a secondary DPS, Controller, or Tank. Then, your secondary choice doesn't even give you a pet option (you get the choice of cursing, teleporting, and fire raining depending on where you want to go tactically), you just get the one for your whole life. In later books, you'll obviously get new pet options. Like maybe a Nightmare you can ride around on or something.

Anyway, the Druid is more pet centered, so their second list also gives them a bunch of pet options. The first one looks like this:

• Murder of Crows: You start out with a couple of crows that can be directed to attack a number of targets. It's kind of like having a cloud of spiritual weaponry, and as you go up in level you get more of them. Tactically it lets you do minor damage selectively across the battlefield at the cost and benefit of taking up little in the way of "space".
• Pack of Wolves: You start with a wolf and you gradually get more better dogs until you're leading a small army of worgs. The deal here is that each wolf is tactically a complete skirmisher. You're trying to open up opportunities for your wolves to flank opponents.
• The Bear: You get a dire bear cub. It grows into a dire bear. It rampages and takes up space. It's tactically pretty similar to the Barbed Devil.

But of course, when you hit higher level, you get magical monster options that still have a vaguely nature theme.

• Cockatrice: The death chicken has an absolutely brutal melee attack, so you're trying to pen up flanking opportunities for it to finish people off.
• Shambling Mound: It's a pile of mulch that reaches out and grabs people with its vine tendrils. It's like portable dangerous terrain.
• Manticore: It flies around and has a fairly nasty ranged attack. Or it can be a decent brawler. Tactically it's versatile and can be used as a harrier or as a second string tank. In either case, with high mobility.

And you can imagine the extra options you get in various books. "Tide of Badgers," "Tiger" and so on. The Necromancer is very much a squad based character all the time. And her choices reflect that:

• Skeletal Warriors: You get a cadre of skeletons with different weaponry. Each one is pretty fragile, but some of them have spears or bows. Tactically diverse, in that your soldiers have distinct abilities that you command to do something that is as a whole tactically valid.
• Shambling Zombies: Your zombies are slow, tough, and dangerous. It's like having a bunch of pawns you can put on the map. Or a fire wall you can break up and move around. Tactically your zombies are a distraction, but a potentially dangerous one. You naturally want to fight in enclosed spaces where people can't flank your plodding zombie shamblers.
• Harrying Shades: You have incorporeal shadows that can pretty much go where they want to. They are tough to hit (presumably take a fair amount of concentration to shatter), but don't do a lot of damage. Tactically similar to the murder of crows.

And your expansion armies:

• Pack of Ghouls: Fragile, but fast and very damaging. These are like cavalry or shock troops - ideally kept in reserve to be unleashed at an opportune moment to shatter the enemy with minimal losses to the Ghouls. But could get ugly if unleashed too early.
• Howling Specters: You have terrifying specters that fear kite people and scatter groups of enemies. Used as a mixture of battlefield control and stun locking.
• Squad of Wights: You have a squad of tough undead warriors that are all around competent and good for line duty.

-Username17

[Koumei]

But could get ugly if unleashed too early.

I put it to you that ghouls are always ugly.

[Username17]

I put it to you that ghouls are always ugly.

Someone hasn't been watching enough Cemetery Man or listening to enough Rob Zombie.

So anyway, Mike Mearls has just released a tirade about how he still does not actually quite understand game balance, which is as good an explanation as any for why 4e fails at life. Everything you need to know about the double think goes into two quotes:

A well-balanced game means more than simply making all options equal. A well balanced game offers a lot of distinct choices and vivid options, without *needlessly* restricting them. That's really the trick - where does that needless line rest? 4e catches a lot of heat for this. For some people, wizard spells that obviated skills were bad because they replaced rogues in those critical situations where the rogue had a chance to shine.

There are also plenty of players and DMs who have no use for game balance. If things are out of whack, their playstyle is such that it doesn't matter. Who cares if the berserker can kick anything's ass in melee, if the campaign is a mash-up of Romeo and Juliet crossed with The Longest Yard. Fighting isn't the point, so all those unbalanced fighting abilities the berserker uses don't matter.

So despite mentioning the Rogue Skill / Knock balance problem, Mike Mearls nonetheless thinks that game balance is an ignorable problem for low/no combat gaming. And this is why we can't have nice things.

---

But anyway, the big 4e problem is that it has a bad space-to-options ratio. It was deliberately designed that way of course, because it allows them to fill up books with relatively few ideas. But it means that people don't have a lot of real options and things feel very flat. For example: the PHB Paladin (I love using this example, because it is so simple) has 4 different At-Wills to choose two from. That by itself should create 6 different Paladins. But as you are no doubt aware, it does not. Because of course you're an idiot if you take one Grind At-will and one Tron at-will. It's just not even possible to have a stat line to make a going proposition of Bolstering Strike and Holy Strike. There are, in fact, two Paladins.

So let's consider this: at first level you pick 2 of 4 At-Wills, 1 of 4 Encounters, and 1 of 3 Dailies. And while that gives 72 possible combinations, everyone knows and understands that there are only 2 Paladins. Part of that is because the initial choice to go Strength/Wisdom or Charisma/Wisdom is one that will vastly restrict your options (the Tron Paladin chooses 2 of 2 At-wills, 1 of 2 Encounters, and 1 of 1 Dailies). And the other major contributing factor is that between the options you have, there aren't a whole lot of differences (Fearsome Smite and Shielding Smite are basically exactly the same thing). And the takehome message should be that producing branches on lifepaths is a bad deal. If you just gave the Grind Paladin a set of At-Will, Encounter, and Daily Powers at first level and a set to the Tron Paladin, the game wouldn't be dramatically different than it is now - but you'd have saved enough space and writing time to write up a 3rd Paladin type and still have space left over. And hopefully writing things up in that fashion would cause you to not forget to write a Tron Paladin power for level 9.

So when the Warlock grabs an Imp or a Succubus, that should just be a scaling power set. Essentially, your class feature packages should be like Tome Combat Feats. Writing branch points into the Imp is a waste of space - both conceptual and literal. But they should also make more than one selection, both immediately and later on.

So as a Warlock, at first level you get a Pact choice (that gives you a pet), and you get an Eldritch Blast choice. The Blast Choice is "Fire," "Lightning," or "Darkness." And gives you some scaling attacks. At some level, I'm going to throw out a number and say sixth, you get an extra choice called your Planar Choice or some shit, and that choice gives you the ability to Teleport, Curse, or open up damaging planar rifts. And those would b scaling powers too. This allows a writeup that is seriously shorter than the 4e Paladin to make more than 4 times as many different 1st level characters and more than 10 times as many eaningfully different 6th level characters.

Level to level customization comes from selecting stand alone feats every level. As long as none of them at "+1 to-hit with Eldritch Blast" (or other Feat Taxes) and none of them require sets of feats to chain together, characters can actually diversify themselves quite a bit. Also, you want to give people new skills on a reasonably regular basis. And the bonus skills should be anything at all, not ones related to your class necessarily.

---

What we see in 4e is a fundamental failure to understand the purpose of giving people character build options in the first place. And as a direct result it ends up being a lot to read through for very little tangible benefit. Divine Power dedicate a couple dozen pages to Clerics, and while it provides a pretty remarkable boost to laser clerics, it doesn't actually make a new kind of Cleric.

The purpose of giving extra options is not to fill up space in books or character sheets. Nor is it to make character creation time consuming. Extra options are simply there so that players can make an extra kind of character. So "branching" or "chained" options are just a bad use of options. If you make a new branch or a new cap to a chain you have created one new character. If you write the same power but allow it to be mixed and matched with any of the other characters you have created a number of new characters equal to the number of characters you had who can select that option.

The big threat of course, is that when you make new material that people won't care because they can't use it. After all, when you already have a 4th level Warlock who shoots dark pulses and has a Barbazu on a chain, there's really nothing that their character will gain by someone printing a new blast choice or a new thing to summon, because your character is not going to be using any of that. And that is a very real thing. But I don't think it's insurmountable. First of all, I see that a lot of "first level options" like new races or first level only abilities are in fact very popular. Quite frequently any new option s going to require a whole new "build" and thus for practical purposes a whole new character. So options that you take at first level are in many ways more accessible than Paragon paths and crap, because when you make a new character you can get access to them right away.

So when you write Sands of Eternity and you're including new Warlock stuff, you're really pitching to two kinds of people:

• People who already play a Warlock
• People who are considering playing a Warlock

The first group mostly wants essentially Christmas Presents. Stuff that they can throw into their build, preferably right away, at little overall impact to their build. They are already invested in a character who shoots dark pulses and teleports around with their succubus demon girlfriend. They frankly don't want a frog demon summoning or a ice beam option. Because they were already sufficiently enthused in playing a Warlock that did not do those things to sign up for the class in the first place.

What that first group does want is Feats and Equipment that they could get their hands on soon. And while they think they want prestige classes/paragon paths, the reality is that this desire is really pretty tepid. After all, they were already playing a Warlock with whatever end-of-lifepaths already available, so while they wouldn't turn their nose up at a cooler or more appropriate path, it's equally obviously not necessary.

The second group thinks that the Fire Blasts or the Imp is pretty cool, but they are iffy about the Imp or the Fire Blast. Throw in the ability to have Cold Blasts or a My Little Cauchemar and they are sold. For these players, new first level options are of highest priority, with later options being progressively less important.

And that's your market. You need to throw in some new Warlock swag like infernal charm bracelets or something, you need to throw in some feats that have a Warlockesque theme and no prereqs at all, you need to throw in some new 1st level life paths. And extra options for later lifepath choices should probably go in there, but are frankly an afterthought compared to the rest.

Now it's really important to note that there is absolutely no shame at all in making a lifepath be a set of fixed rails by itself. You're getting non-linear advancement from Feats and you'll be selectng new lifepaths. Furthermore, there is no reason for all of the lifepaths to provide the same number of "Abilities." If the Hero class is getting something weaksauce like a fear resistance, he should be getting extra stuff that level when compared to the Elementalist getting something awesome like the ability to make walls of fire.

---

Remember, you're balancing the characters, not the abilities. A Slow effect is worth more if you have a DOT than if you don't. A damage shield is worth more the more your character can get hit before dropping. And so on.

And unlike Mike Mearls, you'll remember that you aren't balancing each action, or even each minigame - you're balancing the screentime in the whole game.

-Username17

[Orion]

So if we were to make a 10-level D&D game, it could look something like this: Italicized things are choices, plaintext are scaling progressions

Level 1: Choose: Race, Choose: Primary Class Feature A, Choose: Primary Class Feature B, Choose: Skills/Backgrounds/Quirks.
Level 2: Choose: Feat, Receive: First Chakra
Level 3: Choose: Subclass Feature
Level 4: Choose: Feat, Receive: Tier 2 Class Features
Level 5: Choose: Feat, Receive: Tier 2 Race Features
Level 6: Choose: Advanced Class Feature, Receive: Second Chakra
Level 7: Choose: Feat Receive: Tier 3 Class Features
Level 8: Choose: Feat, Receive: Tier 2 Advanced Class Features
Level 9: Choose: Feat, Receive: Tier 3 Race Feature
Level 10: Receive: Tier 4 Class Features, Tier 3 Advanced Class Features, Third Chakra

So an Elf Warlock/Hero might shape up like this:

Level 1: Elven Grace, Fire Bolts, Infernal Steed
Level 2: Poisoner, Ring of Oceans
Level 3: Disarming Strike
Level 4: , Fire Ball, Nightmare Trample, Aura of Courage
Level 5: Iron Will, Elven Glamour
Level 6: Curse of Weakness, Sword of Storms
Level 7: Blind-Fighter, Wall of Fire, Nightmare Teleport, Blade Frenzy
Level 8 Giant-Slayer, Curse of Confusion
Level 9: Elusive Target, Elven Truesight
Level 10: Curse of Betrayal, Immolation, Nightmare Poisonbreath, Invincible Blade Defense, Cloak of Kingship,

Does that seem like enough progression? Too much?

[maddd0g]

Is anyone else here already sold on Frank's product?

[Lokathor]

I'm very sold.

[Mask_De_H]

@ Orion: No, that seems like a manageable amount of stuff to keep on a character sheet. You get 8 main abilities, 4 Advanced abilities, 3 Item slots, 7 feats and 3 race features, and 25 seems like a good number, especially if broken into Class abilities, Item abilities, and Character abilities. Consider a Level 10 Beguiler, who has 30 spell slots total, and a fair clip of spells to fill each spell level before getting into item loadout or feats. It seems easier to compartmentalize what you have with this system as well, which is nice.

I really like where this is headed, and would like to try and build a proof of concept. Quick question though; where does the open ability gain slot in? Feats right? Because if the class dictates your two major scaling abilities and the subclass dictates your minor scaling ability, then there's not conceptual space left in the class side of things unless you give out a "free slot", which feats look to do pretty well. However, if the Feat tag determines what subclass you can take, unless you give out a feat at 1st level you run into the 3e rails problem. Since it's a one time thing, and you get a feat the next level, this might not be a problem.

So, character progression looks something like this:

Level 1-5: Adventurer Tier. 2 Racial tricks, 4 base class tricks, 1 subjob trick, 1 special item, 3 feats.

Level 6-10: Heroic Tier. 3 racial tricks, 8 base class tricks (at max), 3 advanced class tricks, 1 subjob trick, 3 special items, 6 feats.

Level 11-15: Paragon Tier. 4 racial tricks (at max), 8 base class tricks, 4 advanced class tricks (at max), 4 "prestige" class tricks, 2 subjob trick, 4 special items, 9 feats.

Level 16-20: Epic Tier. 4 racial tricks, 8 base class tricks, 4 advanced class tricks, 8 "prestige" class tricks, 2 subjob tricks, 4 fuck year class tricks, 8 special items, 12 feats.

Class role conceptualization.

Seven main roles:
Direct Damage
Tanking
Battlefield Control
Pets
Transformation
Buffing
Cursing

Two ways to go about this: 1) Each class space is made up of two main roles, which define their abilities.

Bard: Buffing/Cursing
Hero: Direct Damage/Tanking
Ranger: Direct Damage/Transformation
Druid: Pets/Battlefield Control
Necromancer: Pets/Tanking
Paladin: Tanking/Buffing
Psion: Buffing/Direct Damage
Monk: Cursing/Transformation (FnK monk with super furry action!)
Artificer: Buffing/Battlefield Control
Elementalist: Direct Damage/Cursing
Warlock: Direct Damage/Pets
Rogue: Direct Damage/Cursing
Gish: Transformation/Tanking

We've got 42 total combinations of two roles. That's more than enough to slot a Ninja (Direct Damage/Battlefield Control), a Binder (Tanking/Cursing), a Warlord (Buffing/Tanking), a Spirit Shaman (Pets/Transformation), an Illusionist (Battlefield Control/Cursing) and more. However, it locks characters into a niche and could make characters tactically bland.

2) Each option on the primary class feature list slots into a different role.

Example: The Artificer gets two overarching abilities: Potables and Gadgets.
Potables give out either a superdrug (Buffing), a gooey mess (Battlefield Control), or a caustic compound (Cursing). Gadgets are either a clockwork man (Tanking), a set of metal limbs or a Doc Ock suit (Transformation) or a SCIENCE! cannon (Direct Damage).

This allows any character to fill almost any two roles they want (and even more once Subjobs and Advanced class features kick in), but from a writing and conceptual level, this doesn't provide any meaningful role protection and creates a lot more complexity in ability creation.

[IGTN]

You don't role protect anything important in an RPG. You might role-protect, for instance, Combat Teleportation. Tanking, though, is something every group needs, and if it's role-protected at all then that means that you have to have one of the classes that it's role-protected for.

Better to protect special effects and unique mechanics, than to protect vital combat roles.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Quick question though; where does the open ability gain slot in?

What does "open ability gain" mean?

[Mask_De_H]

Quick question though; where does the open ability gain slot in?

What does "open ability gain" mean?

It means you pick your abilities each level, and depending on which set of abilities you took, you get a supertype that gives you some level appropriate bennies.

[Crissa]

I'm okay with the general concept of pre-requisites for 'Feats'. If the ability it gives is pre-supposed on some other character setting - like Role, if you have those, or Spellcasting, if you have that - then it's okay.

What's not okay is when the pre-requisite isn't 'for this to work the way I wrote it' but instead 'this needs to come after Dodge!'.

-Crissa

[Orion]

Can someone explain to me why "tanking" is a different role from "control"?

[Lokathor]

A tank is big and bad, and they draw in enemy attacks because they're a big bad and obvious target. Their defenses are carefully adjusted to make attacking them seem like a good option compared to attacking other people in the party. Too high, and the enemies catch on and start killing the support units. Too low, and you lose the tank too quickly.

A battlefield controller shifts terrain and effect zones to give their team the edge and the enemy team the shaft, potentially without making any direct attacks. Some controller effects might be stone walls that effectively just block off a square, or flame walls that give a penalty (which is almost always some damage value) for passing through a square, or they have a summon that makes AoOs (another form of damage penalty), or something like that.

[Orion]

I'm fine with distinguishing *terrain control* from *lockdown* as functions, I guess.

But the Succubus pet was listed as a "controller" despite its "thing" being single-target stunlocks. I don't see the difference between preventing an enemy from attacking, or forcing them to attack you ineffectively. Further, those two functions have precisely the kind of non-synergy you'd expect from two characters in the same role, and none of the synergy you'd hope for from different roles.

[CatharzGodfoot]

What does "open ability gain" mean?

It means you pick your abilities each level, and depending on which set of abilities you took, you get a supertype that gives you some level appropriate bennies.

Ah, thanks. Seems like something very difficult to implement. Unless you make it work like synergy bonuses (get an extra for having two abilities), the number of combo-based traits you'd have to write up would be astronomic.

[Nicklance]

I've taken some time to read this entire thread and I love what I am reading, and being a new member here, I hope I could throw in a suggestion on what 5E could include.

Frank, I love the accuracy excess of AC becomes damage mechanic. Would having 9 ability scores help to flesh out characters more?

The OWoD way of having Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Intelligence, Perception, Wit, Charisma, Manipulation and Appearance line up might seem more complicated compared to the 6 stat line up we see for D&D, but I feel it makes alot more sense when it comes to providing a fleshier character some real numbers to make him stand out.

[Username17]

Can someone explain to me why "tanking" is a different role from "control"?

The enemies are doing some "thing" that is going to cause them to win and you to lose. Maybe it's "accumulate poison tokens" or "attack your life points" or whatever, but the point is that they take actions, and after a certain number of them, you will lose. You can of course endeavor to win before they do, but if you want to work on the "before they do" part of the equation, there are several options that extend your window:

• Undo the actions they are taking ("Healing")
• Increase the number of actions required ("Tanking")
• Penalize each action taken so they don't add up as well ("Cursing")
• Reduce the number of actions the enemy takes ("Controlling")

These tactics are all basically the same because they increase the number of rounds that your team has to eliminate the enemies before your team has critical existence failure. But they feel different. In order to win, you need to have some combination of these tactics and enough DPS to win before you lose.

It is critical when designing the game that you make each plan something of a diminishing return, because otherwise the correct choice is, like in 4e, to simply have everyone do the same thing until you win. This is a serious problem, because if you have each controller able to negate half the incoming actions, and it was originally going to take 3 rounds to lose, the first slow provides 3 extra rounds (3 -> 6), and the second slow would provide six extra rounds (6 -> 12). Similarly, if unchecked, penalties are worth more bonus rounds the more of them you add - so unless you do something about it - everyone spamming curses is way more effective than a mixed or interesting strategy. (seriously, a -3 penalty when they hit you on a 12 will on average extend the fight for 50% longer, while a -3 penalty when they already hit you on a 15 will on average extend the fight by 100% and the next -3 penalty will extend th battle by 200% even if a 20 always hits).

What does "open ability gain" mean?

The true Open Ability Gain is something that we are apparently not doing here, because we are going for a jobs/subjobs system instead. The concept would be that every level you'd grab abilities and if you had the right abilities you could take the Warlock "class" and f in later levels you selected more Paladin abilities you could trade your Warlock Class out for Paladin. It's the template system that Black Forest is going to be using.

This project will not.

Instead, you get just one truly open "feat" each level, and nothing abou your class is dependent upon that.

-Username17