Spells using the Bloodied condition

[Username17]

Especially since the Bloodied condition kicks in way before 1 remaining HP, so to say that every Charmed/Dominated enemy will fall to the first point of incidental damage is nothing short of a deliberate misrepresentation of the idea, unless you're combat game is rocket-launcher tag, and if that's the case then it doesn't matter what level of health they begin with, does it?

Can people kindly fuck off before attempting to tell me that I am misrepresenting Deanrule? Or maybe at least do us the courtesy of fucking reading his actual fucking proposal?

Then you say that every effect has 3 applications. What it does when you're fine, what it does when you're bloodied, and what it does when you're defeated (meaning down to 0hp).

Deanrule's actual proposal, which I remind you we are still fucking talking about, was that Domination was an effect that kicked in if you reduced your target to zero hit points with a command bolt. We are not "misrepresenting" the idea by saying that dominated characters become 4e Minions. They literally have zero hit points and will literally go down to 1 point of lethal damage.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

If you drop the idea of "everything has to use the same damage/condition track" then the entire problem instantly goes away. Then repeatedly stabbing the princess probably isn't the best or even a way to get make out sessions started.

It's not a problem with charm person or with fireball or any other specific thing.

No. It IS a problem with specific spells because when I made this thread I made it with only combat spells that kill in mind.
You are stuck on princesses and rape. Obsessed.

Back then pages ago when we mentioned Sleep, and a possibility of damage stacking up to knocking someone unconscious magically, and then certain chucklefucks in this thread start talking about rape.

Seriously, read back. This thread was about Finger of Death and Fireball.
THAT is what Bloodied is for.
Fuck all the rest, you can design it yourself if you want it perfect. I've offered advice and agreed on concessions about debuff tracks but it doesn't go anywhere.

[JonSetanta]

Anyway.

I noticed in Pokemon, that shining paragon of competitive game design, there's a certain move combo that doesn't function quite like others.

In question... Hypnosis + Dream Eater. The latter doesn't work unless the condition of "Sleep" is applied.
You begin combat spamming Hypnosis until the target is asleep, then suck the life out of them once the combo goes off.

D&D spells using the physical and mental tracks could use this dynamic, the reverse of attaining Bloodied, to instead deal various types of damage to targets under the effect of debuffs.

For instance a Confusion spell could do the following; firstly confuse the target, then make them hit themselves with further castings.
Or a victim of a Phantasm or Fear effect could begin to take nonlethal damage with further castings.

[Stubbazubba]

K, Frank, just to humor you I went through the entire thread. No one but you has said that Dominate effects specifically only happens at 0 hp. According to the model for spells in the same post you just quoted from, it probably lasts longer at 0 hp, but that's not the same thing. Your argument hinges on a nebulous definition of what Dominate does in a theoretical system where spell effects are tied to HP. So, I will hinge my argument on something that makes more sense;

Dominate Person Bard 4, Src/Wiz 5
Normal: 1d6 + 2 non-lethal damage per level
Bloodied: Failed Will save dominates one person for 1 min/level
Defeated: Failed Will save dominates person for 1 day/level

That allows you to Dominate in-combat for short-term gains, and allows you to Dominate someone long-term if you want to.

[Dean]

For instance a Confusion spell could do the following; firstly confuse the target, then make them hit themselves with further castings.
Or a victim of a Phantasm or Fear effect could begin to take nonlethal damage with further castings.

The idea of a spell being it's own combo is an interesting notion but is probably uninteresting in application. I think it's a cool idea for Confusion to "Confuse" you first and then each iterative Confusion makes you hit yourself, but in practice that would mean the optimal thing to do after casting Confuse is to continue to cast it over and over again and that is tactically unengaging.

I've thought of a system many times where every attack has a special effect that only goes off on criticals of bloodyings. So your Rapier would have a "Disarm" special effect where you get to make a disarm attempt whenever you bloody someone or whenever you get a critical. Spells could do the same thing and have an additional special effect go off when you bloody a target. Like Confuse also makes the target strike themself if you bloody him with the confuse damage.

[ModelCitizen]

Dominate Person Bard 4, Src/Wiz 5
Normal: 1d6 + 2 non-lethal damage per level
Bloodied: Failed Will save dominates one person for 1 min/level
Defeated: Failed Will save dominates person for 1 day/level

You guys are trying to obfuscate the problem by using Dominate is an example. Controlling someone like a puppet is pretty fucking nasty and thus it seems slightly less ridiculous that you're required to stab them first. We're talking about Charm Person now.

Charm Person Bard 1, Src/Wiz 1
Normal: 1d6 + 2 non-lethal damage per level
Bloodied: Failed Will save charms one person for 1 min/level
Defeated: Failed Will save charms one person for 1 day/level

My bard has a bounty 10000gp bounty on his head for Felonious Use of a Lute. I need to convince a guard to let me climb over the city wall without him immediately sounding an alarm. I'm also not playing the kind of psychopath who randomly stabs people in town when they aren't presently trying to kill me. Explain to me why I'm not allowed to use Charm Person.

[souran]

My bard has a bounty 10000gp bounty on his head for Felonious Use of a Lute. I need to convince a guard to let me climb over the city wall without him immediately sounding an alarm. I'm also not playing the kind of psychopath who randomly stabs people in town when they aren't presently trying to kill me. Explain to me why I'm not allowed to use Charm Person.

Clearly, charms seem a little odd in this system. The real problem is actually with charms themselves.

The reason why you can't use charm person is because the effect you WANT is basically the jedi-mind trick. The effect of charm person in most of D&D is to purchase yourself a humanoid puppy.


This solution is very entertaining and would probably be good for the game all and all. Anything that promotes hit point damage/normal combat over the rocket launcher tag is generally good. However, its also clearly antithetical to the very idea of charms.

Perhaps your charms should work the opposite way, they get weaker as the target has taken more damage. However, in this case the up front of effects have to be significangly weaker than standard D&D slave-charms as well.

[Dean]

Explain to me why I'm not allowed to use Charm Person.

You are? If you're a first level bard and he's first level Warrior you will cast Charm Person, deal 1d6+2 damage to the guard then see if he's bloodied. If he has 5hp (an average for first level Warrior with a +1 con mod) you can't fail. He will then make a will save and if he fails he'll be charmed for 1 minute or one day depending on how well you rolled damage and then he will presumably send people after you.

I don't understand what you want that you can't do.

[angelfromanotherpin]

If you're a first level bard and he's first level Warrior you will cast Charm Person, deal 1d6+2 damage to the guard then see if he's bloodied. If he has 5hp (an average for first level Warrior with a +1 con mod) you can't fail.

Actually you totally can fail, because that dude is pretty likely to just pass out cold, becoming both no use to anyone and amazingly suspicious to any witnesses. In fact, the higher level you are, the less useful it is to cast Charm on a low-grade mook because he will be knocked out harder. Seems like a fairly significant bug.

[Stubbazubba]

I'm also not playing the kind of psychopath who randomly stabs people in town when they aren't presently trying to kill me. Explain to me why I'm not allowed to use Charm Person.

So dealing non-lethal damage is against your code, but using magic to re-write their mind is cool? 'K, those are some odd restraints... If you were a rogue in the same situation would you refuse to knock him unconscious with a blackjack? In which case you're probably gonna get captured. Maybe a life of crime is not for you?

But I see what you're getting at. Someone up-thread suggested that being Flat-footed should be a temporary condition that allows greater effects on a surprise attack, and you could apply that here; the guard is flat-footed, so he takes the second-tier effect. If he makes his Will save, he is no longer flat-footed, and becomes hostile.

[JonSetanta]

The idea of a spell being it's own combo is an interesting notion but is probably uninteresting in application. I think it's a cool idea for Confusion to "Confuse" you first and then each iterative Confusion makes you hit yourself, but in practice that would mean the optimal thing to do after casting Confuse is to continue to cast it over and over again and that is tactically unengaging.

Then the only other option is as with Frank's Medusa (I thought the species was Gorgon? Fuck you Gygax) with Slow and Petrify, similar to Hypnosis and Dream Eater, which eats up twice as many spell slots per combo.

Once again, I know the Sorcerer is screwed, but it's a poorly made class anyway. They're going to eat shit no matter what.


My version of Charm:

Charm
Normal: Target is Fascinated.
Fascinated and at least Indifferent: Target is Helpful to you and your allies while you are within line of sight and Close range, or until they take damage.

[John Magnum]

Obi-Wan is more willing to use the Jedi Mind Trick to get guards to look the other way than he is to knock them unconscious.

[Dean]

Actually you totally can fail, because that dude is pretty likely to just pass out cold, becoming both no use to anyone and amazingly suspicious to any witnesses. In fact, the higher level you are, the less useful it is to cast Charm on a low-grade mook because he will be knocked out harder. Seems like a fairly significant bug.

My assumption, as with the two enchantment type effects I wrote, is that you can't knock someone out with them. But instead at 0hp he is charmed, and not KO'd unless he takes any additional damage. It could be that in Modelcitizens Charm Person he intends for that to be true. I don't know, talk to him.

[JonSetanta]

Sigh. Here's another try at Sleep.

Sleep
Normal: Will save half. Deal 1d6 and 6 per level nonlethal damage and targets that fail the save become Drowsy (-5 Spot and Listen, -2 saves vs Sleep) for 1 minute.
Drowsy (or any other first "tier" or "degree" condition): Will save half. Target takes 12 nonlethal damage and is Slow for 1 minute.



And the not so kind version:

Sleep
Normal: Will save. Target becomes Drowsy and Slow.
First Tier/Degree Condition: Will save (at -2). Target is unconscious for 1 minute or until awoken by physical contact.

[John Magnum]

See, dean, this is why I'm wary to like your "everything is HP damage, everything is a single condition track" thing. Because it doesn't actually simplify anything. All the mechanical details are still there, just concealed. Because now "reduced to 0 HP" means eight different things depending on which of eight ways you actually dealt the final points of damage, but you're pretending that it's all one Defeated status. I'm not convinced that's actually better than having eight distinct status conditions.

[JonSetanta]

See, dean, this is why I'm wary to like your "everything is HP damage, everything is a single condition track" thing. Because it doesn't actually simplify anything. All the mechanical details are still there, just concealed. Because now "reduced to 0 HP" means eight different things depending on which of eight ways you actually dealt the final points of damage, but you're pretending that it's all one Defeated status. I'm not convinced that's actually better than having eight distinct status conditions.

I'm in love with Virgil's condition tracks and very intent on using them in writeups.
The phrasing is difficult, because one must be very inclusive when saying "all first tier conditions" in a manner that's easy for new players to remember (although I prefer the term degrees due to 'tiers' used for class comparison)

I was thinking of shrinking the tracks down to 2 tiers actually.



EDIT: Also, I hate the designs I did for Finger of Death and Flesh to Stone. Ability score damage should be done away with entirely as an in-combat thing. Long term poison and disease are fine because they give a player time to redo their stats and bonuses, but mid-combat... just stupid.

FoD would use Bloodied and reduce an opponent to 0 HP/Staggered.

FtS would use Slow and petrify a target that is Bloodied.

[ModelCitizen]

Explain to me why I'm not allowed to use Charm Person.

You are? If you're a first level bard and he's first level Warrior you will cast Charm Person, deal 1d6+2 damage to the guard then see if he's bloodied. If he has 5hp (an average for first level Warrior with a +1 con mod) you can't fail. He will then make a will save and if he fails he'll be charmed for 1 minute or one day depending on how well you rolled damage and then he will presumably send people after you.

I don't understand what you want that you can't do.

Ah, you're assuming 3e damage/HP numbers. I assumed 1d6+2 damage was supposed to be kind of shitty relative to whatever system this was, because if a spell is going to have a SoL that kicks in at Bloodied then it probably shouldn't also hit equal-level targets for half their hitpoints. If it does you're right back to rocket tag and you've gained nothing. (I don't think anyone gives a fuck if 1st level spells oneshot 1st level warriors, but 1d6+2 does on average knock half the hitpoints off a 1st level PC class.)

But I see what you're getting at. Someone up-thread suggested that being Flat-footed should be a temporary condition that allows greater effects on a surprise attack, and you could apply that here; the guard is flat-footed, so he takes the second-tier effect. If he makes his Will save, he is no longer flat-footed, and becomes hostile.

Yeah, I like that, that satisfies all of my objections. And that's essentially a condition tree solution. Bloodied is one possible setup you can use in combat, but if you're not already waving swords around it's easier to catch the target flat-footed (which you probably do, because if he was expecting you to charm him I don't know why he's not already taking combat actions against you) or use some other debuff that also carries Flat-Footed (like Fascinate).

[PhoneLobster]

This may be slightly irrelevant but...

If someone proposed a new stealth minigame nobody would demand that you sneak around by throwing fireballs.

But what you would and should reasonably demand is that your stealth actions function in compatible combat time and have direct interactions with combat through their function in surprise attacks and how they work with combat escapes etc...

As much as possible in minigames should always be as integrated, compatible and ideally interchangeable within your MAIN minigame especially for a D&D style game with it's rather singular focus. There are always huge benefits.

If someone posted some stronghold building rules nobody would demand you build a castle by throwing fireballs.

Well. People do however seem to want to know how to make stronghold building interact with Stone Wall or Dig or even Stone to Mud etc... spells. The interaction of fireball and blasting spells with tunnelling... could be an area someone might demand to know about.

But in a much more direct sense, again the importance here is the interaction with your main minigame so what people want from fireballs vs Stronghold rules isn't castle building its castle demolishing which means again your stronghold building rules need to try and integrate with compatible attack/damage rules for fire ball demolition, collateral structural damage, and things burning down all ideally in fully compatible/interchangeable combat time frames.

What is it about persuasion specifically that makes people demand it work exactly like combat no matter how bad the results are?

The basic demands of a combat focused RPG that DO apply to ALL subsequent "minigames". And the fact that as much as you might wish it to not be true no one wants to learn distinct and separate mini game rules sets so having it all be combat compatible gives you flexibility, strong game balance, and very importantly very low complexity/learning barriers to entry.

[ModelCitizen]

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply it was OK for stealth or stronghold building to be closed subsystems that shit themselves Skill Challenge style if you try to, say, sneak up on someone who's already fighting and hit him in the back. If you can't run stealth and combat concurrently your stealth system sucks.

However, no one believes you should be able to make yourself harder to see by attacking with weapons for hitpoint damage, because that's retarded.

[Seerow]

However, no one believes you should be able to make yourself harder to see by attacking with weapons for hitpoint damage, because that's retarded.

Like so many of the examples of "That's retarded" I'm not sold on this. If your fighter is on the front line and attacking the enemy, causing lots of damage and the enemy is injured, why wouldn't that be a distraction that makes it easier for the rogue to sneak past?

Sure, the rogue beating up the guy to turn invisible is stupid, but the concept of "that guy's hurt so he's less likely to notice me" actually follows common sense to a degree.

[John Magnum]

Sure, the rogue beating up the guy to turn invisible is stupid, but the concept of "that guy's hurt so he's less likely to notice me" actually follows common sense to a degree.

Making your system able to distinguish between the two situations adds even more complexity. You're basically going back and undoing all the supposed advantages of cramming everything into HP damage and a unified condition track.

If you want to model the fighter distracting an enemy and making it easier for the rogue to sneak around, make it so that flanking or combat advantage improves stealth. Don't make it so that HP damage improves stealth.

[virgil]

See, dean, this is why I'm wary to like your "everything is HP damage, everything is a single condition track" thing. Because it doesn't actually simplify anything. All the mechanical details are still there, just concealed. Because now "reduced to 0 HP" means eight different things depending on which of eight ways you actually dealt the final points of damage, but you're pretending that it's all one Defeated status. I'm not convinced that's actually better than having eight distinct status conditions.

I'm in love with Virgil's condition tracks and very intent on using them in writeups.
The phrasing is difficult, because one must be very inclusive when saying "all first tier conditions" in a manner that's easy for new players to remember (although I prefer the term degrees due to 'tiers' used for class comparison)

I was thinking of shrinking the tracks down to 2 tiers actually.

The core idea of having HP is fine essentially. My initial thoughts in making them was ease of categorization, as it's easier to remember and run in a game where the conditions are on tracks like fear is.

Similar to some work I've seen Frank mention is the idea of nesting the condition tracks. Rather than have any condition increase the degree of any other, you only have them stack when they're in the same group; otherwise you have concurrent status ailments.

Here is a sample list of grouped condition tracks, using my earlier example. Obviously this can be messed with, and probably should. What's supposed to happen is that you get the next highest degree on a condition if you already have something from its connected status

• Charm (Fear/Sleep)
• Fear (Sanity/Damage)
• Sleep (Charm/Health)
• Damage (Charm/Health)
• Health (Damage/Sanity)
• Sanity (Fear/Sleep)

If someone's hurt, it's easier to scare them. Once they're really scared, they'll go Stockholm Syndrome on you. You're still technically beating someone into loving you, but you need to jump a hoop or two.

[Mask_De_H]

To be fair, sigma, this thread went on such a tangent because your initial draft was boring and didn't do anything outside of give SoDs damage (like Pathfinder) or mess with damage calcs (back when fireball did double damage on bloodied). Unfucking your original idea is essentially moving back to the "Status Conditions We Care About" model Frank's already designed.

You're trying to kludge this into D&D evocation paradigms and it's not really working. Either you make evocations shittier, make all spells into shitty evocations and/or end up with break her spirit with your dick/everyone is Nanoha forever problems. The damage expression system needs to be built around this, like FATE condition tracks or CAN or some sort of different abstraction than 3e's idea of hit points being bodily health.

[PhoneLobster]

Like so many of the examples of "That's retarded" I'm not sold on this. If your fighter is on the front line and attacking the enemy, causing lots of damage and the enemy is injured, why wouldn't that be a distraction that makes it easier for the rogue to sneak past?

Sure, the rogue beating up the guy to turn invisible is stupid, but the concept of "that guy's hurt so he's less likely to notice me" actually follows common sense to a degree.

I pretty much agree with all of that I mean you don't HAVE to do that but, well, you could and I can see potential benefits for doing so. And yeah, it was a rather dumb example of retarded.

But then again, I'll one up you.

Sure, the rogue beating up the guy to turn invisible is stupid

***SMOKE BOMB***

I'm pretty confident the rogue beating up on a guy to turn invisible with default weaponry is somewhat stupid, more because a "skewer his eyes out!" attack probably shouldn't be readily available from scratch, but special abilities/equipment make it more than a reasonable proposal. And WHEN you include your smoke bomb ability... yeah... it should use combat attacks/saves/damage whatever your system has to resolve and as such... even the rogue thug-visibility example is a poor one as a "conceptual break down" for the benefits of combat/minigame compatibility/cohabitation.

[John Magnum]

Stop making up new situations. "A rogue uses a smoke bomb to turn invisible" is nowhere near the same as "A rogue stabs a dude in the balls to turn invisible from that very dude". If you're trying to argue that HP damage should buff your stealth ability, you can't just discard the second situation in favor of the first situation because they both involve the rogue being in melee combat with a dude. Unless you're saying that every time a rogue makes an attack with his dagger and deals HP damage, he's also chucking smoke bombs around.

You're trying to come up with a fluff explanation for why "a rogue deals melee HP damage to a target, and becomes better-hidden from that very target" isn't blatantly retarded. It's cheating to pull a different, less-retarded situation out of your ass and pretend you've accomplished that.