Spells using the Bloodied condition

[ModelCitizen]

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".

Holy shit what happened in here? People are actually defending stealth via greataxe?

[Chamomile]

Dead men tell no tales.

[PhoneLobster]

It's cheating to pull a different, less-retarded situation out of your ass and pretend you've accomplished that.

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.

So, if you had ANY reading comprehension ability at all, and every one of the few posts of you have made so far on anything indicates you do not, you MIGHT have noticed gee, I dunno. Something of note here.

Your greatsword scenario is poor on it's own because as already mentioned, wounded status making you less likely to notice stuff is actually conceptually reasonable. I remain unconvinced if it is beneficial as a default free ability for everyone, but I think it is INCREDIBLY hard to argue that an in combat vanishing ability should either A) not exist OR B) not use as many actual shared combat mechanics as possible.

There IS a distinction here and because you can't fucking read you are now actually presenting your retarded greatsword argument as an argument that in combat vanishing abilities should either not exist or should use UTTERLY UNIQUE mechanics incompatible with actual combat.

[John Magnum]

Nobody's saying that in-combat vanishing abilities shouldn't exist. I'm saying that dealing HP damage to improve your vanishing abilities is retarded. You fucking said it wasn't. You literally said that the rogue beating up a guy to turn invisible isn't retarded. And then you said the REASON it's not retarded is because ACTUALLY the Rogue is chucking smoke bombs around.

In-combat vanishing abilities can exist and plug into the combat system. But you appear to be defending a system where all HP damage improves your vanishing abilities.

If it's not, then you're not really playing in the proposed system are you? If you have systems like "Dealing HP damage makes Rogues harder to see, but only if someone other than the Rogue deals the damage or the Rogue deals the damage at range from a hidden location or when the Rogue uses one of his dedicated 'deal HP damage and become hidden' special abilities", that's really not the same as "Dealing HP damage makes stealth better". If you're defending the former, don't pretend that you're trying to put everything onto an "HP is everything"/"Bloodied is everything" unified system.

[JonSetanta]

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.

No offense to your own work, but I took your idea and altered it a bit.


Version 2

Format:
Track Name
1. First Degree Condition
2. Second Degree Condition (takes effect when First Degree of same type, P or M, is active)
Special: Finisher Condition (takes effect when at least one Second Degree of the same type is active)

PHYSICAL CONDITIONS

Sleep Track
1. Fatigued
2. Exhausted
Special: Unconscious

Damage Track
1. Bloodied
Special: Staggered

Health Track
1. Sickened
2. Nauseated

Grapple Track
1. Grappled
2. Pinned

Movement Track
1. Slowed
2. Checked
Special: Paralyzed


MENTAL CONDITIONS

Sleep Track
1. Fatigued
2. Exhausted
Special: Unconscious

Brained Track
1. Dazed
2. Stunned
Special: Paralyzed

Sanity Track
1. Confused
2. Insane

Charm Track
1. Fascinated
2. Charmed
Special: Dominated

Fear Track
1. Shaken
2. Frightened
Special: Panicked



As for my writeup of Evocations and SoDs being boring, well of course they are. Dealing damage is always boring. That's why I tried to spice it up.
This is not failure. We're not done here yet.

[Mask_De_H]

So now you've made a CAN system, sigma. How are you going to fit this into a D&D paradigm?

[JonSetanta]

So now you've made a CAN system, sigma. How are you going to fit this into a D&D paradigm?

New spells and maneuvers I guess. First I'll have to read up on Frank's CAN writings, as I've put that off until now.
Then I'll compare, attempt something original, and get back to you on that.

[the_taken]

I'd add a special to everyone one of those tracks. Panicked should special of the end of the Sanity track, and Paralyzed should be the special of the Health track. I'm not sure what to put on the Grapple tack, but that's one of those complicated things...

[JonSetanta]

I'd add a special to everyone one of those tracks. Panicked should special of the end of the Sanity track, and Paralyzed should be the special of the Health track. I'm not sure what to put on the Grapple tack, but that's one of those complicated things...

I could try to elaborate on things such as Grappled, but the truth is that many condition tracks don't go anywhere beyond making your target suck.

Personally I'm fine with that.


EDIT: Also one potential rectification; the Movement track would end with the Final Fantasy Tactics-like condition called "No Move" which is exactly that, but you can still make other actions. Paralysis is "no actions at all", while that doesn't hold with the theme of preventing tactical motion.

[Username17]

Personally, I don't think that grappled should be a condition so much as a set of possible actions. If you're grappling, you want to do something to people. And the thing I most want to be able to do grappling is to "capture" people. It is fucking offensive how difficult it is to grab a hostage and carry them away in D&D. Neither 3e nor 4e actually let you just grab people and carry them off - even if you have super strength. It's tragic.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

Then what do you think of Grappled being an over-condition that includes "No Move" and "can only make natural weapon attacks or light weapon attacks"?

That part is easy to alter, but involves changing the core function of how grappling works in D&D. I was just going to take what we have and go with that.

Regardless, Pathfinder has an interesting grapple variant... http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/c ... C-Grappled

Right now I'm debating a writeup of sample spells using the condition tracks.
Should I write mention of first degree conditions as "Physical/Mental first degree" or outright mention them by name in each spell?
It's only 5 conditions per P or M grouping.

For instance;
Spell Name X
Normal: Causes (first degree condition)
Target Suffers First Degree Physical Condition: Causes (second degree condition)

or

Spell Name X
Normal: Causes (first degree condition)
Target Is Fatigued, Bloodied, Sickened, Slowed, or Grappled: Causes (second degree condition)

[JonSetanta]

This is my latest version. At this point I'm thinking such a thing is too complex for vanilla D&D, and would only work on an individual spell basis, which means every spell that uses condition tracks would have to be (re)written.

Format:
Track Name
1. First Degree Condition
2. Second Degree Condition (takes effect when First Degree of same type, P or M, is active)
Special: Finisher Condition (takes effect when at least one Second Degree of the same type is active)

PHYSICAL CONDITIONS

Sleep Track
1. Fatigued
2. Exhausted
Special: Unconscious

Damage Track
1. Bloodied
Special: Staggered

Health Track
1. Sickened
2. Nauseated

Grapple Track
1. Grappled
2. Pinned

Movement Track
1. Entangled
2. Slowed
Special: Paralyzed

MENTAL CONDITIONS

Sleep Track
1. Fatigued
2. Exhausted
Special: Unconscious

Brained Track
1. Dazed
2. Stunned
Special: Paralyzed

Sanity Track
1. Confused
Special: Insane

Charm Track
1. Fascinated
2. Charmed
Special: Dominated

Fear Track
1. Shaken
2. Frightened
Special: Panicked

Spell Formats

Physical Spell Name X
Normal:
Target is Bloodied, Exhausted, Nauseated, Pinned, or Slowed:

Mental Spell Name X
Normal:
Target is Charmed, Confused, Exhausted, Frightened, or Stunned:

[erik]

(reminded of this thread due to recent linking)

Sigma I have some suggested alterations to tracks.

Grapple:
Grapple Track
1. Grappled
2. Pinned
Special: Unconscious (Choked-Out)

Sanity Track
1. Confused
2. Hallucination
Special: Insane

Health Track becomes:
Disease/Poison Track
1. Sickened
2. Nauseated
Special: Diseased/Poisoned

Dunno why you reverted the Damage track.
An aside- I preferred 1.2.3. over 1.2.Special.

[hogarth]

I have to admit that the idea of setting up combos like that sounds really cool to me in theory, but in practice I haven't seen it pulled off very well. (For instance, Dragon Age 2 a similar kind of "if you're suffering from condition X, then power Y does some special" system.)

Either the combo is universally useful, in which case I just end up trying to spam it in every situation, or it's situationally useful, in which case I'd rather just focus on a generalist power instead.

[erik]

I'd be tempted to have a Maim Track too:
Maim Track
1. Injured
2. Strained
3. Crippled

Basically for special attacks that target a particular body part or somesuch.