TNE and Centaurs

[name_here]

And you didn't even fucking notice, because it doesn't hurt the game that they are gone.

I was agreeing up to this. Not having decent rules for pike walls and artillery actually does hurt the game, if you think the game can happen outside of a dungeon.

Actually, pike walls don't fit with the resolution system, because a small, manuverable pike formation is 256 guys, and that just doesn't play nice if each of those guys has his own HP ticker and makes seperate saves vs. AoE spells, as well as making his own attack once you snap the front line and they're fighting with long daggers, even if you have good pike wall mechanics.

admittedly, you can have mass combat mechanics where you can actually handle that and have them even sort of resemble real formations and even have complicated rules on facing and how long it takes to change facing and how that stops mattering if they choose to or are forced to break formation, and how the roman legions they've been crushing all day suddenly gain the advantage as the phanlax goes on to the rough ground behind the roman camp, and even realistically model the right-leaning tendancy of phanlax combat, but mass combat mechanics are different mechanics, and them interacting nicely is like porting D&D characters to D20 modern: You can do it, there are even rules for doing it that may even work well and quickly, but it's still a different game.

[Bigode]

Actually, pike walls don't fit with the resolution system, because a small, manuverable pike formation is 256 guys, and that just doesn't play nice if each of those guys has his own HP ticker and makes seperate saves vs. AoE spells, as well as making his own attack once you snap the front line and they're fighting with long daggers, even if you have good pike wall mechanics.

Can be way less if the objective was, say, to corner a dire lion.

[PhoneLobster]

Phonelobster thinks the idea that we are going to ignore all that and let people fly with butterfly wings but we are not letting horses in because of their turning radius and sees a blatant double standard.

Actually though that is a double standard it isn't the real double standard here.

Frank thinks he can apply massively (and often even unrealistic) limitations on the mobility of a horse body. But that if he replaces the horse body with an even larger Crab body he can decalre that there will be no mobility problems at all.

He has yet to answer the whole ogre/Hercules/giant crab/every other large thing with anything but a hand wavy "oh those are fine because I like them".

Now a giant worm on bigger giant crab legs will not be able to navigate into a toilet in Prague but who the fuck cares? Not Frank that's for certain he says that one is a VIABLE!

THAT is the shameful and blatant double standard going on here.

[Username17]

Phone Lobster, we busted out fucking numbers and I moved little blocks around. You lost, shut the fuck up.

I'm not going to listen to a another damn word you say on this subject any more because you're being a little bitch about it. If you continue posting on this thread I am going to scroll down to the next post.

-Username17

[name_here]

Actually, that is viable if you assume it's not the size of an actual lurker, or alternately that it is an actual lurker and thus can haul itself around while compressed, because it's seriously strong enough to punch through a force field and the power armor underneath.

Also, if somthing is a human, except 50% bigger, it can fit into places that humans will actually move through by crouching and hunching it's shoulders.

[Crissa]

No, Frank, you busted out pieces of shit saying your fantasy character works, and someone else's doesn't.

That's really dumb.

Centaurs can't crawl because Frank says so? Ogres can climb tiny ledges because he says so?

WTF.

-Crissa

[PhoneLobster]

My point exactly Crissa.

The petulant little bitch here is Frank.

[virgil]

[Bigode]

EPIC FVCKING WIN.

[Roy]

EPIC FVCKING WIN.

Plus Fucking One.

[Username17]

You too Stacy. Holy shit. 75 centimeters is less than 180 centimeters. By a lot. And if considering that fucking fact is "shit" then I have nothing more to say to you on this subject. Go write a game with Phone Lobster.

Stop bothering me about your horse fantasies.

-Username17

[name_here]

Also, in any case, ogres/Hercules are just scaled up humans, and can compress themselves like humans. seriously, someone who is twice my size in all dimensions can get through my door by bending over.

[PhoneLobster]

Also, in any case, ogres/Hercules are just scaled up humans, and can compress themselves like humans. seriously, someone who is twice my size in all dimensions can get through my door by bending over.

You see no inconsistencies with making that sort of statement at all do you?

[name_here]

No. a centaur is not a humanoid. It is not a scaled up human. it has the body of a horse. a horse cannot turn in a small enough area to access my basement. it can get through my door, but turns present an actual obstacle enough to cut it off from my entire basement, despite the fact that the door to my basement is the same size as the door to my room. an ogre can make said turn.

[PhoneLobster]

I remain flabbergasted at the sheer arrogant ignorance of it all.

Flabbergasted.

[name_here]

You overestimate how easy it is to get things into my basement, i think. We've attempted to get a table as long as the standard length of a horse or likely shorter down there. it did not work because it couldn't make enough of a turn.

show me a picture of a horse bending in the middle, and i may reconsider.

[PhoneLobster]

You overestimate how easy it is to get things into my basement, i think.

Maybe, maybe I underestimate. But you are doing BOTH and switching depending on flavour. And that is hypocritical and inconsistent bullshit.

You on the one hand declare that "a horse" clearly couldn't do it (a broad and remarkable assumption)

Then on the other hand declare that a creature twice all human dimensions in size could do so easily! (A remarkable and broad and directly contrary assumption!)

That makes you a proud and arrogant idiot.

show me a picture of a horse bending in the middle, and i may reconsider.

Its stupid because it totally shouldn't be required but you dumb fucks have been shown a video of a full sized horse making a right hand turn Frank told us was impossible.

That is good enough considering the realism argument was retarded to start with.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Wow, quite a lot of vehemence here. Would it be acceptable to all to allow centaur PCs (which are smaller then some might think and much more flexible), assuming that centaurs are one of the existent races?

And would it also be acceptable to all that if centaurs aren't one of the existent races in the default setting, they also aren't allowable as PCs in the default setting?

---

Once we get over the 'centaurs' issue, I'm interested in how related issues of size, facing, and squeezing are to be handled. There's been some discussion already (no link ), but a lot has changed. The narrative positioning system will make things interesting.

In 3e, it would be workable to give 'squeezing' characters (and only squeezing characters) facing. It would also be workable to say that you can't fly (via wings; as opposed to levitation) while you're squeezing, and that flying creatures count as one size larger than normal.

So an ogre crawling though a restricted passage can't turn easily, and ditto for a centaur. A pegataur can't fly even in a hallway large enough for it to easily turn in.

In a narrative positioning system, certain regions can be tagged with size obstacles (i.e. a "small" passage requires medium creatures to squeeze, which gives them facing and keeps them from running).

A forest might be tagged 'size obstacle: large', meaning that a dragon can't fly in it, but a half-celestial human can. I'm not sure what the facing restriction would mean in this context, though.

Or is that all too "simulationist"?

[name_here]

You overestimate how easy it is to get things into my basement, i think.

Maybe, maybe I underestimate. But you are doing BOTH and switching depending on flavour. And that is hypocritical and inconsistent bullshit.

You on the one hand declare that "a horse" clearly couldn't do it (a broad and remarkable assumption)

Then on the other hand declare that a creature twice all human dimensions in size could do so easily! (A remarkable and broad and directly contrary assumption!)

That makes you a proud and arrogant idiot.

No, it doesn't. why not? because somthing twice human dimisions is,

1. a foot from sternum to spine.
2. 10-14(if very large) feet tall standing straight up
3. 2 feet across at the shoulder blades.

this is in no way contradictory with somthing 8 feet from head to tail (equivlent to sternum to spine for turning purposes), about 9 feet tall, and a half-foot to a foot across at the widest point not making a turn.

Basic morphology is not flavor.


[quote="PhoneLobster]

show me a picture of a horse bending in the middle, and i may reconsider.

Its stupid because it totally shouldn't be required but you dumb fucks have been shown a video of a full sized horse making a right hand turn Frank told us was impossible.

That is good enough considering the realism argument was retarded to start with.[/quote]

the camera angle was insufficently clear in the video with a horse that was not explictly identified as not full grown. also, given the buisness with not getting a horse-length object into the basment, you'll have to actually show one bending. if your point is valid, that shouldn't be hard

Also, let's say we totally disreguard the whole ledge, spiral staircase, rope, ladder, etc. set of issues. this leads to the question of why to have centaurs in the game anyway. there is seriously not a good mechanical reason, unlike ogres, who actually act different in combat, winged people, who can fly, and giant crabs/snakes who can move differently from people or people on horses. Centaurs can be replaced easily by people who ride on horses all the time except indoors, and the only actual difference is that you can somtimes steal the horse. unless you can think of a mechanical difference more than a rubber forehead alien on horseback, the only reason to include them is flavor. And i don't even think they have actual associated flavor aside from being barbaric. and no, the giant crabs don't have to be car-sized.

[PhoneLobster]

the camera angle was insufficently clear in the video with a horse that was not explictly identified as not full grown.

What the FUCK is wrong with you?

No really.

Did you watch those videos? Does it matter?

You demand specific proof then dismiss it on entirely false grounds?

FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

That is all I have to say to you sir.

[ckafrica]

Finding a place to swing a two handed sword is one thing, but you're being confronted with a character who demands to swing a two handed sword not in a place, but in literally every place she ever goes. Abstracting the fact that the character steps to the center of the room to swing a blade is fine, but if that character can't hold it up while going around corners or climbing stairs we have a problem.

... There is literally no weapon in the game that you couldn't use in a narrow corridor with low ceilings. Weapons that couldn't be plausibly used in such a scenario just weren't even given stats.

I beg to differ on dimensions required to swing a two handed sword which is got around 150cm of blade is going to have quite a great deal of difficulty being swung in narrow low ceiling corridor. At at least I can use the point of the sword in such circumstances. a 2handed Axes or maul Will suffer the same problem.
But these are things we don't both to simulate because it would make the game suck.

[Calibron]

FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

That is all I have to say to you sir.

That's all you ever have to say to anyone who disagrees with you at the end of a discussion. Given the evidence I've seen anyway.

[Talisman]

Finding a place to swing a two handed sword is one thing, but you're being confronted with a character who demands to swing a two handed sword not in a place, but in literally every place she ever goes. Abstracting the fact that the character steps to the center of the room to swing a blade is fine, but if that character can't hold it up while going around corners or climbing stairs we have a problem.

... There is literally no weapon in the game that you couldn't use in a narrow corridor with low ceilings. Weapons that couldn't be plausibly used in such a scenario just weren't even given stats.

I beg to differ on dimensions required to swing a two handed sword which is got around 150cm of blade is going to have quite a great deal of difficulty being swung in narrow low ceiling corridor. At at least I can use the point of the sword in such circumstances. a 2handed Axes or maul Will suffer the same problem.
But these are things we don't both to simulate because it would make the game suck.

Interestingly enough, one style of two-hander swordfighting emphasizes holdling the sword point-down and stabbing at the enemy while using the big ol' blade as a shield.

Not sure about greataxes or greatclubs, though...maybe that's why big axes are often shown with that spike on top.

[Ice9]

How the fvck did this become an 8-page long debate? Fine, Centaurs are impractical - let's get rid of them, and replace them with Céntaurs (note the accent).

Céntaurs are visually very similar to Centaurs, but have a different internal anatomy. For one thing, their proportions are a bit different - the horse section is somewhat smaller and much lighter, so they don't weight hugely more and can even climb to some extent - which is helped by the fact that their hooves are cloven and more flexible than normal. Most importantly, their spine is extremely flexible, and they can squeeze around corners like a weasel or a cat.

Boom, done. Fits around corners, not super heavy or space-consuming, can climb without a harness and crane. Realistic? About as realistic as dragons that can fly.

[PhoneLobster]

replace them with Céntaurs (note the accent).

It may be worth noting this and similar strategies were long since dismissed.

Unless the reflavouring is insect/crab/ogre like Frank and friends aren't on board.

It lacks "realism" for them and also apparently the flavour difference is enough to cause total failure of their fragile mechanical proposals and egos.