Monte Cook IS working on 5th edition...

[Kaelik]

You have a fascinatingly limited view of the world and disturbing lack of ability or vision when it comes to design.

As an -example- :

The dragon can keep it's wings, speed and current maneuverability. We reduce it breath weapon to 1 per encounter and put in rules for attacking a creature with reach that attacks you (by say striking at the limbs it's using to hit you), and remove things like the fly-by attack feat. If the dragon wants to get physical, even with it's reach and flight, it's going to be taking some attacks back from the melee people, even dumb guy with a sword.

At that point the only things you're really worrying about is the dragon casting spells, or dropping things, both of which are mechanics already in blatant need of fixing for a variety of reasons.

You have a fascinatingly limited view of the world and a disturbing lack of ability or vision when it comes to design.

That's a shitty boring game that no one wants to play, where dragons are abitrarily limited to breathing once in their fucking life against a random group of PCs, and then having to step on people, and you can actually be some fucking idiot with a sword standing on the ground, and you never need to pull out a fucking bow, or not fucking suck.

[RadiantPhoenix]

i) poor maneuverability
ii) slow speed
iii) requires concentration or spent actions to maintain
iv) Ranged attacks while aloft are more difficult
v) Must be shapechanged into an appropriate flying form (that limits spellcasting, other offensive/defensive options)
v) flight only lasts a few rounds at a time

i) Acceptable, provided it is made reasonably simple to run. One idea brought up in the airships thread was virtual size categories for purposes of maneuverability.
ii) Only at lower levels; mid level characters should be flying places and having it be a good option (higher level characters poofing is an acceptable alternative)
iii) See ii
iv) I don't like this one; the only flying concepts I can come up with that don't depend on ranged attacks are the paratrooper, the air-jouster, and the snatch-and-grab bird of prey.
v) This is an acceptable option, although at higher levels the drawbacks should be less
vi) See ii

So, overall, I consider the acceptable limitations to be 1 and 5

Heck, you could even make it so that characters having both solid ranged and melee attacks exist.

This one sounds good too, and should be implemented in any case.

[We reduce it breath weapon to 1 per encounter [...] and remove things like the fly-by attack feat

Fuck no! Strafing runs are an iconic dragon tactic! Making the dragon land to fight the party when outdoors is an insult.

[tzor]

The dragon can keep it's wings, speed and current maneuverability. We reduce it breath weapon to 1 per encounter and put in rules for attacking a creature with reach that attacks you (by say striking at the limbs it's using to hit you), and remove things like the fly-by attack feat. If the dragon wants to get physical, even with it's reach and flight, it's going to be taking some attacks back from the melee people, even dumb guy with a sword.

Well I'm not sure I can agree with everything as written but it's a nice base to start from in my not so humble opinion. Making the dragon play by the PC's rules (with encounter powers) is interesting, but remember that in a situation with PC's sans fly, that dragon is still going to be hard to kill because it can always choose the option to fly away (and encounter them later with a brand new breath).

I still think fly by should be possible, only as a tail attack only, which means that the dragon exposes itself to close range attack to use it. In addition I think a min flying speed should be required so the fly by attack might give a risk to the dragon of getting taken down.

Not that it matters much; nerf the dragon hard enough and any logical DM will realize that they must be by nature claustrophobic. You don't need a breath weapon to make an open air fly wickedly bad, especially if the dragon is prepared. First attack is a flyby and a drop of a really large net. Then you hit them with the breath when they have penalties to avoid it. Then you go in for the kill, or fly somewhere else and pick up rocks.

[ModelCitizen]

Reading comprehension? I'll try to be more clear. I said 20 ranks as an example at random. It's a familiar number that you can use your already existing knowledge of the d20 system to understand what I'm talking about.

You then said that level 17 was too high of a level. If I had said 'fine, 10 ranks' you could again complain about the level being off. So I then say 'fine, 5 ranks', and you now complain about getting it too early.

So, rather than listen to vomit about what level something should or should not be balanced at, I point out that you missed the point entirely that where something is balanced at is subjective to other things, and that those things that cause problems now, like flight making climb obsolete very quickly can in fact subject to, and very likely to change.

You however can't seem to understand that and think you have some sort of valid point when you don't.

The level at which you get things does matter. My whole argument is about skills offering level appropriate benefits and then no longer accepting more ranks once there is nothing new and level appropriate for them to do. Picking 20 ranks illustrates exactly the problem with trying to make Climb last the entire level range. Spider Climb is pretty close to the best a climb skill could be (you could move faster, but that's about it). So at whatever level you put your last few ranks in Cimb, then and no earlier is when you get something comparable to Spider Climb. That point needs to happen when Spider Climb is appropriate, not when the arbitrary number 20 is appropriate.

If you had said 5 ranks or 10 ranks or whatever I wouldn't have quibbled about the exact level, but I would have asked you what the fuck you expected to offer at 15 or 20 ranks.

If you're quoting my posts about skills being level appropriate then naturally I'm going to assume that's what you're talking about. Your desire to make a shit game where the whole world is nerfed down to 3e's lowest common denominator is completely irrelevant to anything I said.

[Leper]

you have to admit that current owners dont want people to know that they dont need them...this is a reason for the edition treadmill as it stands now.

That's retarded.

Everyone should know you don't NEED an RPG book in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word. Beyond that, a WotC rep* was the first person I ever heard use that quote. It's bandied around the WotC boards enough and it's in people's sigs. No one's hushing it up for a number of reasons.

People want rules. They don't have time to make their own, and most attempts at it are botched BS that's worse than the original they were trying to fix. That's one of the reasons Frank and K are such a boon to the community. (no matter how much I may disagree with them on specifics) They put in the hard work of making and correcting rules where there were flaws to begin with, and they do a pretty good job of it.

If creating rules were as easy as they make it look, then Gary would likely have been right. But they're not, and he's not.

A good story/setting isn't easy either, that's one of the reasons people spend so much money on modules and setting books and campaign guides. the fact that both are difficult (and vary in difficulty from individual to individual) is what keeps the industry going. The fact that you can only explore so much design space before you start getting into really oddball BS that no one really cares to buy is the reason for the treadmill, not because every jackoff with a DM screen is suddenly some mystical font of rules and story capability and the companies are trying so hard to distract people from this fact that they constantly pump out new material people don't want or need.

*I was speaking with an employee sometime in '06 or '07, I think. We got into a discussion about the importance of game balance, and her response was pretty much "if the DM can fix it, then it's not broken, so it's good work on our part--like Gary said..."

unlike ENworld and WotC forums, the Den have at least some people that understand you dont need some copywritten published product to play, and there exists"fan created" material that is jsut as good if not better than the "official" material.

There are plenty of people in both places that embrace fan made material. The most popular posters on the WotC boards, for instance, are popular mainly because of the high quality work they put out on their own time.

If you want to discuss independent material, that's fine, but don't conflate "we like high quality work of independent designers who are an exception within the community" with "everyone is super-good at making rules and there is no place in the world for big game companies."

[Previn]

[We reduce it breath weapon to 1 per encounter [...] and remove things like the fly-by attack feat

Fuck no! Strafing runs are an iconic dragon tactic! Making the dragon land to fight the party when outdoors is an insult.

Where in the example did I say the dragon couldn't strafe? Fly-By Attack was used for other things than just that. If you want the dragon to be able to strafe, then say the dragon can use their once an encounter breath at any point in a movement. I could come up with things all day, but it's pointless.

I tossed out some quick examples to show some things you could do to show that you can reduce the power of flying without destroying iconic concepts. I am not saying you must do these, or that dragons must function in this way, so please do not misconstrue it as such.

We could argue for years on exactly what a dragon can or can't be able to do, but it wouldn't be germane to the point that you can change the power level of just about anything to make it more or less powerful. Case in point; climbing vs flying.

The dragon example was because ModelCitizen didn't get the reduce flying power example, which was because he didn't get the climb vs fly example, which was because he didn't get that flying doesn't have to equal 3.x fly all the time.

I also note he's doing exactly what I said he would and arguing about where to play the number of ranks for spider climb. It's like I'm prophetic....

[RadiantPhoenix]

Where in the example did I say the dragon couldn't strafe?

When you give it only one shot of its breath weapon per encounter. Unless you define encounters differently from most people, that means it gets one shot at incinerating the party, and then if it wants to keep fighting it has to use some other shtick.

Dragons need to be able to use their breath weapons more than once per encounter if they can drag the fight out long enough. They need to be able to strafe low-level armies to death with their breath weapons, and they need to do it from the air. PCs need to be able to beat that, whether by flying themselves, using ranged attacks, or throwing grappling hooks and climbing up to stab the dragon.

[hogarth]

The idea that 20 ranks in Use Rope should give you the equivalent of a 9th level spell needs to go die in a fire.

20 ranks of Use Rope costs as much as a 9th level spell.

If you really think that, I'm willing to swap you seventeen shiny new beads in exchange for seventeen ratty old $100 bills.

[RadiantPhoenix]

20 ranks of Use Rope costs as much as a 9th level spell.

If you really think that, I'm willing to swap you seventeen shiny new beads in exchange for seventeen ratty old $100 bills.

You need to have 17 levels to invest that many, and you need to be 17th level to get 9th level spells normally.

You can get new 9th level spells by leveling up to higher levels, and you can get 20 ranks in new skills by leveling up to higher levels.

[Kaelik]

Everyone gets skill points. Spells are class features that you only get for being certain classes.

What a Fighter gets at level 17 that no one else gets should be worth as much as 9th level spells.

What a Commoner gets at level 17 that everyone else also gets shouldn't be.

I don't know why it's so hard to understand a concept such as:

"All characters get X Tier 1 abilities, and some characters can choose to use Tier 9 abilities to get like 40 Tier 1 abilities, but some people choose a single Tier 9 ability."

Skills are Tier 1, Spells or SA or whatever, are Tier 5-9, not 1.

20 ranks in use rope is not worth 9th level spells.

[Leper]

It sure is a good thing the system doesn't pass out uneven amounts of skills and consider those extra skills a "class feature" for "balance" purposes to make this argument a heaping load of bullshit.

OWAIT.

[Kaelik]

It sure is a good thing the system doesn't pass out uneven amounts of skills and consider those extra skills a "class feature" for "balance" purposes to make this argument a heaping load of bullshit.

OWAIT.

You are (still) an idiot.

I just said that some people can trade a Tier 9 ability for 40 Tier 1 abilities.

That means that you can totally have some characters have more skills at the expense of less other stuff. That's totally valid. The mere fact that an exchange rate exists does not mean it is 1 for 1.

Someone might conceivably want to give up the ability to cast Energy Drain at will for full ranks in Spellcraft, all Knowledges, Spot, Listen, Sense Motive, and Use Rope, and that's totally fine. Because they can instead just use an 8th level effect all the time, but still be the guy who spots every monster, and then identifies them for the party.

The mere existence of trading Use Rope ranks for class features does not mean that the only possible conversion ratio is 1:1.

[ModelCitizen]

Someone might conceivably want to give up the ability to cast Energy Drain at will for full ranks in Spellcraft, all Knowledges, Spot, Listen, Sense Motive, and Use Rope, and that's totally fine. Because they can instead just use an 8th level effect all the time, but still be the guy who spots every monster, and then identifies them for the party.

I agree that it's OK for skills to be cheaper and weaker than spells, but I think you're missing the point. The 20th rank in Spellcraft is a level appropriate ability. It lets the character identify spells cast by casters of his level. That's not as good an ability as Energy Drain, but that's fine. Identifying Energy Drain at level 17 is as relevant as identifying Ray of Enfeeblement at level 1.

The 20th rank in Use Rope isn't level appropriate because tying up enemies at level 17 is almost always a waste of time.

(Use Rope is also a dumb skill that is almost literally a roll to tie your shoelaces and PF and 4e both got rid of it. But if 5e were to have Use Rope for some bizarre reason it shouldn't be a progression stretched over 20 levels.)

[Username17]

Use Rope is also a dumb skill that is almost literally a roll to tie your shoelaces and PF and 4e both got rid of it. But if 5e were to have Use Rope for some bizarre reason it shouldn't be a progression stretched over 20 levels.

Either that or it should have uses that are relevant at higher levels added in. I mean, if Use Rope let you rope trick at level 9, dimensional anchor at level 11, and sever astral cord at level 13, it would be meaningful that there were higher level progressions of it. If you aren't willing to make that kind of concession, then higher level versions of Use Rope should not exist.

I just said that some people can trade a Tier 9 ability for 40 Tier 1 abilities.

That means that you can totally have some characters have more skills at the expense of less other stuff. That's totally valid. The mere fact that an exchange rate exists does not mean it is 1 for 1.

That's an argument for being able to trade 8 ranks in Diplomacy for 4 ranks in Intimidate and 4 ranks in Bluff. Not a great argument, but acceptable. It is not an argument for 20 ranks in Use Rope to not be level appropriate at level 17, because 20 ranks of Use Rope is still only available at level 17. It is a Level 17 ability. It hasn't been traded down, that's literally the only level you get it.

-Username17

[Swordslinger]

That's an argument for being able to trade 8 ranks in Diplomacy for 4 ranks in Intimidate and 4 ranks in Bluff. Not a great argument, but acceptable. It is not an argument for 20 ranks in Use Rope to not be level appropriate at level 17, because 20 ranks of Use Rope is still only available at level 17. It is a Level 17 ability. It hasn't been traded down, that's literally the only level you get it.

While the basic logic is sound, the problem with 3E skills is that they're not abilities, they're bonuses. This means that anything you can do reliably at 17th level, you have a possibility of doing at 12th level, and that doesn't even start to take into consideration magic items to boost skills.

The skill system needs to be less about rolling against a DC and more about automatic abilities. Spellcasters don't need caster level checks to cast spells, and skills need to be much the same way. There should be some things a person with master level training in athletics can do that other people can't do. It shouldn't just be a higher percentage to do it.

[ishy]

But if you do something like that, what difference do you keep between buying abilities with feats and buying them with skills? I assume you'll be buying different things at different rates. But what will the exact divide be?

[Swordslinger]

But if you do something like that, what difference do you keep between buying abilities with feats and buying them with skills? I assume you'll be buying different things at different rates. But what will the exact divide be?

Basically you want to set it up so skills are noncombat and feats are combat stuff.

And yes, they go deliberately into separate categories because you don't want people trading out noncombat abilities for combat abilities.

[shadzar]

or just get rid of both since you dont need the piles of modifiers anyway.

in the case of climb it goes well with option 1...remove the number crunching bonuses and let it be decided based on the DM since he designed the tree and wall that is trying to be climbed.

everything doesnt need to be quantified in order to be able to express an advancement in ability.

[RadiantPhoenix]

in the case of climb it goes well with option 1...remove the number crunching bonuses and let it be decided based on the DM since he designed the tree and wall that is trying to be climbed.

*twitch*

This gives me an ominous feeling.

[shadzar]

in the case of climb it goes well with option 1...remove the number crunching bonuses and let it be decided based on the DM since he designed the tree and wall that is trying to be climbed.

*twitch*

This gives me an ominous feeling.

why?

the DM decides the DC for such things anyway...use the previous example easy/normal/hard

DC 5
DC 10
DC 15

option one the DM figures this doesnt need any sort of check or minimal so its easy if a check is needed you are at DC 5.

as you level up this doesnt really change... jsut less things require a check. you come to a new level and the tree before never requires a check anymore.

the former normal tree that took DC 10, has become easy, so now requires no check most of the time and a DC 5 sometimes.

so your "skill" occurs by things actually becoming easier, not because you choose to add points to some data field.

this always keeps things within the scale of easy, normal, hard.

sooner or later trees become minimal effort to climb and fall off the scale below easy, and even walls might become easy the more adept one becomes at climbing. while to begin with walls might have ben normal.

it took no part on the players to require allocation to this on the sheet, just the act of playing let the character through effort and trial and error became better.

(there is a specific down-side to this that someone will mention)

[Kaelik]

That's an argument for being able to trade 8 ranks in Diplomacy for 4 ranks in Intimidate and 4 ranks in Bluff. Not a great argument, but acceptable. It is not an argument for 20 ranks in Use Rope to not be level appropriate at level 17, because 20 ranks of Use Rope is still only available at level 17. It is a Level 17 ability. It hasn't been traded down, that's literally the only level you get it.

-Username17

No it's not.

It's an ability that people get at level 17.

A Rogue gets +1d6 SA, and 8+Int skills to 20 ranks at level 20.

A Wizard gets 2+Int skills and 2 level 9 spells.

If +1d6 SA more is worth a 9th level spell (it's not, but that's a different problem), then Use Rope is 1/6 of a 9th level spell.

That's my entire point.

In d20 Iron, you get a Tier 1 ability every other level, and you get a Tier 5 ability at level 17.

That doesn't mean that the Tier 1 ability you get at level 18 has to be a goddam Tier 5 ability because you get it at the same level.

That's exactly what skills are. Skills are Tier 1 abilities that you keep getting more of even at level 20. Yes, they are and shoudl be worth less than your class features for those levels, but that's fine, because they are not Tier 9 abilities.

[Previn]

In d20 Iron, you get a Tier 1 ability every other level, and you get a Tier 5 ability at level 17.

Iron Kingdoms or something else?

[Kaelik]

Iron Kingdoms or something else?

Some thing else.

[TarkisFlux]

Either that or it should have uses that are relevant at higher levels added in. I mean, if Use Rope let you rope trick at level 9, dimensional anchor at level 11, and sever astral cord at level 13, it would be meaningful that there were higher level progressions of it. If you aren't willing to make that kind of concession, then higher level versions of Use Rope should not exist.

It's worse than that I think. If you're not willing to make high level concessions for some subset of skills, then taking the low capped skill has an increasing opportunity cost associated with it as you reach higher levels. Once you hit the cap, you have to put points elsewhere to get any sort of benefit. To borrow Kaelik's terminology, it's like trading a tier 6 ability for a tier 5 and a tier 1 ability, then later trading a tier 9 ability for a tier 5 and a tier 4. That might work in other games, but it looks like a pretty poor trade in a game with the scaling that DnD has. If you're not willing to make higher level concessions in a game with DnD like scaling, the base skill itself should not exist to avoid turning into a trap.

[ishy]

That is only if the skill becomes shitty as you level though, if it remains just as good then it is no problem.

But really if I was designing skills, I'd try to balance each skill to be as useful as the others and devide them in some level ranges to figure out what they should be doing at that level. Thus for example, you divide 20 levels in 5 ranges and figure out what your skill should do at lvl 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 and then module it around that.

Problem with some 3.5 skills is that they didn't do something like that. Thus you get shitty skills like appraise (only works on non magical items woohoo) and use rope that nobody takes because they are worthless. Or diplomacy that nobody takes because they hear it is broken so often they don't even bother finding out how it actually works.