Warlock, 3rd Edition (okay, let's make TOME a complete game)

[Midnight_v]

Ok, it sounds like you want to have special rules for abstracting pet actions when they're offscreen, that makes sense. What are you proposing the PC-vs-minion rules should be? Obviously we don't have numbers, but how if at all would they differ from PC-vs-any-other-monster?

That shit makes my mind burn and while interesting isn't a signifigant improvement.
Especially when you say "Everyone"...
What I'm trying to say is... lets bookmark the "minion mini-game" for now untill we get some more bolts in about, the core of what we've got going here.

Which is what, exactly? I really slammed the breaks there.
I'm thinking we're doing some TOME-like fantasy heartbreaker. Since we have the Assassin Class right now... lets keep it and spread out from it. Thats my suggestion. Maybe soemthing else from that series to. . . but I'd like a suggested start point.
Will we use the Srd Monsters. . . If so then I posit that we have at least a place to start with familar ideas about balance, and leveling. So we don't have to start from absolute zero. If we indeed ARE starting from Zer0 then while the first concept we seem to all want to get a zoom in on is classes. The next thing I'd like to talk about are: Advancement/Progression/Levels.
Followed by: Challenges.
Are we following a 1-20 scale with each section specified as a tier, or are we splitting it up simple like 4th did.
Those are some important things, at least imho... that lead to us actually visualizing the same things.

[Kaelik]

Midnight, you are being stupid in that you believe this has anything at all to do with Tome just because it says Tome in the thread title. This has nothing to do with the Tome.

Go read the KSF thread. No they aren't using SRD monsters, no they aren't using the Tome Assassin, no they aren't advancing off that model.

No there is no reason for them to use Tome, which is why the smart one, Frank, doesn't use the word Tome for it.

The combat involves zones and WoF and is fundamentally incompatrible with D&D because it's supposed to be a different game that is not D&D at all. Also, Dr. Praetor is a fucking idiot who thinks that it should be called Tome because he hates the actual Tomes and wants to prevent both KSF and the Tomes from both existing at the same time.

[Endovior]

Ok, it sounds like you want to have special rules for abstracting pet actions when they're offscreen, that makes sense. What are you proposing the PC-vs-minion rules should be? Obviously we don't have numbers, but how if at all would they differ from PC-vs-any-other-monster?

Ideally, I'd like PC-vs-mook rules to look like rocket launchers vs foam clubs. If you, the PC, are aware of a mook, and in position to attack the mook, and don't have anything better to do then to attack the mook, and aren't being hampered by some debilitating condition that would prevent you from successfully attacking the mook, you should expect to kill the mook. The same should apply to bosses and such; they should be able to slaughter the player's mooks with ease, if it comes down to that. Some mooks, of course, should be slightly more elite (like player pets or companions or similar named NPC allies); these should be easily disabled by direct attacks from named villains and such, but can probably be revived after the battle, if the PCs win.

Mooks, on the other hand, shouldn't usually pose a direct threat to the PCs. When a hundred orcs charge the PCs, that's not a threat to their lives; that's keeping them busy for a little while while the necromancer prepares his ritual. When faced with a horde of charging mooks, the PCs should be able to respond by slaughtering them in droves without even taking any damage... but at the cost of actually doing something against the real threat. If they players have enough minions of their own on hand, they can send their minions against the enemy minions and concentrate on the boss; alternatively, most classes should have ways of holding off large numbers of mooks singlehandedly (perhaps the Hero takes Defiant Stance and can basically hold a chokepoint forever against mooks, or maybe the Pyromancer drops a Wall of Flame, and needs to concentrate on maintaining it to keep the mooks from interfering). Either way, there's a certain amount of stuff that needs to be done on a round-to-round basis to suppress a given number of mooks. If they aren't suppressed, then any PCs that did not spend their action doing something to suppress a mook take some damage. It should be enough damage that suppressing the mooks is actually a big deal... but again, since any PCs that spent their full attention fighting mooks by whatever means are automatically safe, it should be a model that puts the main focus on the boss, who should be the real threat.

Essentially, any combat in which mooks are relevant should be a balancing act between keeping the mooks suppressed and taking the boss down. If everyone ignores the mooks, they'll probably be in trouble, since there's probably enough mooks to pose a reasonable threat to the PCs if ignored... but the consequences of ignoring the boss should be worse.

[Chamomile]

Also, Dr. Praetor is a fucking idiot who thinks that it should be called Tome because he hates the actual Tomes and wants to prevent both KSF and the Tomes from both existing at the same time.

The rest of us jumped on the bandwagon just 'cause it's fun to watch Kaelik rage.

[DrPraetor]

Also, Dr. Praetor is a fucking idiot who thinks that it should be called Tome because he hates the actual Tomes and wants to prevent both KSF and the Tomes from both existing at the same time.

The rest of us jumped on the bandwagon just 'cause it's fun to watch Kaelik rage.

Come now, Kaelik makes a lot of valid and interesting points, but he needs more depth and background. I think he should expand that into a four or five page thesis.

He underestimates the depth of my conspiracy - I hated Tome before it even existed. I was so determined to destroy Tome from the start, that I subtly inserted a few choice bits and pieces that I knew would undermine the whole endeavor, turn Frank and K against eachother, and force them to rewrite KSF from the ground up rather than producing anything compatible with the SRD. For example:

He's not just gay - he's got little winged babies fused to his body. Going, and I quote, "help usssssss...." Do I have to draw you a diagram?"

@Endovior: Eh, I don't like Feng Shui style combat for D&D, and I don't like the Boss:Mook division either. For a couple of reasons.

1 - It means you have to dance around and nerf the save or die spells. If the Lich is just a bad-asser skeleton, then if the Lich roles poorly and is disintegrated on the first turn, that's not such a huge loss.
If, on the other hand, the entire scenario is supposed to be 50% bashing on the lich, you become D&D 4th in no time.

It's like banking regulation. No one monster or one villain can be too-big-to-fail, otherwise the entire game engine gets distorted.

[Username17]

It's like banking regulation. No one monster or one villain can be too-big-to-fail, otherwise the entire game engine gets distorted.

Yes. Also: assignment of monsters into definitive "Mook" and "Boss" grades ends with ridiculousness like the "high level Mook" who is roundly kicking your ass but will go down in one hit if and when you can actually connect or the "low level Boss" who grinds up a lot of time but can't actually accomplish fuckall.

-Username17

[Sashi]

I think assignment of monsters into "mook" and "boss" makes sense if the grades mean "how the monster is presented in the Monster Manual" rather than "how much HP it gets".

For example, Orc and goblin might be "mooks" which means they get a standard entry like they currently have (possibly three entries: Goblin Raider, Goblin Sniper, Goblin Warg Rider), then there's a "boss" entry of "Goblin Taskmaster" which outlines a full encounter (including map) with the Taskmaster accompanied by three Goblin Raiders, two Goblin Warg Riders, four Goblin Snipers, and a Goblin Mystic.

[Endovior]

Eh, I'm in the 'nerf save-or-die' camp anyways, so the fact that we disagree there is understandable. I'm a big fan of the 'condition track' idea of damage/debuff scaling, such that everyone's contributions are actually helpful and useful, rather then the Wizard's Finger of Death making everything the Fighter was doing for the rest of the combat totally meaningless.

That said, you don't want to track all that kind of stuff on mooks, not when there's huge piles of them. Mooks should just plain die when you stab them. An Elite Mook is a Mook that's harder to stab then the rest of the mooks, but he still won't be able to kick your ass if you're specifically paying attention to him. Also, there should not be low-level bosses like that... maybe the big boss has some slightly less impressive lieutenants or whatnot, but 'Boss' isn't exactly the right term for 'non-minion enemy'... and it sounds to me like you guys are conflating in some awful 4e concepts that I didn't mention. Essentially, anything that is not using the Mook rules should essentially be using the same rules as the PCs; the Mook rules are there only and exclusively for the purpose of letting there be huge piles of minions running around without the game grinding to a screeching halt, since you actually can't have huge piles of minions without them. The main battle is the PCs vs the most powerful and impressive enemy on the other side, plus anything dangerous or important enough to stand out. The minions on both sides are scenery, and should in most fights be occupied in fighting each other while the main battle goes on on-screen. The only case in which there wind up being much too many minions for this to work is in the case of the big climactic boss fights, where the boss has way more minions then normal to hold the PCs off while he does some evil ritual (or just kills them from afar with ranged magic, whatever). If, in this scenario, the PCs are particularly clever, and pull off a nice end-run around the minions and kill the boss really quickly, the mooks will not continue the battle on their own; any mooks left over after battle either retreat, or disperse, or deanimate, or die immediately; depending on what kind of being they are. Maybe the players chase them down and kill them all off; who cares. You can seriously handwave that kind of thing; if there's no PC-level adversary on the field, the PCs win the battle, period; just like they lose the battle once the last PC falls.

[Grek]

Under my proposed schema, mooks are not monsters. They are an abstraction used to handle mass combats in the same way as a swarm is. They don't go in the monster manual (though they do reference it, see below), they don't have levels and they're not given individual actions.

	vs. a low level NPC	vs. a high level NPC	vs. a NPC's minion
A low level PC	Uses the standard combat rules.	Uses the standard combat rules and probably loses.	Fights an equivilent NPC listed alongside the minion-granting power.
A high level PC	Uses the standard combat rules and probably wins.	Uses the standard combat rules.	Has powers to disperse the minions without rolling for it.
A PC's minion	Is a long range and/or contingent power that handles things the PC's cant be bothered with anymore	Is a long duration AoE power that does something each round until cleared with an appropriate counter.	Uses the mass combat rules.

[ModelCitizen]

That chart requires six different resolution methods, and one of them has you suddenly take a pet out of your minion cloud and place it on the board (where it ends up either won't have rules or will lead to incredibly dissociated Exalted-style minion teleports). I think you need to go back to the drawing board on this one.

BTW I'm happy to talk about this / other retainer mechanics in a new thread if it's too specific for the KSF thread.

[Endovior]

Eh, you're starting to assume a whole pile of things there.

1: Is there a board? We haven't even discussed that, yet. Personally, if I was design dictator, I would implement that abstract location system that's been bounced around here for some time; having a grid is too much bookkeeping to too little purpose.
2: Under Grek's proposal, your pets don't come out of the cloud, either; they are abilities the PC has, and can be disabled by minion-disabling effects (which can, inefficiently, include direct attacks). That said, he likes the idea of mooks popping out of the cloud; and that's a bad idea that we're trying to get away from. Ideally, I'd suggest that enemy mooks work the same way; they are, strictly speaking, abilities your enemies have, which you can deal with in the same way as you'd normally deal with a 'minion' ability.

[Grek]

1. There's two resolution methods, the standard combat rules (of which minion-based attacks and minion clearing clearing are a subset, just as the powers Acid Fog and Gust of Wind are subsets) and the mass combat rules. I don't think that having seperate rules for personal combat and leading an army is too much.

2. At no point do enemy minions "pop out of the cloud" to fight you. They're either in the cloud for the entire encounter, or they're never a minion group during that encounter. The low level PC vs. NPC minion thing is handled by having a GM advice section that essentially says, "If you want to have the PCs attacked by the servants of a higher level opponent before they're high enough level gain minions of their own or explicit minion clearing powers, don't run the fight using the minion rules. Instead, have the evil overlord's thugs arrive as the plot demands it and run the encounter as a normal fight scene, using individually stated NPCs instead of minion tokens."

The minion rules are there to handle cases where it is important that there are soliders there fighting in the abstract, but unimportant to know the specifics of which individual solider moves where and which little solider on which side is hitting who with what weapon. It's not there for the dramatic fight where the plucky young heros are attacked by the dread lord's enforcers for the first time.

[Username17]

Since it's going to be important what specific minion is, for instance, operating a catapult or holding the fire staff, minions must necessarily pop out of the cloud from time to time. Modelling minions as clouds is therefore basically a non-starter.

It's perfectly permissible for minions to take cloud actions, for example perhaps there's the basic combat maneuvers "Volley" and "Swarm" that are the best (only?) actions that low-level bullshit can accomplish against heroes and monsters with ranged attacks and melee attacks respectively. But a dude has to be an actual dude with an actual location. Because even if it isn't important where he is in amongst the other mooks in his unit, it's going to become important where he is as soon as he's specifically the one blocking the door or running away with the emperor's crown or in any other way occupying an important position or interacting with an important object.

-Username17

[ModelCitizen]

1. There's two resolution methods, the standard combat rules (of which minion-based attacks and minion clearing clearing are a subset, just as the powers Acid Fog and Gust of Wind are subsets) and the mass combat rules. I don't think that having seperate rules for personal combat and leading an army is too much.

I understand that it's a pain in the ass to get actual army-on-army shit to be transparent with the regular combat engine, but the stuff posted upthread implied that these rules should be used for single retainers and animal companions and stuff. Maybe I'm confusing your and Endovior's ideas.

[Endovior]

Since it's going to be important what specific minion is, for instance, operating a catapult or holding the fire staff, minions must necessarily pop out of the cloud from time to time. Modelling minions as clouds is therefore basically a non-starter.

It's perfectly permissible for minions to take cloud actions, for example perhaps there's the basic combat maneuvers "Volley" and "Swarm" that are the best (only?) actions that low-level bullshit can accomplish against heroes and monsters with ranged attacks and melee attacks respectively. But a dude has to be an actual dude with an actual location. Because even if it isn't important where he is in amongst the other mooks in his unit, it's going to become important where he is as soon as he's specifically the one blocking the door or running away with the emperor's crown or in any other way occupying an important position or interacting with an important object.

-Username17

Well, siege weaponry is pretty much always going to be a minion ability; since it's explicitly something that takes a lot of time and multiple people to use. That said, it's entirely consistent with everything else I've written on the subject to have the PCs decide to attack the catapult crew specifically, and for that to take out the catapult. I could see a consistent system extending that to any specific interactions you might want to have with individual minions who are doing something particularly relevant; there's no need to abandon the cloud entirely just to model that sort of action. I've already mentioned how you need some level of abstraction to handle minions, period, for the usual combat resolution time reasons; minions clouds are just one implementation of that.

That said, it's doable to write up a minion statbar for each specific minion ability you want to use and, in the event that it becomes totally crucial to treat an individual minion as a character, drop them out of the cloud. You shouldn't do that trivially, but I don't see it as breaking the system, if you write it properly into the system from the beginning. That said, how important it is that individual guys have individual locations in general depends on how abstractly we're handling locations. And I'm in favour of a lot of abstraction there, too, so again, it's workable that way.