Our Warglblasters Are Different

[K]

Note that he didn't even address the issue that for game balance reasons, any character who isn't splitting enemy melee attacks (ie.: archers) has to be contributing more offense than someone who is (ie.: another front liner) in order to balance a mixed party.

-Username17

I didn't address it because it's a non-issue. I already accounted for it.

Under the zone idea, ranged attacks in zone mean you split enemy attacks because meleers can run up to you and hit you as easily as other meleers but your damage is appropriately big. The assumption is that ranged specialists will want to be in zone for group defense AND offense reasons.

Ranged attacks out of zone benefit from you not getting attacked (but your ranged attacks are small and imprecise). There is aysmmetric power there, but not much, and that's the reason to do that.

Again, this is a complaint because I haven't written the whole system out and you can't see it.

Apparently, I can't stop posting. Will try better.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I'm still a fan of just making sure that every class has something to do against people bombarding them from other zones. If it's already established that your RPG has zone combat and classes, there's little excuse not to give every PC class some way of either getting at enemies in zones difficult to access normally or providing significant support to other party members.

[K]

I'm still a fan of just making sure that every class has something to do against people bombarding them from other zones. If it's already established that your RPG has zone combat and classes, there's little excuse not to give every PC class some way of either getting at enemies in zones difficult to access normally or providing significant support to other party members.

Yup.

Personally, I think role protection of broad tactics should die in a fire. Even the archer should be a strong melee combatant (see Legolas).

[Fuchs]

In a good ambush in a canyon, the monster would be attacked at a point where even if wanted to retreat it would still be in the killing zone for enough time to get killed. They would not shoot it right when it entered their range.

[PhoneLobster]

Personally, I think role protection of broad tactics should die in a fire.

I would be prepared to go either way on role protection as a design goal in general.

However, seeing the complete anti-choice, anti balance and often just plain anti-fun bullshit Frank pulls off with the excuse of "role protection" including in this very thread his "race role protection" demands sabotaging his own use of broad ability selection to "solve" the best wizard race problem (hint, if race role protection puts the best wizard race ability in a single race ability short list you haven't fucking solved the problem). I would have to say, yeah, it can fucking die in a fire.

More broadly whenever writing my own mechanics whenever consideration of role protection comes up it seems to almost ALWAYS conflict with balance, player choice, and various fun options. And it is incredibly rare to find a situation where I can comfortably say role protection should win the goal contest on any specific mechanic.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If the entry in your Race box were no more important than the entry in your Hair Color box I wouldn't shed a tear. Frank's obsession with Orcs, including PCs having mechanically enforced stereotyping brings NOTHING good to the game compared to the harm it does.

[Avoraciopoctules]

In the races/classes I was using in my experiment earlier, I was trying to simultaneously make races do interesting things and be something you could just ignore the effects of in combat.

Normal OSH doesn't have a race/class distinction, and I'm pretty happy with that. I'm tempted to flesh out the classes I wrote, but I'm not sure it's worth the page space to keep the races, even though they fulfilled the purpose they were made for.

[Username17]

Ranged attacks out of zone benefit from you not getting attacked (but your ranged attacks are small and imprecise). There is aysmmetric power there, but not much, and that's the reason to do that.

That is not a benefit. Getting attacked means one of your allies isn't being attacked (short of AoEs and the like). Conversely, not getting attacked means that enemies are focusing fire on one of your allies.

So you're punishing the melee fighters twice. First by not being there to split enemy fire, and second by not providing enough damage output to actually matter.

Under the zone idea, ranged attacks in zone mean you split enemy attacks because meleers can run up to you and hit you as easily as other meleers but your damage is appropriate big. Them assumption is that ranged specialists will want to be in zone for group defense AND offense reasons.

Unlike your tirades about how you were going to nerf lowlight vision until no one could derive differential benefit from it, this is actually an achievable goal. It is, however, an incredibly shitty goal.

If I play a game with tactical positioning at all, even if it is narrative positioning like most people played 2nd edition AD&D, I demand at least 3 meaningful topological positions. That is to say that if your game doesn't recognize meaningful reasons to be in "the melee" or "our back field" or "their back field", then I don't want to play it. Even 2nd edition AD&D managed to do that much, and if you can't provide that with your design then your design sucks.

More reasonable positions to be in may or may not be better. I could see adding "flanks" to "the melee" and/or the backfields. I could see adding concepts of near and far rear ranks. Hell, you could even do grid mapping or topological connectivity maps. All of those things add more tactical complexity at the cost of adding more complexity to the tactical description. You could argue it either way.

But if you tell me "all the characters get into 'the combat' and are then all in topologically the same place", then I am mortally offended and I do not want to play. Because that is how nWoD combat works for all intents and purposes, and it is awful. If you tell me that bows and swords aren't really different in your system, then I will tell you that I am not going to play your system because your system is stupid.

-Username17

[Avoraciopoctules]

If you tell me that bows and swords aren't really different in your system, then I will tell you that I am not going to play your system because your system is stupid.-Username17

What about something like this?

Light Weapons (1 point of damage)
Smaller and quicker than other melee weapons. Using a light weapon allows you to roll 3d10 instead of 2d10, ignoring the value shown on the lowest die.
Examples: shortswords, rapiers, one-handed maces, daggers, truncheons, nunchucks, clawed gloves

Reach Weapons (1 point of damage)
These are usually pole-arms or cool chain-based weapons. It’s easier to keep your enemies at bay, so wielding one improves your Armor Class by one category.
Examples: quarterstaff, poleaxe, spear, flail, net-and-trident, sword-and-chain

Ranged Weapons (1 point of damage)
You attack earlier in Combat order, and can attack an opponent that’s in an adjacent arena as well as the one you’re in.
Examples: long or shortbow, blowgun, sling, bola, crossbow, throwing spear

Heavy Weapons (2 points of damage)
Nice and big, so they do an extra point of damage if you manage to hit with them.
Examples: bastard sword, warhammer, battleaxe, falchion, spiked ball-and-chain

Very Heavy Weapons (2 points of damage, sometimes 4)
Frickin’ huge and powerful, requiring both hands (no shield). They also do an extra point of damage; beating an opponent’s armor class by 5 or more does two extra points of damage.
Examples: caber, spiked club, zweihander, double-headed axe

[virgil]

Fix your quote tags Avo


There's more context than that for OSH. You forgot to mention that each weapon has an associated terrain type, where they get a +2 attack bonus if the target is in that terrain. Light weapons are tied to Tight Arenas, Reach to Hazardous, Ranged to Open, Heavy & Very Heavy to Dense. Note, the +2 attack bonus is a bit of a big deal for various reasons

• It is THE largest bonus to attack rolls in the game
• There are maybe three or four other sources of attack bonuses (Fighter base, and scattered situation talents)
• The system uses 2d10 rather than 1d20, so that +2 is comparatively bigger than in D&D

[Avoraciopoctules]

Fix your quote tags Avo

Done.

I posted a link to the rules earlier when I wrote a crude race and class set one could hypothetically insert into OSH.

EDIT: for anyone who missed it, http://www.oldschoolhack.net/

[shadzar]

In the races/classes I was using in my experiment earlier, I was trying to simultaneously make races do interesting things and be something you could just ignore the effects of in combat.

if there is no mechanical difference between races, then its just a paintjob of humans. the "interesting" things the races would do would be form the player roleplaying them.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Being able to turn into a wolf weaker in combat than you are normally and being able to survive indefinitely eating dirt are certainly mechanical differences, but they are unlikely to affect combat. You'd have to specifically engineer a situation to take advantage of your trait, and this generally means days spent luring someone into a dangerous environment.

Check the write-up out yourself, I think it's doing pretty well. There might be a fabulous prize if you can place all the references in the latest class.

[virgil]

That reminds me, where do they give stats for a wolf in OSH? Are the qualities unchanged, and they can only use a light weapon (their bite)?

[Avoraciopoctules]

They don't. There's a fan bestiary, but it's pretty small.
http://dino-pirates.com/dponiwiki/oshbestiary/

I'd probably make the wolf transformation have 2 hp, unarmored AC, a Light weapon, and 3 or so passive abilities.

[shadzar]

Being able to turn into a wolf weaker in combat than you are normally..........

, but they are unlikely to affect combat.

turn weaker in combat than you are normally [is] unlikely to affect combat

being able to turn into something that makes you weaker in combat is unlikely to affect combat?

when did the prefix un- change meanings?

[virgil]

Don't forget the other site with a bunch of OSH material which, upon further inspection, also have stats for a wolf.

http://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/o ... resources/

[virgil]

turn weaker in combat than you are normally [is] unlikely to affect combat

being able to turn into something that makes you weaker in combat is unlikely to affect combat?

when did the prefix un- change meanings?

If it's strictly weaker to use in combat, then it won't get used in combat; making its practical effect on combat minimal-to-nonexistent. Copper pieces are terrible weapons in 3E, so they don't have an effect on combat by dint of not being used.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Don't forget the other site with a bunch of OSH material which, upon further inspection, also have stats for a wolf.

http://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/o ... resources/

Nice. I hadn't seen that page before.

[JonSetanta]

Another solution to the problem of certain races being optimal in certain classes is to make those classes MAD.
Yes, not furious or vexed, M.A.D.

Wizard, Cleric, and Druid should be MAD much like the Monk is.

INT for bonus numeric effect, maybe bonus spells.
WIS for spells per day.
CHA for save DC.

Then when a race has, say, +2 INT they only get a portion better in being a Wizard rather than all 3 times.

Then you can stop bitching about minor racial bonuses.

[wotmaniac]

@sigma
and, of course, the flip side of that coin is that Retarded Orc Wizard only gets fucked a little (which may or may not be properly made up for with his other benefits) ..... "two out of three ain't bad".

[Kaelik]

You are an idiot and I hate you sigma. Making all classes use that stupid trichotomy of attributes that someone made up once that sucks is retarded.

First of all, it still makes some races shitty at casting classes, only now it makes them shitty at all casting classes, because they have penalties to two attributes. Second of all, MAD is a bad thing. Giving people fewer spells with lower save DCs makes the things that aren't a problem, like Finger of Death, worse without helping deal with any of the broken things, like casting Planar Binding or Charm Person.

Thirdly, it's fucking stupid, because it just removes attributes from casting, so you might as well fucking do that instead. Fourthly, Fuck you, if we want to make race not determinate of ability to play a class, we just fucking make races not have bonuses or penalties to attributes. Problem fucking solved, stop trying to take every single thing anyone ever says and trying to use it to justify that stupid trichotomy that sucks dick and makes everyone terrible and generic.

[JonSetanta]

wotcmaniac, any race with -2 to ALL MENTAL ABILITY SCORES is just begging to be a bad spellcaster.

Hence, make a feat that allows the use of STR as a casting score. There's always some feat or class ability to redirect stat bonuses somewhere. Problem solved.



Kaelik, first of all go suck a barrel of cocks, and secondly I don't care. Spellcasters need every nerf possible even though it seems to be some kind of unspoken rule in the Den to do so.

[Kaelik]

Hence, make a feat that allows the use of STR as a casting score. There's always some feat or class ability to redirect stat bonuses somewhere. Problem solved.

Or, you could have just made casting not based on attributes if you were just going to say that everyone uses their highest score anyways.

Kaelik, first of all go suck a barrel of cocks, and secondly I don't care. Spellcasters need every nerf possible even though it seems to be some kind of unspoken rule in the Den to do so.

Solution: Go post your stupid nerfs that don't actually help in a thread called "I WANT TO NERF THE MEAN SPELLCASTERS SO THAT MY FIGHTER FEELS BETTER!" instead of pretending your stupid nerfs are a solution to a problem that a) has multiple better and easier solutions, b) your stupid nerf doesn't fix in the first place.

[K]

Ranged attacks out of zone benefit from you not getting attacked (but your ranged attacks are small and imprecise). There is aysmmetric power there, but not much, and that's the reason to do that.

That is not a benefit. Getting attacked means one of your allies isn't being attacked (short of AoEs and the like). Conversely, not getting attacked means that enemies are focusing fire on one of your allies.

So you're punishing the melee fighters twice. First by not being there to split enemy fire, and second by not providing enough damage output to actually matter.

Here are your assumptions:

1. There is no tactical reason a single player can't help the party by not being subject to attacks in zone, perhaps even more than by being in the zone.

2. You are assuming enemies can't concentrate fire and an extra member distributes attacks somehow.

3. You are assuming there is no further tactical depth to a system you haven't seen.

4. You are assuming that rage-ranting about your own flawed assumptions makes me want to share this idea, and any other idea, at any further length.

On all four assumptions, you are wrong. Thanks for reminding me that nothing productive ever happens here and it's a huge waste of my time to post.

[shadzar]

turn weaker in combat than you are normally [is] unlikely to affect combat

being able to turn into something that makes you weaker in combat is unlikely to affect combat?

when did the prefix un- change meanings?

If it's strictly weaker to use in combat, then it won't get used in combat; making its practical effect on combat minimal-to-nonexistent. Copper pieces are terrible weapons in 3E, so they don't have an effect on combat by dint of not being used.

this "weaker" combat option is often called "gimped". isnt this the place always bitching about "gimped" characters being a bad thing?

somewhere, someone will bitch that a players using this "weaker" function during combat is slowing the party down, or somehow not pulling his own weight. this is what i have learned form this place over the years...