Our Warglblasters Are Different

[wotmaniac]

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.

Well, that wasn't really my point -- I just picked "orc" because they're a stereotypically "dumb" race. It was just a generic placeholder for "race that has a INT penalty", to contrast with "race with INT bonus".


Also, what is it with people who can't spell my name? Where is that extra "c" coming from? I find the implication rather repugnant -- my name has absolutely nothing to do with fucking WotC.

[Stubbazubba]

I don't think sigma's idea helps, but not just because "[obscenities]."

Making each class MAD will only narrow the list of races that go well with any given class, not widen it. It'll exacerbate the problem it's trying to address. Whereas Wizards previously just needed high INT, now anything with an INT, WIS, or CHA penalty is going to avoid Wizard. While it's true, races with an INT bonus aren't as profited by picking Wizard, other races that wouldn't otherwise have a problem with it all of a sudden do. Net loss, as far as I can see.

Choosing a penalty and a bonus from lists of attributes, as per my idea up-thread, increases the number of races who can gear themselves for different classes just as well as any other, and no one ever needs to be worse than average at any class. Normally, there's one or two classes your race is good at, a bunch they're average at, and a few they suck at. Sigma's idea shifts more classes downward; now there's only one you're good at, few you're average at, and a lot you suck at. My idea goes the opposite way; you can be good at more than half the class list, and you are at worst average, there is nothing you have to be less than average at.

[Kaelik]

I don't think sigma's idea helps, but not just because "[obscenities]."

Making each class MAD will only narrow the list of races that go well with any given class, not widen it. It'll exacerbate the problem it's trying to address. Whereas Wizards previously just needed high INT, now anything with an INT, WIS, or CHA penalty is going to avoid Wizard. While it's true, races with an INT bonus aren't as profited by picking Wizard, other races that wouldn't otherwise have a problem with it all of a sudden do. Net loss, as far as I can see.

This is really cute. Welcome to TGD, we sometimes cuss when we make our points. For example, I already made that exact point, along with three others. Try to learn to keep your brain on even after you see the naughty words.

[Stubbazubba]

Only on the Den do people attack you for agreeing with them.

[Kaelik]

Only on the Den do people attack you for agreeing with them.

Well, you did agree with by saying, "That other idiot who had no point at all and didn't use his brain was sort of write by accident."

[Username17]

Here are your assumptions:

No they aren't.

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.

Dude, I just told you that for game balance reasons an archer who was out of the melee had to be dishing out more offensive firepower (however that is defined) than a dude in the melee. You, on the other hand, demanded that they do less. In short, I suggested that the tactical effects of a back-rank character had to go up to compensate for the fact that they weren't on the front line - and you said the opposite. That they needed to be punished for not being on the front line.

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

I suppose I am assuming that. You know, because any game that doesn't do that is basically just Lunch Money and doesn't deserve to be called a tactical minigame at all.

Yes, in nWoD, there is nothing whatever to stop people from just focusing fire and everyone on both sides just picks a hippie to beat on until they drop and then moves on to the next target - repeat until one side or the other runs out of dudes. nWoD has the shittiest combat system I have ever seen, and everything you say on this thread seems hellbent on emulating it.

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

I'm assuming that you'll have to add tactical depth eventually. However, so far you've only said things about stripping tactical depth away, and every time I suggest a source of tactical depth, you angrily deny it. Like for example: the part just above where you deny that there is any reason to split fire among the different targets in the combat zone where according to you, everyone is.

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.

Actually different: I'm assuming that hopefully I can get through to you that what you've been describing is a mixture of 4th edition D&D and nWoD. That it is quite simply the most caustic set of ideas I have ever seen you come up with, and I want you to stop. Even the precepts you've lain down for design goals are horrible.

• Make it so that no class or build derives differential benefit from simple abilities like lowlight vision.
• Make it so that characters with "ranged" attacks cannot effectively attack from outside of melee range.
• Make sure that no one can stop either side in a melee from simply focusing fire on one opponent at a time until they expire.

All of those goals are shitty goals. I'm not denying that you can make a system sufficiently reductionist that you achieve them. I'm saying you shouldn't, because those are the worst ideas that I've ever seen you type on any subject.

The argument so far has been:

• Frank: Don't do this. Your plan is stupid.
  K: You keep thinking I can't do this. But your assumptions are wrong, because if I double down into something even more extreme, it can be done.

-Username17

[John Magnum]

K's persistent appeals to a wholly hypothetical game system created out of whole cloth are irritating to me. He keeps mentioning that these weird design ideas like turning ranged attacks into melee AoE aren't D&D tweaks, but part of some brand-new design that doesn't share any of the base assumptions that we're used to. And maybe they totally are functional in some hypothetical new system that has almost no common ground in D&D, but then maybe he should actually dash one off instead of getting mad at people for not psychically discerning the ostensibly wildly different design principles of the system that exists only in his head.

[JonSetanta]

Making each class MAD will only narrow the list of races that go well with any given class, not widen it. It'll exacerbate the problem it's trying to address. Whereas Wizards previously just needed high INT, now anything with an INT, WIS, or CHA penalty is going to avoid Wizard. While it's true, races with an INT bonus aren't as profited by picking Wizard, other races that wouldn't otherwise have a problem with it all of a sudden do. Net loss, as far as I can see.

Choosing a penalty and a bonus from lists of attributes, as per my idea up-thread, increases the number of races who can gear themselves for different classes just as well as any other, and no one ever needs to be worse than average at any class. Normally, there's one or two classes your race is good at, a bunch they're average at, and a few they suck at. Sigma's idea shifts more classes downward; now there's only one you're good at, few you're average at, and a lot you suck at. My idea goes the opposite way; you can be good at more than half the class list, and you are at worst average, there is nothing you have to be less than average at.

But... it would be fair.
Besides, you don't need an 18 in your primary class stat to "win D&D". You can get by with a 16 or less.
So, no, I'll stand by my proposal that all classes should require at least 2-3 stats for their abilities to make sure every race sucks equally at all classes, thereby making them even.
The more powerful the class (dedicated spellcasters usually) the more stats should be required. Fighter would get off easy with just STR or DEX, and CON.

[Username17]

If 4e has taught us anything, it should be that making all classes equally MAD is not a way to fight race/class predestination.

-Username17

[echoVanguard]

If 4e has taught us anything, it should be that making all classes equally MAD is not a way to fight race/class predestination.

-Username17

That's quite an assertion. Can you elucidate?

echo

[JonSetanta]

If 4e has taught us anything, it should be that making all classes equally MAD is not a way to fight race/class predestination.

I've only played once (thankfully) and didn't need to manage more than two stats. From my experience it was less MAD than 3e.
But if you say the game as a whole is moreso, I'll look into it again, since I already know how much it failed after a single session.

[John Magnum]

Since 4e made every class strongly dependent on at least two stats, it meant that each class was even more strongly locked into races that boost both stats than the 3.x paradigm. In 3.x every race that gives +2 to Intelligence is at least basically viable as a Wizard, but in 4e you need +2 Int / +2 Wis, period. A cool racial power will not be as useful as +1 on every rider of every power you care about.

The way it worked in 4e was that every class has (at least) a primary and secondary stat (there are other sorts of classes and they're even more terrible). Usually, each pair of attributes has a race that boosts both attributes. That race will probably also have its own line of race-specific feats, spread about the PHBs and X Power books. Those feats will probably ALSO be synergistic with your class. Which means that 4e locks you into optimal race/class pairings even more inescapably than 3.x does.

[Username17]

If 4e has taught us anything, it should be that making all classes equally MAD is not a way to fight race/class predestination.

-Username17

That's quite an assertion. Can you elucidate?

echo

Every build in 4e uses 2 stats. They tried some three stat builds, but those sucked monkey ass and no one plays them because you only get two good stats. Every race gets two bonus stats. Every build is thus predestined to be made out of one of the races that adds to its stats.

There was a period early on when not all the stat combinations had a race attached, and thus many builds were either unplayable or open to a lot of different races. Before the Gnome came on the scene with its Int-Wis combination, the Int-Wis Orbizard could be played as a Dwarf or an Elf or a Tiefling or an Eladrin because you were only getting a boost to one stat anyway. Before the Half Orc came on scene with its Str-Con combo, the Str-Con Hammer Fighter was "unplayably terrible".

It's just a core reality of stats. If there are stats you need to play certain class builds, then the races that give you those stats are going to be the races you need to be to play those classes. K was right earlier in the thread (before the 4rry crazy) when he said that stat modifiers had to go if you wanted to break up racial determinism.

As for Sigma's specific plan of "make wizards use all the stats" - that's just stupid. Wizards already use all the stats. It's just that they use their Intelligence to set their all-important save DCs, and they use their Charisma to add to their Diplomancy rolls when trying to upgrade Charms or cut deals with bound outsiders. The discrepancy in utility is obvious, as it would be in any future system where you tried to make all the stats matter more. You're still going to have stats that matter the most for any particular build, and the races (if any) that give boosts to it are going to be the "right" races for that build.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

So, in reverse, we could have NO class that gains benefits from high stats.

Stats would add to the basics such as HP, saves, and maybe attack rolls (although this should be overshadowed by class bonus too, perhaps in a non-stacking way), but class abilities could assume a +4 bonus at level 1 and scale slowly from there, as if the character had an 18 in their "class stat".

[Kaelik]

So, in reverse, we could have NO class that gains benefits from high stats.

Stats would add to the basics such as HP, saves, and maybe attack rolls (although this should be overshadowed by class bonus too, perhaps in a non-stacking way), but class abilities could assume a +4 bonus at level 1 and scale slowly from there, as if the character had an 18 in their "class stat".

That's an option. And I think one that Lago or PL used to care about a lot, always referred to as "attributes only add to defenses, not attacks."

But if we are trying to solve the problem of class/race determinism, the easiest solution is in fact to just remove the fuck out of racial attributes.

[Avoraciopoctules]

With the OSH tweak I'm working on, classes and attributes are pretty much decoupled from each other entirely. Attributes get used for "skill checks" and "saving throws". Classes are a list of powers and RP suggestions, nothing else (and they all have a minimum amount of general usefulness that can limit conceptual space to a surprising degree).

There is a downside in that one could thus make a pretty coherent argument for Commitment (most regularly used for "saving throws") being the most important combat stat. I think the best solution to that would be making sure that most (if not) all checks versus being affected by a hostile ability allow a choice of several attributes to use.

EDIT:

Stats would add to the basics such as HP, saves, and maybe attack rolls

In OSH, stats can't improve HP. HP can only be increased if a PC's class grants a power that specifically gives additional HP. When characters hit a new power tier, that tier may come with some default passive powers that increase HP, but attributes never figure into it outside of some poorly balanced fan-created content.

[virgil]

As Avo is discovering, OSH is awesome for quick-n-dirty D&D-genre gaming.

You know what? I'm going to start including a small box of conversion for OSH use in my blog.

[Chamomile]

What is OSH?

[shadzar]

What is OSH?

Old School Hack. its like OSRIC but for B/X i think.

there are several links around for it in this or the other thread.

http://www.oldschoolhack.net

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

http://dino-pirates.com/dponiwiki/oshbestiary/

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Something I could get into as a call to earlier editions would be racial stat minimums. 1e went overboard with it, ostensibly as a counterbalance to low level limits on demihumans, but something like dwarves having a minimum 11 constitution would give them the image as being a generally hardy race without any real game mechanical stereotyping.

Alternatively, different races could have a bonus to a given stat for limited purposes. Perhaps gnomes have an effective +2 intelligence for determining bonus languages, or skill points, but not spell DCs. That could just end up being entirely too fiddly.

[Avoraciopoctules]

If you are rolling for stats, then races that are supposed to have an advantage on a particular stat could use a method that has the same minimum and maximum, but a higher average.

In the OSH races I wrote earlier in the thread, each had a favored attribute where they rolled 3d10, subtract lowest (instead of 2d10) when generating their score.

[virgil]

What were your reasons for having the races use a shifted bell curve rather than a flat +1 to a Quality as they do with the other races? Granted, in retrospect, the races in the starting rules are also classes.

[Avoraciopoctules]

People in this thread were asking for races as a thing distinct from classes. I specifically had a quote from K I was trying to make something in accordance with. If I gave any race a consistent +1 to something, that risked it being declared "optimal" for something. Bell curve improvements meant whatever benefit you got was firmly in MTP territory.

I don't think I'd want to use the races I put together if I was putting together houserules for my own use. For the moment, I'm pretty content with races-as-classes.

[Username17]

What is OSH?

Stands for "Old School Hack". It's an OD&D retroclone fantasy heartbreaker with a resolution about on the level of 2nd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle (not WHFRP). I genuinely do not know what the point is.

-Username17

[Avoraciopoctules]

It's got the best XP system I've ever seen. It's also very simple. In it's present state, it's impossible for people to run off the RNG.

Those 3 things are appealing enough that I'm playing around with it right now, but it definitely has flaws. For one thing, the classes are very unimpressive. Everyone is pretty similar even once the party's gotten some more powers through levelling.