![Razz :razz:](./images/smilies/razzyellow.gif)
Call it Advaced Dungeons and Dragons - Reborn (AD&D R)
Moderator: Moderators
We have that already. In many incarnations. Hackmaster, Castles & Crusades, Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, Dark Dungeons, Swords & Wizardry, et multiple cetera. That market is fucking crowded.tzor wrote:I'm going to take the stand of an old fart and say what we need is a revised Original AD&D Edition; with simple inflexible classes and lots and lots of tables.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
That was my thought reading through Mearls' latest blog entry; this could be accomplished by running separate games in different settings. Or possibly one setting at different stages, i.e. Middle-earth's First Age would be more like high-level play, but the Third Age would be more like mid-to-low level play. That combined with a Lite and Full version of rules, plus pre-packaged class builds that make instantaneous action an option.Juton wrote:High magic, low magic or complex vs simple, a lot of players say they want one or the other. Ideally 5e should be able to accommodate both, maybe through different campaign settings or by spinning off one version of the game with a different name.
Sure there is.Previn wrote: I'm not sure there's enough things to 4e to borrow. I mean, I know there is a lot of stuff that conceptually could be good, but I don't think anything that's actually in 4e would be useable.
I don't want a short rest to heal all my HP. I don't think that's a good thing because it reinforces the 5 minute workday, closes off attrition as a method of building tension, and breaks several types of narration for little if any gain.Swordslinger wrote:[*] Short rest to heal all your hit points.
Maybe.[*] More hit points at level 1
Scaling bonuses exists for attacks (BAB) and saves (Class save bonuses) in 3.5. Skills 'scale' through skill points, which just needed a tweaking. Scaling everything leads to idiocy like a iron lock going from DC10 to DC30 just because you got better and in fact has shown to not work for balance anyways in 4e. It also means that you never really get better at doing anything.[*] Paradigm where your AC, attack bonuses and the like scale up at about +1 per level. This isn't 100% due to what equipment you might get, but your expected bonuses will increase by +1 (and so will equivalent monsters)
TERRIBLE IDEA. I cannot state how stupid this was both in idea and execution. It does not work and leads to massive homogenization. Balance problems aren't solved with straitjacketing everyone into the exact same power/resource system and then neutering it because the powers themselves aren't balanced.[*] Powers for everyone
Except the formula had to be rewritten, and it doesn't actually work anyways dues to scaling problems with PCs. additionally having a scale for monsters base damage is simplistic and almost completely pointless because that's the easy part. Anyone with an hour could come up with it. It doesn't help at all with creating actual interesting abilities, and 4e fails utterly at having anything but magical tea party for monsters outside of combat.[*] Monster generation uses formulaic guidelines to determine a monster's attack bonus, damage and defenses based on level.
Martial maneuvers, spells, psionics, classes feats, and just about every other thing in 3.5, or any game uses a standardized format. 4e powers are simple to read because the simple, bland and boring just as 4e is. They don't have to cover edge cases because 4e thinks it sanded off all the edge cases (which it didn't).[*] Standardized format of powers was so much easier to read and understand.
3.5 was rarely 'hit things and hit things' again, and greater than 90% of the powers in 4e are 'hit things with some other minor effect'. Marks and auras as a method of aggro control is stupidly pointless when you have a DM controlling the monsters who can do it better than terrible, weak mechanics anyways. Aggro and marks are for computers that are terrible at making decisions about what to attack.[*] Marking and sticky auras for fighter types gave them some interesting features besides just hitting things again and again.
In 3.5 the player made all the saves rather than having them be passive defenses, and was always making saves when it wasn't their turn, often several times. 4e just shifted which rolls the players were making. It's pretty clear you have absolutely no clue what so ever what you're talking about with regards to 3.x because this point alone should have been blindingly obvious to even the most idiotic player.[*] 4E saving throws were a good idea, so people always had something to do on their turn even if it was just making a save.
Not seeing that as a good thing.[*] Removal of temporary ability score modifiers.
Yeah, they have less crazy bonus types because they have fewer books and less conceptual space to create bonuses due to putting everything into the power + item system and stripping out everything else.[*] Less crazy new bonus types.
It's not a plus when character creation keeps feeding back into the game all the time. I want to spend my advancement choices on things that reflect what my character is doing in the game, not what I need to complete a 'build'. With both 3E and 4E character creation never ends.Lago PARANOIA wrote:If people are spending 3-4 hours on character and enjoying it (without irritating other people) that's a huge plus for your game. It invests people in your product coming and going; they keep the game in mind when there's not a game available AND it gives them an incentive to look for other groups to use the character on.
Now, character creation SHOULD have the option of being able to be plowed through quickly for games that were literally organized a few minutes ago. But being forced to choose I'd rather have a game where people had a character creation process that was long than short.
Except that, no matter how you lay out levels, talk about game tiers. and design character progression, there will still be an endless number of shitheads who refuse to even consider that a new game can start at a level besides first. And this design is just condeming a lot of innocent players to having to play through the shitty 'tutorial' level over and over again.Stubbazubba wrote:This first level can then be skipped for experienced players who are already secure in their gaming groups or making new characters for an already familiar campaign, etc., etc.
Then call the primer level 0. Your second point might be spot-on, though.sake wrote:Except that, no matter how you lay out levels, talk about game tiers. and design character progression, there will still be an endless number of shitheads who refuse to even consider that a new game can start at a level besides first. And this design is just condeming a lot of innocent players to having to play through the shitty 'tutorial' level over and over again.Stubbazubba wrote:This first level can then be skipped for experienced players who are already secure in their gaming groups or making new characters for an already familiar campaign, etc., etc.
I actually have to take issue with this:CapnTthePirateG wrote:I'm going to disagree on the monster generation one. Ideally, your monsters should all be playable (to a point - you could play a drow, centaur, mind flayer, or pixie, but not a giant centipede) and all your player race NPCs should be built the same as PCs so we don't get the stupid "the baleful heretic gets different powers which you can never learn. I don't care that you're a tiefling wizard, you're not learning them. And Jimmy, no your fighter can't learn the gnome nutstabber's awesome attack, because you're a PC!"
I hate that crap.
Well I guess I'm just not with you. I think the difference would be that they don't have a human PLAYER attached to them but that whole shit where you can't learn nutstabber attack? That should never be, barring anatomy issues.wotmaniac wrote:I actually have to take issue with this:CapnTthePirateG wrote:I'm going to disagree on the monster generation one. Ideally, your monsters should all be playable (to a point - you could play a drow, centaur, mind flayer, or pixie, but not a giant centipede) and all your player race NPCs should be built the same as PCs so we don't get the stupid "the baleful heretic gets different powers which you can never learn. I don't care that you're a tiefling wizard, you're not learning them. And Jimmy, no your fighter can't learn the gnome nutstabber's awesome attack, because you're a PC!"
I hate that crap.
monsters (and villains in general) should have different abilities than the PCs -- this is what keeps them interesting, and keeps the game interesting. Not only that, but these unique abilities can often be used as plot catalysts.
if monsters just have the same abilities as the PCs, then there is not much left (other than fluff) to differentiate them.
...If only you'd have stopped forever...Dear Midnight, you have actually made me sad. I took a day off of posting yesterday because of actual sadness you made me feel in my heart for you.
something as simple as nutstabber attack (or otherwise anything that is just a type of simple attack) -- yeah, sure, go ahead.Midnight_v wrote:Well I guess I'm just not with you. I think the difference would be that they don't have a human PLAYER attached to them but that whole shit where you can't learn nutstabber attack? That should never be, barring anatomy issues.
Everything should be done to prevent the psycho with the Dmpc of legend.
I don't think it's a bad idea in principle but there needs to be some careful thought. If the monsters powers are based on items then the game needs to allow the pcs to pick them up off the dead monsters and use them. Or figure out how they work and make them.wotmaniac wrote: I actually have to take issue with this:
monsters (and villains in general) should have different abilities than the PCs -- this is what keeps them interesting, and keeps the game interesting. Not only that, but these unique abilities can often be used as plot catalysts.
if monsters just have the same abilities as the PCs, then there is not much left (other than fluff) to differentiate them.
I imagined that you'd allow PCs abilities to learn a set number of monster powers at a time, assuming they had the right keyword. So fighters could learn weapon powers, and wizards could learn spell powers. Though to prevent this getting out of hand, you'd have to be at least 1 level higher than the monster to learn its power and the power would always have the same attack and damage bonuses that the monster had, and couldn't be modified by other stuff. (this would allow you to do 4E style monster powers without worrying about breaking the game). Since they wouldn't scale, you'd constantly be burning through them and replacing them as you encountered new monsters.wotmaniac wrote: something as simple as nutstabber attack (or otherwise anything that is just a type of simple attack) -- yeah, sure, go ahead.
I'm talking about stuff that's beyond the realm of normal human(iod) potential.
If the PCs potentially have access to each and every special ability that a monster can have, then seriously, how does that not get boring?
What? Being able to heal to full after combat encourages a 5-minute workday? What the fuck are you smoking?I don't want a short rest to heal all my HP. I don't think that's a good thing because it reinforces the 5 minute workday, closes off attrition as a method of building tension, and breaks several types of narration for little if any gain.
Agreed. If you want 1st level characters to have about a 1/20 chance of dying per attack then more HP is a bad idea. And for some people this IS desirable. They seriously don't want 1st level characters getting into anything vaguely resembling a fair fight. They want to live by their wits and such. But in the context of how 3e and 4e play, the only way to go is the "more hitpoints" route of 4e (although the ratio has fluctuated somewhat across the edition).Maybe.
He said AC, attack bonuses, and the like. Not everything scaling. So yeah, strawman.Scaling bonuses exists for attacks (BAB) and saves (Class save bonuses) in 3.5. Skills 'scale' through skill points, which just needed a tweaking. Scaling everything leads to idiocy like a iron lock going from DC10 to DC30 just because you got better and in fact has shown to not work for balance anyways in 4e. It also means that you never really get better at doing anything.
Balance problems aren't solved but solving them is easier and making the rules take less fucking time to comprehend sure is nice. Being able to go from playing a fighter in one campaign to a wizard in another fairly smoothly is a good thing.TERRIBLE IDEA. I cannot state how stupid this was both in idea and execution. It does not work and leads to massive homogenization. Balance problems aren't solved with straitjacketing everyone into the exact same power/resource system and then neutering it because the powers themselves aren't balanced.
In fact the power system is basically a micro-vancian casting system that everyone has to use.
Yes, the implementation failed. No, not anyone could do it in an hour. Seriously, for the sake of making DMing stupid easy, good guidelines for making new monsters really should be right there in the DMG. And that means going above and beyond the 4e guidelines to having your DMG give guidelines about noncombat abilities, movement modes, status effects, etc.Except the formula had to be rewritten, and it doesn't actually work anyways dues to scaling problems with PCs. additionally having a scale for monsters base damage is simplistic and almost completely pointless because that's the easy part. Anyone with an hour could come up with it. It doesn't help at all with creating actual interesting abilities, and 4e fails utterly at having anything but magical tea party for monsters outside of combat.
And the great thing about standards is having so many of them, amirite? This really is a problem for 3.5 system bloat (psionics, incarnum, ToB, binder, truenamer, shadowcaster...).Martial maneuvers, spells, psionics, classes feats, and just about every other thing in 3.5, or any game uses a standardized format. 4e powers are simple to read because the simple, bland and boring just as 4e is. They don't have to cover edge cases because 4e thinks it sanded off all the edge cases (which it didn't).
Marks don't even vaguely resemble aggro. It's actually a good idea. It's just that 4e has giant fucking loopholes that make many marks useless without optimization through clever use of readied actions by monsters (or just shift+charge). But the rough idea is actually pretty good and very salvageable.3.5 was rarely 'hit things and hit things' again, and greater than 90% of the powers in 4e are 'hit things with some other minor effect'. Marks and auras as a method of aggro control is stupidly pointless when you have a DM controlling the monsters who can do it better than terrible, weak mechanics anyways. Aggro and marks are for computers that are terrible at making decisions about what to attack.
I'm pretty sure the point is that in 4e, you make saving throws on your own turn (with a few exceptions). Whereas in 3e, many spells don't have continuing saving throws. So you roll a saving throw once on someone else's turn.In 3.5 the player made all the saves rather than having them be passive defenses, and was always making saves when it wasn't their turn, often several times. 4e just shifted which rolls the players were making. It's pretty clear you have absolutely no clue what so ever what you're talking about with regards to 3.x because this point alone should have been blindingly obvious to even the most idiotic player.
Temporary ability score modifiers are a terrible idea. Why? Because then everything that references that ability score needs to be changed. This slows down play.Removal of temporary ability score modifiers.
Not seeing that as a good thing.
Actually, bonus typing was just dumb in the first place. Continually adding new types of bonuses is even dumber. Because it makes bonus stacking rules more complicated and benefits the player who dumpster dives to combine a bunch of different types of tiny bonuses together to get one huge bonus.Yeah, they have less crazy bonus types because they have fewer books and less conceptual space to create bonuses due to putting everything into the power + item system and stripping out everything else.
Actually, there's a point here with which I disagree. Even giant centipedes should be playable, because there is some definite traction in the "I'm a hive mind of vermin that walks around in a people suit" trope.CapnTthePirateG wrote:Ideally, your monsters should all be playable (to a point - you could play a drow, centaur, mind flayer, or pixie, but not a giant centipede)
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
There's a fair distance between "Guy who looks and acts human, is secretly a hive-mind of bugs" and "Very large centipede who does not think anything but centipede thoughts".Prak_Anima wrote:Actually, there's a point here with which I disagree. Even giant centipedes should be playable, because there is some definite traction in the "I'm a hive mind of vermin that walks around in a people suit" trope.