Still more Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:50 pm

Bigode wrote:Sorry, it was more of a rhetorical question. Admittedly, I didn't check PbP and off-topic (if I don't like a forum for its stated goal, there's no particular reason to hang around); but min/max lacks the actually interesting stuff (e.g. Tleilaxu's analyses), and of course I haven't checked Members Only (what with having no interest in being a member*).

*: just so I don't have to eat my words at some later date - I might do so when I have a larger number of class rewrites to show (though average feedback quality should be lower than TGD's, the latter's feedback quantity might well be zero, since everyone's so busy arguing inconsequentials); but that actually sums my problem (nobody's making anything worthy noting).

Tis all good. We all miss TG's analysis. Unfortunately he's "retired" that part of his life.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:54 pm

The FFG Forum devoted to Descent loves to cry 'Overlord, not GM' because the OL can't just declare 'rocks fall, everyone dies.' That the OL is actually a player in direct competition with the other players collectively and not empowered to break or interpret the rules are distinctions, and meaningful ones.

Nevertheless, the Overlord's role is the GM's role, and describing Descent as a system without a GM is like describing Australia as a monarchy; you may be technically correct, but you are also functionally incorrect and will confuse people.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:59 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: Making Monsters

Yes, not having guidelines is better than having guidelines. No wait, it's not.

Actually 4E has guidelines for monsters, 3E is the one that does not.

3E gives you a bunch of hoops you've got to jump through to amke a monster, so it has a system, but that systme doesn't give you the one thing you care about, which is CR. And if I don't know a monster's CR, then why do I care that all it's abilities are neatly linked to its hit points and that undead have less base attack than magical beasts. All that shit is totally meaningless...

4E does it the way it should work and that's starting with a monster's CR (whcih is a monster's level in 4E). Then you get a table of what the final numbers should look like.

If I'm designing an encounter fast I don't care what the thing's BaB is, I don't care what it's base reflex save is. I want to know: "look this fucker is CR 8, what are good final numbers for a CR 8?"

If you propose that the 3E monster creation system was somehow better, that'd be a joke. It was a shitload of work for zero gain in the balance department and it STILL ended up being making shit up because there were no rules to determine a creature's strength or what racial powers it had. So it's like playing 4E in that you've got to make shit up, only you have no guidelines at all.

4E gives you the final number guidelines but doens't give you ability guidelines. So you can assign decent damage and hit attacks to your monsters, but you're really not sure if stunning gaze is going to make them overpowered. In 3E, there's no guarantee that your numbers will even be good.

You really had to be an expert DM to design anything in 3E, because you literally were operating completely in the dark with a system that really didn't do *anything*. I mean tell me why giving me the base reflex save of something by hit dice is even remotely helpful, when I don't know what it's CR is and I have no idea what its final reflex save should look like. Seriously, wtf?

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:30 pm

I... really? I mean... what?

There are so many things that are just wrong in that post that I don't even know where to start. Maybe I should start by linking the thread to itself, because it officially qualifies now.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:18 pm

Voss wrote:I... really? I mean... what?

There are so many things that are just wrong in that post that I don't even know where to start. Maybe I should start by linking the thread to itself, because it officially qualifies now.

Honestly ask yourself this.

Lets say I want to make a monster in 3E that's CR 10. It's going to be a basic combat brute type. Now aside from comparing it to something else and making modifications, what system can I used to build it from scratch?

How many hit dice should it have?
What should its ability scores be?
What kind of final melee attack bonus should I want?
What melee damage?
what should it's final saves look like?
What special abilities should it have?

I care about all that shit. 4E roughly answers like half those questions. The 3E system answers none.

Now if I'm wrong about that, please correct me. But seriously, I've never seen a single table in 3e that links CR to any of those things.

SphereOfFeetMan · Post by **SphereOfFeetMan** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:36 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote:
Voss wrote:I... really? I mean... what?

There are so many things that are just wrong in that post that I don't even know where to start. Maybe I should start by linking the thread to itself, because it officially qualifies now.
Honestly ask yourself this.

Lets say I want to make a monster in 3E that's CR 10. It's going to be a basic combat brute type. Now aside from comparing it to something else and making modifications, what system can I used to build it from scratch?

How many hit dice should it have?
What should its ability scores be?
What kind of final melee attack bonus should I want?
What melee damage?
what should it's final saves look like?
What special abilities should it have?

I care about all that shit. 4E roughly answers like half those questions. The 3E system answers none.

Now if I'm wrong about that, please correct me. But seriously, I've never seen a single table in 3e that links CR to any of those things.

Apparently you have missed 3.5's MM Chapter 5: Making Monsters. For 5 years.

That chapter answers most, if not all, of your example questions.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:41 pm

MM, p 296 to 302. Its a fucking step by step guide. It isn't perfect, but it gives you a workable ballpark that you can then think about and revise.

And you're right. It isn't in a table. There are a whole 6 pages of text to read. Oh no, the horror.

Important guidelines
attack bonus: (CR x 1.5) +2. Based on this and the monster's type, you arrive at hit dice +- strength bonus. Theres a different number if the monster uses a lot of special abilities or spells.
AC: 13 +CR
Saves: good- CR x 1.5. poor: CR.

Special abilities will completely depend on what kind of monster you're making.

It all requires some thought, basic logic, and creativity, but the system is there. And its been there for 5 fucking years (for 3.5).

It isn't perfect, largely because the CR system has a lot of holes, but to actually claim that there isn't a system is completely ridiculous and makes you look like an idiot.

And Sphere beat me to it.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:47 pm

Whip out the Monster Manual and look at extant monsters that act in a similar manner at that CR, it works great. Abilities with direct analogs to spells can usually be switched out with equal level spells (ignoring DD spells, which are subpar for their level).

Example: Take the Fire Giant. I can add and subtract any number of subtypes without much problem, remove its equipment and make it an elemental/plant/vermin (give it some kind of mobility or change the skin of its ranged attack to make up for the loss of rock throwing), and at least a few other things.

"I want it to behave like every other creature of its role, but I also want it to be completely different." That's either mutually exclusive, or something with a learning curve like running into a brick wall.

EDIT: Damn, Sphere and Voss just had to use the logical point of view, and beat me to it at that. My way requires a little more rules-savvy, and might be edging towards Oberoni.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:52 pm

You are right insofar as 3.0 doesn't have tables that link the specific stats of an amorphous, purely-stats monster to CR.

What 3.0 DOES have is a system wherein you can take a preexisting monster (in this particular case, an Ogre), add class levels to it (7 levels of Barbarian) and get a CR and stat block from it in a predefined, perfectly deterministic fashion. You can do this for any CR with only a single monster base, and if you want to get fancy you can use other monsters.

To answer your specific questions using this example:
1. 11
2. Str 22, Dex 8, Con 15, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 7
3. +10 BAB, +16 to-hit
4. 2d8+9 bludgeoning, 1d6 fire (extra
5. Fort +11, Ref +2, Will +3
6. Fly 3/day (from boots), rage 2/day, improved uncanny dodge, DR 1/-

Granted, that stuff will be different if you use a Tome Barbarian (which would be a good idea if you want this thing to be an actual challenge), but the basic framework is still the same and I'm lazy.

Edit: Wow, beaten to the punch three times. O_o

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:02 pm

Voss wrote:MM, p 296 to 302. Its a fucking step by step guide. It isn't perfect, but it gives you a workable ballpark that you can then think about and revise.

And you're right. It isn't in a table. There are a whole 6 pages of text to read. Oh no, the horror.

Important guidelines
attack bonus: (CR x 1.5) +2. Based on this and the monster's type, you arrive at hit dice +- strength bonus. Theres a different number if the monster uses a lot of special abilities or spells.
AC: 13 +CR
Saves: good- CR x 1.5. poor: CR.

I had forgotten initially about the guidelines there, mostly because they didn't really work well due to 3.5 being divergent. They say AC of 13 + AC, but say plugging in an AC of 21 at level 8. That's pathetically easy to hit for any half decent character.

So I guess 3E did have guidelines, they just didn't work very well at all.

In fact, the best method was just to compare it to another monster of the same CR, but that just lead to monsters being very similar which was really my main beef with 3E monsters.

You had your combat brute, your improve grab grapple monster, and then you had spellcaster monsters. That's about it. At least with 3E I got the "Been there done that " feel with most of the creatures. Now maybe I'll get there with 4E too, but the fact that you don't necessarily know what a creature can do is kinda cool.

There wasn't really much creative at all in 3E monster design. The most memorable monsters were pretty much the ones that used EBD, like the beholder.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:13 pm

Ah. Of course. Upon being proven wrong again, wander off on a tanget and don't admit to anything. This is getting tired.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:28 pm

RC2: What the fuck. Seriously, if you want that "omg new powerz!1!1!" feel in 3e, just make shit up. That's what 4e revolves around: pulling things out of one's ass. And I'm a big proponent of giving monsters interesting powers by pulling things out of one's ass...although I'm not a big proponent of that being an integral part of the game's design.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:37 pm

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... pic=1287.0

More catfight.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:52 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:RC2: What the fuck. Seriously, if you want that "omg new powerz!1!1!" feel in 3e, just make shit up. That's what 4e revolves around: pulling things out of one's ass. And I'm a big proponent of giving monsters interesting powers by pulling things out of one's ass...although I'm not a big proponent of that being an integral part of the game's design.

Well, at least the number guidelines of 4E work.

Like I've always said, 4E is magic teaparty for choosing abilities, but for the most part, so is 3E. About the only thing 3E lets you do is assign class levels to monsters in a structured fashion. Note that I say "structured", I didn't say balanced.

That's mostly what 3E's monster creation system was. Lots and lots of structure, but in the end it was just pointless rules that didn't help you create more interesting monsters. In fact, the interesting stuff came from the magic teaparty stuff thgat you did.

As people have said 4E is kind of like flipping a coin for the most part. this is because the numbers for 4E (except for damage), really stay along a pretty good and even nondivergent progression. 3E can't really say the same thing. As was stated, 13 + CR for a guideline creates a total pushover of a monster.

Now it's not that 4E's system is that much better, it's just that 4E has less red tape and gets to the fundamental principle of "if you want a monster to be interesting, you're going to have to magic teaparty it."

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 10:31 pm

Oh, for the love of Pete...

Spatial Slaad
Large Outsider (Chaotic, Extraplanar)
HD: 9d8+45 (85 hp)
Initiative: +6
Speed: 30’ (8 squares)
Armor Class: 22 (-1 size, +2 Dex, +11 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 20
Base Attack/Grapple: +9/+19
Attack: Claw +14 melee (2d6+6)
Full Attack: 4 claws +14 melee (2d6+6) and bite +12 melee (2d8+3)
Space/Reach: 10’/10’
Special Attacks: Spell-like Abilities, Summon Slaad
Special Qualities: Blindsense 60’, Darkvision 60’, Fast Healing 5, Immunity to sonic, Resistance to acid 5, cold 5, electricity 5, and fire 5
Saves: Fort +11, Ref +8, Will +5
Abilities: Str 23, Dex 15, Con 21, Int 6, Wis 8, Cha 8
Skills: Climb +17, Hide +9, Jump +17, Listen +10, Move Silently +13, Spot +10
Feats: Dodge, Improved Initiative, Mobility, Multiattack
Environment: Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo
Organization: Solitary or pack (6-10)
Challenge Rating: 9
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Advancement: 10-15 HD (Large); 16-27 (Huge)

An immense, ogre-like creature that strongly resembles a blue slaad, except the coloring is heavily faded and most of the joints have large bony protrusions. Most notable is that they are constantly flickering in and out of sight, non-uniformly and portions displaced up to half a foot in any direction.

A curious creature, the spatial slaadi have attained enough numbers to be recorded as more than just a unique mutation. Their most common encounters have been in the Astral, though to say they aren’t native to Limbo find themselves in the dark quickly. Graybeards place their birth from impregnation of githyanki, to slaadi mutated from over exposure to astral pools, to blue slaadi that ate bags of holding.

Many spatial slaad almost seem to take offense at the presence of life, preferring to remain alone and their environment quite barren. Of course, their moods are mercurial at best, so this behavior can change at a moment’s notice.

Much like the blue slaad, they are about 10 feet tall and are very broad. One weighs about 1200 pounds. The underside is white and pale blue on the back.

Their movement is peculiar, as if moving around unseen obstacles that no other can detect. If agitated, they attack with particular ferocity, usually moving to keep their opponents on their toes.

Flicker (Su): A spatial slaadi constantly flickers in and out of existence with total control of which part blinks in and out and where. In combat, this bestows a 20% miss chance to any attack that targets or affects the spatial slaadi and always takes half damage from area attacks.
Dimension Door (Su): A spatial slaadi can teleport, as dimension door (caster level 9th), once per round as a free action. The ability affects only the spatial slaadi, which never appears within a solid object and can act immediately after teleporting.
Spell-Like Abilities: At will – mirror image, plane shift. Caster level 9th. The save DCs are Charisma based.
Summon Slaad (Sp): Once per day a spatial slaad can attempt to summon another spatial slaad with a 40% chance of success. This ability the equivalent of a 5th level spell.

Very comparable to the Vrock in terms of defenses, if a bit better, which is accounted for in the reduced offensive capability. I then compared it to the Gray Slaad in order to make it fit the motif of slaad statistics.

I thought about making it CR 10, so I threw it through a playtest to get a better idea, and finally decided on 9.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 10:40 pm

virgileso wrote: Full Attack: 4 claws +14 melee (2d6+6) and bite +12 melee (2d8+3)

Here's the biggest example of magic teaparty. I mean what made you give it 4 attacks and a bite?

Where in the guidelines does it say how much total damage the thing should be outputting? It's clearly more attacks that its BaB would grant, and the fact that it gets 5 attacks is about the only thing making this thing even remotely nasty.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 10:53 pm

I guess Xill are the Pretty Princesses of Tea Time then, because otherwise that statement is moronic. It needed a boost in damage output, and it has precedence to make multiple attacks with its controlled blink-like powers. Or I could describe it as acting like it had four arms with all of the phasing in and out of its body parts, whatever.

Shiritai · Post by **Shiritai** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 11:51 pm

Shorter RC:

Making powers from scratch = win
Adapting powers from existing monsters = fail

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 11:59 pm

Voss: AFAICT, there's at least 1 post/page here that qualifies, we just got tired of linking it (I believe it was done around thrice), so no news here.

ubernoob: what, did TG actually say he quit? And to clarify, "nobody doing stuff worthy noting" was about there, not here - I didn't seem that clear before, and there are some interesting things running here.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 12:13 am

Bigode wrote:ubernoob: what, did TG actually say he quit? And to clarify, "nobody doing stuff worthy noting" was about there, not here - I didn't seem that clear before, and there are some interesting things running here.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph ... st14689196

TG wrote:If there was any doubt, I'll clarify with this statement:

I hereby tender my resignation as a "regular" or active participant in any CO board politics. This used to be a massive time sink for me, and I cannot describe the immeasurable relief it has been to finally rid myself it "CO board addiction". I'm not saying I won't post anymore, but I certainly don't plan on initiating any massive projects soon. This all depends on how easily 4e captivates my attention, of course. So I may be eating these words in the future, but for now I think I've had my fill of 3.5e intellectual masturbation.

Good luck to the rest of you all.

P.S.: I swear I'll clean up the Ghola character one of these days, when I'm really, really bored. Until then, you may consider it one of my many scrapped projects. The ascension plot just never got of the ground. The mechanic is, otherwise, sound I think.

TG has made one thread for 4E TO stuff since that and it was over at WotC.

Tydanosaurus · Post by **Tydanosaurus** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 12:14 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The FFG Forum devoted to Descent loves to cry 'Overlord, not GM' because the OL can't just declare 'rocks fall, everyone dies.' That the OL is actually a player in direct competition with the other players collectively and not empowered to break or interpret the rules are distinctions, and meaningful ones.

Nevertheless, the Overlord's role is the GM's role, and describing Descent as a system without a GM is like describing Australia as a monarchy; you may be technically correct, but you are also functionally incorrect and will confuse people.

Wait, Australia's technically a monarchy?

We're going to have to disagree here. I don't see them as at all the same.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 12:43 am

Psychic Robot wrote:Well, that's two-for-two that OneWinged4ngel has been in. Is it his personality, or just coincidence? I'm tempted to side against him because of the Sephiroth, but he seems to be in the right.

Since the people who jumped on him in the second one were among other things airing dirty laundry from the previous shit storm, I would say that actually he is currently being stalked by douchebags.

-Username17

angelfromanotherpin · Fri Aug 01, 2008 12:45 am

Tydanosaurus wrote:
angelfromanotherpin wrote:describing Descent as a system without a GM is like describing Australia as a monarchy; you may be technically correct, but you are also functionally incorrect and will confuse people.
Wait, Australia's technically a monarchy?

You see what I mean about the confusion?

Tydanosaurus wrote:We're going to have to disagree here. I don't see them as at all the same.

"This game has no GM."
"Cool."
"Now, my piece is this adventurer, and his piece is this adventurer, and her piece is this adventurer."
"Where's my adventurer?"
"Oh, you (and only you) aren't part of the adventuring team. You play the opposition. Your pieces are all these monsters. Plus, you'll be in charge of the dungeon's traps. And you keep certain information secret from the rest of the players."
"But that's a GM. You said there was no GM."
"Nope, that's an Overlord. Overlords have more limited authority and compete with the adventurers for points."
"That's still a GM."

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 12:52 am

RandomCasualty2 wrote: As people have said 4E is kind of like flipping a coin for the most part. this is because the numbers for 4E (except for damage), really stay along a pretty good and even nondivergent progression.

What? No. First off, 4e is progression is consistent. Its not good or 'nondivergent'.

A coin flip isn't a good model for a system. It really isn't- 50/50 is a failure of design. See also any other discussion of 4e's math for reason why the whole thing is very much not good.

4e diverges pretty sharply. The obvious point is damage vs. hit points. These two, theoretically related sub-systems diverge so sharply that damage becomes increasingly less relevant as you advance in level. This isn't opinion, this is provable mathematical fact- the percentage resulting from average hit points/ average damage goes down sharply as levels go up. This is really, really bad, and really, really stupid.

Look, the upshot here is two simple things. You've spent the last two months proselytizing to people here that, metaphorically speaking, they should really enjoy eating shit. Its gotten really old, especially because you can't provide a single rational reason why anyone other than you would actually like it (and personally, I'm not even sure why you like it). That having utterly failed, you've started in on the flaws of 3rd edition. But thats something we already know. Seriously, everyone here is well aware of the flaws of 3rd edition. Some people, you may be surprised to learn, have actually done a lot of stuff to fix the flaws of 3rd edition. Some people, like me, have large problems with it (almost none of which are solved by 4e, and it injects even larger problems, so it isn't in any way better). But pointing out the known flaws of 3rd edition isn't going to make anyone here switch to 4e. Especially when you repeatedly demonstrate that you don't have any idea of what you're talking about (as this monster creation issue clearly shows- you didn't even know the system was there).

So, really, enough already. Its been two months. Thats a fair shake for anything. Accept the fact that most people here aren't going to suddenly like eating shit, and stop badgering people about it.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 3:23 am

Psychic Robot wrote:Well, that's two-for-two that OneWinged4ngel has been in. Is it his personality, or just coincidence? I'm tempted to side against him because of the Sephiroth, but he seems to be in the right.

The first thread: Jaronk didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. OW4 may have an ego and be overly sensitive, but he actually knows a little bit about class design. Not as much as people like Frank or a good number of posters here, but enough to make Jaronk look like a chump. We're gunna call OW4 the victem of douchebaggery in the first thread.

The second thread: OW4 presents an idea. Somebody says that he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. OW4 gets bitchy and starts getting defensive because of his inflated ego. Somebody else says not to be so egocentric.
We're gunna call OW4 a victem of bluntness and his own ego in the second thread.

Jaronk was out of line for stealing shit and calling it his own, Josh was out of line for making a blunt attack without backing it up, OW4 was out of line for being so uppity about his ego, and Nox was out of line for hurting his feelings.

OW4 is usually a pretty productive guy (and pretty smart too), but he needs to check his fucking ego.

Edit: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... pic=1318.0
First banning to my knowledge.
Edit2: It seems he's flooding the forums with copypasta threads.
Edit3: Damn that was quick. Threads already all moved to garbage and the account already banned.
Edit4: and all the threads are completely deleted now.
Edit5: And meg now has a public statement:
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... pic=1317.0