The Gaming Den

Hey, name-calling. That really adds weight to your argument.[br][br]I'm sorry, fella. You claimed that the fictional version of a D&D encounter which has a Save-or-Die effect, does not as depicted in the fiction allow a save. I just did the same thing, but with a swordsman instead of a magical c...

1191969418[/unixtime]]I tend to not comment on design intent, because I don't know enough game designers to ask them what and why they were thinking. [br][br]"Ed Stark, why were you thinking? Haven't we talked about this?"[br]"Uh... I can't voluntarily stop thinking. My brain doesn't...

There's a reason that in D&D a social interaction tends to be one roll and a physical combat tends to be many rolls: the game's focus is fighting. Fighting is where the risk and the reward are. Every so often you make a Bluff (or Intimidate or Diplomacy) roll and look really smooth, but that's t...

1191894808[/unixtime]]A lot of abilities in mythology don't really grant a save at all.[br][br]Medusas's Gaze: you don't make a Fort save... you look into her eyes and you turn to stone. Period. Ditto for various toxins. [br][br]Yeah, according to that precedent, Conan's sword is a nonresistable de...

Is there a counter to something like a 'for the rest of the game, other players cannot play cards' effect? Apart from punching?

They do not precisely have set stats, but numerous statements ("A delectable 18 Intelligence right before you!") and actions (V's Mass spells in the battle specifically have 13 targets) allow for specific deductions.[br][br]This [br][counturl=114]thread[/counturl] has what I think is the m...

To be fair, the Stickverse seems to function in a much more balanced way than actual D&D. I suspect extensive house-ruling, because most of the characters seem clever enough to have come up with the more obvious exploits.

Okay, a SoD is a one-shot kill. Those should be possible... but only against seriously outclassed opposition. On the other hand, if you get the 'nothing' side of the all-or-nothing formula, it sucks. The answer is that effects that are traditionally SoD have to become damaging effects, and be treate...

Okay, so in the d20 ROW, 'allies' is apparently determined by GM-omniscience of who is sincerely on your side. That might be stupid, but so is a lot of the d20 ROW. Can we at least agree that this is the case?

1191518806[/unixtime]]There's a big difference between the condition "willing" and the condition "ally". [br][br]That's the distinction I made.[br][br]I think the only way some things work is if the target chooses to be affected or not, and the only way other things work is if t...

It's true that I only care about missing sucking in regards to PC actions. Possibly there should be a cutoff, say around 4 relative CRs?. So 1st-levelers can't spam you to death once you reach 6th, and if your 6th-level party is fighting a CR 11 monster, that whiffing is possible tells you that runn...

Yes or no answers kind of ignore the amount of non-standardization of wording when it comes to these effects.[br][br] 1.) Do you, yourself, count as an ally for the purpose of effects? [br][br]Some effects are written as if you do, and some as if you don't. I agree that this needs cleaning up.[br][b...

[br][br]I don't see how that is going to be workable then. Some abilities pretty much revolve around making it so the enemy winds up wasting actions.[br][br]Examples:(snip)[br][br]All these let one act while the opponent's options for useful actions have been significantly reduced or negated. [br][...

Judging Eagle's suggestion doesn't work for me, because 1) there's still a chance that nothing happens, and 2) as has been pointed out, minimum damage is a totally gameable mechanic, hosing sneak attack and pumping Spirited Charge builds.[br][br]Half damage if you don't make your to-hit threshold. J...

1191376671[/unixtime]]if a new player's first experience with D&D is all "I cast ___ and win with no challenge", they won't find it very fun. [br][br]I don't know about you, but I've introduced a lot of people to a lot of games, and one thing that works really well to get their intere...

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1191313158[/unixtime]]We need one giant spell list, and many ways of casting those same spells.

Arcana Evolved does something like this. Is that the sort of thing you mean?

When I said the target 'can't attack you,' I didn't mean 'can't act,' or 'can't attack any members of your party.' I meant that dude had to pick someone else to kick around.[br][br]I hate effects which deny whole turns to characters, or mind control them. Those effects go back to the very origins of...

No, man. Those skills become combat useful actions. Browbeat opponent creates Fear effects on people. Perform checks heal or buff you as the support of the crowd washes over you.

I have come to the conclusion that the mechanic of 'missing' with attacks kind of sucks. [br][br]A fighter-type's turn comes up, he moves and attacks, he misses. Accomplishment = 0. Not fun.[br][br]It's the same with all-or-nothing saving throws. It sucks when you bust out a bitchin' incantation, pr...

I don't have any recommendations for the new codex. I'd just like to point out that if you're actually attracted to paying points for things that have unknown capabilities, that the Possessed did go back to the moronic 'random roll for our special power' nonsense.

Super DR: you can't be hurt... by well, anything. This is especially powerful in fantasy games as swords do less damage than guns, so even a DR of say 5 or 10 can be a super dominant ability, because it stacks with armor. [br][br]That's a setting issue. If the setting is so high fantasy that you ca...

Well, that's just foolish. Guns should totally be touch attacks. That also will scare the players.

See, it actually does represent it fairly well. The Fighter-types are the Heroes, and the spellcasters are the Olympians.[br][br]I mean, there's enchanted gear all over the place. Invisibility hats, impenetrable lion-skin cloaks, god-forged armor... and it's almost all handed out from the Gods (cast...

pft, I had always assumed (human food consumed)=(halfling food consumed). Did you see how fast those hobbits went through the lembas bread? I mean come on, it didn't even last them to the top of Mount Doom. On top of that, they were "rationing". [br][br]Uh-huh. And how much did they start...

There are a lot of jokes based on the established factoid that Hobbits eat more frequently than humans. This has no bearing on how much they eat in total, relative to humans. I don't think we have much in the way of data on their metabolic efficiency.