The Gaming Den

When games, like Pokemon , Oblivion, or Fallout force plays to spend points to gain power, and the points can result in a more powerful option (in Fallout 3 for example there is little point in putting points in anything other than a single weapon category until it's maxed) the player doesn't reall...

On the stat minimums: it was too my understanding that classes with higher/multiple minima were slightly stronger (or are they supposed to be balanced by higher XP requirements?). I'm in a 2e game right now: *Awakened Baboon Thief: Me; uses slightly modified halfling stats. *Human Paladin of Slaught...

I found the AD&D 2e demographics. From the Dungeon Master Option: High Level Campaigns. General population...Character Level...Approx. No. in 1,000,000 10.............................1 1st...................133,120 20.............................1 2nd..................66,560 40.....................

I'm feel satisfied with these values, which should be correct in a sufficiently large sample size (perhaps a large city, or entire state), in an E6 world. My original (perhaps faulty) concept is represented visually on the left. .................%, exact.............................%, approximate......

What would be a reasonable value, then?

I'm ignoring NPC classes because I don't think that they should exist; my reference to PhDs was trying to delineate "The Highest Level", which I'm treating as 6.

Way off. That gives every small town (population 100) a pair of people equipped to tangle with giants and manticores and some weaker demons. Then again, there could be a limit on character level in the region based on population: for instance, levels only normalize in major cities. Something like L...

My original idea was that character levels are comparable to degrees of education: many people with some schooling, a smaller number with higher education, and a tiny number of top experts; by analogy, number of characters by level would create a triangle, with the highest level on top with the smal...

For a given population, how many of each character level exist in it? For the sake of simplicity, assume that the population is entirely human and there is no immortality. I assume that there is a reasonable baseline percentage for each level (perhaps this is a Normal Distribution situation; I could...

Probably the simplest possible rule for a dropped boulder is treat it as a weapon : Dropping it follows all of the normal rules for ranged attacks, and it does (off the top of my head) 1d6 per 10' dropped, +1 per die for every 5lbs the object weighs. The Tomes already have these rules, so we know ho...

In interest of making it easy to search for and refer to, I think that a game's name should not... Be a single, non-made up word (e.g. Monster). Be a common phrase (e.g. No Exit). Share an acronym with another well known thing (e.g. D&D, M&M, etc.). Echidna could be changed to Children of Ec...

--divine magic decoupled from gods; monotheism, polytheism, animism, apatheism presetned as viable options. I really, really hate this idea. The relationship to gods is the defining aspect of divine magic. An apatheistic cleric is a contradiction in terms. I personally never liked animist clerics (...

Not considering how powerful they are, what are the spells/feats/classes/gods/etc with the best flavor? I'll go through some of my favorites. SRD Spells Alter Self, Polymorph, Shapechange, etc: Shapeshifting has always, and will always be fun. Animal Messenger, Dream: A bit more interesting than Mis...

I don't know, I find the podcasts entertaining, overall, there are just some things where I really disagree. They just defended the term game master with "it's the original term, it's what he's called, get over it." Now, I don't really get worked up over the term GM, but I think it's fine...

Carcosa from what I've heard apparently has lots of child sacrificing rituals or something and is dodgy? A lot of righteous condemnation has thrown at the game, but actually it doesn't go any farther than the classic fantasy image of sorcerers carrying out human sacrifices to dark gods. Rituals in ...

Slightly off topic, but is there any way to apply the "Replaceable" concept to skills? For instance, listing default ranks in each skill along with each level?

How common is sonic immunity on monsters? The destrachan is resistant, but not immune to sonic. Oddly, the Lords of Madness PrC "Fleshwarper" can give an ability called "Secret of the Destrachan" that grants immunity to sonic. Given the that class is themed around improving on n...

...A fair number of people think the skill mechanic is awesome... I don't think that the skill system was conceptually wrong; my main gripe is the puzzling difference between the way attacks, defenses, and skills are calculated. I think (please check my math), changing skill training from "gra...

Carcosa , a setting written for OD&D by Geoffrey McKinney. Take a look at this fan made supplement for an idea of the flavor. -I'm not entirely sure what you meant by your first criteria, but the race system is: there are only humans. They all have the same stats. However, they have different c...

Can you explain how that it makes it possible drop someone with stun weapons in 2 rounds. Don't you deal 1/2 damage with stun weapons? When setting to stun, you deal half damage to HP, but full damage for the purpose of the Condition Track, and if that damage would drop the target a step, they drop...

I suppose you are thinking about Fool's Luck, which is an amazing talent. The Slicer tree also is immensely helpful with Use Computer, which can be the most important skill in the game, depending on the type of adventure you are playing. Free Point Blank Shot is also very helpful. True, Master Slic...

there is no in-world or in-game way for the player's actions to get them the items they need to make their character work. If the MC doesn't have exactly the right items "drop", the player can't make their character work. There is Enchant Magic Item (which makes any item of your level or ...

I'm going to repost my comments from another forum: Classes The Scout class (which mysteriously does not get the Treat Injury skill, even though Soldiers do) isn't so much a class as a way for Soldiers to lose a point of BAB in order to take Evasion. The Scoundrel class is good for nothing (except p...

No can do. 10 to 30 is far too little for the kind of play style I would like to cater to. If you're hellbent on having that many levels, I suggest dropping XP and just giving a level up per session. Is this scheme an attempt to take 3e progression, then stretch it out by only giving a single benef...

If this is like the VP/WP system in UA, then it makes combat more deadly, not less deadly; at least regarding crits. I'm talking about improving survivability without magical healing. This is true. What I meant to communicate was that making a hard split between the "abstract" hitpoints (...

He might be cool with some variant where half of the damage you guys take is converted to non-lethal. This way, fights play out about the same in terms of how much damage it takes to drop someone, but you heal half of your damage at a much faster rate (24 times faster). This way, you still have wou...