The Gaming Den

I don't think the materials should be expensive per se. That just leads back to the crappy situation of power being tied to wealth.[br][br]Now about normal castle walls being useless... yes, they are useless for protecting the king badass from his arch-rivals (you only need a small impermeable inner...

Just to clarify-[br][br]I am aware that giving a +X bonus to notice checks against a cat because it is wearing a bell around its neck is mechanically the same as giving it a -X penalty to the sneak check for the cat, I'm just not certain I like putting them all in one basket.[br][br]But the idea is ...

As much as I don't like the flame juggling example, there is merit to the idea of penalties to hiding.[br][br]Sometimes you're doing something that makes it harder to hide, but still are trying to hide.[br][br]A cat with a bell around its neck when it tries to hunt some birds isn't "not attempt...

There is definitely a need for scaling of both the damage required to incur unconsciousness and death thereafter, while d20 only raises the former.[br][br]Some principles of design that I prefer would be that:[br]* Resolve combats between characters of equal level within 2-6 rounds (a combat is cons...

1108012022[/unixtime]][br]So assuming you can build the thing in the first place, there's no reason not to build it out of the teleport blocking material, because anything not made out of it is pretty much worth dick. [br][br]That statement is in dire need of qualification.[br][br]I have locks on m...

Wow, the solution to powers is to not use them, or use them so poorly that they don't matter.[br][br]The dragon has flight? Screw that noise, make it lay on it's back![br]Vampires and liches can turn incorporeal too? Make them retards! Yeah![br][br]Why didn't I think of that?[br][br]Seriously. It's ...

Wouldn't Engulf cease to function as they are dismissed, as the effects of summoned critters wear off after they leave as one of those caveats regarding summoned creatures?

This topic interests me since I'm trying to reduce d20 system to a feat-based, classless game, and I was leaning towards sticking with medium size as the base (+0) size for ease of simplicity since most adventurers will be expected to be that size initially.[br][br][br]I guess there's 3 points of yo...

Something kind of imbetween point based and class based would be EarthDawn's leveling system (referring to 1st Ed- I know nothing of Green Ronin's 2nd Ed).[br][br]New class levels are gained by having a minimum number of class skills equal to the level.[br][br]Roughly, having 5 skills at level 2 is ...

I always liked what I presume was merely our house rule- if you lacked the HD to be a particular lycanthrope, and you got infected + failed save, you died.

Would that have been too hard or crappy?

For what it's worth, I like to distribute them by schools, though this is more for using flavor as the starting point than balance I think. Flavor-wise it seems easier to me to decide what school-schticks an archtype should have, and D&D's theme of casters having every sort of schtick doesn't fe...

Some highlights from one of my DM's DnD gaming quote pages (he used to record gaming sessions for the very purpose of being put up for posterity's sake)...[br]http://www.geocities.com/sarcastro747/PageTwo.html[br][br]After a short but frenzied melee in the forest at the edge of Glenn Hollow, Justin ...

[br] clikml: Just looking at your math, I think it has the multicaster problem hardwired in.[br][br]That is to say, the game is run on a d20. Every level you don't get to add something to your bonuses, you fall a point behind on the d20. If you fall enough behind on the d20, you are going to intera...

None.[br][br]I want no classes. I hate the idea of class skills. I really dislike having flavor forced upon me. I want as much flexibility as possible for anyone to create the character they have in mind.[br][br]My current model for freeform d20 is having 3 archtypes:[br]Tough[br]+1 BAB/1 level[br]+...

1101956000[/unixtime]]Um, care to give us some examples? You make it sound like a consistently annoying occurence. To my knowledge, every time I see someone ask for information from a given set of rulebooks, I see that person get what they ask for. The rare wingnut who offers something outside thos...

Those are fair objections to the mini-combat method. What about the others- Do you think that simplifying damage rolling is problematic, or just not speedy or simple enough?[br][br]In principle I like the idea keeping HP steady and throwing in a new means of ablating damage, but it bothers me a litt...

Hypocritical, as in professing a belief, but actually holding contrary beliefs. I said that I wanted to do away with death effects, but there were still stealth death effects that I didn't want to be rid of. Sorry my word choice was vexing.[br][br]My proposal of turning combat into damage counting i...

I reckoned that if anyone is making it to epic, there was a fair amount of dedication to learnin the rules and mastery of counting up HP damage during the journey. For the sake of argument as to whether converting save or dies to HP damage is a viable epic variant to keep combat fair, fun and relati...

How about this. Get rid of save or dies.[br]Everything deals damage.[br][br]Sleep spells deal damage (if enough to put you at <0, then KO'd).[br]Polymorph spells deal damage (if enough to put you at <0, then turned into a fish or whatever)[br][br]All that remains is figuring out a good baseline for ...