Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Dean]

Correct, re-roll and take highest. But yeah, no picking 1 die out of the 2d6 to just re-roll that one.

Yeah how many 2d6 rolls is roughly equal to a single 2d6 roll with a +X bonus.

[Grek]

You want

output [highest 1 of Xd(2d6)]

where X is the number of times you roll 2d6 and keep best.

It goes 7.00; 8.37; 9.06; 9,49; 9.80; 10.04, putting +2 at two rerolls and +3 at five rerolls. You don't get to +4 before AnyDice tells you to fuck off, which happens at 12 rerolls, for an average of 10.88.

[Roog]

I ran up a quick excel spreadsheet to calculate effects of "best-of" rolls on the mean.

Rolls, equivalent bonus
1, +0
2, +1.37
3, +2.06
4, +2.49
5, +2.80
6, +3.04
(from this point only listing 1st 'best-of' that would round to the next integer bonus, and the closest match to )
9, +3.51
15, +4.00
31, +4.51
189, +5.00 (there is no closest match as the equivalent bonus never actually reaches +5, but this is the first to round to 5.00 to two decimal places)

[OgreBattle]

Ah that explains nicely why morale rerolls in warhams are pretty crappy compared to a +1 to a d6 roll

---

So around when D&D4e came out "class tracks, you have 3 tracks to fill" was a nifty idea. Some games tried it out but the execution wasn't quite there and it petered out. Have there been any new attempts at class tracks?

Like for a D&D heartbreaker I'd go with...
Main class track: Warrior, Wizard, etc.
Subclass track: Specialization within a class, or taking up another main class
Feats: Stuff to customize characters with regardless of class
Monster characters: They take up class and feat space, so you could be a Dragon/Wizard or Wizard/Dragon

[Dean]

I ran up a quick excel spreadsheet to calculate effects of "best-of" rolls on the mean.

Thanks Roog, Grek too, that was very helpful.

[Prak]

As the new Magic set, Zendikar Rising, ramps up and the Eldrazi are dropped from the plane and it returns to that Adventure-y, D&D-ish plane it was in the original sets, I decided I wanted to run D&D in Zendikar. I'm of course not using the 5e Plane Shift doc as anything more than a bit of reference while I make stuff for 3.X.

But a question comes up- Traveling by grappling hook is kind of a thing in Zendikar. The land has massive floating islands and smaller landmasses, and one of the races, the Kor, are specifically known for using grappling hooks to fight and move around these landmasses. But there's a bit of an assumption that it will come up and everyone needs to be able to do it to some extent, or, failing that, be able to navigate in three dimensions their own way--wizards can fly, druids can probably just have a spell that lets them control vines and brachiate as an effect of the spell, but for the non-magic-using characters, grappling hooks are going to be the main way they do this.

A grappling hook in D&D is simple, it's just a ranged attack. But how should I handle actually traveling using a pair of grappling hooks? Should anyone be able to do it, or at least attempt it? Should it require some kind of training? Should that training be a feat, a skill, a background element?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

"Grappling hooks" can be a surprisingly vague term. Are we talking about the skyhooks from Bioshock Infinite, Batman's retractable grappling hook, some Just Cause bullshit? Are we going as far as Attack on Titan? I'm more interested in that than whether or not it requires training.

[Emerald]

A grappling hook in D&D is simple, it's just a ranged attack. But how should I handle actually traveling using a pair of grappling hooks? Should anyone be able to do it, or at least attempt it? Should it require some kind of training? Should that training be a feat, a skill, a background element?

Since certain races are known for it and the casters aren't expected to do it, I'd say movement via grappling hook shouldn't be an automatic thing for everyone. It would probably make sense as something anyone can attempt as a skill check (though with a high enough DC to require training to do so reliably and/or during combat), with a feat allowing someone to do it automatically.

As a point of comparison, the Brachiation feat lets you swing through trees at full speed in the right terrain, no checks required, and it has low enough prerequisites to be available at 1st level. Whipping up a "Grappling Locomotion" feat that lets you do the same with a grappling hook if you're within X distance of Y surface(s) would be a trivial solution.

[Prak]

"Grappling hooks" can be a surprisingly vague term. Are we talking about the skyhooks from Bioshock Infinite, Batman's retractable grappling hook, some Just Cause bullshit? Are we going as far as Attack on Titan? I'm more interested in that than whether or not it requires training.

I don't have enough familiarity with any of those except Batman, so all I can say is "not like Batman." So, instead, this is probably the best picture I can find of how it works-



and this is probably the best picture I can find of the hooks (there's some variation, depending on artist, but they're all this sort of idea)-



Basically, think Tarzen-style vine swinging, but with big ass metal hooks on ropes instead of vines.

Since certain races are known for it and the casters aren't expected to do it, I'd say movement via grappling hook shouldn't be an automatic thing for everyone. It would probably make sense as something anyone can attempt as a skill check (though with a high enough DC to require training to do so reliably and/or during combat), with a feat allowing someone to do it automatically.

As a point of comparison, the Brachiation feat lets you swing through trees at full speed in the right terrain, no checks required, and it has low enough prerequisites to be available at 1st level. Whipping up a "Grappling Locomotion" feat that lets you do the same with a grappling hook if you're within X distance of Y surface(s) would be a trivial solution.

That's sort of how I was leaning. As the rules stand in 3.X, using a grappling hook is just "Ranged attack against a static DC." That's easy enough and a "anyone can try" thing. The actual movement via a hooked line, I guess could be Climbing/Athletics/Whatever? I'm leery of making it a feat, because 3.X feat economy, but "anyone can try, a skill makes it easier, and a feat lets you do it without checks" seems like a pretty good solution, especially if I then also do up some backgrounds that give people a free feat, and one is "Trained Skyslinger--You have Grappling Locomotion."

Edit- another question comes up as I work on this setting, since I'm messing with skills anyway- Is there any compelling reason for Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft to be different things?

[Lord Charlemagne]

You could make it so a creature with a Zendikar grappling hook mass has a 5 ft climb speed which can be sped up by making use ropes &/or climb checks. So, if they aren't good with it, they can climb slowly safely by just taking a long time, while someone with climb & use rope could climb at their full move speed with a modest check.

For combat, just make it a spiked chain that can also be used to grapple at reach with, to represent tying them up with a flurry of grappling hooks.

[Foxwarrior]

Swinging movement should be fast and probably ideally use a drawing compass... I dunno if any of the interesting limitations of swinging around in arcs can be effectively written into simple tabletop rules.

Hmm, if you ignore momentum you could represent one swing as moving to any point that's the same distance from your swing target as you are now.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I can't speak for tabletop games, but fucking around with grappling hook momentum is one of my favorite things to do in video games. If you somehow have momentum while you're swinging, then that opens the door to Spider-Man antics, which is always fun. Someone is GOING to eventually try and use the grappling hook on a person to swing them around, and you probably want an answer for that.

[Emerald]

That's sort of how I was leaning. As the rules stand in 3.X, using a grappling hook is just "Ranged attack against a static DC." That's easy enough and a "anyone can try" thing. The actual movement via a hooked line, I guess could be Climbing/Athletics/Whatever? I'm leery of making it a feat, because 3.X feat economy, but "anyone can try, a skill makes it easier, and a feat lets you do it without checks" seems like a pretty good solution, especially if I then also do up some backgrounds that give people a free feat, and one is "Trained Skyslinger--You have Grappling Locomotion."

Climb or Athletics works, yeah. You could do it like the Ride skill + Mounted Combat feat line, actually--write up a bunch of sample tasks with DCs (e.g. "Recover from a Fall" is DC 10, "Quick Ascent" is DC 15, "Swing Around Obstacle" is DC 20, etc.) and then things like "Easily Spider-Man Your Way from Point A to Point B" are feat-only perks.

As a side note on the free feat front, for the kinds of swashbuckle-y dungeonpunk-y games it sounds like this is meant to be, I've never regretted handing out free minor feats like candy. You may want to consider just throwing a bunch of feat slots at them (like, "a bunch" as in "one per level or more") that can only be used for weak-but-flavorful stuff like Grappling Locomotion or the various [Tactical] feats to spice things up a bit.

Edit- another question comes up as I work on this setting, since I'm messing with skills anyway- Is there any compelling reason for Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft to be different things?

Spellcraft is the skill for doing caster-day-job things as a caster, Knowledge (Arcana) is the skill for solving magical mysteries and getting magic-based infodumps, so whether to combine them in a given game depends on whether that distinction is meaningful. If the campaign is mostly going to involve lots of arcanotech-filled ancient ruins or dungeons full of magical puzzles or the like, or knowing lots of stuff about dragons and constructs will be super relevant, Kn: Arcana should stick around; if it's going to mostly involve sky pirates flying between sky islands exchanging skyship broadsides, not so much.


On the topic of Knowledge skills, I don't know how much you've already mucked around with skills or what other goals you have for that, but I basically ditched the idea of separate Knowledge skills altogether in a recent campaign by bundling a bunch of skills and getting rid of fixed ability/skill associations, and you might want to consider doing the same. So e.g. instead of Spellcraft (Int), Kn: Arcana (Int), and Use Magic Device (Cha), you might have a single Arcana skill and you'd roll Arcana+Int to identify spells and magical effects, Arcana+Cha to use arcane magic items, Arcana+Dex to craft alchemical items, and so on.

Similarly, you might have a generic "Athletics" skill and roll Athletics+Str for climbing and jumping, Athletics+Dex for balancing and tumbling, Athletics+Con for sprinting and overland endurance, Athletics+Cha for whatever you'd use Perform (Dance) for, etc.; a generic "Culture" skill and roll Culture+Dex for painting and such, Culture+Int for historical knowledge, Culture+Wis for reading people at a fancy dinner party, Culture+Cha for speechifying, etc.; and so forth.

Basically, it takes the optional "swap associated ability scores for some skill checks" rule and goes full Shadowrun with it. In which case you don't need to worry about whether individual Knowledge subskills are too broad or narrow because they're all just Int-related uses of skills like Arcana, Religion, Nature, Culture, Engineering, and the like, which are all more than just infodump skills (including e.g. arcane Spellcraft, divine Spellcraft, survivalist stuff, social stuff, and trap stuff, respectively) and can be considered as a whole.

[Prak]

I did up a draft of the "travel by sky hook" rules last night, but was still thinking pretty two dimensionally, I didn't really think about wanting to move in arcs or side to side, so that definitely needs to go in. And I like the idea of handling it sort of like Ride. Upping feat count was a thing in the back of my head, so I might go with, like, a real feat every odd level and a fluff feat at first and every even level.

I didn't muck with skills too much, yet, mostly just combining climb, Fly and swim into Athletics, and setting down some rules about Knowledge skills ("no one has knowledge planes unless they're a planeswalker, spellcraft is subsumed into Kn arcana and religion"), but I definitely like the idea of going with a smaller list and task based ability modifiers.

[Prak]

How does this look for traveling by grappling hook rules?

Traveling via slingline has two main components- attaching the line and detaching. To attach a line, a character makes a ranged attack against an Armor Class depending on the surface and circumstances, with a range increment of 10 ft, and a max range of the rope length or five increments, whichever is less. Characters with ranks in Athletics may add their ranks to this roll, and 5 ft to the range increment for every 5 ranks they possess.

Once the hook is attached, the character may swing out to any point that is equal to the length of the rope away from their anchor point. At the apex of the swing, they must detach, which requires a Dexterity or Strength check equal to the Armor Class for attaching, failure by 10 or less indicates a failure to detach, while failure by 11 or more indicates that the character has fumbled the detach, and is now falling (or is prone if they are standing on a surface).

After a successful detachment, if the character is not standing on a solid surface, they roll Athletics to travel a distance through the air as if they had jumped with a running start and their movement speed was equal to the distance traveled with the swing. DC modifiers due to surface conditions will usually not apply to this roll, as the character is traveling through air, but circumstances may occur where they are swinging through floating debris.

Also, here's what I have for skills-

• Arcana (Craft (Alchemy), Kn Arcana, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device)
• Athletics (Acrobatics, Climb, Fly, Perform (Dance), Swim)
• Craft (Craft, Appraise (by good))
• Disguise
• Dungeoneering (Kn Dungeoneering, Disable Device)
• Engineering (Kn Engineering, Disable Device)
• Escape Artist
• Expression (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Perform)
• Heal
• History
• Linguistics
• Nobility
• Perception (Perception, Sense Motive)
• Profession
• Religion (Kn Religion, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device)
• Sleight of Hand
• Stealth
• Streetcraft (Local)
• Wildercraft (Handle Animal, Kn Geography, Kn Nature, Survival)

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

How does that interact with grappling a dude and then swinging him over a cliff? Or are we not doing those kinds of grappling hooks?

[Emerald]

How does this look for traveling by grappling hook rules?

It looks good from a technical perspective, but from an ease-of-use and numbers perspective, I can see a few issues.

1) Having to make three rolls per sling is a real pain, especially if you can sling around in place of an attack so higher-level characters are doing this 3+ times per round. Most things involving attack rolls have at most 2 rolls per action (attack roll to start then a single follow-up grapple check, saving throw, etc.) so cutting those down would be good.

2) The attachment roll is ranged attack mods + Dex + Athletics ranks while the detachment roll is just Str/Dex, which is a pretty huge spread. At mid-to-high levels you'll run into the situation where a character has only been failing the attach roll on natural 1s for the last few levels but hasn't gotten any better at the detach roll since low levels, and from a practical perspective they haven't expanded the surfaces they can deal with if they can't detach from them.

3) "Distance traveled with the swing" is tricky for the last part, since (A) you're swinging in an arc so the actual distance vs. the straight-line distance will be different and (B) it's unclear what happens if you want to sling around once and then immediately sling again (e.g. to slalom around obstacles) instead of launching through the air--do you add the distances together at the end or just use the last one, for instance.

So I'd suggest two changes: First, condense flinging and detachment into the same check to cut down on rolling (and because how far you can fling yourself is fairly dependent on when you detach anyway), and second, make the attach and detach rolls identical so they can be rolled together and so that they both advance at the same rate. I'd recommend "higher of ranged attack modifier and Athletics modifier," so that to start with it's much easier to do with training (investing in Athletics) but eventually everyone can at least try to make the easier slings (auto-advancing BAB), but you can also do something like having one roll as a base and a different (better) roll allowed by the Slinging Locomotion feat.

Also, here's what I have for skills-

• Disguise
• Escape Artist
• Heal
• History
• Linguistics
• Nobility
• Profession
• Sleight of Hand
• Streetcraft (Local)

The skills left in the quote are pretty narrow compared to ones like Arcana (All The Magic) and Expression (All The Social Skills), so they could use some more condensation to compete.

History, Linguistics, and Nobility seem like they could fit in a "Culture" skill or the like (when learning about a given polity in depth, you probably pick up its history, politics, and language all at once); Disguise, Escape Artist, and Sleight of Hand can be folded into a "Deception" skill (as they all involve misdirection and body language/manipulation); instead of folding Craft (Alchemy) in with the already-large Arcana, Craft (Alchemy)+Heal could fit as "Herbalism" or "Medicine" (possibly plus Craft [Poisonmaking]); and Streetcraft can be folded into Profession since they're both basically about having a day job and being part of the community.

[OgreBattle]

The simplest "travel by grappling hook" rule I recall is warhams where it lets you ignore vertical climbing distance (they then complicate things by requiring another item for ignoring jumping down, but Harlequins ignore both keeping things simpler)

Having it extend horizontal leaping distance some set amount can work, and layers of complication can be added based on the surface you're grappling on if you want that.

[Orca]

Failure by 11+ is going to be death (at least for anyone without feather fall) in a number of situations described, so the ACs need to be low enough that people can have that not happen by taking a safe route. It shouldn't be a problem, just don't do D&D 4e-style ACs which scale with the player's level.

Though, I'd do it as a very fatiguing but fast climb speed I think rather than have rolls made all the time.

[merxa]

I think in the context of a 3.x system, you would make these traveling grappling hooks an exotic weapon, it provides user with some base climb speed, you can adjust the climb speed by ranks in athletics, and assume people out of combat can take 10. Giving out free 'exotic weapon' proficiency is easy enough, ie free racial or class feat, could even provide it for characters who train in their use for a week or however long, or assume everyone in the world with a BAB of +1 is familiar with it etc.

Now you'll only need to adjudicate these during combat, and in situations where taking 10 is insufficient because of local conditions -- the next hop is further than normal, high winds, local rocks have been artificially smoothed etc.

Instead of multiple rolls, one athletics per round when climbing should suffice, and then on failure you fail to move and lose your move action, failure by 5 or more you lose your grip and begin falling (can provide reflex save to grab a ledge or having quickly thrown the other grappling hook onto a viable ledge, but even on success character should move some amount of feet, 1d6x10 or something appropriate, take corresponding fall damage).

Determining DCs, this will be very system dependent, but for 3.x, creatures who have a climb speed gain +8 on climb checks, so that should apply here for those with the exotic weapon proficiency in 'Slingline' or whatever it ends up being called.

base climb speed might be 10ft, increases 10ft every 4? ranks in athletics.
'Accelerated Climbing' increases DC by 5, and just say it doubles climb speed, and for 'jumps' that are beyond a characters accelerated climb speed, apply some scaling modifier, ie DC increases 2(4 if accelerated climbing) for every additional 5ft. Slinglines can be rated for maximum length with a weight attached, so a standard Slingline might be rated for 60ft max climb speed and weigh 6lbs?, and just up pounds 1 per 10ft, of course if this becomes a big thing in world there's plenty of room for customization, magic etc.

I'd probably make the base DC 20, so a level 1 character would have something like 10+8+Athletics (5?).

Since this is a skill check 1s aren't auto failures.

[OgreBattle]

An existing Den class that uses a tool for improved mobility is the Thief Acrobat, which does...

"
Pole Jump (Ex): If holding a pole, spear, staff, long staff, or other pole-like object in both hands, a Thief Acrobat can add twice her reach to her final distance moved during a Jump check, and in this instance her jump distances are not limited by her height."

"Grapple Line: At 4th level, a Thief Acrobat becomes a master of using grapples and grappling lines. By firing a missile weapon designed as a grappling weapon at an unoccupied square and doing at least 1 point of damage to an object filling that square (wall, ceiling, statue, etc) or a securely affixed object (ceiling post, small statue affixed to floor, etc), a Thief Acrobat can run a rope from his current potion to that location as a full round action. He may then use this rope to make Balance or Climb checks as normal.

Weapons designed as grappling weapons have a simple pulley and loop attached at the end and are balanced for this modification, and have at least a 50’ length of strong thread running through it and connected to a rope so that it can be pulled through swiftly. They cost an additional +1 GP each (ammunition costs as much as normal weapons), and suffer a 5 ft reduction in range increment. Many grappling weapons are made out of adamantine in order to better penetrate hard materials like stone."

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Totally random question, but are there any games with rules for things like gliding, skating, and grinding? I see glide rules way less often than flight rules, and outside of a Tony Hawk RPG, I can't see a reason why most games would have the other two, but I thought it was theoretically interesting. Presumably all 3 of these tie into some sort of momentum-based mechanic, but I dunno.
I just wanna do that Ratchet & Clank thing where you grind around on shit blowing suckers away, or be like Dante and surf a bad guy while kicking ass.

[Dean]

I'm trying to remember something from AD&D and I wanted to use you guys as a resource for how to find it. I remember in 2E there was a book that had a recipe to make some incredible potion that could do a ton of stuff including making you a mage. The bit I remember was that there was a potion recipe which had stuff like "the head of a balor" as an ingredient.

My memory is foggy but it might have been in a product with Spellfire or Silverfire in it too?

If anyone can remember a book with potion recipes, or spellfire, or silverfire from ad&d that'd be helpful

EDIT: It's in Volo's Guide to All Things Magical. Figured it out. It's cool shit. These books were dope.

[OgreBattle]

Thinking about Action Points in turn based games (video games too) like you have 5 AP and movement costs 1 but shooting costs X

Old thread on it: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50335

My feelings on action points like that is... they're not necessary and you're better off with everyone having set actions, or a pool to divide between attack/defense that turn.

The only AP-like system I like is when it's in a card game, so what you can do with those action points/mana is randomized somewhat.

[deaddmwalking]

My feelings on action points like that is... they're not necessary and you're better off with everyone having set actions, or a pool to divide between attack/defense that turn.

This is generally true. If you can spend your actions for 100% offense or 100% defense, in most cases, one will be 'better' than the other from the point of effectiveness. For example, if your opponent has no trouble hurting you if you're on defense, you might as well put everything into offense. What's effective isn't necessarily what you want from emergent play. If your fiction cares about people taking a combination of actions, the best way to achieve tha is to make sure that they're non-interchangeable.

From the perspective to mapping out potential outcomes, it also makes challenges easier to evaluate. If you test everything at 50/50 you might find that nothing poses a challenge at 100/0 or 0/100.