Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[JonSetanta]

I like that modular take, OgreBattle.

I seem to recall multiple discussions of splitting classes into chunks rather than 1-20 progression, maybe Frank proposed it first, but it certainly beats Prestige optimization where you have subpar "entry feats" and Frankenstein's PC just to obtain the ideal mid-level "build".

[Emerald]

Hmmm...that gives me another random idea.

Do you need a paladin if you can have a cleric/fighter? Likewise rangers and druids could be the same class but crossed with fighters or clerics. Assassins could likewise be fighter/thieves.

Like how the old bard needed someone to multiclass 4-5 times or whatever, only less complicated.

The main question is, if there's no distinct Paladin class and all "paladins" are just cleric/fighters, what happens to the Paladin-specific features like smiting, auras, special mount, etc.? (And of course the same applies to rangers and Favored Enemy, bards and Bardic Music, and so forth.)

If cleric/fighters don't get smiting and a holy horse, to many people who like the Paladin class that's not really a paladin and they'd still want something on top of the multiclass.

If cleric/fighters can get smiting and a holy horse because e.g. smiting is a thing any cleric can pick up (via [Divine] feats or selectable class features off a menu or whatever other mechanism) and a high-level mount is a thing any fighter can pick up, that's actually great for modularity...but it means that you need to shove enough classic and signature class features into Cleric to be able to combo into Paladins and Druids and Shamans and whatever else, enough stuff into Wizard to be able to combo into Bard and Warmage and Necromancer and whatever else, and so on.

(Which is totally doable, just something you need to keep in mind and something that can easily have unintended consequences, like how 5e made eldritch blast from a warlock-specific class feature into a spell like any other while still keeping it beefy enough that you could build a warlock entirely around eldritch blast, and suddenly every single arcane caster wanted to learn it as their go-to blasting spell).)

And if you want to have more than just Fighter/Wizard/Rogue/Cleric, like your suggestion to have some kind of "nature dude" class that combos something like Nature + Cleric = Druid, Nature + Rogue = Ranger, Nature + Fighter = Barbarian, and Nature + Wizard = Elementalist or whatever, then why would you draw the boundary at Cleric + Fighter = Paladin, as opposed to e.g. having a "holy knight class" where Knight + Cleric = Paladin, Knight + Nature = Ranger, Knight + Wizard = Duskblade, and so on?

That's not a rhetorical "Why would anyone ever want to...?" question, that's a "What, specifically, leads you to draw the line at Paladin = Fighter + Cleric but Ranger != Fighter + (nature-y) Cleric?" What's the reason behind dropping the Paladin because it's apparently redundant with cleric/fighter but keeping the Nature Dude because it can't be done with the cleric? Is it because the Paladin in particular doesn't have enough mechanical stuff to be worth keeping but the Druid has tons of stuff, is it because having one "caster" class per "power source" (Druid for nature, Psion for psionics, and so on) plus the Fighter and Rogue lets you make every multiclass combo you think is worth supporting...?

The answer to "Why am I ditching X in favor of a Y/Z multiclass?" and "Why am I keeping X instead of making it just a Y/Z multiclass?" for each class you're considering is going to tell you whether going with...

• Paladin = Cleric + Fighter, Ranger = Cleric + Fighter, Druid = Cleric;
• Paladin = Cleric + Fighter, Ranger = Druid + Fighter, Druid = Druid;
• Paladin = Cleric + Fighter, Ranger = Nature Dude + Fighter, Druid = Nature Dude + Cleric;
• Paladin = Cleric + Holy Knight, Ranger = Nature Dude + Holy Knight, Druid = Nature Dude + Cleric;
• Paladin = Paladin, Ranger = Druid + Paladin, Druid = Druid;
• Paladin = Paladin, Ranger = Ranger, Druid = Druid; or
• some other combination

...is the right option for your game.

[JonSetanta]

What happens to Paladin tropes?

Smite = either a feat, or divine spell series like in 5e
Aura = feat, although in game effects it's a bit much since "add Charisma to all saves" is so abusable, at least in my decades of playing various Paladins
Mount = There's A Spell For That. Or, some supernatural beast that just teleports/planeshifts to you when called as it's own ability rather than the rider, orrrr some kind of "pact" between the mount and rider so it's both/neither

[Thaluikhain]

Ok, another random and probably too broad question, but is it a problem if two players want to play similar characters?

I mean, say your adventuring party needs a mage and a cleric and maybe a thief, and multiple fighters, and all the fighters want to be Elf Knights and ignore the options for dwarves or barbarians or pirates or whatever?

Now, this would mostly depend on your game, but is there anything inherently better or worse about having diverse race/class combos with no overlaps?

[Omegonthesane]

Obviously it's a little worse if your party doesn't have access t more tools to deal with more situations, but beyond that, the only issue is that the two Elf Knights in this case would need actual characterisation to tell one from the other instead of relying on character-chassis-level stereotypes. Which is fine for single author fiction or an explicit collaborative writing exercise, but most tabletop RPGs don't want to go to that level of effort.

[deaddmwalking]

Now, this would mostly depend on your game, but is there anything inherently better or worse about having diverse race/class combos with no overlaps?

No. If the players like it, it's fine. I once sat in a game with four good friends who all played monk characters based on the Three Stooges. The fact that the characters were identical other than the names was part of the appeal.

I don't think it's unfair to say that most players would like to preserve some uniqueness. Anyone who's ever had a younger sibling can understand how annoying it is if someone keeps trying to be exactly like you. Where it causes problems is when one or more players is NOT okay with having very similar characters. That's especially a problem if both players want to play exactly the same character (like Drizzt) and neither is willing to play a different type of character.

As Omegathesane said, having more copies of the same character potentially reduces the scope of solutions that you provide. Allowing more scope for customization can be good in those cases. If one elven knight has wilderness skills and one elven knight has diplomacy skills, there will be areas where one or the other will have an opportunity to contribute distinctly from the other. If they're truly identical, there are times the redundancy will probably get frustrating (especially if the intended action can't be initiated by each character independently).

[OgreBattle]

That tends to happen when the base gameplay is kinda limited in effective options. Like in every D&D edition the warrior "deals HP damage" instead of lighting stuff on fire, pushing into holes, flipping tables or even holding ground.

There's a lot of co-op hack and slash games where two identical melee guys can have fun attacking and occupying monsters coming from different directions

[Thaluikhain]

Ok, playing Spelljammer again (which is what prompted my last few questions), and was wondering about different classes requiring different amounts of experience points to go up levels. Which sorta kinda looks to me like certain classes are going to be getting experience points a lot easier than others because they get to do cool stuff, and other classes need levels given to them like participation trophies.

Is this basically an acknowledgement that some classes are just better than others, or am I missing something?

[angelfromanotherpin]

The OD&D asymmetric xp tables are essentially a reasonless hash, based on the same lack-of-reason that led to some values counting up and other things counting down. When asked, Gygax would say that thieves gained levels faster than fighters in the name of keeping power parity, but that magic-users gained levels slower (and then later faster) than fighters in the name of keeping lack of power parity. There simply was no consistent design philosophy or practice involved.

[deaddmwalking]

If you're on this site, you hopefully understand that suffer now for power later is not a useful balancing mechanic. But the various XP tables are designed to represent that. If you get cool powers at first level, you might advance more slowly so other people can get a level ahead and be as cool as you are. On the other hand, if you're going to become awesome later, you can advance slowly to 'earn' your power. IF you start every character at 1st level AND you have most characters die before they get to 5th level, getting a high level mage can feel like an accomplishment. On the other hand, if you don't have an antagonistic DM, you're likely to get there eventually.

Trying to balance characters against each other and creating a universal advancement track is mostly a positive step in the right direction, but tastes vary. But doing it because that was the way it was done isn't usually a great reason - if you understand why it worked that way and you don't want that for your game, that's definitely something you can feel confident in changing.

[OgreBattle]

Was experience gaining and leveling up something in Wargames? Like having an officer promoted and getting better

Maybe it varied with different factions and countries so they decided character class should do that too

[angelfromanotherpin]

The idea was toyed with as far back as the 18th century, in some early versions of kriegspiel. In the 1950s and 60s the concept was popular in miniatures wargaming, which is almost certainly where Arneson took the idea from. Gygax's Chainmail had 'hero' and 'superhero' figures, but no progression mechanics.

[Thaluikhain]

Not surprised to find out that's why that happened, thanks for the answers.

[JonSetanta]

Funny how I hopped into this discussion of ability gating in RPGs when I had just discussed this topic with a relative earlier today.

My take on it is that it should be about "compression", having Fire, Lightning, Ice magic at level 1 do level 1 things, but at level 11 it does level 11 things.
In the opposite direction the ability of typical D&D high level spells that thematically "seal spirits" or "teleport" or "open a portal" should also be from low to high level.

The Teleport spell trope ranges in 3e to 5e from myriad Psionic low-level things such as "swap places with Ally" to 5e's "Misty Step" then up to the SL5 Teleport, then Greater Teleport, then Teleport Circle.

These are all the same, just different scaling.

Frank's "Fireball at level 1" push didn't work as-is but an ability call "Fire" that has Close or Melee range to start and affects maybe 3 adjacent targets at first could double in range every 5 levels, upscale damage, increase area, add rider effects such as Burn and Push (Explosive Spell MM) and at its peak effectively replicate Meteor Swarm.

[deaddmwalking]

I think it's relatively straight forward to think about how damaging affects like (fire) will scale. Likewise, I'm sure you can think of how an air spell might blow a small object or carry an arrow further before it allows someone to fly. As you point out, the effects may be bigger, but they're in the same vein and build on a natural progression. It doesn't follow that every spell idea you have will do so.

Resurrection is a good example. You might think that healing spells progress so at low levels you can heal small wounds, and higher levels bigger wounds, and eventually bring someone back to life. But resurrection might not even be a healing spell. In some systems it is Necromancy. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.

Even 'minor teleport' is a big departure from a lot of standard fantasy tropes. Moving 10-15ft at a pop (like Nightcrawler in X-Men) has major implications in terms of how military formations exist.

When you add new 'low-level magical powers', you're further creating the divide of 'fighters can't have nice things'. Since you can't imagine teleporting 10' without magic, people without magic can't do things that you're saying are 'low-level powers'. We all know that mundane classes stop being 'real classes' by mid-levels; pushing lower level versions of higher level powers also pushes the 'not being a real class' to a lower level.

[JonSetanta]

Two opinions from me, one being "who can bring the dead to life" and "caster vs noncaster":

The first, I am completely for healing spells restoring organic bodies, it's entirely within real medicine that someone technically "dead" is given surgery and a defib and bam, they are unconscious for a bit but eventually "alive" once recovered.
Turning a rotten corpse into a healthy organic being is another, and probably should require necromancy to "summon the spirit and imbue it" but used perversely would subject a "dead" thing into soulless servitude.
Necromancy should also include "talk with spirits" and "summon a spirit WITHOUT putting it in a body", as by the traditional Earth lore and mysticism.
So, with both abilities there would be a two-step combo that brings a dead person back to truly functional life.

As for Fighters With Spells, the more Eastern tropes I see blurring the caster/noncaster division, the less I support Tolkienism and class gating.
In class systems a designer could have a Fighter that dabbled in an Arcane Study background, or feat tax it, but I am leaning more to a Final Fantasy Tactics approach where Knights "equip" a Mage set of abilities on the side and you have your Arcane Knight or whatever.

[Thaluikhain]

Would that be with a formula of the "Range 11+ level, 1d4 damage per level" sorta thing? While straightforwards, I'd imagine you'd have to much about getting the right formula, whereas if you make each spell work somewhat differently you've more control of the maths.

Another idea, instead of caster level, you could use spell level, you start off knowing level 1 Fire but can upgrade that when you find out levels 2 or . Which could help with specialisation, everyone starts off with level 1 Fire and level 1 Ice, but what you upgrade is up to you.

Another other idea, if you wanted to give Fighters nice things, you could work certain magic weapons the same thing, it's a flaming sword and how much fire damage it does depends on your level or your level of flaming sword use.

[JonSetanta]

1d4 per level is a LOT of d4s, I remember how much salt I get when I push for a combination of a small amount of dice with a set value added every level after, but if you're doing it every turn that's a lot of rolling.

I'm not sure about advanced options limited to slot level rather than caster level, but IMHO an ideal non-Vancian D&D would have a scaling Melee/Close/Limited target version, then by spending (internal phlebtonium resource) it can be sculpted, increase range, increase area, and so on.
Specialized spells would require some kind of Feat or Mage ability (or both being the same but the Mage-whatever gets them as they levelup) that simply reduces the resource cost required to power up a specific spell or category of spells, effectively "specialized" in certain aspects without blowing the top off expected damage, range, and aoe for the same character level.

My heartbreaker is a strange blend between gestalt class combos and classless progression, the three classes and 9 "monster tribes" each granting various HP and Stamina bonuses, thematic pseudo-stats, one passive ability, and an "Exert" option that allows boosting thematic actions depending on the class/tribe choice, but after level 1 any character gets to choose any feat, trait, spell, skill once per level, and gets +5 to HP and Stamina automatic each time, so this whole "Fighter can't cast spells" nonsense is pretty much behind me as I focus on this RPG creation.

[deaddmwalking]

Would that be with a formula of the "Range 11+ level, 1d4 damage per level" sorta thing? While straightforwards, I'd imagine you'd have to much about getting the right formula, whereas if you make each spell work somewhat differently you've more control of the maths.

1d4 per level is a LOT of d4s, I remember how much salt I get when I push for a combination of a small amount of dice with a set value added every level after, but if you're doing it every turn that's a lot of rolling.

Very much this. With 12d4 you have about a 75% chance of getting at least 28, and a 75% chance of getting at least 32. Put another way, half of your rolls are going to end up between 28-32, so just calling that 30 damage saves you a WHOLE LOT of dice rolling. Adding up a column of 10+ numbers (even if they are small) involves a fair bit of table time, and minor errors will exist. If you don't really care if 30 is sometimes called 28 and sometimes called 32 depending on who's doing the adding, then you shouldn't make them go through the exercise.

The decisions that 3.5 made that low-level spells only scale to a point (ie, max 5d4 with magic missile) is arbitrary and is designed to make low-level spells effectively useless at higher levels. Likewise, scaling the resist DC on the level of the spell ensures that only the highest level spell-slot has a reasonable chance to affect your expected opposition. Using up your two highest level spells can feel crippling because you no longer have level-appropriate attacks. Setting the DC based on caster level (not spell level) and allowing scaling of low-level spells for damage is a defensible choice.

A single-target touch attack that does 10d6 damage is clearly less powerful than an area-effect spell that can do 10d6 damage to everyone in the area.

[Thaluikhain]

Ah, true, I was just using that as an example without thinking it through. Is there a good way of making damage scale without it being fiddly if you wanted the same spell to be useful at level 1 and level 10? Otherwise you could alter range or area. IIRC, in the Sea of Death novel by Gary Gygax, there's a brief mention of spellcasters being what they thought was a safe distance from a battle, only the enemy spellcaster was unexpectedly powerful could make a lightning bolder that as bigger and went further than they were used to, which I sorta liked.

[JonSetanta]

Just recommending damage values from my heartbreaker...

It uses a scaling Action Point turn system, like PF2 on roids.

Starting at L1 everyone gets 4 AP. Five-level increases grant 2 more AP but there is a standard capping of 4 AP for "mundanes" to any one turn, exceeded based on Trait selection and class/tribe combination that allow the specialist (Agile trait for Dodge and Run super-options, Strong for greater Carry, Push, Break) to spend 1 Stamina per extra AP beyond 4 to go full out Charles Atlas.

Each 6-space movement is 1 AP.

The size of a weapon determines the AP cost to attack or perform a tactic in any way (1 for hand-sized, 2 for things like Longsword, and 3 for Great weapons that get Reach +1), as well as that same size/AP cost being the number of d6s rolled per attack.
There are at least a dozen Trait options to enhance combat tactics, avoid combat, run faster, move-when-dodge once a round, and of course feats that do increasingly ridiculous fantasy warrior things.


Spells are a bit different: by default each spell has an Attack, Defense, and Control option, but sometimes the Defense is instead either a Mobility or Boost and the Control is a Debuff.
I'll only address the Attacks for now.

Given the three Action Speeds in a turn, there are Fast, Average, and Slow.
Casting a spell is Slow and normally limited to 1 per turn at L1.

The minimum output is about 2d6 damage per attack spell with a 75% success at most, once per turn, affecting an area of (in D&D terms) 10 foot radius orb, so between one to 4 targets or so. Range is 100 feet or as part of a Melee attack, doubled in range for every 1 AP and Stamina spend, double area diameter as same, increase damage by 1d6 as same but also requiring 1 AP spent per day as they charge the Kamehameha longer or whatever.

Every 5 level increase adds a new theme-related option rather than just "blow up stuff gooder".

Mage class "Exert" option as a 5 point Stamina investment either boosts the Willpower TN (think of like Spell DC) by 5 per 5 levels, and/or sets all damage dice to maximum for the casting.

Normally whenever a roll of a 6 is made of a damage dice some debuff occurs that lasts 1 turn on a failed initial save, but these stack up so if Burn for 1 turn is rolled x times, everyone that failed a Dodge roll Burns for 5 Health at the end of their turns for x turns.
Maximize the spell and it's like being molotov'd.

I'm sum, in my Derp Tactics RPG, the best a L1 Mage can do with blastan majick in one turn is 4d6 to a normal area at basic range, 3d6 aoe at double range, 2d6 aoe at quadruple range, 3d6 at double aoe, or 2d6 at quadruple aoe.
Also include option of either Accurate (+5 Willpower TN) or Intense (all 6s instead of rolls, automatic debuffs on failed Dodge).

[Thaluikhain]

Hmmm...ok, going back a bit and just throwing this out there, suppose instead of 1d6 per level and add them up, it was 1d6 per level and take the highest and forget the rest. Each time you go up level that spell technically gets better, but after a while only by a tiny amount and your maximum damage doesn't improve. Maybe with an option later on to take more than 1 die, but keep the numbers small.

[OgreBattle]

Could have 1d6*10 once a threshold is reached, like a less extreme RIFTS(TM) MegaDamage

Can also do the magic weapon DR thing but with spell levels. So the Fireball caps at 6d6 but against higher level opposition the damage is reduced by half, against equal level you deal full damage

For a non d20 system I like comparative "Strength vs Toughness" to handle this.S8 vs T8 is rolled the same as S3 vs T3

[JonSetanta]

I'm not a fan of "take half damage" or even "deal half" as it creates math lag mid battle, I've observed it in action in ad&D, 3.x, and again in 5e.

IMHO reduction should be a static value that increases in chunks like how many 3e Fiends and outsiders have DR 5 or 10 or 15.

[deaddmwalking]

Hmmm...ok, going back a bit and just throwing this out there, suppose instead of 1d6 per level and add them up, it was 1d6 per level and take the highest and forget the rest. Each time you go up level that spell technically gets better, but after a while only by a tiny amount and your maximum damage doesn't improve. Maybe with an option later on to take more than 1 die, but keep the numbers small.

Anything is defensible if you have a design goal and it helps you achieve it. More often, people develop a mechanic and then try to implement it.

I'm not 100% certain what your suggestion is, but I can see it in one of two ways (assume level 10).

1) Roll 10d6 - look for your highest roll. If you get a 6 the total damage is 6; if you get a 5 the total damage is 5.
2) Roll 10d6 - if you get a 6 the total damage is 60; if you get a 5 the total damage is 50.

In the first case, the total damage (and difference between ANY ROLL) becomes insignificant. In the second case, you can see how 60 damage might be a significant increase over 50. The issue is how many times you roll before you see the difference. On 10d6, you have an 85% chance of getting at least one six. The odds of NOT getting at least a 5 are virtually nil.

Generally, rolling is designed to give a variable result. But for that to be meaningful the variance has to be significant enough to matter. In many cases, that just isn't true. At 10d6, a fireball is going to do between 25-45 damage, with the probability concentrated around 35 damage. If targets have ~35 hit points, it matters if you're a little above average or a little below average. If the opponent has 50 hit points, it only matters if there is some 'regular hit' that does ~10 damage. In that case, an above average roll could make the opponent vulnerable to being dropped with a single hit, and a below average roll might mean it takes 3 single hits.

Sometimes rolling isn't as much about math as the player engagement. While rolling dice does slow down determining results, it does give players an activity to do. It's harder to read your book or play Super Smash Brothers when you're doing an activity like rolling/counting dice every 5-10 minutes. Changing every weapon from a variable roll to a fixed roll is again a defensible design goal - it eliminates rolling, speeds up resolution, and makes predicting outcomes a little easier for the GM (outlying results like rolling minimum consistently in a single combat can be disregarded).

Increasing the dice size also increases variability, as does decreasing the number of dice. Changing from 10d6 to 6d10 keeps the same range of results (6-60), the same average (35), but with 10d6 you have a 70% of having total damage between 30-40. With 6d10 you have a 55% of having damage between 30-40. For the types of reasons people like rolling fireball damage, switching from d6 to d10 provides a lot of benefits; but the formula for making it work becomes just a bit harder. 1d6 per level is easy to say; 1d10 per 2 levels plus 1 is more complicated.