GTFO abilities

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 2:09 am

So reading Franks posts in the 10 levels and Mundane Flavored super powers threads has got me thinking. GTFO abilites are basically the thing that keeps mundane characters confined to low levels. On the other hand you need GTFO abilites for high levels to have any meaning other than higher numbers

So how do we design around GTFO abitlies

3e at least IMHO hands out GTFO abilities at excesivelly low levels with Fly (ranged weapon/flight or GTFO) and Solid Fog (Telaport of GTFO) at increadibly low levels

4e on the other hand can source much of it's badness to trying to completly prune out GTFO abilties so people could play fighters from 1-30.

So how do you thing designers should handle GTFO abilities

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 2:33 am

Yeah, old Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards issue. At a certain point, associating a higher cost with a GTFO (or perceived GTFO/RealWhiz!) power becomes moot - basically, the wizard haduken's the world and then goes off for a nice lie-down if it didn't kill him outright.

There have been efforts to move around this, believe it or not. The most basic concept is that everybody drinks the same kool aid - in Earthdawn, everybody was an adept drawing on magic for ever cooler powers, so you could have a warrior face off against and army and a wizard blow up an army and they'd both be rocking their thing at about the same level (well, ideally, at higher levels things still fell apart). In D&D3.x you have things like Psionics and Magic of Incarnum - where, again, despite a nominal focus in blasting or slashing, all characters are supposed to be tapping into some energy to achieve supermundane effects. And again, the balance issue was mainly that it was grafted on to an already broken system (well, one balance issue anyway).

Now, if you had a game that was just "everybody is psionics" or "everybody is incarnum" or "everybody is Tome of Battle" then...well, it would probably be Feng Shui, where people are all cinematic kung fu badasses, basically.

The big problem is if you take too much quadratic out of wizards, then they become Gandalf is Useless - which is fine from a certain standpoint, but people want to toss around their fireballs. If you take the linear out of wizards, people complain you're turning their stab jockey into Goku from DBZ - again, no pleasing some people.

And there is a cachet to playing a mundane character in a world of superpowers. Batman is awesome because he's a mere mortal playing on the level of alien supermen and heroes of myth. Captain America is a soldier with a voice that can command a god...and does. Spider-Man can life a tanker truck, but the Punisher can take out his kneecaps from a mile away. People want to play mundane badasses.

Shadowrun had, if you're being generous, a mixed effort. Magicians suffered more drain for bigger magical acts, and you could shoot or stab them and they would fall down, but as things piled up there were more and more ways to put off or minimize Drain and certain spells, spirits, and effects were overpowered, until at the end everybody just rolled adept. It worked when mages sucked just enough that they had a couple good tricks, but once the magicians leveled up it went from Shadowrun to Magicrun.

I think, honestly, the ideal is to tone down the system and setting, and if possible to keep it low. I railed against the removal of Vancian magic, but t'be honest I like the basic idea behind Warlocks. At low levels, they're very effective characters with a varied handful of tricks that fulfills basic combat-related magical roles fairly well. Similarly, I think the psionic point system is more flexible and useful than Vancian magic, and Incarnum had a lot of potential - at low levels. At higher levels, and especially in combination, they tended to fall apart. No one wants to keep track separately of how many ki, power, and essentia points they have, and that's without getting into the really weird shit.

So you basically want a (small) pool which can be used for (a few) discrete effects, which can do awesome stuff but which shouldn't invalidate any particular character class/concept, and ideally would have variations that can augment the unique abilities of different classes/concepts. Ideally, the characters would also have access to some limited, non-combat, utilitarian stuff on an as-needed basis. Which sounds general as hell (and it is).

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 3:28 am

The thing is that shadowrun is a bad model for D&D or most forms of Fantasy heatbreaker mainly due to A) having a point based system where the PC genrally stay at James Bond level. B) having a higher tech setting meaning that mages exist alongside cyborgs with BFGs.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 8:19 am

The first and most fundamental GTFO abilities are simple positions. If I am on the other side of a mighty river or a chasm or something, then you can either have some mobility power to cross that, a ranged attack, or you can GTFO. Now that sort of positional reality does not inherently require an ability of any kind, you could just have an environment where you get it for free. But you can also layer on an ability like Flight where you can create that topology at will just be going up. This is the fundamental reason why dire bears are so problematic. They can be shut down by GTFO abilities that are so easy to get that they don't even necessarily exist on your character sheet.

Thereafter, GTFO abilities get overtly magical. And they range from simple weapon immunity ("You must have attacks with designator X or GTFO") to unreachability ("I am in dimension X, so you must be able to reach dimension C or GTFO") to pre-battle victory conditions ("Before the battle begins, I win and you GTFO unless you can counter ability X"). So the creature with +1 or better weapon to hit has a GTFO ability that screens all non-magical characters who don't have a magic weapon (and note that if it also flies, that had better be a magic ranged weapon); the ethereal whatever the fuck has a GTFO ability that screens out all the characters who can't go to (or at least attack into) the ethereal plane; and the Bavmorda's of the world simply turn you into a god damn pig before initiative is even rolled.

Note that pre-battle victory conditions don't have to be magical. If you're simply really stealthy and intend to murder your enemies in their sleep, the targets had better have sentries who can find you or safe pocket dimensions to sleep in or something.

-Username17

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 8:31 am

Then there's other powers that are so brutally powerful they function as a purple rope to see if people are even allowed to play in the fight. A Balor's Blasphemy being a good example. You better have the ability to work around that, cause it's coming and it's coming first and if you aren't "this tall(tm)" it's also coming last.

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:08 pm

Lord Mistborn wrote: So how do you thing designers should handle GTFO abilities

I suppose unlike 3rd edition/D&D, don't hand them out so chronically, or necessarily handle them as one shot kills. Such as medusa stare doesn't have to petrify you immediately (maybe for 1HD nobodies or such), could be like a slowing/immobilized effect that eventually petrifies you, much like how FFIV, Lost Odyssey, or God of War? handled it.

ModelCitizen · Post by **ModelCitizen** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 9:32 pm

Lord Mistborn wrote: 3e at least IMHO hands out GTFO abilities at excesivelly low levels with Fly (ranged weapon/flight or GTFO) and Solid Fog (Telaport of GTFO) at increadibly low levels

The biggest problem with flight is that 3e encourages mundanes specialize in melee at the expense of ranged. Mundanes aren't inherently bad at shooting bows, it's that they probably have either have 30' sneak attack or melee only power attack + average Dex. It wasn't as much of a problem in AD&D because longbows were overpowered and stat bonuses were smaller and you didn't have characters with all of their feats plowed into a melee shtick.

So fix that, because you can't get flight out of D&D. Mythology is full of monsters with wings and shit. It's bad enough already that D&D has to gate flight by level. I'm really tired of explaining to new players why the industry-leading fantasy RPG won't let you play a pixie.

K · Post by K » Sat Dec 22, 2012 11:17 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:The first and most fundamental GTFO abilities are simple positions. If I am on the other side of a mighty river or a chasm or something, then you can either have some mobility power to cross that, a ranged attack, or you can GTFO.

That problem is only an issue in DnD Land because in any fantasy story being on the other side of a chasm is the end-of-encounter win condition. Only in DnD do you even want to keep fighting once you drop the bridge and strand the enemy on the other side, and that's because murder is the only way to get XP.

DnD also has ranged attacks that are so powerful that they are a threat from the other side of a chasm. Only DnD has magic attacks that never miss. Only DnD demands that specific weapons have to be used to hurt specific kinds of monsters (magic vs ethereal, or DR-busting types). Only DnD makes flyers more steady in the air than WWII flying fortresses.

These are specifically DnD legacy problems. Any new game could just make flying dangerous like in any cartoon, fantasy movie, and story ever made and make getting hit by a thrown dagger a fail condition where the flyer crashes to the ground and takes a bunch of damage and can't fly because its wing gets hurt. Then Conan doesn't have to be an archer to play at high level.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 11:22 pm

ModelCitizen wrote:I'm really tired of explaining to new players why the industry-leading fantasy RPG won't let you play a pixie.

You can in Hackmaster!

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Sun Dec 23, 2012 12:45 am

I think that GTFO abilities that don't change the way you actually play the game are dubious design. Flight arguably adds to the tactical landscape. Abilities like Blasphemy are terrible--all Blasphemy does is kill everyone if your level isn't high enough, but if your level IS high enough it seriously does nothing. For high level to feel different, the defenses used to thwart GTFO abilities need to be active, not passive.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sun Dec 23, 2012 2:05 am

W00+! Solutions to newschool problems.

Can't fight the monster? XP for treasure, don't care! Hunting wild animals in the woods for nothing? Sucks to be you!

Flying archers? Silly rules, shooting while flying is unpossible. Even dragon breath is easy to dodge if he's strafing. Bombs are just inaccurate, landing somewhere within a 1/4 mile. Crashing in with tooth and claw? Yes please.

Shooting is -1 per 10', don't you know. Range is limited to 3x roof height. Fireball too, which totally scatters at random when you miss. -1 per 30' vs buildings and armies.

It's ethereal! So what? I have a +1 sword, got it when I was 3rd level, had a silver dagger before that too. That one turns folk to stone! I have a mirror. The other one casts Unholy Word! I am 12th level and so do not care (who wrote the 3e version? Not a good change).

I have been turned into a rat! Yay? I mean, 15 HD, the strength of fifty men, and tiny, what's not to love? I'm a go bite his head off. Dude was stealthy! Sure, but I'm hard to surprise, so he only got one hit. Now it's my turn. I was asleep! Now I'm awake, getting stabbed does that.

It's a God! It will .... No, no it won't. I'm a stab it in its big ugly face now. +1 sword. Dead God, pretty sure I get its portfolio and am now a God too. Thanks Mr. Cavern.

The only reason being Mr. Stabby doesn't work in 3e is because 3e made it not work. It totally works in AD&D, double fire resistance, 2+ to hit, 2+ saves, plate, shield, and longsword. Longbow for backup. Shit works, even against Gods, Ancient Dragons, True Giants, and the Balrog on level 50. At least until 2nd edition started making it not work to protect their precious story. Totally works in 4e too, if you play a Ranger, pre-nerf.

So, uh, yes, 3e does have plenty of GTFO stuff in it, but a mechanically similar game need not do so.

K · Post by K » Sun Dec 23, 2012 2:59 am

The goal should be to make this guy go away for forever.

I dare you to get to the 10:00 mark without wanting to reach through the computer screen and strangle him.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sun Dec 23, 2012 3:37 am

K wrote:The goal should be to make this guy go away for forever.

I dare you to get to the 10:00 mark without wanting to reach through the computer screen and strangle him.

I didn't wanna strangle him at all.

He was wrong about SR dragons, but that's about it.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sun Dec 23, 2012 4:59 am

Lokathor wrote: I didn't wanna strangle him at all.

I sure as fuck did. My fucking god he is proud of the notion of understanding -flight-. Classic 2nd ed "You've never played D&D for REAL" bullshit DM wankery. Classic.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Dec 23, 2012 5:20 am

I want GTFO abilities. They must exist, and they must be awesome, and the counters to them must be awesome.

EDIT: He thinks it is a really fucking good thing that people can't deal with a flying Dragon, and all the PCs have to play stupid shitty character that sucks. He thinks the Wizard prepares lightning bolt. He thinks that parties are made up of 3/4 shitty characters.

Look, Dragons should do stuff like that, and people do play monsters dumb. But it is not a good thing for PCs to be incompetent.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun Dec 23, 2012 6:11 am

K wrote:The goal should be to make this guy go away for forever.

I dare you to get to the 10:00 mark without wanting to reach through the computer screen and strangle him.

I only made it 13 seconds before deciding that watching further was a massive waste of my aimless internet time. I'm better off searching for porn or laughing at typos or posting negative reviews of my own writings - any of those is superior to even tacitly endorsing the views of a mouthbreathic lunatic who feels that "demystifying" any element within a the rules-framework of any game is somehow a bad thing.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sun Dec 23, 2012 6:52 am

K wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:The first and most fundamental GTFO abilities are simple positions. If I am on the other side of a mighty river or a chasm or something, then you can either have some mobility power to cross that, a ranged attack, or you can GTFO.
That problem is only an issue in DnD Land because in any fantasy story being on the other side of a chasm is the end-of-encounter win condition. Only in DnD do you even want to keep fighting once you drop the bridge and strand the enemy on the other side, and that's because murder is the only way to get XP.

DnD also has ranged attacks that are so powerful that they are a threat from the other side of a chasm. Only DnD has magic attacks that never miss. Only DnD demands that specific weapons have to be used to hurt specific kinds of monsters (magic vs ethereal, or DR-busting types). Only DnD makes flyers more steady in the air than WWII flying fortresses.

These are specifically DnD legacy problems. Any new game could just make flying dangerous like in any cartoon, fantasy movie, and story ever made and make getting hit by a thrown dagger a fail condition where the flyer crashes to the ground and takes a bunch of damage and can't fly because its wing gets hurt. Then Conan doesn't have to be an archer to play at high level.

+1 on all of these.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sun Dec 23, 2012 3:56 pm

K wrote:The goal should be to make this guy go away for forever..

Doubt you could ever get dudes like this to go away. Lets quote him from the comments section:

Someone wrote:Are there ways to force a Dragon to land?
Uploader wrote:I wouldn't know, never played D&D

Seriously who cares about someone who doesn't know how the rules work ranting about a game they've never played?

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Sun Dec 23, 2012 7:36 pm

ishy wrote:Lets quote him from the comments section:
Someone wrote:Are there ways to force a Dragon to land
Uploader wrote:I wouldn't know, never played D&D

Seriously who cares about someone who doesn't know how the rules work ranting about a game they've never played?

That does not appear to be a strictly justified reason for condemnation. As far as I can tell, the uploader is not the (really obnoxious) dude who is featured in the vidja.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Sun Dec 23, 2012 7:46 pm

To clarify:

The uploader is NOT the Spoony One. The guy in the video is the Spoony One.

The uploader is a fan who's reposting Spoony's Counter Monkey videos.

And now I've done my good deed for the day. Libertad away!

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Mon Dec 24, 2012 12:55 pm

ishy wrote:
K wrote:The goal should be to make this guy go away for forever..
Doubt you could ever get dudes like this to go away. Lets quote him from the comments section:
Someone wrote:Are there ways to force a Dragon to land?
Uploader wrote:I wouldn't know, never played D&D
Seriously who cares about someone who doesn't know how the rules work ranting about a game they've never played?

The person who uploaded the video and the person in the video aren't the same person. The uploader stole the guy's video. The guy in the video is Spoony. I dunno who the uploader is.

Post by **fbmf** » Mon Dec 24, 2012 2:14 pm

K wrote:The goal should be to make this guy go away for forever.

I dare you to get to the 10:00 mark without wanting to reach through the computer screen and strangle him.

is that Noah Antwiler or however you spell his name?

Game On,
FBMF

Desdan_Mervolam · Post by **Desdan_Mervolam** » Mon Dec 24, 2012 3:18 pm

Yes it is. Honestly, I never cared much for Spoony except when he is turning up in other people's stuff (Or Spooning with Spoony which he hasn't done in years and is one long, sustained rape joke anyway)

Making a monster scary has nothing to do with rules and everything to do with buildup and execution. This doesn't really speak well to his skills as a GM. He records and posts a game he runs (Or ran, I dunno, like I said I don't follow him much), anyone seen it to say how good a GM he is in practice?

Post by **fbmf** » Mon Dec 24, 2012 3:24 pm

I like to gamers rant on the movie series before it was kicked out KoDT.

Game On,
FBMF

Desdan_Mervolam · Post by **Desdan_Mervolam** » Mon Dec 24, 2012 4:04 pm

fbmf wrote:I like to gamers rant on the movie series before it was kicked out KoDT.

It's awfully early to be drunk, MoFo...

The Gaming Den

GTFO abilities

GTFO abilities

Re: GTFO abilities

Re: GTFO abilities

Re: GTFO abilities