Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:25 pm

Let's say you wanted a party of magical girls for a campaign. We're not talking anything major, no special class, just "You're a team of magical girls, you have access to your class features in your magical girl form."

What would be a reasonable way to handle the transformation? Like, "Spend a full-round action to transform?"

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:44 pm

Do you want the monsters to wreak havoc while the heroines are transforming? Because that's how you get the monsters to wreak havoc while the heroines are transforming.

merxa · Post by **merxa** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:46 pm

traditionally the transformation sequence happens in no time, villains never really get a chance to act during it. I'd make it a free action if you're trying to follow common tropes.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:47 pm

I wish I could find that webcomic where the bad guy just shoots Sailor Moon in the head while she's transforming. I can't even remember which webcomic it was.

Anyway, the point here is that villains exploiting the 15 second transformation time of a sailor scout, whether to attack her or run away or take cover or whatever, is literally a joke. The narrative treats the transformation time as instant and all the beams of light turning into costume pieces as just artistic license to lend emotional weight to the transformation. Transformations should be a swift action at most, a free action would not be unreasonable.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:07 pm

Makes sense, yeah. I haven't actually seen a ton of magical girl anime (ignoring watching my dad's Cutie Hunie vhs when I was home alone in my preteens...), so I kind of wasn't aware that the transformations are supposed to be instantaneous. I assumed that the villains not taking advantage was just "acceptable breaks from reality genre convention."

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:12 pm

Bio Booster Guyver has a fight where the protagonist isn't able to transform without the active monster skewering him, but it's meant to be a violent and gritty take on tokusatsu that is still in the spirit of tokusatsu. So it can be seen as presenting a new scenario and ways to get around it. I don't recall them doing that more than once though.

"The villains don't take advantage" can be applied to many things. Like...
Indiana Jones magically evades automatic bullets and will beat gunmen with his melee weapon, it's a joke when he shoots the arab swordsman.

Batman slowly emerges from the shadows to 'strike fear', he only gets shot in the mouth in Marvel fanfics or some punisher what if.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:46 pm

Unless your transformation actually does something immediately like blinding everyone who sees your radiant magnificence, it should probably be a Free or Swift Action, depending on how many other actions you have competing for the Swift role.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:47 pm

If your heroines have their 'magical toughness' without transforming, but not meaningful abilities, having a full action might be good. In fact, it might make sense that the characters want to get somewhere private to make the change - that's still a trope and was included in the Ninjago Lego movie my daughters were watching recently. Having it be relatively quick but still require a level of effort is a defensible choice.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Thu Apr 30, 2020 10:27 am

Last time I DMed a magical girl game, transformation was handled by "players do the transformation choreography while other players throw giltter". It was fun.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 02, 2020 11:48 am

deaddmwalking wrote:If your heroines have their 'magical toughness' without transforming, but not meaningful abilities, having a full action might be good. In fact, it might make sense that the characters want to get somewhere private to make the change - that's still a trope and was included in the Ninjago Lego movie my daughters were watching recently. Having it be relatively quick but still require a level of effort is a defensible choice.

I'm still trying to figure out how things work precisely. The premise of the game is that it is set in the modern world, and the magical personas are standard D&D characters. The basic plot is that Pazuzu and Lamashtu are the baddies, trying to tear down the veil between the mundane world and some magical fantasy world, and they're doing this by using the tiny holes that exist to pour small amounts of magic into the mundane world and transform random people into monsters, fostering belief in magic with the rampages. Baba Yaga empowers the PCs to fight these creatures and protect the barrier (I'm... still deciding whether Baba Yaga is genuinely trying to foil Pazuzu and Lamashtu, and has decided that this is an acceptable measure to protect the veil overall, or if it's a further part of the plot, either with Baba Yaga being in league with P&L, or Lamashtu disguising herself as Baba Yaga to empower the heroes)

To this end... I need to figure out how skills and feats are handled (do characters have their feats in their mundane personas? Do they only have access to them in their magical persona? Do they have different sets of skills, bought separately, or do they just have a single set? If they just have a single set, can the person who transforms into a wizard use spellcraft in their mundane persona?) As well as how HP work. If a 5' nothing waif turns into an orc barbarian as her magical persona, is she also able to take a punch from an Olympic bodybuilder in her mundane 5' waif persona?

But also, should there be a limit to how often they can transform? Should it be once per day? Should they be able to transform any time there's "combat music?"

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat May 02, 2020 2:25 pm

Sailor Moon was known for ridiculous long transformation sequences . .
But later on, entirely in canon, the change from civillian to mahou senshi was shown to happen with the passing of a shadow over the concerned persons in seconds while talking so . . time is relative to the fan service ammount of the actual transformation taking place.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Sun May 03, 2020 6:43 am

What is a "good" core-only 5e build for a PbP game starting at level 2 and unlikely to reach 5?

I haven't paid this edition any attention and am only doing so now as a token effort. An initial idea was a feat-human urchin Wizard focusing on skill access.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 03, 2020 7:13 am

Honestly, for a game like that, whatever you think you'd enjoy. 5e can be minmaxed, but it's not really worth it. Just make something that'll be fun.

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Sun May 03, 2020 11:57 am

Say you've got a ship in a fantasy setting (be it a ordinary sailing ship in a fantasy setting, a magic flying ship or a spaceship which usually is magic even if creators pretend otherwise), should you keep modern naval terminology?

Should you say "port" and "starboard" cause it sounds ship-y, or skip that and go for left and right and not bother with all that?

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sun May 03, 2020 12:13 pm

Port and starboard are well enough known as to act as cultural shorthand for "this be a vessel and thar be a navy". So if you want to do that, you should maintain such terms.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun May 03, 2020 12:17 pm

Thaluikhain wrote:Say you've got a ship in a fantasy setting (be it a ordinary sailing ship in a fantasy setting, a magic flying ship or a spaceship which usually is magic even if creators pretend otherwise), should you keep modern naval terminology?

Should you say "port" and "starboard" cause it sounds ship-y, or skip that and go for left and right and not bother with all that?

You should use a mix of naval terminology and normie terminology. Enough naval terminology to remind people that you're on a boat, and not so much that it gets confusing. The exact amount of naval terminology is thus left up to assumed naval familiarity of your audience. You should definitely call people in the ship "aboard" but you don't have to call things that are towards the rear of the ship "abaft." Whether you should refer to the place the lookout stands as a "masthead" or not depends on your intended audience.

-Username17

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun May 03, 2020 2:39 pm

Nebuchadnezzar wrote:What is a "good" core-only 5e build for a PbP game starting at level 2 and unlikely to reach 5?

I haven't paid this edition any attention and am only doing so now as a token effort. An initial idea was a feat-human urchin Wizard focusing on skill access.

Eldritch Knight Fighter with a familiar feat gives you survivability, ranged and melee options, magic to pick from, familiars of interest or the owl for advantage

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun May 03, 2020 4:12 pm

I touched on this with the Monster Prestige Classes project, but going through NWN2 again and I really have to ask: why are so many monsters "Bad Dog"? I did some quick research and discovered all dogs are good dogs, and yet D&D puts it to you that there are many dogs out there that are Bad. I could see them being sneaky, and stealing a packet of biscuits (half to eat, the other half to bury), but not evil.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun May 03, 2020 5:09 pm

Monsters are not bad.
Monsters are what they are.
Wolves hunt because they eat meat.
Whether said meat is on 4 or 2 legs does not matter.
Whether said meat is in the woods or behind fences does not matter.
The Wolf will kill and eat the meat.
That does not make the wolf a bad dog.
Ascribing such values as good and bad to things non sentient is foolish at best.

Sentien Monsters are just like sentient non Monster not all bad just because what they do is considered bad in somebody elses parameters of society.
Cannibalism is bad, mkay? Aside from when it is done out of pragmatism to survive.
Or when it is done for ritualistic or religious reasons.
ESPECIALLY IN A WORLD WITH LITERAL DIVINE BEINGS TELLING ENTIRE RACES HOW THEY WOULD LIKE FOR THEM TO ACT!

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Sun May 03, 2020 8:07 pm

Nebuchadnezzar wrote:What is a "good" core-only 5e build for a PbP game starting at level 2 and unlikely to reach 5?

I haven't paid this edition any attention and am only doing so now as a token effort. An initial idea was a feat-human urchin Wizard focusing on skill access.

The vast majority of the game isn't "online" at this point. Wizards fall somewhere between OK and good, but the lack of level 3 spells will hurt them. Clerics have a very early power spike, so do Moon Druids. You can also get a lot of mileage out of HP damage this early. These are the best few levels to play a monk (though still not a great idea), so now's your chance to live that fantasy if you've ever wanted to.

How is the game treating feats and variant humans? If feats and variant humans are allowed, a crossbow expert battlemaster who picks up sharpshooter at 4 can put out a lot of hurt. Heavy armor master plays really well on a cleric early in the game, and war caster is a good investment too.

Also, do you have a sense of the rest pacing based on prior experience with the GM? Short vs. long rest resource recovery can matter a lot when you don't have many resources.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon May 04, 2020 8:44 am

Koumei wrote:I touched on this with the Monster Prestige Classes project, but going through NWN2 again and I really have to ask: why are so many monsters "Bad Dog"? I did some quick research and discovered all dogs are good dogs, and yet D&D puts it to you that there are many dogs out there that are Bad. I could see them being sneaky, and stealing a packet of biscuits (half to eat, the other half to bury), but not evil.

Being attacked by a dog is something that many western world people still experience, and poorer countries experience even more.

A few weeks ago a street dog tore my pants, that dog's fed by some local people so executing it would be upsetting to the community.

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Tue May 05, 2020 8:19 am

Prak wrote:What would be a reasonable way to handle the transformation? Like, "Spend a full-round action to transform?"

There must be tradeoffs.

first and foremost. What do they lose when non transformed? Proficiencies? Hit points? Class features? Also, how often are they expected to be caught vulnerable? Is being caught vulnerable a death sentence?

Dnd-land is not the MCU and murderhobos have no need to keep secret identities (they don't, "Prince Adam" is stupid) so, what keeps them from just being transformed all the time? Do they suffer the Ultraman Syndrome and can only stay transformed a number of rounds per long rest? The more class features you lock behind this gate, the more you must inflate said features for the tradeoff to be worth it, also be aware you're begging for 5 minute workdays this way.

I hope that helps.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Tue May 05, 2020 8:58 am

I liked the approach in the Chroma Squad video game: being transformed is better, but since it comes with a complete healing, it's better to wait until you've got low HP before transforming.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Tue May 05, 2020 10:06 am

Blade wrote:I liked the approach in the Chroma Squad video game: being transformed is better, but since it comes with a complete healing, it's better to wait until you've got low HP before transforming.

This explains why you might want to not instantly transform at the first sign of danger, but not necessarily why you didn't start the day transformed - unless the buffs are really quite minor.

Also, I don't remember transformation taking an action of the kind that could be spent moving or attacking in Chroma Squad, although it has been some time since I actually played.

It's also worth considering if there are any features you lose in magical transformed... form. The secret identity conceit of many magical girl things functions similarly to losing stealth abilities (specifically, the ability to blend in and be deemed beneath notice) when you transform, and it wouldn't be out of genre for magical girl abilities to come with dramatic displays that ruin your more literal Hide and/or Move Silently.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Tue May 05, 2020 2:00 pm

Koumei wrote:I touched on this with the Monster Prestige Classes project, but going through NWN2 again and I really have to ask: why are so many monsters "Bad Dog"? I did some quick research and discovered all dogs are good dogs, and yet D&D puts it to you that there are many dogs out there that are Bad. I could see them being sneaky, and stealing a packet of biscuits (half to eat, the other half to bury), but not evil.

I think a lot of the problem is that balance in D&D only works well at low levels, and even moderately interesting enemies only work at higher levels. That means D&D is constantly running out of enemies to throw at you at low levels, so they're making new stupid shit up all of the time.

"Dogs, except evil somehow" isn't a good idea, but I've seen worse.