a couple of Echelon ideas easy to retrofit into 3.5

[David Lamb]

I was refamiliarizing myself with Keith's echelon20.org site, and it
occurred to me Echelon has a couple of simplifications/improvements that
are fairly easy to incorporate into 3.5:

1. Ability mods are just ability/2 without the -5, to simplify
calculations. This pushes ability checks higher but also typically
pushes (or can push) what they're checking against a bit higher. Thus a
Spot vs a Hide has +5 wis on one hand vs +5 dex on the other. However,
to keep things exactly the same you'd need to (a) bump up Dex limits on
armour by 5 and (b) bump up static DCs by 5 -- or (c) decided you wanted
to give some people a new advantage by not bumping these 2 things.

There's an effect on AC to think about; maybe bumping base AC from +10
to +15 is appropriate but we'd need to think through the interaction
with dex limits on armour.

2. Dump skill points entirely. All skills are level/2 plus appropriate
ability mod, plus skill focus (perhaps with a +4 as Keith is using
instead of the current +3). IIRC this is pretty much what 4.0 does, but
even if it doesn't it's a nice simplification.

3. (My comment) Note that we've dumped class/cross class skills cost
distinction, since we've dumped skill points. I suppose one could take
"N skill points per level" and turn it into "another small bonus for N
skills of the current class" which is something you can figure out
without having to keep track of the character's entire history.

Opinions?

[Alcore]

On Tuesday, April 10, 2012 7:59:55 AM UTC-5, David Lamb wrote:
> I was refamiliarizing myself with Keith's echelon20.org site, and it
> occurred to me Echelon has a couple of simplifications/improvements that
> are fairly easy to incorporate into 3.5:

[snip]

> 2. Dump skill points entirely. All skills are level/2 plus appropriate
> ability mod, plus skill focus (perhaps with a +4 as Keith is using
> instead of the current +3). IIRC this is pretty much what 4.0 does, but
> even if it doesn't it's a nice simplification.

[snip]
> Opinions?
[snip]

I have never liked this. I *LIKE* skill points.

With systems like this there is simply nothing that a high level character isn't really good at compared to an ordinary person. I happen to believe that outside your area(s) of expertise and learning, even high level characters really shouldn't be any better than a commoner at some things.

For instance: Ballroom dancing. If you've never studied such things, and lack any specialized training in diplomatic or royal/aristocratic social arts, you really should still totally suck at this at the 20th level.

The 4e counter-argument is that stuff like ballroom dancing isn't modelled by the system at all. So don't try to apply skills rules to it.... Of course then they belie their own argument by detailing the "social encounters" rules.

I like that 3e has an open skills system that can be used to model any aspect of the character's life. Not just combat. And anyone can be good at anything, if they invest in those skills. And they will suck at other stuff...

Frankly I think Pathfinder has gone a long way to clean things up. Although I think they may have collapsed the skills list a bit too much instead of just giving out a few more skill points (and class skills) to everyone.

[Tetsubo]

I don't mind how PF collapsed the skill system but I totally agree
about the skill ranks. At least for mages and fighters. No class should
have 2 skill ranks per level. I place a minimum of 4 per level. Why
should mages suck at skills when they are the smartest class. I know,
they don't get a lot of skills because they will have a high Int.
Punitive game mechanics. Which I despise. The smartest class *should*
have a lot of ranks.

--
Tetsubo
Deviant Art: http://ironstaff.deviantart.com/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/tetsubo57

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of Tetsubo <tet...@comcast.net> is inscribed:

>On 4/10/2012 3:35 PM, Alcore wrote:

>> I like that 3e has an open skills system that can be used to model any aspect of the character's life. Not just combat. And anyone can be good at anything, if they invest in those skills. And they will suck at other stuff...
>>
>> Frankly I think Pathfinder has gone a long way to clean things up. Although I think they may have collapsed the skills list a bit too much instead of just giving out a few more skill points (and class skills) to everyone.
>>

I do like the way that PF gives +3 to class skills rather than 3 extra
levels of skill points like 3.x. They screwed up by not having high
skill levels be meaningful; as in 3.x most skills are trumped by low
level spells.

> I don't mind how PF collapsed the skill system but I totally agree
>about the skill ranks. At least for mages and fighters. No class should
>have 2 skill ranks per level. I place a minimum of 4 per level. Why
>should mages suck at skills when they are the smartest class. I know,
>they don't get a lot of skills because they will have a high Int.
>Punitive game mechanics. Which I despise. The smartest class *should*
>have a lot of ranks.

Agree about skill ranks, but wizards certainly have no more need for
skills than any other class. It's a rather circular argument to say
that you need to be smart to be a wizard so they should get what smart
people get. After all, the baseline number of skills is little
different from a circumstantial Int bonus.

Now if wizards actually needed skills, you might have a point. But any
reasonably focused build will have at least 18 Int by 4th level, which
is 6 skp, +1 for human. A wizard can max out spellcraft, KA, Fly and 3
other knowledges. He has no other class skills to speak of.

OTOH, the core classes that really do need more skill points are (in
order)
* sorcerer: 2 skp but lots of juicy skills off Cha they can't buy. Int
is a dump stat so they get doubly hammered on vital KA and spellcraft.
* paladin: 2 skp, MAD, lots of useful skills, int is a dump stat. Ride
and Diplomacy is your lot.
* monk, 4 skp but very MAD. It's supposedly a skill monkey class, but
once you've bought Acrobatics, Perception, Stealth and Climb, you're
done. Should be 6 skp.
* cleric. A bit MAD but not very skill-reliant. KR and Spellcraft come
first, but others are generally gravy.
* fighter. Fairly SAD and some buy Int 13 for the feats. Skills are
nice to have but usually unimportant as few class skills work with
their good stats and armour cripples them so much anyway.

I'm not sure why 3.x and PF (and all 3rd party classes I've seen) have
an even number of skill points per level. There's certainly room for 1
point's worth of tweaking here.

--
Jim or Sarah Davies, but probably Jim

D&D and Star Fleet Battles stuff on http://www.aaargh.org

There is no God. But there is pudding!

[Tetsubo]

On 4/10/2012 6:18 PM, Jim Davies wrote:
> On the grave of Tetsubo<tet...@comcast.net> is inscribed:
>
>> On 4/10/2012 3:35 PM, Alcore wrote:
>
>>> I like that 3e has an open skills system that can be used to model any aspect of the character's life. Not just combat. And anyone can be good at anything, if they invest in those skills. And they will suck at other stuff...
>>>
>>> Frankly I think Pathfinder has gone a long way to clean things up. Although I think they may have collapsed the skills list a bit too much instead of just giving out a few more skill points (and class skills) to everyone.
>>>
>
> I do like the way that PF gives +3 to class skills rather than 3 extra
> levels of skill points like 3.x. They screwed up by not having high
> skill levels be meaningful; as in 3.x most skills are trumped by low
> level spells.
>
>> I don't mind how PF collapsed the skill system but I totally agree
>> about the skill ranks. At least for mages and fighters. No class should
>> have 2 skill ranks per level. I place a minimum of 4 per level. Why
>> should mages suck at skills when they are the smartest class. I know,
>> they don't get a lot of skills because they will have a high Int.
>> Punitive game mechanics. Which I despise. The smartest class *should*
>> have a lot of ranks.
>
> Agree about skill ranks, but wizards certainly have no more need for
> skills than any other class. It's a rather circular argument to say
> that you need to be smart to be a wizard so they should get what smart
> people get. After all, the baseline number of skills is little
> different from a circumstantial Int bonus.

And I don't think there are enough skills for mages and fighters. I
*want* skillful mages and fighters. Folks that have a lot of diversity
to their abilities.

> I'm not sure why 3.x and PF (and all 3rd party classes I've seen) have
> an even number of skill points per level. There's certainly room for 1
> point's worth of tweaking here.
>

In 3.5 at least you had full and half ranks. So you needed an even
number. I figure it's just a hold-over in PF.

> --
> Jim or Sarah Davies, but probably Jim
>
> D&D and Star Fleet Battles stuff on http://www.aaargh.org
>
> There is no God. But there is pudding!

[tussock]

David Lamb wrote:

> 1. Ability mods are just ability/2 without the -5, to simplify
> calculations.

It doesn't simplify anything. No harm for a complete rewrite, other than
the lack of trivial interoperability (!), but it's no better. Note you can
do it easiest by lowering all the bases by 5.
AB = BAB + stat - 5. AC = 5 + natural + armour + stat. Fixed DCs remain
the same, variable DCs are roughly 5 + spell (or HD/2) + stat. Compatible,
but why bother? Need a new rule for "no dex bonus" and "half str bonus".

Oh, one thing it changes is damage and HP, more deadly at 1st level
(less at high levels, probably give a bigger negative buffer to help there).
Makes combat a bit less swingy, and puts damage spells further behind the
curve (could just add Int or whatever). Could give everyone DR 5/-. 8]

> 2. Dump skill points entirely.

Dump *skills* entirely, maybe? Most of them do nothing anyway. See also
feats. Not sure 3e really added to the game there, especially so with 3.5.

> 3. (My comment) Note that we've dumped class/cross class skills cost
> distinction, since we've dumped skill points. I suppose one could take
> "N skill points per level" and turn it into "another small bonus for N
> skills of the current class" which is something you can figure out
> without having to keep track of the character's entire history.

Just give a Rogue 'Int+4' (remember your new Int mod) skills from their
class list that they automatically succeed at for normal tasks, and only
check (vs stat, or whatever) to do extraordinary things, like hide in a
flickering shadow.
Most class just get 'Int' skills, basic classes 'Int-2'.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Tetsubo wrote:

> Why should mages suck at skills when they are the smartest class.

I know. Why should mages be poor at melee when they're the smartest
class. Why should mages not understand how to cast in armour when even Bards
can. Why should mages have crappy hit points when they can bend reality to
their wills.

Wizard, d12 hit die. Full BAB, all good saves, all armour and weapons.
That's what the game really needs. 8/

--
tussock

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz> is inscribed:

>> 2. Dump skill points entirely.
>
> Dump *skills* entirely, maybe? Most of them do nothing anyway. See also
>feats. Not sure 3e really added to the game there, especially so with 3.5.

Rubbish. Feats and skills are a huge part of the customisation and
individuality of 3e characters. Where skills fail is that they seldom
do anything extraordinary, even at very high levels, and are trumped
by low-level spells.

I think 4e made a fair start with simplifying skills, but went too far
(all skills have a base of level/2 regardless of class or skill) and
excluded anything not primarily concerned with adventuring. Of course
this is much like Echelon as well.

I haven't thought this through much, but I think skills need to be
simplified and beefed up, with some manner of power point pool added.
For example (taking a 3e-like background for comparison)

Class skills: bonus = level/2 + 5 + statmod
Adventuring skills: bonus = level/3 + statmod
Background fluff: bonus = statmod
A feat turns any 1 skill into a class skill
Another feat gives a bonus of +level/2 and a kewl pool boost (see
below)

where class skills are what we know (eg spellcraft for wizards,
stealth for rogues), adventuring skills are the things you'd pick up
as part of the job regardless of PC class (stealth for wizards,
spellcraft for rogues, survival for either) and fluff is anything else
(ballroom dancing for anyone except bards and paladins).

And on top of that there would be something akin to a Ki pool that
would let one [attempt to] do kewl things with class skills.
Skillmonkey classes get more kewl pool. Stuff like really long jumps,
riding on water, performance with magical effect (replacing or
supplementing bardic music), Healing actual damage, hiding in plain
sight, really scary intimidation, etc.

And there would be tasks with high DCs that have amazing, unreal
effects.

One problem is that the D20 range doesn't scale all that well with
some skills, being either too narrow (hide vs spot) or too wide (pick
lock).

And since you mentioned feats: quite a lot of them should be rolled
into class features, especially the tedious numerical ones like Weapon
Focus and Power Attack which all fighters take. And TWF which is just
a tax. And so on. Keep them as optional feats for characters of other
classes where appropriate. Feats should be for customisation and
differentiation rather than numbercrunching optimisation.

[dr...@bin.sh]

Alien mind control rays made tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz> write:
> Tetsubo wrote:
>> Why should mages suck at skills when they are the smartest class.
>

> Wizard, d12 hit die. Full BAB, all good saves, all armour and weapons.
> That's what the game really needs. 8/

welcome to the good side.

--
.--===-+---===--.
|> |\__|___/\---|= dr...@bin.sh (CARRIER LOST) <http://www.bin.sh/>
|| || ()= | | <| --------------------------------------------------------
|> |/~~|~~~\/---|= Drive Offensively
`--===-+---===--'

[tussock]

Jim Davies wrote:

> tussock wrote:
>
>>> 2. Dump skill points entirely.
>>
>> Dump *skills* entirely, maybe? Most of them do nothing anyway. See
>> also feats. Not sure 3e really added to the game there, especially so
>> with 3.5.
>
> Rubbish. Feats and skills are a huge part of the customisation and
> individuality of 3e characters. Where skills fail is that they seldom
> do anything extraordinary, even at very high levels, and are trumped
> by low-level spells.

There's a good series of articles somewhere (not that I can find it)
detailing how the skills secretly don't do anything at all. They've been
dropping out the worst offenders over time, but they're still a gigantic
ruse. Fake mechanical obfuscation of some pretty bland fluff.

Feats are a thousand things your character isn't even allowed to try,
because you don't have 99% of them. OK, it's a good way to limit in-game
option overload, but they trap you on your character sheet.


<snip>

> And there would be tasks with high DCs that have amazing, unreal
> effects.

I don't think games where power and skill use the same roll work outside
a very narrow range. It's an important thing that your success chance and
the end effect are separate rolls with their own modifiers, so the Hulk can
still "miss" Spiderman, while crushing cars like tinfoil.

High level Rogues should totally be able to do interesting things when
hiding, like shadow-walk or be mind-blanked, but they shouldn't need to be
/always/ invisible in plain sight to do that.

> And since you mentioned feats: quite a lot of them should be rolled
> into class features, especially the tedious numerical ones like Weapon

> Focus and Power Attack which al fighters take. And TWF which is just

> a tax. And so on.

Now we have: no flat bonuses to basic tasks, no taxes to do balanced
things, no stacking for ultimate power, no rare situational abilities, and
no restricting generally useful abilities. What exactly is left? I don't see
anything.
Unless you want to give out daily/encounter powers with them, like
4e/Bo9S. Probably a fair idea for combat tricks.


They could always be "my magic missile is a flaming skull". 8/

> Keep them as optional feats for characters of other classes where
> appropriate.

Meh, let the others multiclass if they want Fighter tricks. Gestalt
multiclassing works really well, once you get off 3e's weird XP track. 12
class options become millions of class options, likely all the customisation
you'll ever need by 6th level or so.

> Feats should be for customisation and differentiation rather than
> numbercrunching optimisation.

Maybe if all the feats came with a default use, for all the characters
who don't have them.

--
tussock

[David Lamb]

On 23/04/2012 1:06 AM, tussock wrote:
> Maybe if all the feats came with a default use, for all the characters
> who don't have them.

What do you have in mind? At first glance this seemed to me to mean
making feats even less powerful than they are now, if everybody gets
half of each of them. Whatever one might choose to mean by "half", which
isn't obvious to me.

But I'm one of those dudes who thinks Grapple ought to require a feat.

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca> is inscribed:

>But I'm one of those dudes who thinks Grapple ought to require a feat.

To stop people using it? Grabbing an opponent IRL isn't exactly
difficult, just rather dangerous because you'll get bashed upside the
head first. Hence Improved Grapple. And as Improved Grapple requires
IUS first, it stops most of the mooks from taking it. So you don't get
a major problem with orc rabble dogpiling the 10th level fighter
unless there are a whole ot of them. Which is fairly realistic IME.

[David Lamb]

On 23/04/2012 1:06 AM, tussock wrote:

> Jim Davies wrote:
>> tussock wrote:

>>> sombody wrote:
>>>> 2. Dump skill points entirely.
>>> Dump *skills* entirely, maybe? Most of them do nothing anyway. See
>>> also feats. Not sure 3e really added to the game there, especially so
>>> with 3.5.
>> Rubbish. Feats and skills are a huge part of the customisation and
>> individuality of 3e characters. Where skills fail is that they seldom
>> do anything extraordinary, even at very high levels, and are trumped
>> by low-level spells.
> There's a good series of articles somewhere (not that I can find it)
> detailing how the skills secretly don't do anything at all. They've been
> dropping out the worst offenders over time, but they're still a gigantic
> ruse. Fake mechanical obfuscation of some pretty bland fluff.

If you can't find the articles -- can you summarize them? I've spent a
fair bit of time thinking about what I'd like to do with skills, but if
they're "secretly" irrelevant I'd like to understand why.

[DougL]

Feats shouldn't be REQUIRED to enable basic manuevers everyone with
several years of combat training can do.

Note that a level 1 fighter or even NPC warrior HAS several years of
combat training under his belt, even a level 1 warrior is a fully
trained professional town-guard or something similar, given his skill
list he sure isn't part time militia, fighting is all he does. He
should have basic competence.

One of the big problems with mundanes in 3.x is that all their "cool
stuff" got turned into feats, which they need, while the spell-
slingers get spells for cool stuff, and their feats actually CAN be
used for modest and somewhat situational extras that the character's
couldn't do in older editions.

So feats shouldn't be needed for melee to do basic combat manuevers.
But similarly feats shouldn't be so good that they turn tripping from
a situationally useful thing into "always do this".

That's actually a fairly narrow power range, probably weaker than most
of the "good" 3.5 feats. So yes, feats will probably be weaker.

I have no problem with this, feats are supposed to be something extra.

You can make something like trip based on a feat an encounter power so
it won't be spammed and set the default trip to "nearly, but not quite
entirely useless". For example you could make a trip attempt require
either a standard action or an "opening" (and allow crits to generate
openings rather than giving them extra damage), and then let the trip
feat give you an opening once per encounter.

Not great, and people who hate martial encounter powers will
presumably hate it, but something like that would let the feat help
some without being vital.

DougL

[David Lamb]

On 24/04/2012 11:51 AM, DougL wrote:
> On Apr 23, 9:10 am, David Lamb<dal...@cs.queensu.ca> wrote:
>> On 23/04/2012 1:06 AM, tussock wrote:
>>
>>> Maybe if all the feats came with a default use, for all the characters
>>> who don't have them.
>>
>> What do you have in mind? At first glance this seemed to me to mean
>> making feats even less powerful than they are now, if everybody gets
>> half of each of them. Whatever one might choose to mean by "half", which
>> isn't obvious to me.
>>
>> But I'm one of those dudes who thinks Grapple ought to require a feat.

I have the feeling that everyone is going to respond to this remark and
not the the query about what tussock meant.

> Feats shouldn't be REQUIRED to enable basic manuevers everyone with
> several years of combat training can do.

The trouble is that *everyone* gets these basic manoeuvres, not just
"everyone with several years of combat training."

> So feats shouldn't be needed for melee to do basic combat manuevers.
> But similarly feats shouldn't be so good that they turn tripping from
> a situationally useful thing into "always do this".

Why not? Fighters can't get good things? even at higher levels?

> For example you could make a trip attempt require
> either a standard action or an "opening" (and allow crits to generate
> openings rather than giving them extra damage), and then let the trip
> feat give you an opening once per encounter.

An interesting idea. Those who hate encounter powers might just decide
it takes a crit to generate one of these "openings", or perhaps one
could take a single iterated attack and use it to generate an opening
and simultaneously use one of these "needs an opening" feats.

[Justisaur]

I don't think you'd need to make it per encounter if you made a 'crit'
the opening, you get an interesting effect, which you can only do once
in awhile. You might make crits a bit more common than on a 20 if you
are doing that, well depending upon how many attacks one makes in a
round...

The old (1e) way of preventing 'always do x' is to either have MAD or
throw things that are immune/difficult. For instance tripping doesn't
work well against puddings. Grappling a wight is a bad idea.
Disarming is useless against monsters without weapons, etc. It's even
suggested that should PCs use a lot of flaming oil goblins, will take
it up against the PCs in various places.

The problem is a lot of the feats in 3e feel like things any of a
particular class should be able to do at the levels available, or they
are pure and simple power ups that ought to be in the class design for
balance to prevent gimping or munchkinism. The skills are just too
limited and scale too quickly.

- Justisaur

[Keith Davies]

tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz> wrote:
> Jim Davies wrote:
>> tussock wrote:
>>
>>>> 2. Dump skill points entirely.
>>>
>>> Dump *skills* entirely, maybe? Most of them do nothing anyway. See
>>> also feats. Not sure 3e really added to the game there, especially so
>>> with 3.5.
>>
>> Rubbish. Feats and skills are a huge part of the customisation and
>> individuality of 3e characters. Where skills fail is that they seldom
>> do anything extraordinary, even at very high levels, and are trumped
>> by low-level spells.
>
> There's a good series of articles somewhere (not that I can find it)
> detailing how the skills secretly don't do anything at all. They've been
> dropping out the worst offenders over time, but they're still a gigantic
> ruse. Fake mechanical obfuscation of some pretty bland fluff.

You're probably looking for a series of posts at Hack & Slash.

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.ca/2012/03/skills-conclusion-with-10-rules.html
is the conclusion (or at least, last post in the series), and he
examines skills from a number of games. Primary focus is D&D 3.x, but
other systems are covered to a certain degree as well. This post has
links to various posts from the series, and
http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.ca/2012/02/on-skill-deconstruction-summary.html
has a very brief summary of how he sees each skill, and a link for each
to where he breaks that down.


Keith
--
Keith Davies "chain letter and chain mail...
keith....@kjdavies.org not the same thing, right?"
KJD-IMC: http://www.kjd-imc.org -- Naomi
Echelon: http://www.echelond20.org

[DougL]

David Lamb wrote:
> On 24/04/2012 11:51 AM, DougL wrote:
> > On Apr 23, 9:10 am, David Lamb<dal...@cs.queensu.ca> wrote:
> >> On 23/04/2012 1:06 AM, tussock wrote:
> >>
> >>> Maybe if all the feats came with a default use, for all the characters
> >>> who don't have them.
> >>
> >> What do you have in mind? At first glance this seemed to me to mean
> >> making feats even less powerful than they are now, if everybody gets
> >> half of each of them. Whatever one might choose to mean by "half", which
> >> isn't obvious to me.
> >>
> >> But I'm one of those dudes who thinks Grapple ought to require a feat.
>
> I have the feeling that everyone is going to respond to this remark and
> not the the query about what tussock meant.
>
> > Feats shouldn't be REQUIRED to enable basic manuevers everyone with
> > several years of combat training can do.
>
> The trouble is that *everyone* gets these basic manoeuvres, not just
> "everyone with several years of combat training."

If the manuever uses BAB and is opposed by BAB then only fighter types
will be any good at it.

Or you can make it a class feature to be able to use combat manuevers,
but DO NOT MAKE a melee type spend a feat for basic competence. EVER.

> > So feats shouldn't be needed for melee to do basic combat manuevers.
> > But similarly feats shouldn't be so good that they turn tripping from
> > a situationally useful thing into "always do this".
>
> Why not? Fighters can't get good things? even at higher levels?

The good thing fighters need at high levels is enough damage to
vaporize foes. Trip should NEVER be your default best combat option,
because if it is then the casters have won. (Your other options all
need to be worse then knocking someone down for one round for trip to
be all that good, that trip was a 3.x fighter's best option once it
really came on line was not a good thing for fighters.)

> > For example you could make a trip attempt require
> > either a standard action or an "opening" (and allow crits to generate
> > openings rather than giving them extra damage), and then let the trip
> > feat give you an opening once per encounter.
>
> An interesting idea. Those who hate encounter powers might just decide
> it takes a crit to generate one of these "openings", or perhaps one
> could take a single iterated attack and use it to generate an opening
> and simultaneously use one of these "needs an opening" feats.

Nope, the proposal is that the Feat OR a crit gives you an opening. If
it takes a crit AND a feat then you're back to something all fighters
should be able to do (trip when they get an opening in melee) takes a
feat, and that is bad.

Any competent melee combatant should be ABLE to get an opening. The
feat needs to improve on that.

Similarly, if you want to make it "spend an attack" for an opening,
that's fine, but in that case the feat should let you sometimes do it
without spending an attack. Once per encounter gives a fine timing.

Or you could let the feat be like Improved Critical and extend your
crit range for a particular opening.

But the openings need to exist and be usable and possible without the
feat, because DEFAULT melee can trip.

DougL

[Alcore]

Xena is why we need feats.

Xena was a 20th level (or better) fighter. She *could* do everything. She had all sorts of tricks that went beyond simple combat that made her extra dangerous.

But what I liked was that there almost always was someone else who could do any particular trick. Just because Xena had (for instance) the Chakram throwing/handling exotic weapon proficiency didn't mean once in a while she didn't meet someone else who had it. Most, however, did not, even most of her greatest foes.

And every once in a while, there were tricks *she* didn't know.

Maybe fighters should get a few more/quicker feats, but I do like them.

[David Lamb]

On 24/04/2012 6:13 PM, Keith Davies wrote:
> This post has
> links to various posts from the series, and
> http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.ca/2012/02/on-skill-deconstruction-summary.html
> has a very brief summary of how he sees each skill, and a link for each
> to where he breaks that down.

I followed a few links to where he posited some rules for when it made
sense to roll dice:
http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.ca/2011/11/on-skill-deconstruction-why-roll-for.html

Briefly,
- The task has to be done under time constraints
- You're in conflict with some other game entity
- There is a serious consequence to failure
- You can't model it just by players describing what they do (eg. say
where you're searching instead of rolling a search check)
- Does success model an interesting partial result (you'll have to read
what he said; I can't summarize it any better than he did).

Food for thought. Along the way he (a) found fault with D20 vs bell
curve and (b) expressed that many things ought to involve player skill
instead of character skill, which I imagine some people will object to
on the basis of playing "in character".

[Keith Davies]

Alcore <alc...@uurth.com> wrote:
> Xena is why we need feats.
>
> Xena was a 20th level (or better) fighter. She *could* do everything.
> She had all sorts of tricks that went beyond simple combat that made
> her extra dangerous.

Was she really 20th level or higher? How do you reckon?

I generally place Conan and Aragorn around fifth level, maybe, so how
does she rate so high?

[Keith Davies]

DougL <lamper...@gmail.com> wrote:

> David Lamb wrote:
>>
>> Why not? Fighters can't get good things? even at higher levels?
>
> The good thing fighters need at high levels is enough damage to
> vaporize foes. Trip should NEVER be your default best combat option,
> because if it is then the casters have won. (Your other options all
> need to be worse then knocking someone down for one round for trip to
> be all that good, that trip was a 3.x fighter's best option once it
> really came on line was not a good thing for fighters.)

Total agreement with Doug here. His position is not that fighters can't
have nice things, but that fighters should not have to pay for basic
stuff instead of nice things.

High-level fighters should not have 'make him fall down' as their best
option. Not even close. Casters are nearly gods, non-casters should be
as well.

[DougL]

On Apr 25, 10:03 am, Keith Davies <keith.dav...@kjdavies.org> wrote:
> Alcore <alc...@uurth.com> wrote:
> > Xena is why we need feats.
>
> > Xena was a 20th level (or better) fighter.  She *could* do everything.
> > She had all sorts of tricks that went beyond simple combat that made
> > her extra dangerous.

Extra tricks are fine. But Chakram throwing IS an extra trick, its an
exotic weapon which is only situationally better than other ranged
weapons.

That's exactly in the range of what a feat can reasonably do. It's an
edge, but not a dominant one and it's not that you're stripping a
basic function from melee to make it a feat.

The BASIC combat tricks and trip, disarm, sunder, grapple, and bulls
rush are all basic, need to be usable at a level appropriate ability
either without feats, or with feats that the melee classes all get for
free right alongside their weapon and armor proficiencies.

> Was she really 20th level or higher?  How do you reckon?

I didn't watch the show, but didn't she occassionally oppose gods and
come out on top. That's mythical level ability. And she needs to at
the least be a serious challenge for Hercules.

TV and comic characters at mythical power tend to suffer from
intermittent writer inspired incompetence, but the idea that her peak
competence indicates level 20 doesn't offend me.

DougL

[David Lamb]

On 25/04/2012 11:34 AM, DougL wrote:
> On Apr 25, 10:03 am, Keith Davies<keith.dav...@kjdavies.org> wrote:
>> Alcore<alc...@uurth.com> wrote:
>>> Xena is why we need feats.
>>
>>> Xena was a 20th level (or better) fighter. She *could* do everything.
>>> She had all sorts of tricks that went beyond simple combat that made
>>> her extra dangerous.

That does mean she need a lot of feats, but doesn't directly relate to
her level. She could be an E6 character -- stop at level 6, effectively,
but on accumulating enough XP for "the next level", just add feats.

>> Was she really 20th level or higher? How do you reckon?
> I didn't watch the show, but didn't she occassionally oppose gods and
> come out on top. That's mythical level ability. And she needs to at
> the least be a serious challenge for Hercules.

She fought Ares to a standstill at least once. I didn't see the whole
series, so I suppose she might have fought somebody else too. She
appeared to be on good terms with Hades, so clearly was a Somebody to
the gods.

[David Lamb]

On 25/04/2012 11:08 AM, Keith Davies wrote:
> DougL<lamper...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> David Lamb wrote:
>>>
>>> Why not? Fighters can't get good things? even at higher levels?
>>
>> The good thing fighters need at high levels is enough damage to
>> vaporize foes.
>

> Total agreement with Doug here. His position is not that fighters can't
> have nice things, but that fighters should not have to pay for basic
> stuff instead of nice things.

I sometimes have Tussock's problem of not explaining enough.

To me the problem is that some people want EVERYONE to be able to do
stuff that I'd like to see reserved for fighters. Maybe trip and the
other stuff should be a first level fighter class feature, though I
wonder if that encourages a 1-level dip (I'm not fond of "dips").
Alternatively, maybe fighters get lots of fighter-bonus-feats at the
first couple of levels, though that might encourage 1-level dips, too.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 4/25/12 11:03 AM, Keith Davies wrote:
> Alcore<alc...@uurth.com> wrote:
>> Xena is why we need feats.
>>
>> Xena was a 20th level (or better) fighter. She *could* do everything.
>> She had all sorts of tricks that went beyond simple combat that made
>> her extra dangerous.
>
> Was she really 20th level or higher? How do you reckon?
>
> I generally place Conan and Aragorn around fifth level, maybe, so how
> does she rate so high?

Apparently different evaluations of level. Of course, we follow Conan
from First through Epic levels so exactly what part of his career you're
in will determine his level.

Xena was EPIC level. And a demigod.




--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[DougL]

On Apr 25, 11:13 am, David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca> wrote:
> On 25/04/2012 11:08 AM, Keith Davies wrote:
>

> > DougL<lampert.d...@gmail.com>  wrote:

Every fighter should be able to do it, every ranger should be able to
do it, every NPC warrior should be able to do it.

Rogues? Let's not be absurd, these are the sorts of tricks a
prototypical Rogue should excel at, they get it too.
Monks? Even worse than rogues, monks should clearly be good at
manuevers.

Give it to every full BAB class right alongside the weapon and armor
proficiencies, then give it to every other non-primary caster class
right alongside its armor and weapon proficiencies. Because those
classes should ALL be at a usable level of proficiency at ALL the
basic combat manuevers.

At this point, your "let's not give it to everyone" is denying the
ability to full casters only. And none of them are going to dip a non-
caster class in a 3.x style system just to get a bunch of manuevers,
melee clerics may consider it, but they're the only ones, and they'll
be worse off to do it.

I don't see the problem with handing this out like candy to the non-
casters, exactly WHICH non-caster class do you think can't make a trip
work as a good move in combat at least occassionally?

I actually don't see any real problem with giving it to all the full
casters too (aka everyone), having the effects of the improved
whatever melee move for free won't significantly help the power of a
full caster who's playing as a caster, and what's the point of denying
this to a melee cleric, who is after all a divinely powered, carefully
trained, champion of his diety?

But giving it to all the martial characters at level 1 and letting the
caster's "suffer" under the lack is also fine if you insist that it's
somehow not "realistic" for a wizard to know how to trip without
spending a feat.

But do not, under any circumstance, charge martial characters feats
for basic martial competence unless you're ALSO going to charge a feat
for every single individual spell a caster learns (and organize all
those spells in trees starting at level 0 where they have to get the
lower ones first).

DougL

[David Lamb]

On 25/04/2012 12:24 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> Xena was EPIC level. And a demigod.

Weren't they ambiguous about whether Ares was her father?

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

The one episode she had to actually argue it as being true, those who
were doing the judgment took it as proven, even though Ares admitted to
nothing. And the Furies were not given to light judgment or to letting
people off the hook unless they were SURE.

So I'd say it's a pretty strong bet. Other circumstantial evidence
gives us a couple other candidates -- who are also gods! There is of
course still a chance she's pure mortal, but examining the evidence in
detail makes that... doubtful.

[Alcore]

On Wednesday, April 25, 2012 12:40:46 PM UTC-5, DougL wrote:
> On Apr 25, 11:13 am, David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca> wrote:

[snip]

> > To me the problem is that some people want EVERYONE to be able to do

> > stuff that I'd like to see reserved for fighters. [...]
[snip]

> At this point, your "let's not give it to everyone" is denying the
> ability to full casters only. And none of them are going to dip a non-

[snip]

> I actually don't see any real problem with giving it to all the full
> casters too (aka everyone), having the effects of the improved
> whatever melee move for free won't significantly help the power of a
> full caster who's playing as a caster, and what's the point of denying
> this to a melee cleric, who is after all a divinely powered, carefully
> trained, champion of his diety?

[snip]

I rather like the way Fighters get extra feats that must come from a more restricted list of martial feats. If you allow feat chains to stack to any significant depth, and you give the fighters enough of these, then they will have almost all the tricks... and other classes will not, except to the extent that they focus more narrowly on a specific more limited set of tricks.

So the high level Rogue MAY be able to do almost anything the figher could, but won't be able to do it all. The Wizard will still find all of the martial stuff baffling and hard, and will therefore focus on frying things at a safe distance.

The fuzzy ground is other classes... and some degree of class abilities and their own lists (less extensive and less often granted) of bonus feats solves this.

Yes, it means players have to spend time building out their high level characters. But it provides a customization that is otherwise just completely lacking.

I *LIKE* the fact that there are material differences between how fighter "A" and fighter "B" choose to fight. And when I look closely at the mechanics of 3.x D20 style games, this is manifested by their feat choices.

> But do not, under any circumstance, charge martial characters feats
> for basic martial competence unless you're ALSO going to charge a feat
> for every single individual spell a caster learns (and organize all
> those spells in trees starting at level 0 where they have to get the
> lower ones first).

Wizard hate much? But frankly I do agree with you to some degree. Wizards are way over-advantaged at high levels in 3.x.

The alternative is 4.0 where every class is blandly the same as all others in the same role, and there is no meaningful or mechanical customizable difference between two different characters in the same role. Bolt on all the fluff text you want, but you'll still have exactly the same set of power slots that do roughly the same sort of thing no matter what the specifics are.

I like that a high-level 3.5 Fighter can do amazing stuff in combat that others have trouble mastering unless they are narrowly focused, and that even then, until you get to epic levels, there are meaningful style choices to make.

[DougL]

On Apr 25, 2:59 pm, Alcore <alc...@uurth.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, April 25, 2012 12:40:46 PM UTC-5, DougL wrote:

> > But do not, under any circumstance, charge martial characters feats
> > for basic martial competence unless you're ALSO going to charge a feat
> > for every single individual spell a caster learns (and organize all
> > those spells in trees starting at level 0 where they have to get the
> > lower ones first).
>
> Wizard hate much?  But frankly I do agree with you to some degree.  Wizards are way over-advantaged at high levels in 3.x.

It's the obvious parallel. Wizardry and magic are supposed to be HARD
to learn. Much harder than martial.

So why does a wizard get two spells for free per level and the ability
to learn more for modest amounts of gold while a fighter gets one feat
for every 2 levels and is expected to spend those feats for basic
competency in his core area.

Spellcasting is a wizard's core area, it is GOOD that the system makes
them competent at this without spending feats.

Martial manuevers are part of a fighter's core area, it is BAD that
the system requires them to spend feats to be good at this.

Every class should be good at its core competency without feats.

> The alternative is 4.0 where every class is blandly the same as all others in the same role, and there is no meaningful or mechanical customizable difference between two different characters in the same role.  Bolt on all the fluff text you want, but you'll still have exactly the same set of power slots that do roughly the same sort of thing no matter what the specifics are.
>
> I like that a high-level 3.5 Fighter can do amazing stuff in combat that others have trouble mastering unless they are narrowly focused, and that even then, until you get to epic levels, there are meaningful style choices to make.

That's fine. BUT WHAT PART OF TRIP looks like amazing stuff that
others have trouble mastering unless they are narrowly focused?

At what point does trip or grapple or bull's rush look like amazing
stuff that needs near epic power and matches well with high level
spells?

Grapple or trip or bull's rush should all be core competency. Grapple
the troll, tear his arm off, and beat him to death with it, that can
need a high level feat, but just establishing a grapple? No way.

Tripping the god of ballance so hard that he falls and is knocked out
cold when he hits, THAT'S epic! Tripping someone with an attack where
you maybe get a "free attack" to make up for it and maybe lose your
weapon or get tripped yourself if your opponent is better than you.
That anyone with martial training can do.

Bull's rushing someone so hard that they smash through thick stone
pillars and collapse the roof after taking 100s of damage from
smashing the wall, that's a high level manuver. Bull's rushing someone
so they move back 5', yawn. First level fighter core competency.

One of the CRIPPLING problems the fighter types face in D&D is that
these core functions are feats, and that those feats are the
BENCHMARKS for a reasonable martial feat. A reasonable martial feat is
thus pretty well DEFINED as "you can do X at a minimal level
appropriate level".

Crap. A reasonable martial feat should be "you can do something at
noticably BETTER than a reasonable minimal benchmark appropriate
level."

Otherwise melee is forever screwed. Fighter feats suck BECAUSE the
designers said, "well they get lots of feats, lets just make the core
competencies feats, they can afford it." NO, core competency needs to
be a class feature, not an option where you can't afford to really
cover all the bases.

Give everyone a reasonable core ability to trip, and then you can
think about feats to improve trip.

DougL

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org> is inscribed:

>Alcore <alc...@uurth.com> wrote:
>> Xena is why we need feats.
>>
>> Xena was a 20th level (or better) fighter. She *could* do everything.
>> She had all sorts of tricks that went beyond simple combat that made
>> her extra dangerous.
>
>Was she really 20th level or higher? How do you reckon?
>
>I generally place Conan and Aragorn around fifth level, maybe, so how
>does she rate so high?

You're just channeling Justin Alexander. People keep repeating that
post of his as though it were a) relevant outside the Real Earth
(which is not where most of us play D&D, nor where Xena was set) and
b) correct even then. He takes most of his basis for 5th level from
the assumption that a 5th level focussed character with good stats can
do something with skill X. But as skills don't scale well (see this
thread, qv) it doesn't really hang together.

Given that Conan could, at any time from about age 18 to age 40, beat
up an unending list of NPCs without being killed while all those
around were dropping ike flies, 5th level doesn't cut it. Heck, 5th
level doesn't even get iterative attacks. Or (unless a pure fighter
which he wasn't) enough feats to qualify for WWA. And given that Conan
clearly had that, and TWF, and Mounted Combat, and Mounted Archery,
and Iron Will, and a fuckload of other feats, he wasn't 5th level.

A similar argument could apply to Aragorn. 6th level minimum for
Leadership. Cure Disease at 5th if he's a pure paladin, but IIRC he
does seem to track too.

But even that argument is fatuous because Conan and Aragorn weren't
doing D&D.

[tussock]

David Lamb wrote:

> http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.ca/2011/11/on-skill-deconstruction-why-

roll-for.html
>
> Briefly,
> - The task has to be done under time constraints
> - You're in conflict with some other game entity
> - There is a serious consequence to failure
> - You can't model it just by players describing what they do (eg. say
> where you're searching instead of rolling a search check)
> - Does success model an interesting partial result (you'll have to read
> what he said; I can't summarize it any better than he did).
>
> Food for thought.

I think that's how d20 works anyway. Take-20 with no time pressure and
take-10 without conflict mean those normally never fail. If we don't care
about the result, it's not being played out anyway. If the players hide
behind something solid or in total darkness, there is no hide checks; if
they look for the clue where the clue is sitting, they just find it.

Partial results are just saying that you don't win the whole game with
one die check, you just move on to the next problem.

> Along the way he (a) found fault with D20 vs bell curve

The difference in odds between 3d6 and 1d10+5 is less than 5% for any
result: the probabilities are basically identical. People who like bell
curves just can't do math.

> and (b) expressed that many things ought to involve player skill
> instead of character skill, which I imagine some people will object to
> on the basis of playing "in character".

Meh. If the player describes succeeding in an obvious way, like with a
crowbar, ladder, or socially accepted bribe, skills just get in the way. If
the player describes an obvious failure, skills can act as a "no I didn't"
save device. +4 to Cha saves vs social calamity or something.

Then I can arbitrarily throw you in the succeed or fail bin as needed,
using a d6 if I'm not sure. Many hands make light work, and too many cooks
spoil the broth.


They can also be used to hang a magic system off, knacks for doing the
impossible some number of times a day, but those usually work better if Han
does just navigate the asteroids without making 20 saves vs instant death.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Keith Davies wrote:

> tussock wrote:

>> There's a good series of articles somewhere (not that I can find it)
>

> You're probably looking for a series of posts at Hack & Slash.

Yes, thanks, I had a hunt 'round your sight for the link I'd followed
back in the day, but couldn't grep it.

--
tussock

[tussock]

David Lamb wrote:
> tussock wrote:

>> Maybe if all the feats came with a default use, for all the
>> characters who don't have them.
>
> What do you have in mind? At first glance this seemed to me to mean
> making feats even less powerful than they are now, if everybody gets
> half of each of them. Whatever one might choose to mean by "half", which
> isn't obvious to me.

I suppose some examples are in order. Worky work work.

Trip: normal. You attack, vs higher of DC 16 or opponent's counter. The
larger creature gains +5 to the total per size category difference. Flat-
footed or grabbed targets cannot counter. (counters are an AoO or other
relevant maneuvers, or a save to negate, by opponent choice)
The feat would cause moving targets to be considered flat-footed for the
trip check (because that's where we /want/ it used).

Whirlwind: normal. If you have two or more melee attacks from any
source, you can cycle through any two of them repeatedly as long as you
strike only once at each opponent in reach using normal attacks. You may not
move for the entire round, other than an initial adjustment.
The feat would allow you to repeat just your best attack.

Spring: normal. You strike mid-move (vs opponent's AC or their counter),
also used for overruns, rushing, and so on with maneuvers like trip or
carry.
The feat would allow you to prevent one counter. Another feat to use any
multiple attack routine, at one strike per target as they first come in
reach.


Make magic items is normal at various reduced caster level. The feats
remove those penalties. Metamagic is normal, doesn't need feats, but could
be the free 3/day types. Skill focus can go away, skill trick feats may be
in order.

> But I'm one of those dudes who thinks Grapple ought to require a feat.

Grapple: normal. You attack with an appropriate weapon (like unarmed),
vs higher of DC 16 or opponent's counter. Larger @+5 etc. Success grabs the
target, making them flat-footed against all others on the field. You must
attack at -10 to avoid being grabbed in return if your target frees a hand
(or similar). You break such grabs by forcing your opponent to check this
again, using your desired counters. Grabbed is basically -5 to everything.

The feat (or grab/constrict power) would mean you only suffer -5 to
avoid the return, and deal damage with every successful grapple attack.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Jim Davies wrote:

> Keith Davies wrote:
>> Alcore <alc...@uurth.com> wrote:
>>> Xena is why we need feats.
>>>
>>> Xena was a 20th level (or better) fighter. She *could* do everything.
>>> She had all sorts of tricks that went beyond simple combat that made
>>> her extra dangerous.
>>
>> Was she really 20th level or higher? How do you reckon?
>>
>> I generally place Conan and Aragorn around fifth level, maybe, so how
>> does she rate so high?
>
> You're just channeling Justin Alexander.

He's just understanding D&D.

> People keep repeating that post of his as though it were a) relevant
> outside the Real Earth (which is not where most of us play D&D,

I play D&D in the Real Earth. Same place I play chess, ride a bike.

> nor where Xena was set) and b) correct even then. He takes most of his
> basis for 5th level from the assumption that a 5th level focussed
> character with good stats can do something with skill X. But as skills
> don't scale well (see this thread, qv) it doesn't really hang together.

'S not just the skills, but also fundamentally amazing stuff like
magical flight, personal transformation, napalm,

> Given that Conan could, at any time from about age 18 to age 40, beat
> up an unending list of NPCs without being killed while all those
> around were dropping ike flies, 5th level doesn't cut it.

Good armour class covers that in D&D, that and always fighting alongside
0-level mooks. 5th level PCs should be good to clean up scores of War1's,
especially with the aid of good cannon fodder.

Also, it's called "Great Cleave" in 3e, and Conan's foes are mostly AC
10 so he can hit them on a 2+ even at 5th. Chop-chop-chop-chop-chop-chop.
Sweep rules in AD&D.
Also, also, it doesn't take feats to ride horses and fire bows. You
crazy. Late edition optimisation paths are different to what you can just do
with any old fighter character.

--
tussock

[Keith Davies]

Yeah, most of the obvious search strings ('skill' being among them) are
not terribly useful in narrowing things down.

[Keith Davies]

Jim Davies <j...@aaargh.NoBleedinSpam.org> wrote:
> On the grave of Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org> is inscribed:
>
>>Alcore <alc...@uurth.com> wrote:
>>> Xena is why we need feats.
>>>
>>> Xena was a 20th level (or better) fighter. She *could* do everything.
>>> She had all sorts of tricks that went beyond simple combat that made
>>> her extra dangerous.
>>
>>Was she really 20th level or higher? How do you reckon?
>>
>>I generally place Conan and Aragorn around fifth level, maybe, so how
>>does she rate so high?
>
> You're just channeling Justin Alexander. People keep repeating that
> post of his as though it were a) relevant outside the Real Earth
> (which is not where most of us play D&D, nor where Xena was set) and
> b) correct even then. He takes most of his basis for 5th level from
> the assumption that a 5th level focussed character with good stats can
> do something with skill X. But as skills don't scale well (see this
> thread, qv) it doesn't really hang together.

Given that you can't really measure other elements (such as spells),
sure.

However, consider the threats the characters should be facing at the
various levels and Justin's divisions work fairly well. I use divisions
at different points because they align better with spells, the actual
power curve in D&D 3.x, but overall his analysis is pretty accurate.

> Given that Conan could, at any time from about age 18 to age 40, beat
> up an unending list of NPCs without being killed while all those
> around were dropping ike flies, 5th level doesn't cut it. Heck, 5th
> level doesn't even get iterative attacks. Or (unless a pure fighter
> which he wasn't) enough feats to qualify for WWA. And given that Conan
> clearly had that, and TWF, and Mounted Combat, and Mounted Archery,
> and Iron Will, and a fuckload of other feats, he wasn't 5th level.

Overapplication of D&D rules to fiction is also a trap.

Most of what he does can be done without feats, if not as well. You can
fight from horseback (including archery), or with two weapons, at any
level and without any feats.

It is evident he had remarkable ability scores. High Strength (makes up
for a slew of penalties, and adds damage), high Dex (stealthy movement,
speed), high Constitution (incredible toughness, including high hit
points and Fortitude saves), high Intelligence (shitload of skill points
for his level, broad if incomplete knowledge of languages and
miscellaneous lore), high Wisdom (scary degree of perception,
observation, and raw stubborn willpower), high Charisma (able to raise
followers as needed, trusted by those who accept, if not adopt, his code
of (barbarian) honor... also, women. Lots and lots of women).

Howard pictured Conan as a relative superman, just flat _better_ than
modern man. He is not necessarily really high level -- what does he do
that warrants the awesome that should be seen there? -- but certainly
has high ability scores... high enough to make him passingly good at
pretty much whatever he does.

Throw in armor (which he _did_ use when it was available) and a
willingness to go straight to violence, viciously, and big weapons that
hit really hard... I'm prepared to believe he was only middling-low
level in D&D terms.

Much more easily than him being really high level.

> A similar argument could apply to Aragorn. 6th level minimum for
> Leadership. Cure Disease at 5th if he's a pure paladin, but IIRC he
> does seem to track too.

Who says he has Leadership? Cure disease? That could be just knowing
and being able to apply the nature of the herbs in question.

This is one of the things that annoys me about how D&D 3.x is structured
(and might be worth an addendum to my Failures of D&D posts), that the
over-reliance on feats and whatnot leads to thoughts that things cannot
be done without them.

Aragorn does not necessarily need the Leadership feat. People follow
him because he is the king (DM fiat); as far as I can tell he doesn't
have a cohort. He can /cure disease/ with a touch, some number of times
per week? When does he do this that doesn't involve the use of the
special herbs? As with Conan, what does he actually _do_ that requires
a high-level character?

[Keith Davies]

tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz> wrote:
> Jim Davies wrote:
>

>> Given that Conan could, at any time from about age 18 to age 40, beat
>> up an unending list of NPCs without being killed while all those
>> around were dropping ike flies, 5th level doesn't cut it.
>
> Good armour class covers that in D&D, that and always fighting alongside
> 0-level mooks. 5th level PCs should be good to clean up scores of War1's,
> especially with the aid of good cannon fodder.

Also, when Conan goes on a slaughterfest it's usually against
_civilized_ people. Weaklings, in other words.

Remember that Howard felt that barbarism was the natural state of true
men, and that savages were just plain _better_.

[DougL]

On May 1, 2:05 pm, Keith Davies <keith.dav...@kjdavies.org> wrote:

> Aragorn does not necessarily need the Leadership feat.  People follow
> him because he is the king (DM fiat); as far as I can tell he doesn't
> have a cohort.  He can /cure disease/ with a touch, some number of times
> per week?  When does he do this that doesn't involve the use of the
> special herbs?  As with Conan, what does he actually _do_ that requires
> a high-level character?

Leadership I definitely agree on. Aragorn shows no sign at all of
leadership and thinking he does is the sort of "everything the
character does must be a feat" thinking that many fall into. Who's his
cohort? And if I count correctly he clearly needs a raw leadership
score of 21+ to have as many followers as show up in Rohan, and he
needs his leadership score to be FAR FAR higher than that to have that
many followers who aren't just level 1 warriors.

The followers you get from leadership simply aren't useful, he's
getting his followers because he's their hereditary ruler.

But I suspect that his time in the Houses of Healing in Gondor
qualifies as magical healing. The herbwife there is familiar with the
plant he uses and dismisses it as a peasant remedy for headaches. It's
not till Aragorn uses it that it shows any real power, and note that
Gandolf, while supporting Aragorn's request for the herb, lets Aragorn
administer it rather than passing it out to multiple people and taking
a load off the already exhausted Aragorn.

In fact, if just anyone could have done it, or even just any skilled
healer, then it makes no sense for Aragorn to have entered the city,
he was trying to deliberately stay out of the city wall to avoid a
leadership crisis, he's got two half-elves and 50 other northern
rangers and a slew of locals there, and yet he personally has to go
into the city to administer the drugs. Sounds like "The hands of the
king are the hands of a healer" means more than just an herb.

Of course this is AFTER Moria, the entire Rohan campaign, the paths of
the dead, and two major battles (one to take the fleet and the other
at the Pelanor Fields). He may have leveled a time or two in all that.

DougL

[Keith Davies]

DougL <lamper...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 1, 2:05?pm, Keith Davies <keith.dav...@kjdavies.org> wrote:
>
>> Aragorn does not necessarily need the Leadership feat. ?People follow

>> him because he is the king (DM fiat); as far as I can tell he doesn't

>> have a cohort. ?He can /cure disease/ with a touch, some number of times
>> per week? ?When does he do this that doesn't involve the use of the
>> special herbs? ?As with Conan, what does he actually _do_ that requires

And at that, there is the assumption that the Ranger is actually a
paladin (or a cleric with the right spells).

"The hands of the king are the hands of a healer" is a trope that goes
back to medieval times, where touching the hem of the king's robe was
thought to be able to help cure diseases.

I wouldn't put a lot of weight on this being a class ability, it smells
like DM fiat.

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org> is inscribed:

>I wouldn't put a lot of weight on this being a class ability, it smells
>like DM fiat.

The basic argument against Conan, Aragorn and so on being high level
is that they have godlike stats, gestalt classes, incredible luck with
the dice and DM fiat. If you're going down that road, you're not
freally playing RAW D&D. And they can be 1st level commoners.

[Ken Arromdee]

In article <slrnjq0cvb.cg...@kjdavies.org>,

Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org> wrote:
>> Given that Conan could, at any time from about age 18 to age 40, beat
>> up an unending list of NPCs without being killed while all those
>> around were dropping ike flies, 5th level doesn't cut it. Heck, 5th
>> level doesn't even get iterative attacks. Or (unless a pure fighter
>> which he wasn't) enough feats to qualify for WWA. And given that Conan
>> clearly had that, and TWF, and Mounted Combat, and Mounted Archery,
>> and Iron Will, and a fuckload of other feats, he wasn't 5th level.
>Overapplication of D&D rules to fiction is also a trap.
>
>Most of what he does can be done without feats, if not as well.

If he does it without feats, the other 5th level characters who have both
good stats and feats will end up being much better than him. In order to
make him as good as those other characters based on stats only, you still
need to raise his level above 5.

You also end up asking yourself "if he was 5th level at age 18, how come
he didn't go up any levels by the time he was 40?"

And if you're going to use this reasoning, it doesn't seem like there's any
reason a character from fiction ever has to be higher than level 5.
You just have to say that anything they did in the fiction either is based
on stats, or is a special ability they had at a lower level than is necessary
for someone using a standard D&D character class. You pointed out that
Aragorn doesn't have a cohort. If he had had a cohort, would you have raised
his level, or just said "obviously he got a cohort by GM fiat"?

Is Lina Inverse a 20th level character? She can throw a city-destroying
spell more than once a day.
--
Ken Arromdee / arromdee_AT_rahul.net / http://www.rahul.net/arromdee

Obi-wan Kenobi: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."
Yoda: "Do or do not. There is no 'try'."

[Keith Davies]

Ken Arromdee <arro...@rahul.net> wrote:
> In article <slrnjq0cvb.cg...@kjdavies.org>,
> Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org> wrote:
>>> Given that Conan could, at any time from about age 18 to age 40, beat
>>> up an unending list of NPCs without being killed while all those
>>> around were dropping ike flies, 5th level doesn't cut it. Heck, 5th
>>> level doesn't even get iterative attacks. Or (unless a pure fighter
>>> which he wasn't) enough feats to qualify for WWA. And given that Conan
>>> clearly had that, and TWF, and Mounted Combat, and Mounted Archery,
>>> and Iron Will, and a fuckload of other feats, he wasn't 5th level.
>>Overapplication of D&D rules to fiction is also a trap.
>>
>>Most of what he does can be done without feats, if not as well.
>
> If he does it without feats, the other 5th level characters who have both
> good stats and feats will end up being much better than him. In order to
> make him as good as those other characters based on stats only, you still
> need to raise his level above 5.

That's kind of the point of Conan, though -- there are damn few who are
as good as, let alone better. He's probably among the highest level
characters in most of the stories, but given high native ability (high
ability scores) he doesn't need feats to stay ahead of most of them.

*What* does he do that requires high level? What power does he exhibit
that is consistent with high-level characters? What adventure does he
go on that could only be done by a high-level character rather than one
who just has high ability scores.

> You also end up asking yourself "if he was 5th level at age 18, how come
> he didn't go up any levels by the time he was 40?"

Who says he was fifth level at 18 years old?

> And if you're going to use this reasoning, it doesn't seem like
> there's any reason a character from fiction ever has to be higher than
> level 5. You just have to say that anything they did in the fiction
> either is based on stats, or is a special ability they had at a lower
> level than is necessary for someone using a standard D&D character
> class. You pointed out that Aragorn doesn't have a cohort. If he had
> had a cohort, would you have raised his level, or just said "obviously
> he got a cohort by GM fiat"?

The difference between fifth and sixth level in D&D terms isn't terribly
profound. I'd probably adjust it if it made sense.

What does Aragorn do that requires high level? The /cure disease/
argument has _some_ merit, I suppose, but even then he's doing it rather
more than once a week -- even as a paladin it's not doable. As a cleric
maybe, but what power does he exhibit where that makes sense? Maybe as
a druid, but again, what power does he exhibit where that makes sense?

As far as I can tell there _is_ no class that correctly represents
Aragorn as presented in the books. He necessarily involves DM (author)
fiat.

> Is Lina Inverse a 20th level character? She can throw a city-destroying
> spell more than once a day.

She may be, yes. She exhibits power consistent with high-level
characters in D&D.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

How high? He wrestles gorilla-things and kills demons and small gods.
He survives fighting untold numbers of opponents -- enough that if he
was a mere 5th level he'd have long since gotten enough hits to kill him
just through crits alone.

Really, anyone arguing Conan was 5th level (at least once he got out of
his teens) is just for some reason heavily against high level characters.

>> Is Lina Inverse a 20th level character? She can throw a city-destroying
>> spell more than once a day.
>
> She may be, yes.

There is no "MAY" about it.

> She exhibits power consistent with high-level
> characters in D&D.

She exhibits powers consistent with GODS in D&D. She can wipe cities
off the map and potentially unmake reality, she KILLS gods with a single
shot.

[Paul Colquhoun]

Aragorn didn't have a cohort!? He was the leader of the Rangers of the
North. Just because his cohort weren't with him doesn't mean they
didn't exist.

| Is Lina Inverse a 20th level character? She can throw a city-destroying
| spell more than once a day.

--

Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro

[Paul Colquhoun]

On 02 May 2012 16:30:43 GMT, Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org> wrote:

| What does Aragorn do that requires high level? The /cure disease/
| argument has _some_ merit, I suppose, but even then he's doing it rather
| more than once a week -- even as a paladin it's not doable. As a cleric
| maybe, but what power does he exhibit where that makes sense? Maybe as
| a druid, but again, what power does he exhibit where that makes sense?
|
| As far as I can tell there _is_ no class that correctly represents
| Aragorn as presented in the books. He necessarily involves DM (author)
| fiat.

Some of it could best be modeled as racial abilities. Aragorn is a
(distant) descendant of both Elves and a Maia, and the healing is linked
to that descent (the hands of the King, etc) as that was also the
qualifications for being King.

Elrond is also shown as having special healing abilities, and he is part
of the same family, a very distant uncle.

[David Lamb]

On 03/05/2012 4:54 AM, Paul Colquhoun wrote:
> On 02 May 2012 16:30:43 GMT, Keith Davies<keith....@kjdavies.org> wrote:
> | As far as I can tell there _is_ no class that correctly represents
> | Aragorn as presented in the books. He necessarily involves DM (author)
> | fiat.
>
> Some of it could best be modeled as racial abilities. Aragorn is a
> (distant) descendant of both Elves and a Maia, and the healing is linked
> to that descent (the hands of the King, etc) as that was also the
> qualifications for being King.

Makes sense, since his longevity arises from his ancestry, too.
Nevertheless I think Keith is basically right, that standard classes
don't really correspond well to heroes like Aragorn or Conan.

[DougL]

On May 3, 3:45 am, Paul Colquhoun <newspos...@andor.dropbear.id.au>
wrote:
> On Wed, 2 May 2012 14:44:23 +0000 (UTC), Ken Arromdee <arrom...@rahul.net> wrote:
>
> | In article <slrnjq0cvb.cg.keith.dav...@kjdavies.org>,

If leader of the ranger's of the north is the leadership feat then:
He's got 50+ followers, and no fixed base, that means his leadership
score (raw) is 21+, that means his cohort is exactly 2 levels below
him and PC classed, while the followers are almost all level 1
warriors.

If Aragorn is level 18+ (needed to get that leadership score with
"only" 16 Charisma) then who is is level 16+ cohort? Seriously, he's
calling out all the stops, the rangers show up, which SINGLE other
ranger is about 20 times as effective as ALL the others put togather
without working up a sweat.

Heck, if armies of followers are signs of leadership then at one point
Conan has an army of 20,000 or so.

That's achievable with an Epic leadership score of 197 or more, and
not a moment sooner.

Good luck with that claim that ANY KING with an noticable army is
level 200+.

No, even in D&D land people can follow you without leadership, the
defining characteristic of leadership is the cohort, not the followers/
hirelings. Who is the cohort is a fine way to show someone doesn't
have leadership. The burden of proof is on the people claiming a
fictional character HAS a feat, not to prove he doesn't, he could be a
multiclass level 200 wizard who just never casts spells, but I find it
unlikely, the existence of people who work for you does not a feat
make, not in D&D and not in fiction and certainly not in trying to
make a conversion.

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca> is inscribed:

Aragorn doesn't fit the mould particularly well (a sort of
ranger/paladin hybrid), but Conan is a good fit for a 3.5/PF barbarian
with a couple of levels of rogue. Lots of hp, uncanny dodge, climb,
steath, perception, evasion, rage, trap sense, DR. This works OK
because he's strictly mundane with no hint of Su of Sp abilities which
are always rather specific.

But even if you have to create a Dunedain race or class, Aragorn can't
be modelled as a 5th level character if said race/class is remotely
balanced. I've just finished re-watching the complete boxed DVD set of
LotR, and whilst it's obviously not faithful to the books, it does
emphasise the point that he fights several major battles against
thousands of opponents who are not all mooks. In little or no armour.
And doesn't die. He takes on 5 Nazgul single-handed soon after he
first appears.

And what level is the film version of Legolas? Taking the mumakil down
like that is Not Possible below 10th level. An Advanced Dire Elephant
with crew is going to be CR10 or more.

[tussock]

Keith Davies wrote:

> I wouldn't put a lot of weight on this being a class ability, it smells
> like DM fiat.

Schwa? Of course it reads like it's arbitrary, it's in a book written
long before such things as "class abilities" existed. In a class-based game
like D&D, where the Ranger is *modeled after Aragorn* (at least for 1st
edition), the things he does are Ranger class abilities, including his
ability to use the Silmarils as a 10th+ level Ranger-Lord, and Cure Wounds
with druidic herbs at 12th level.

By 3e he'd have to be a Cleric or something, and could be much lower
level and get all the same stuff done. There's not a lot of Aragorn left in
the 3e Ranger, and characters over 10th are vastly more powerful.

--
tussock

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of DougL <lamper...@gmail.com> is inscribed:

>No, even in D&D land people can follow you without leadership, the
>defining characteristic of leadership is the cohort, not the followers/
>hirelings. Who is the cohort is a fine way to show someone doesn't
>have leadership.

That's a fair criticism of that one point. Does Frodo have a cohort?
Or is this another DM fiat point, in that Sam is a PC? I expect I
could dig up a good half-dozen characters from other books who have
sidekicks, but they wouldn't necessarily be 6th level.

The point of this is not really that someone _is_ an nth level
character of class X, but that they're fairly well balanced against
such assuming comparable stats.

[Ken Arromdee]

In article <slrnjq2o9h.ef...@kjdavies.org>,

Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org> wrote:
>*What* does he do that requires high level? What power does he exhibit
>that is consistent with high-level characters? What adventure does he
>go on that could only be done by a high-level character rather than one
>who just has high ability scores.

Look at it the other way: what adventure would he have to have in order to
convince you that he's a high level character?

A high level character would have a lot of feats and skills and such, would
hit monsters easily, and would have a lot of hit points.

Since THAC0 and hit points are not visible in fiction, and since you can
explain away any apparent feats or high-level skills as based on raw ability,
what is there left that the character could possibly do that would prove that
he is high level?

(Even fighting gods wouldn't help--Conan has fought gods, after all. Xena
has fought gods. Maybe the gods are level 5 as well.)

>> Is Lina Inverse a 20th level character? She can throw a city-destroying
>> spell more than once a day.
>She may be, yes. She exhibits power consistent with high-level
>characters in D&D.

Why? Because she fights gods? That didn't prove it for Conan or Xena.
Because she routinely casts high level spells? She routinely casts *a*
high level spell (and the spell's effects in the anime are exaggerated from
the novels, where it's more of a building sized spell). And she doesn't
cast dozens of spells per day, either.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 5/3/12 4:22 PM, Jim Davies wrote:
> On the grave of DougL<lamper...@gmail.com> is inscribed:
>
>> No, even in D&D land people can follow you without leadership, the
>> defining characteristic of leadership is the cohort, not the followers/
>> hirelings. Who is the cohort is a fine way to show someone doesn't
>> have leadership.
>
> That's a fair criticism of that one point. Does Frodo have a cohort?
> Or is this another DM fiat point, in that Sam is a PC? I expect I
> could dig up a good half-dozen characters from other books who have
> sidekicks, but they wouldn't necessarily be 6th level.
>
> The point of this is not really that someone _is_ an nth level
> character of class X, but that they're fairly well balanced against
> such assuming comparable stats.

Debating based on D&D's (any edition) clumsy mechanics and trying to
compare them with some specific feats, etc.? Silly.

The argument here is very simple: Aragorn's involved in the most
important war on the planet. He's one of the central figures. He gets
involved in multiple battles. Never does he encounter another humanoid
(as opposed to monster) that can truly stand before him. Even the Nazgul
-- right-hand servants of a known demigod, who are legendarily feared
across the land -- are not a match for him in combat, though they have
powers which would eventually beat him.

Similarly, Conan carves a bloody path across the entirety of the known
world in the Hyborian age. Even when young he rarely meets people close
to his equal, and in his prime there is no ordinary human being, even
leaders and generals, who can long stand against him. He kills monsters
of every description, goes up against demigods, demons, etc., and beats
them. He is described as terrifying in combat, he is virtually
untouchable by even MOBS of armed, trained men.He defeats wizards who
can call forth monsters and who have powers that potentially will allow
them to conquer large portions of the known world. He is one of, if not
THE, most formidable human beings on the planet.

Calling either of these "low level" (5th or so) by D&D standards
requires that you either go through all sorts of silly mental
contortions, OR that you make the assumption that the world itself --
the WHOLE WORLD -- is level-capped at maybe 6th or 7th. Which you'd have
to also do a lot of contortionist reasoning to justify, given some of
the powers seen in both worlds.

Yeah, they don't fit EXACTLY into the mold of D&D (any flavor) because
D&D wasn't built to emulate any one world.

[Tetsubo]

Aragorn and Conan are great characters. But they are also plot devices.
The authors need them to be *there* at a specific time and do *this*
when they arrive. So they do. There might be some sort of internal
justification for this. And as the authors in question are good, that
justification exists and is entertaining. Trying to figure out how this
was achieved through the lens of game mechanics is entertaining but
ultimately futile. Like saying, 'Who would win a fight, Batman or
Wolverine?'*

*Batman of course. Because, duh, he's *Batman*.

--
Tetsubo
Deviant Art: http://ironstaff.deviantart.com/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/tetsubo57

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Hardly futile if one's going to, say, run a game in Middle-Earth or the
Hyborian Age.

Like saying, 'Who would win a fight, Batman or
> Wolverine?'*
>
> *Batman of course. Because, duh, he's *Batman*.
>

No, the answer is "depends on whose universe. Batman's omnipotence only
applies in the DC-verse".

[David Lamb]

On 03/05/2012 4:16 PM, Jim Davies wrote:
> He takes on 5 Nazgul single-handed soon after he
> first appears.

Which never did make much sense, since in the movie one of them was the
Witch King (I forget whether that detail was in the books).

[Loren Pechtel]

On Tue, 10 Apr 2012 08:59:55 -0400, David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca>
wrote:

>I was refamiliarizing myself with Keith's echelon20.org site, and it
>occurred to me Echelon has a couple of simplifications/improvements that
>are fairly easy to incorporate into 3.5:
>
>1. Ability mods are just ability/2 without the -5, to simplify
>calculations. This pushes ability checks higher but also typically
>pushes (or can push) what they're checking against a bit higher. Thus a
>Spot vs a Hide has +5 wis on one hand vs +5 dex on the other. However,
>to keep things exactly the same you'd need to (a) bump up Dex limits on
>armour by 5 and (b) bump up static DCs by 5 -- or (c) decided you wanted
>to give some people a new advantage by not bumping these 2 things.
>
>There's an effect on AC to think about; maybe bumping base AC from +10
>to +15 is appropriate but we'd need to think through the interaction
>with dex limits on armour.

That sounds like a good idea to me. It shouldn't be too hard to
change it.

>2. Dump skill points entirely. All skills are level/2 plus appropriate
>ability mod, plus skill focus (perhaps with a +4 as Keith is using
>instead of the current +3). IIRC this is pretty much what 4.0 does, but
>even if it doesn't it's a nice simplification.
>
>3. (My comment) Note that we've dumped class/cross class skills cost
>distinction, since we've dumped skill points. I suppose one could take
>"N skill points per level" and turn it into "another small bonus for N
>skills of the current class" which is something you can figure out
>without having to keep track of the character's entire history.
>
>Opinions?

I don't like this one. I have some problems with skills but they
shouldn't be scrapped.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:34:58 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
wrote:

> I suppose some examples are in order. Worky work work.
>
> Trip: normal. You attack, vs higher of DC 16 or opponent's counter. The
>larger creature gains +5 to the total per size category difference. Flat-
>footed or grabbed targets cannot counter. (counters are an AoO or other
>relevant maneuvers, or a save to negate, by opponent choice)
> The feat would cause moving targets to be considered flat-footed for the
>trip check (because that's where we /want/ it used).

How about doing it a bit differently: Moving isn't considered
flat-footed, but rather the speed of the target acts as a modifier on
it's check. The guy just standing there is very hard to trip, you're
not going to do it without a feat. The guy dashing across the
battlefield will be easy to trip even without a feat.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:35:32 -0700 (PDT), Alcore <alc...@uurth.com>
wrote:

>With systems like this there is simply nothing that a high level character isn't really good at compared to an ordinary person. I happen to believe that outside your area(s) of expertise and learning, even high level characters really shouldn't be any better than a commoner at some things.

I definitely agree. The problem comes from the general uselessness of
less than maxed skills and the fact that some skills are cross-class
for some characters besides.

I'm not sure what the right answer is. There are some skills that all
adventurers should develop (anything covered by Pathfinder's
Perception skill) and others that most should develop (stealth).

That doesn't mean they know everything, though. The guys who
routinely use heavy armor aren't going to be using anything dex based
or anything that will take an armor check penalty, they aren't going
to develop it.

Something I have been toying with but I'm certainly not to the point
of trying it yet: Increase the skill points. At level-up you get a
skill point for every point of ability bonus you have but that skill
point can only be spent on a skill based on that ability.

[Loren Pechtel]

On 24 Apr 2012 22:13:44 GMT, Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org>
wrote:

>http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.ca/2012/03/skills-conclusion-with-10-rules.html
>is the conclusion (or at least, last post in the series), and he
>examines skills from a number of games. Primary focus is D&D 3.x, but
>other systems are covered to a certain degree as well. This post has
>links to various posts from the series, and
>http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.ca/2012/02/on-skill-deconstruction-summary.html
>has a very brief summary of how he sees each skill, and a link for each
>to where he breaks that down.

I've got a problem with a lot of it.

>Acrobatics: If you're not dealing with a superhuman range of abilities here, then
>you can just assume they can jump or run it. The real use of conflict here is
>using it to move past an opponent safely. There is ground here for a subsystem
>regarding that, but there is no real need for it to be a check. Taking a hit from a
>monster seems like 'bad trap' territory. Avoiding that hit could just be a simple
>comparison (level vs. hit die)

And why does it need a more complex subsystem than a check? A simple
comparison isn't adequate--it shouldn't go from automatic success to
automatic failure because the bad guy is a little tougher.

Against the weak guy do it freely. Against the intermediate you do it
only if there's a good reason. Against the tough guy you don't do it.

>Appraise: What is gained by *not* knowing how much something is worth.
>Is this worth the time to roll at the table? What is the cost of this conflict?

1) It lets you pick the good loot to take if you can't take it all.
2) Otherwise it's whether you know the value or have to pay someone
to tell you the value.

>Bluff (& Sense Motive): Combat/feat build uses aside, there is certainly
>some room for a 'social conflict' system in D&D, but a simple D20
>comparison check is a really really boring way to handle it!

If it were replaced by a better social conflict system I would be
happy.

>Climb: You can climb it. Unless it's unclimbable, then only the thief has a
>shot. What's the drama here, you roll a d20 and maybe fall to your death?
>Does anyone think making five or ten checks just to see if something bad
>happens is fun? Or maybe during a climbing combat you want to have to
>check to see if you lose your turn or move real slow?

Huh? It's not by any means always a fall-to-your-death situation.
Plenty of climbs involve quite survivable falls. If you're making
checks on unsurvivable falls you have a death wish anyway. Again,
it's safe, risky (checks but short distances) or no way (checks with
long distances.)

>Craft, Perform, and Profession: Secondary skills? Player says what they
>want to make and they can? What is the advantage here of having this
>conflict resolution system.

Bards?? Craft and Profession are only for NPCs.

>Diplomacy: There needs to be a reaction system in place

Again, I have no problem with an improved social conflict system.

>Disguise: Again, what part of play is improved by the constant chance of
>failure. Is it just one die roll for success? Why not let them succeed if they
>use magic or are assassins, and have them fail when they as players
>make mistakes.

I don't follow his reasoning at all here.

>Escape Artist: This is as useful as use rope? Only useful to the extent that
>combat/grappling, etc. may require this. "Can I escape from my bonds"
>needs no skill roll for adventurers. The answer is 'as soon as no one is looking'.

Huh? It comes down to how good the person who tied you up is--and it
works both ways, also--the PCs might be tying up a captive NPC.

>Heal: What drama is there inherent in "I bandage their wounds"

It basically says whether you have the skill to stop bleeding on the
battlefield. Beyond that it's an NPC skill.

>Knowledge skills: Either they know it because of their race or class,
>or they can find it out somewhere.

You can't look it up on the battlefield. I do agree that otherwise
it's simply a question of how much effort it will take to find the
answer.

>Linguistics: The game assumes that these adventurers are already grown
>people. i.e. They know the languages they know. Learning a new language
>should be handled by 'we spend a month among the lizard people and
>learn ophidian, their nefarious reptile tounge.

He's half right here. The idea of a language being a skill point
isn't too sensible. (Consider: I would expect to see a common magic
item amongst traders: Pearl of <Language>. Non-slot, grants one
skill point that is proficiency in a certain language. It's cheap,
cheap, cheap.)

I wouldn't mind linguistics being a measure of how well you learn
languages, though.

>Perception: Ah the overused skill. There does need to be a system for
>surprise. I have eliminated searching for secret doors in my game,
>because each is opened by some object in the environment that they
>can manipulate or discover in some way through play. I still give
>them the chance as a back up if they aren't looking.

He's very wrong here--this means wasting lots of game time on <I pull
this, I push that>. The secret door mechanic is a way of getting
around the need for playing it out and for really high DC doors you're
simply not going to find the mechanism by trial and error.

>Ride: How much time do your characters spend mounted? How often
>does this come up, unless it's a specific factor in the tactical combat
>game of modern editions?

This is very campaign specific.

>Spellcraft: Why can you not do everything this does with caster level?

And so a non-caster can't learn to recognize magic? I'm also not sure
that all casters are going to spend the points on learning to figure
out other magic.

>Survival: Characters are adventurers, how often do you make them
>roll this to survive. Do you need a general skill for those characters
>that can track?

I do pretty much agree. Casters soon render survival checks pretty
unimportant.

>Swim: How are we advantaged over A) you can swim or B) you can't swim

The real question is *WHERE* can you swim.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:05:20 -0400, David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca>
wrote:

>Food for thought. Along the way he (a) found fault with D20 vs bell
>curve and (b) expressed that many things ought to involve player skill
>instead of character skill, which I imagine some people will object to
>on the basis of playing "in character".

I do agree with the curve of d20. There is simply too much randomness
in the results--I have acutally wondered if the game would be better
off with becoming d10 instead.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2012 02:43:18 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
wrote:

>> Along the way he (a) found fault with D20 vs bell curve
>

> The difference in odds between 3d6 and 1d10+5 is less than 5% for any
>result: the probabilities are basically identical. People who like bell
>curves just can't do math.

Huh? You're looking at the overall odds at the tails rather than the
relative odds.

3d6 means a 1 in 216 chance of being on the tail. d10+5 means a 1 in
10 chance.

>> and (b) expressed that many things ought to involve player skill
>> instead of character skill, which I imagine some people will object to
>> on the basis of playing "in character".
>

> Meh. If the player describes succeeding in an obvious way, like with a
>crowbar, ladder, or socially accepted bribe, skills just get in the way. If
>the player describes an obvious failure, skills can act as a "no I didn't"
>save device. +4 to Cha saves vs social calamity or something.

Agreed. Making you roll when you've described success makes no sense.

[Tetsubo]

Those would be characters with the same names, they would not be the
characters from the fiction. They would be altered as they pass through
the lens of the game mechanics. You can't reproduce the same character
from fiction in a playable form. Unless the GM just reads his novel to
his players.

>
> Like saying, 'Who would win a fight, Batman or
>> Wolverine?'*
>>
>> *Batman of course. Because, duh, he's *Batman*.
>>
>
>
> No, the answer is "depends on whose universe. Batman's omnipotence only
> applies in the DC-verse".

Batman always wins. The universe does not matter.

[David Lamb]

On 03/05/2012 11:07 PM, Loren Pechtel wrote:
> There are some skills that all
> adventurers should develop (anything covered by Pathfinder's
> Perception skill) and others that most should develop (stealth).
>
> That doesn't mean they know everything, though.

There's an intermediate position: apply Echelon's rule (+1/2 level to
everything) to only a subset of skills - the "Adventuring skills" that
the game designer, the DM, or the play group decide are things everyone
who adventures would pick up a little bit of as they went along, just
from adventuring. You've listed Perception; what others do you think are
appropriate? For example, maybe if you travel enough (which is common)
everybody ought to pick up a little Knowledge(Geography). Explore enough
ruins and pick up a little Knowledge(architecture).

> The guys who
> routinely use heavy armor aren't going to be using anything dex based
> or anything that will take an armor check penalty, they aren't going
> to develop it.

Personally I'd reduce the ACP for full-BAB classes as they gain levels
-- perhaps -1 or -2 per tier (4 levels). When somebody is throwing
around Disintegrate, why can't their same-level fighter comrade run
along a bannister in full plate?

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

You are making differences just to make differences here. The same
principle applies to reading. Your reading of Conan passes through the
lens of your mental map and experiences. By your standard, there is no
point in discussing anything, because the filters and thus experience
are different for everyone on every point.

>>
>> Like saying, 'Who would win a fight, Batman or
>>> Wolverine?'*
>>>
>>> *Batman of course. Because, duh, he's *Batman*.
>>>
>>
>>
>> No, the answer is "depends on whose universe. Batman's omnipotence only
>> applies in the DC-verse".
>
> Batman always wins.

No, he's lost on occasion, and admitted he didn't know whether he COULD
win on others.

I really grew weary of the Bat-God meme after a while. And after all,
Batman would lose to Chuck Norris. (another meme I was tired of quickly)

"Angels sang out an immaculate chorus;
Down from the heavens descended... Chuck Norris..."

[Alcore]

On Thursday, May 3, 2012 10:07:55 PM UTC-5, Loren Pechtel wrote:
[snip]

> Something I have been toying with but I'm certainly not to the point
> of trying it yet: Increase the skill points. At level-up you get a
> skill point for every point of ability bonus you have but that skill
> point can only be spent on a skill based on that ability.

A very interesting idea... Alas, though skills all have default
abilities they associate with, I firmly believe them to be independent
of specific abilities.

Let's take the skill "Intimidate" as an example: In a fight it makes
sense for Intimidate to key off of strength (or dex, depending on the
combat style of the user) since you are trying to convince an opponent
that they are DEAD if they continue the fight. Outside of a fight,
"Intimidate" certainly might be more effective as a Charaisma or
Wisdom modified check based on shere force of personality or insight
into the fears and psychology of the opponent.

How to apply a skill and modifiers to that skill is something that
I encourage my players to role-play. They tell me WHAT they are trying
to accomplish, HOW they are trying to accomplish it, and WHY they think
is should/might work. This encourages engagement with the narrative
flow and nurtures the spark of creative problem solving. As a result,
I am fortunate in my games that players often use methods other than
KILL, CRUSH, DESTROY! to solve problems. (And in a lot of cases, they
come up with really fun and novel ways to destroy that are just fun
to play out.)

[Tetsubo]

But this does explain why I no longer read fiction.

>
>
>>>
>>> Like saying, 'Who would win a fight, Batman or
>>>> Wolverine?'*
>>>>
>>>> *Batman of course. Because, duh, he's *Batman*.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> No, the answer is "depends on whose universe. Batman's omnipotence only
>>> applies in the DC-verse".
>>
>> Batman always wins.
>
> No, he's lost on occasion, and admitted he didn't know whether he COULD
> win on others.
>
> I really grew weary of the Bat-God meme after a while. And after all,
> Batman would lose to Chuck Norris. (another meme I was tired of quickly)
>
> "Angels sang out an immaculate chorus;
> Down from the heavens descended... Chuck Norris..."
>
>


--

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 5/4/12 10:59 AM, Tetsubo wrote:
> On 5/4/2012 10:21 AM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>> On 5/4/12 7:30 AM, Tetsubo wrote:

(lather, rinse, repeat)

>>>>> Aragorn and Conan are great characters. But they are also plot
>>>>> devices.
>>>>> The authors need them to be *there* at a specific time and do *this*
>>>>> when they arrive. So they do. There might be some sort of internal
>>>>> justification for this. And as the authors in question are good, that
>>>>> justification exists and is entertaining. Trying to figure out how
>>>>> this
>>>>> was achieved through the lens of game mechanics is entertaining but
>>>>> ultimately futile.
>>>>
>>>> Hardly futile if one's going to, say, run a game in Middle-Earth or the
>>>> Hyborian Age.
>>>
>>> Those would be characters with the same names, they would not be the
>>> characters from the fiction.
>>
>>
>> You are making differences just to make differences here. The same
>> principle applies to reading. Your reading of Conan passes through the
>> lens of your mental map and experiences. By your standard, there is no
>> point in discussing anything, because the filters and thus experience
>> are different for everyone on every point.
>
> But this does explain why I no longer read fiction.

No... no it doesn't. That statement would be true for readers of
anything, whether they're still reading new stuff or not.

"No longer read fiction" is incomprehensible to me (at least coming
from someone who obviously DID read fiction, and is apparently
interested in a game which is at its basis a way of reproducing life and
adventures in a fictional world).

[Tetsubo]

Because after hundreds of novels, the 'heroes' all started to bleed
together. The stories just grew stale. While the non-fiction never did.
I continue to read RPGs because I consider them meta-fiction. I can
write and rewrite stories of my own. Or just play with the rules. I just
don't want to listen to other people's stories. If I invest in the lives
of people I want them to be real people, not fictitious. *shrug* I don't
expect other folks to understand. Especially an author. Though I wish
everyone the best of times in their reading and writing.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Fri, 04 May 2012 09:08:49 -0400, David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca>
wrote:

>On 03/05/2012 11:07 PM, Loren Pechtel wrote:
>> There are some skills that all
>> adventurers should develop (anything covered by Pathfinder's
>> Perception skill) and others that most should develop (stealth).
>>
>> That doesn't mean they know everything, though.
>
>There's an intermediate position: apply Echelon's rule (+1/2 level to
>everything) to only a subset of skills - the "Adventuring skills" that
>the game designer, the DM, or the play group decide are things everyone
>who adventures would pick up a little bit of as they went along, just
>from adventuring. You've listed Perception; what others do you think are
>appropriate? For example, maybe if you travel enough (which is common)
>everybody ought to pick up a little Knowledge(Geography). Explore enough
>ruins and pick up a little Knowledge(architecture).

Something else I have considered: One or two skill points per level
that are DM-assigned based on what the DM thinks the character would
have learned based on what they were doing. These would never be
chosen so as to take a skill above level + 3 and wouldn't be chosen
with regard to character development.

[D.J.]

I stopped reading sf from bookstores about 10-12 years ago. Too much
of it crap. Too much a repeat, and poorly written, of previous ideas.

A few years ago I found a pdf online of a Gernsback sf story,
downloaded it. I liked it.
.
JimP.
--
Brushing aside the thorns so I can see the stars.
http://www.linuxgazette.net/ Linux Gazette
http://www.drivein-jim.net/ Drive-In movie theaters
http://story.drivein-jim.net/ A story Feb, 2011

[tussock]

Loren Pechtel wrote:

> tussock wrote:
>
>>> Along the way he (a) found fault with D20 vs bell curve
>>
>> The difference in odds between 3d6 and 1d10+5 is less than 5% for any
>>result: the probabilities are basically identical. People who like bell
>>curves just can't do math.
>
> Huh? You're looking at the overall odds at the tails rather than the
> relative odds.

Odds of a success or failure given any particular target number.

DC 3d6 d10+5 diff
19 0 0 equal
18 .005 0 -.005
17 .019 0 -.019
16 .046 0 -.046
15 .093 .1 +.007
14 .162 .2 +.038
13 .259 .3 +.041
12 .375 .4 +.025
11 .500 .5 equal
10 .625 .6 -.025
9 .741 .7 -.041
8 .838 .8 -.038
7 .907 .9 -.007
6 .954 1 +.046
5 .981 1 +.019
4 .995 1 +.005
3 1 1 equal

GURPS even fudges that by using the tails for automatic success and
failure, removing the largest difference between these odds. You can play
GURPS with d10+5, as there's less than 1 in 40 results would be different,
almost impossible to notice (NB, GURPS uses roll-under, not DCs).

If you really need a super-success with <10% odds, do d20 style crit
confirmation with your d10. Note that d20 mostly uses 10% (or higher) crits
for PCs anyway.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Alcore wrote:

> Let's take the skill "Intimidate" as an example: In a fight it makes
> sense for Intimidate to key off of strength (or dex, depending on the
> combat style of the user) since you are trying to convince an opponent
> that they are DEAD if they continue the fight.

In D&Dland, what matters is your ability to look like you're about 6
levels higher than you are, which isn't Str or Dex based even in combat.
Especially not if you're a caster. One might even suggest your ability to
appear incredibly dangerous and willing to use it is represented perfectly
by your Intimidate skill.

Or a level check, in games without skill ranks.

--
tussock

[~consul]

'tis on this 5/3/2012 9:45 AM, wrote DougL thus to say:
> On May 3, 3:45 am, Paul Colquhoun<newspos...@andor.dropbear.id.au>
>> Aragorn didn't have a cohort!? He was the leader of the Rangers of the
>> North. Just because his cohort weren't with him doesn't mean they
>> didn't exist.
> If leader of the ranger's of the north is the leadership feat then:
> He's got 50+ followers, and no fixed base, that means his leadership
> score (raw) is 21+, that means his cohort is exactly 2 levels below
> him and PC classed, while the followers are almost all level 1
> warriors.
>
> If Aragorn is level 18+ (needed to get that leadership score with
> "only" 16 Charisma) then who is is level 16+ cohort? Seriously, he's
> calling out all the stops, the rangers show up, which SINGLE other
> ranger is about 20 times as effective as ALL the others put togather
> without working up a sweat.

From the books, would whatshisname, Eomyr work as being his cohort? Or that elf guy, Haldir who died during the Siege at Helms Deep? Or are there any of the random folks in the War of the Rings Games qualify?
--
"... respect, all good works are not done by only good folk. For here, at the end of all things, we shall do what needs to be done."
--till next time, consul -x- <<poetry.dolphins-cove.com>>

[~consul]

'tis on this 5/3/2012 1:41 PM, wrote Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) thus to say:
> Debating based on D&D's (any edition) clumsy mechanics and trying to compare them with some specific feats, etc.? Silly.
> The argument here is very simple: Aragorn's involved in the most important war on the planet. He's one of the central figures. He gets involved in multiple battles. Never does he encounter another humanoid (as opposed to monster) that can truly stand before him. Even the Nazgul -- right-hand servants of a known demigod, who are legendarily feared across the land -- are not a match for him in combat, though they have powers which would eventually beat him.
>
> Similarly, Conan carves a bloody path across the entirety of the known world in the Hyborian age. Even when young he rarely meets people close to his equal, and in his prime there is no ordinary human being, even leaders and generals, who can long stand against him. He kills monsters of every description, goes up against demigods, demons, etc., and beats them. He is described as terrifying in combat, he is virtually untouchable by even MOBS of armed, trained men.He defeats wizards who can call forth monsters and who have powers that potentially will allow them to conquer large portions of the known world. He is one of, if not THE, most formidable human beings on the planet.

I agree, I like to think that these are the folks who we want our characters to end up like towards their end, not be middling around.

[~consul]

Me too, in regards to fantasy/sci-fi. Though recently these past few years I've started reading Jane Austen and books set in the Regency/Georgian times. A lot of it is mushy romance kinda stuff, but I've been actually reading them with an eye towards role-playing and immersion like I did with say, Terry Brooks, David Edding or Raymond Feist or Tolkien. With that frame of mind, it actually gives me a nice twist and new appreciation.
I recommend reading something totally off-genre for fun.

[David Lamb]

On 25/05/2012 1:11 PM, ~consul wrote:
> 'tis on this 5/3/2012 9:45 AM, wrote DougL thus to say:
>> If Aragorn is level 18+ (needed to get that leadership score with
>> "only" 16 Charisma) then who is is level 16+ cohort?
>

> From the books, would whatshisname, Eomyr work as being his cohort? Or
> that elf guy, Haldir who died during the Siege at Helms Deep? Or are
> there any of the random folks in the War of the Rings Games qualify?

IIRC Haldir was a fairly high-up soldier under Galadriel and Celeborn. I
expect an Aragorn cohort would be another Ranger. There were quite a few
offstage Rangers, one of whom might have taken over whatever duties
Aragorn had before he went galavanting across the countryside. I can't
think of anybody explicitly mentioned, though.

[Rast]

~consul wrote...
> From the books,

> that elf guy, Haldir who died during the Siege at Helms Deep?

In the books, there are no elves at the battle of Helm's Deep besides
Legolas.