| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Did you ever try to run a game with time travel? If you did, how did it go? If you didn't, any ideas on how a Villain would work in a groundhog day style setup?
I have as well. It was a super high level game though. I used it in many ways to explain the origin of some of my more insane choices in environments. Like the Jade Seas, which is just a giant rolling grasslands. Populated by pirates in land ships pulled by bulletes.
Originally it actually was a sea, but in order to move a yuan-ti army from an island to the mainland, a lamia matriarch archmage transformed the entire stretch of sea into land, and all the sharks turned into bulletes, and all the ships got stuck. Many years later, people started excavating the ship remains and they hit on the idea of using magic to tame bulletes and use them to get the ships loose. And then bandits hit some of the sites and decided hey, if they can do that, why don't we drive this around and use the cannons to raid the area?
I've also been in a groundhog day adventure. It was kind of a source of frustration for me. I mean, do you know how awful it is to die, over and over and over, and just wake up again. And only remember what happened half the time to boot. Had to stop a robbery of a bank, without killing the robber (which wasn't easy to begin with cus he had a bomb vest) cus his girlfriend didn't want him to do it and knowingly or unknowingly had this power. And I wasn't exactly burgeoning with skills. I eventually basically crazied him into submission, which ended with him shooting his own girlfriend who I was trying to help, and it... Well, the cycle stopped but I wasn't particularly happy how it turned out. Character was even more messed up after that :p.
Yeah, it should be noted that we were fairly high-level, too (hence the PCs were active pawns in the opposing gods' plans), but I just recalled that I did a bit of the recursive thing in that game... though for a very different reason and method! I'll have to see if I can actually recall how I did it later (as I'm on my phone now), but it was short, not exactly time travel, and the player commented later that it tells like she was going insane.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thinking about it further, I might need to do some time travel shenanigans since a friend of mine wants to connect two more or less unrelated campaigns I was trying to run, and that would actually allow for a sort of filler for that big hole. XD
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thinking about it further, I might need to do some time travel shenanigans since a friend of mine wants to connect two more or less unrelated campaigns I was trying to run, and that would actually allow for a sort of filler for that big hole. XD
Always useful!
Yeah, it should be noted that we were fairly high-level, too (hence the PCs were active pawns in the opposing gods' plans), but I just recalled that I did a bit of the recursive thing in that game... though for a very different reason and method! I'll have to see if I can actually recall how I did it later (as I'm on my phone now), but it was short, not exactly time travel, and the player commented later that ittellslike she was going insane.
EDITed post for clarity! And now...
The short version is that when Elminster's tower was blown out of Faerun, and Elminster with it, the PCs wanted to (note: they weren't required to, but actually and actively decided to do so on their own) hunt down and rescue the guy (and his tower if they could swing it*).
They eventually tracked down a few obviously falsified leads (via powerful illusions and transmutations and failsafes and whatnot) and a few "solid" looking ones.
The most promising was actually something of a horror - there was a gate from the material through the shadow into (and through) Hell that had punched a hole into the Far Realm.
Once they figured out what that was, they kind of freaked out.
No one really wanted to go, except the swashbuckler-avatar**, who really didn't think much of reality "not working right" - so she was chosen (again), despite having no spell resistance*, direct magic**, or special abilities** (after all, "How hard could this be?"). By getting together and thinking really hard, the genius casters and engineers came up with a cunning, fool-proof plan: a long, sturdy hemp rope. Flawless!
The PCs made a deal with the devils that weren't yet corrupted from the leaking energies (the deal was, in brief, "We save Hell from becoming an outpost of the Far Realm, and you agree to avoid us and our plans and actively work to thwart other evil creatures not bound by this contract from interfering with our plans for the lifetimes of maximum-age venerable elves with the shade template in sequence." or somesuch), and set up a number of fail-safes (which mostly just involved more plain hemp rope).
Naturally, the plan went wrong immediately, as the acid burned through the rope, and left the swashbuckler floating in nonsense, at the interior base of the tower (near the portal); beyond was a madnesscape of weirdness****.
She tried, several times, to move forward. Every time she did, I said something like, "You see a kitten. It mews. What do you do?"*****
She tried a number of things, from petting it, to avoiding it, to talking to it. All such events ended with, "It then explodes into tentacles and eats your face! How nice. You're floating in the interior base of the tower. ****. What do you do?"*****
Finally, frustrated, confused, and really weirded out, she says something like, "Uh, I narkle the glabjoff!"
At which point, I note that she smoothly slides forward, neatly avoiding the time-parasite ooze wearing a cardboard kitten mask that slid downward towards her previous position. The entire rest of the session was her describing intent, then muttering nonsense about milking lederhosen of the fromious flagstones' cup bracer, sdrawkcab gnikaeps nigeb (which she did fairly smoothly, which was exceptionally impressive; enough that I gave her two unrestricted actions and a "freebie" with the time parasite), or, "I narf the poit gliberich!" or similar, using contexts or concepts, body language, or partially expressed within nonsense to get across her desire. Any time she slipped up and spoke normally or attempted the same action twice (except for the one time, when it was fine), the kitty-masked time ooze (which was "chasing" her, poorly) would do its thing, and the last action would have to be repeated, but she experienced one negative level. Eventually, she found Elminster trapped in quintessence, which she scrapped off (taking damage that healed her), shoved the time-parasite into it (which poisoned the thing to death with healthiness) and escaped through the portal, taking (and smashing) the gate-causing artifact as she left, violently and gorily causing the entire place to destroy itself and the entire nearby area and all creatures in it (except for her and the unconscious Elminster) into a puff of logic and then neatly and politely closed the gate with a nod of acknowledgement before turning its attention to "sanitizing" the Far Realm.
It was an intense, confused, and scarring experience, even for the players not directly involved, leaving a few sitting back and breathing more easily once she'd escaped (of course, they were busy putting down corrupted devils and making fortitude saves to avoid becoming aberrations themselves, sooooo...).
After that, everyone else insisted that they'd "told her so" while she earned a whole level off of that alone, and got most of the way to the next. The devils honored their bargain as best they could, and the PCs were relieved to have saved Elminster (well, except for one guy, who'd really wanted him to off it so that he could hopefully become a Chosen of Mystra himself, instead).
She informed me that it was awesome, that she really felt like she was going insane, and that she never wanted another character to go through that again.
So we haven't.
* Spoiler alert: they couldn't!
** They'd been part of an epic ritual at lower levels in which they were infused with tiny, tiny, tiny shards of Shar's divinity - except for two of the females, who'd been infused with the whole of one avatar of Shar's each, though with the powers locked away. One was turned into the Nightsinger avatar and the other was the Dark Dancer. By doing this, not only was Shar weakened slightly, but the mere existence of each of them denied Shar the use of that avatar for as long as that woman existed. This, of course, lead to Shar seeking to directly kill the two, which was blocked by Mystra... and so on. The other complication was, unfortunately, that each avatar allowed Shar's full senses to act normally through them - so Shar experienced everything either of them did, though through a haze due to the combined influence of Mystra and Selune (not to mention the epic ritual itself). Made for fun times when the PCs were trying to actively work against the Lady of Secrets when she was literally among them at all times. Also humorous: though the Dark Dancer was my wife (chosen randomly with a d2 roll), she ended up with the short end of the stick, as it were. Everyone else gained the Shade template, and she, the swashbuckler looking for divinity (or at least lots of fame and good PR) on her own terms, gained... a permanent appearance identical to Shar's Dark Dancer avatar. Though she later unlocked the abilities to use some of those powers herself, at the time everyone else was practically immune to magic, leaving her the only one to suck up the fireballs or other AoEs spammed liberally by the insane sorcerer in the group (who often tried to make up for it with flowers and chocolate and fear... the former merely uses of prestidigitation, so they never lasted beyond the initial bite/whiff of flavor/scent or firm grasp, and the latter making him kind of smell a bit*** - not a great method of reconciliation).
*** At no time was this more true than when he was a troglodyte. Which he was sometimes. He... had a reincarnation problem.
**** Ranging from a storm that creates a rain of exploding ticks that turn into undulating reality worms; to a slow-moving rivulets of milk-like fire passing through layers of reality of varying widths that catches on freeze then implodes; to undulating masses of super-intelligent colors (especially blue); to creatures in the distance too enormous to contemplate; to weird human-flesh-and-hands spider-legged creatures with a massive iron spike for a head and a serpentine neck carefully tending clutches of face-trees floating through the madness and fertilizing them with mind flayer-like and beholder-like creatures being ground into compost, or weaving the threads of reality into really ugly fabrics.
*****
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
*something something nargles*
Sooo... Luna Lovegood?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've always loved using the Far Realm and it's denizens. Something intensely amusing of a char that is cheerful and friendly and suddenly explodes into brain melting destruction on enemies then goes back to normal like it never happened.
Oh! Oh, duh! I can't believe I forgot! We did do a recursive time-travel game! My wife just reminded me! I need to write that up...
Will you continue your Guide to Adventure:Preparations, Tricks and Strategies? I am asking because I have been toying with the idea of a non-caster class that doesn't necessarily focus on combat, and the guide as it is now has been a great source of ideas.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Will you continue your Guide to Adventure:Preparations, Tricks and Strategies? I am asking because I have been toying with the idea of a non-caster class that doesn't necessarily focus on combat, and the guide as it is now has been a great source of ideas.
I'd like to at some point, though I'm uncertain as to when I'd be able to work on it. I've been up about 24 hours as of writing this post as I just pulled a double-extended shift at work 'cause we're short handed, one person's out, one called in sick, etc.
There are pros and cons to being reliable. XD
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Will you continue your Guide to Adventure:Preparations, Tricks and Strategies? I am asking because I have been toying with the idea of a non-caster class that doesn't necessarily focus on combat, and the guide as it is now has been a great source of ideas.I'd like to at some point, though I'm uncertain as to when I'd be able to work on it. I've been up about 24 hours as of writing this post as I just pulled a double-extended shift at work 'cause we're short handed, one person's out, one called in sick, etc.
There are pros and cons to being reliable. XD
O well. I shall do what I can with what I already have then. The current version is already superb, by the way, nice job on that. I would like to add that weapon cords are great against disarming, and spring loaded wrist sheaths make good containers for those cold iron or silver weapons you carry just in case you would need them on a moment's notice. Swift action to draw doesn't hurt either.
Daggumit. My write-up was killed by a power surge. *shakes fist*
Have to rethink how I want to write about time travel... >.>
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
So I want to toss a really radical idea out here for a second. It's something we've been discussing at the moment and we haven't finalized the decision by any means, and it's gonna seem totally weird, but hear me out here.
We're thinking of merging Strength and Constitution into the same ability score, effectively getting rid of Constitution. To explain why we're thinking this may be a good idea, I'd like to discuss the pros of Strength and Constitution, how they are used in Pathfinder, and how they affect the meta overall.
Functions of Strength
1. Adds to hit and damage with melee/thrown weapons.
2. Applies to very few skills (athletic stuff like climb & swim).
3. Determines carrying capacity.
4. Is sometimes used to do things like force open/break objects with a flat check.
Functions of Constitution
1. Adds to HP/level, increases NHT (negative hitpoint threshold).
2. Sometimes is used to make flat checks to do things like march longer (but a lot of things that are Con-checks have a lot of overlap with Fortitude).
3. Serves as an alternate life point total, in that if you hit 0 Con you die.
Both of these ability scores are very limited in scope. Unlike, for example, Dexterity which can apply to a lot of skills, Reflex saves, and armor class. In D20 Legends, Dexterity is also getting a noticeable buff because it applies to hit and damage rolls with light, finesse, and many ranged weapons.
In very early testing phases, Strength seems to be the red-headed step child. It seems to be suffering from the same issues Strength suffered in the Star Wars RPG, where Dexterity was the God-stat of martial characters because you were fighting with things like blasters, lightsabers, and got bonus damage from your class.
A Breakdown of the Meta
At the moment, Strength is a major dumpstat for a lot of classes. Mostly casting classes, because everyone wants some Constitution but countless characters can just dump Strength and up Constitution with little to no issues (I mean, if you're a wizard, you really won't be sorry in most cases).
Meanwhile, characters that need Strength often need Constitution more than anyone else. Do you really want to go into melee with things with a substandard Constitution? No. But you also need a strong Dexterity for things like AC and ranged weaponry...gah, being a warrior is so MAD (multi-ability dependent). (T_T)
By making this change and merging the two (and adjusting point buy appropriately), you can't simply tank Strength and up Constitution to be a tank-mage with essentially no cost, it also creates a situation where the game naturally rewards Strength-based bruisers by making them exceptionally beefy by comparison to their more lithe brethren, while also serving as a sort of discounted ability score for those who want to go the Str-melee route.
Its effect on Narrative
I feel like this change ultimately reflects character building in a fair way as well. You won't see the ton of 98 lb. weakling mages that are able to take hits like Zangief (though there's always stuff like Toughness). Likewise, you don't really see many monsters that have high Strength or Constitution without the other being high too.
So...yeah... (^-^;)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Doesn't bother me any. You gonna expand on cha or something while you're at it? Since it sits on the opposite side of the stat bar and is dropped just as often as str. It's used by... What, 6 classes? Sorc, Anti/Paladin, Oracle, Bard, Skald, Mesmerist... oh right the Medium and Summoner, so 9. All casters obviously.
Though come to think of it, do that many really drop str? Wizard/Sorc, Arcanist, Witch, maybe Shaman, Psychic, perhaps Spiritualist... But it seems like way more classes drop cha than str.
But yeah, str and con combining really doesn't bother me in the least. Some of the severely stripped down versions of the game combine str and con, have dex and then combine all mental into mind. So I'm sorta used to the idea already.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
>By making this change and merging the two (and adjusting point buy appropriately)
You would also probably need to adjust some spells (STR-drain spells now also drain CON, yay for ray of enfeeblement), stat-boosting items, and some other stuff I can't think of right now.
But overall, yeah, this doesn't seem like a bad idea.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Doesn't bother me any. You gonna expand on cha or something while you're at it? Since it sits on the opposite side of the stat bar and is dropped just as often as str. It's used by... What, 6 classes? Sorc, Anti/Paladin, Oracle, Bard, Skald, Mesmerist... oh right the Medium and Summoner, so 9. All casters obviously.
Though come to think of it, do that many really drop str? Wizard/Sorc, Arcanist, Witch, maybe Shaman, Psychic, perhaps Spiritualist... But it seems like way more classes drop cha than str.
Since discussing getting rid of Strength, I must admit that the very next score I wondered if we really needed was Charisma. It does even less than Strength or Constitution by themselves and only serves as a key stat for a specific sort of casting, SLAs, and is used in Charisma checks (for bound critters and such).
But yeah, str and con combining really doesn't bother me in the least. Some of the severely stripped down versions of the game combine str and con, have dex and then combine all mental into mind. So I'm sorta used to the idea already.
Given some of the other changes to Intelligence (notably that it doesn't provide extra skill points), the thought of merging the scores into three primary statistics (Strength, Dexterity, and Mind, or something similar) has become a strong consideration. I've been fiddling around with it in my head and the more I think about it, the more "right" it seems as an option.
If we go this route, the ability scores would be laid out much like this:
Strength
Governs...
- Hit & Damage w/ Melee/some-ranged weapons.
- Hp/Level, HP Threshold.
- Fortitude Defense.
- Some skills.
Dexterity
Governs...
- Hit & Damage w/ Light/most-ranged weapons.
- Armor Class and Initiative.
- Reflex Defense.
- Some skills.
Mind
Governs...
- Magic (spells, psionics, etc).
- Concentration & Force of Will (opposed checks).
- Will Defense.
- Some skills.
It would speed up character generation fairly significantly and make it easier for new players to learn (which is always a plus), it also makes makes it a lot easier to balance the scores out without any score being drastically superior to another, and would make building abilities (like class features) easier. You also wouldn't end up with as many odd mechanics that kept trying to swap ability score effects (like Int to Cha-based skills traits and such).
The idea has potential, I think. It keeps the mechanical crunch very similar overall to D&D/Pathfinder but it reduces a lot of the meta-issues with the ability scores and evens them out nicely I think.
You would also probably need to adjust some spells (STR-drain spells now also drain CON, yay for ray of enfeeblement), stat-boosting items, and some other stuff I can't think of right now.
But overall, yeah, this doesn't seem like a bad idea.
More or less all the spells are going to be reworked (I'm not particularly looking forward to that part of this mission but I'll need to bite the bullet) and spells like ray of enfeeblement were going to get tweaked anyway (I've actually kinda hated that spell since it was unnecessarily nerfed from the 3.5 version).
If I had my way (okay, I probably will since I'm writin' the darn thing), it'd likely apply a penalty to Strength-based checks and carrying capacity. Ergo, casting ray of enfeeblement on someone would make them worse at lifting/fighting, but it wouldn't just destroy hundreds of HP because you enfeebled something with a lot of levels (and thus slashed their bonus HP).
Whereas eating enough spider venom might actually reduce your actual score and kill you. (>_>)
As for stat boosting items, at the moment I don't super expect them to change much. It more or less just means you'll be able to ignore about 3 magic items you would have used for off-stats. I'm not really even sure I'd want them to be more expensive either. One plus I see for that would be the fact that there'd be more slots for "cool" items that did things besides giving flat modifiers (don't get me wrong, I actually like items that just make something bigger, but having more overall slots for things like a cloak of the mountebank or slippers of spider climbing or mask of death or something would be cool).
The downside that I project with this would be the fear that players would frequently have very similar looking ability scores (same with monsters in many cases). However, I think I'm okay with that, because of the added depth elsewhere in the system (like the revised class system) and the fact that 3E and beyond has steadily reduced the amount that ability scores hard-code into who your character is, using skills, feats, class features, and imagination to fill in the gaps in a much more robust way.
Possible alternate names (organized alphabetically):
Dexterity: agility, flexibility, mobility
Intelligence: cunning, genius, mind, psyche
Strength: health, muscles, physical
I'm personally find of Agility, Genius, and Health, looking at them. Three broad terms that accurately reflect their over-all effect, I think (though I also kind of like "psyche" it seems to imply something else).
You might (obviously) choose to stay with the 3.X/PF stat name-equivalents, which is fine, but I wanted to mention these as possibilities.
One of the things I've done with the Cortex+ system for our drow game is to embrace their three-stat spread:
- Mental pulls mostly from intelligence (and prepared casting), but also elements of wisdom and even a few more "mental" aspects of Charisma.
- Physical has been strength, dexterity, and constitution where the body itself is challenged
- Social pulls mostly from charisma (and spontaneous casting) and everything of wisdom not taken by Mental, but also with a hint of Intelligence-based stuff.
Due to the way Cortex+ is structured, you can be "Taken Out" of a scene by any relevant opposed roll - not stat is automatically more important than another, in this case (though certain stats will definitely shine more under different play styles).
Any character is then able to be 'X-based' where 'X' is any score. Casting, martial ability: it doesn't really matter. All of them serve a narrative function, so all are valid choices for a basis of casting or fighting or other interactions (at least to an extent - there are limits). When combined with the "create you class" approach I designed, it creates a great niche for, say, psychic rage warriors, eldritch Knights, or similar from the beginning of play. Their physical-based, have a power source like psionics or arcane magic, and are warriors.
I don't know of this helps you, but I figured a data point couldn't hurt!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
By limiting stats you can end up limiting player RP options.
Granted, strong but physically ill characters never made sense to me, but they are there, and this option would remove them as an option.
A smart but socially inept mage wouldn't work anymore as a concept, because all the stats are rolled into one score. Same with a wise but non book smart character, or a person with a powerful personality, but lacks common sense.
How do you do you allow for RP of these concepts when the stats counter it?
By limiting stats you can end up limiting player RP options.
Granted, strong but physically ill characters never made sense to me, but they are there, and this option would remove them as an option.
A smart but socially inept mage wouldn't work anymore as a concept, because all the stats are rolled into one score. Same with a wise but non book smart character, or a person with a powerful personality, but lacks common sense.
How do you do you allow for RP of these concepts when the stats counter it?
You could potentially create a series of negative traits that give you a penalty in that skill or set of skills to emulate the deficiency. Negative traits could then give you a positive trait to improve some skills that do represent your character better.
You could also just make that part of the build process. If you take penalties in four skills, you can then get a bonus in four other skills that better suit your character.
Maybe?
Edit: I would say that you can't take a penalty higher than your modifier in the governing ability score to keep it from getting too nuts.
True, but then you're not fixing a paradigm, you're just shifting it to a different choice to make, that will most likely always be made.
By limiting stats you can end up limiting player RP options.
Granted, strong but physically ill characters never made sense to me, but they are there, and this option would remove them as an option.
A smart but socially inept mage wouldn't work anymore as a concept, because all the stats are rolled into one score. Same with a wise but non book smart character, or a person with a powerful personality, but lacks common sense.
How do you do you allow for RP of these concepts when the stats counter it?
Same way that you do now. Doing something wise has always been more on the player than their ability scores. Same with common sense. There is no should I do this roll, beyond maybe knowledge sometimes. Book smart, that's more on knowledges. Don't put ranks in knowledge skills.
Ultimately the mental scores have always been vague and any attempt to correlate them to rolls has been kinda haphazard at best. Doing any lopsided personality weakness and traits is basically more on the player choosing to represent that way and maybe not putting ranks in certain skills than their ability scores. If anything this might finally put a knife in all this silly roleplay your scores thing which I've honestly always found more a hindrance due to forcing subjective preconceptions on your character.
If anything, my only concern is trying to math out an appropriate point buy for a three stat system. That will be fun :p
See, I guess that may be a play style difference then.
I've always been an ordered character builder.
1)roll/determine stats
2)come up with character concept based on stats
3)create RP story for concept
4)build character.
Stats are always integral to the concept, both for strengths and limitations.
>the thought of merging the scores into three primary statistics (Strength, Dexterity, and Mind, or something similar) has become a strong consideration
Wouldn't 4 make more sense? STR+CON, DEX, INT, CHA+WIS? Intelligence and Willpower still seem quite different to me. And this would make the whole thing more symmetric-2 physical stats, 2 mental.
>One plus I see for that would be the fact that there'd be more slots for "cool" items that did things besides giving flat modifiers
You are going to keep the slot system? That horrible attavism? That thing that forces all effect-granting items to look exactly alike, as if stamped out by a soulless factory in China? The one which isn't explained in any way in relation to how the world functions, and probably can't be explained, since it is essentially a balancing factor?
Is it not a lot better to just limit the number of magical items a person can use at any one time without the interference between them growing to levels that cause weird effects, like disabling some of them?
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
By limiting stats you can end up limiting player RP options.
Granted, strong but physically ill characters never made sense to me, but they are there, and this option would remove them as an option.
A smart but socially inept mage wouldn't work anymore as a concept, because all the stats are rolled into one score. Same with a wise but non book smart character, or a person with a powerful personality, but lacks common sense.
How do you do you allow for RP of these concepts when the stats counter it?
Simply put, the basic ability scores would represent more about what your character is capable of. If you wanted to play an absentminded professor, you would simply roleplay them as such.
I feel like people put too much emphasis on ability scores and try to attribute things to them that they don't necessarily mean. Look at the number of threads where people try to equate Int to IQ/10, or how you can't make a character that's simply inexperienced with the world without giving them a low Int score (because that's the only way you can get their Knowledge checks at 1st level below the take-10 threshold); or how nobody can really determine what Charisma actually means (many argue that it's how physically attractive your character is, but it's also used for things like force of will, and innate magical aptitude, and the ability to control your poker face); or Wisdom being described as common sense, governing awareness, but also frequently attributed to sanity.
Currently, the mental ability scores are grossly jumbled up with a lot of concepts that don't necessarily play nice with each other from a RP perspective. I feel even in modern Pathfinder, we've come past the point where "roleplaying your scores" is a thing that's necessary; something of a relic of older editions where your ability scores were pretty much all there was to your character and their capabilities.
Today, ability scores already mean very little to who your character ultimately is aside from their starting aptitudes in certain things. For example, my character Agatha had a 7 Charisma, but later ended up as the party face (no Int->Cha traits were used, she just had some skill points invested).
If we combine the scores down into a 3-ability base, we'll make it clear that they represent very general things about a character. I don't see a problem with making a character with a powerful Mind stat who also happens to be a bumbling goofball who happens to be something of a savant. I hate to compare it to alignment but, it's kind of similar to alignment in how you can have countless different characters with different personalities of the same alignment but they all just happen to have a few basic things in common.
Don't get me wrong though; I believe in roleplaying your stats, just not necessarily your ability-scores alone. Characters are so much more than their ability scores these days and in D20 Legends I suspect they will be even more outside of their scores (I've been putting together a system that allows you to choose your stat growth, and blend classes together, as well as have both feats and talents to pick with most of those classes, and then you'll have skill points).
As for strong but physically ill, that would essentially be a character that was suffering from some sort of malady. I knew a man who was incredible strong and tough, and then he had a heart attack. After the heart attack, he was strong but really not very tough at all because the heart attack crippled his stamina and such. Thinking on it, this sort of issue is better represented by some sort of permanent condition that imposes certain kinds of penalties. Because if he were in a world of magic, a cleric could simply cast heal or regenerate or something and by all reason his heart should be right as rain at that point. However, using base ability scores to represent a malady of some sort always falls apart conceptually the moment someone tries to use a spell that explicitly notes that it heals maladies of those kinds (which breaks immersion).
We're still more or less discussing these changes internally (and externally as seen here) so we might not take the dive, but we do want to talk about all the pros and cons. The RPing thing was the very first concern that I had when the idea was initially proposed and I, admittedly, initially wasn't very enthused. However, it grew on me, and I found myself thinking about it a lot throughout the days while at work, and the more I thought about it, the more it appealed.
On the Subject of Rolling Stats then Character Concept
We could probably still do this, though I wonder if perhaps a page with a list of nonmechanical traits (essentially ideas or personality bits) that you could randomly generate might be more useful. Having a chart you could optionally roll on a couple of times to determine some ideas for personality, history, family, and so on could be helpful.
I think we could introduce optional random elements for players who didn't have a concept started before character creation if that's the way they prefer to do things. :)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, it is a playstyle diffrence. It's just, when I look at the ability scores for mental stats, they don't do a good job at even doing what they say they govern. Physical stats do what they say they do.
But Wisdom doesn't determine if you're wise, it simply gives you information about the world around you and helps you interpret it. You still have to make a decision based on it. You might make unwise decisions because you didn't notice something, but Wisdom itself has no power to actually tell you somethings a bad idea, only to expand what you know about a situation. It's still on the character and player to decide what to do with what they do and don't know. It also governs your strength of will, which is weird cus by description it should be governed by charisma. Charisma is force of personality and what not, and almost all will based saves involve avoiding your personality being manipulated or subjugated.
Charisma does do what it says in a sense. It makes you better at bending others to your will and not be bent in turn, (Diplomacy requests dc scales off someones cha score) will saves aside. However it doesn't make you better at navigating a social situation, you need wis and charisma so it's not the end all be all of social skills. Int often is more important than cha or wis for many social situations to boot!
Intelligence governs your book learning type skills. But it also determines how many skills you get. And to be good at ANYTHING in this game, that is not direct combat or spellcasting or purely a factor of the player themselves, you need skill points. Some skills are trained only, meaning it doesn't matter how smart you are, if you aren't trained in knowing nobility, you don't know more than the major ones names by default. A character with high ability scores can do better than someone with low scores, only as long as the one with lower scores doesn't invest more into the skill than the one with higher scores. So having a high int can mean waaaaay more than having a high cha for being good at social encounters.
And thus that's my problem with using ability scores for such things. Not that I'll cry foul on others doing it, long as it's devoted to their own characters. The mental scores are super vague and have no real bearing on how a characters personality or flaws will be beyond what you allow them to be. Int doesn't really govern what you know so much as how many diverse things you know. Wisdom doesn't decide if you know something is safe, just that you know something is diffrent. Charisma is too easily replaced by skill points but it sorta does come closest to doing what it says it does for the mental scores.
Thus I don't think that having a single score that holds all of these in it would be a problem. If almost every flaw has more to do with the players outright decisions or allocation of skill points, it being consolidated makes no real difference beyond perhaps removing an inspiration, and for some, a hangman's noose others would use to strangle concepts for not fitting a somewhat arbitrary number.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The order in which a person makes a character is probably as varied as alignment interpretations.
In most games I've played, we rolled for our stats. You can come up with a great concept, that just doesn't work well after you've rolled your stats. So, by experience I've learned to roll then conceptualize ;)
(In a sort of foot note to this, the group I've been gaming with recently just started using an array for all characters:
18, 16, 16, 14, 12, 10. Since then I've conceptualized, then arranged the stats to fit.
Benefits also being, no one stuck with crappy rolls, or having to come up with appropriate point buys to net these stats.)
So, that isn't as important as a concern as the impact to RP choices. But, you and Icehawk seem to be on the same page as far as the amount of influence the stats have, so I'm willing to see how it pans out.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, it is a playstyle diffrence. It's just, when I look at the ability scores for mental stats, they don't do a good job at even doing what they say they govern. Physical stats do what they say they do.
But Wisdom doesn't determine if you're wise, it simply gives you information about the world around you and helps you interpret it. You still have to make a decision based on it. You might make unwise decisions because you didn't notice something, but Wisdom itself has no power to actually tell you somethings a bad idea, only to expand what you know about a situation. It's still on the character and player to decide what to do with what they do and don't know. It also governs your strength of will, which is weird cus by description it should be governed by charisma. Charisma is force of personality and what not, and almost all will based saves involve avoiding your personality being manipulated or subjugated.
Charisma does do what it says in a sense. It makes you better at bending others to your will and not be bent in turn, (Diplomacy requests dc scales off someones cha score) will saves aside. However it doesn't make you better at navigating a social situation, you need wis and charisma so it's not the end all be all of social skills. Int often is more important than cha or wis for many social situations to boot!
Intelligence governs your book learning type skills. But it also determines how many skills you get. And to be good at ANYTHING in this game, that is not direct combat or spellcasting or purely a factor of the player themselves, you need skill points. Some skills are trained only, meaning it doesn't matter how smart you are, if you aren't trained in knowing nobility, you don't know more than the major ones names by default. A character with high ability scores can do better than someone with low scores, only as long as the one with lower scores doesn't invest more into the skill than the one with higher scores. So having a high int can mean waaaaay more than having a high cha for being...
Yeah, this is a good point, overall.
Mechanics vs fluff! <shakes fist>| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
>the thought of merging the scores into three primary statistics (Strength, Dexterity, and Mind, or something similar) has become a strong consideration
Wouldn't 4 make more sense? STR+CON, DEX, INT, CHA+WIS? Intelligence and Willpower still seem quite different to me. And this would make the whole thing more symmetric-2 physical stats, 2 mental.
That's under consideration, though I must admit that once Int was divorced from skill points, it very quickly became the new Charisma (you'd just raise it if you wanted +skill modifiers), and it basically comes down to the descriptions I think (a bit of what I mean at the end of this post).
>One plus I see for that would be the fact that there'd be more slots for "cool" items that did things besides giving flat modifiers
You are going to keep the slot system? That horrible attavism? That thing that forces all effect-granting items to look exactly alike, as if stamped out by a soulless factory in China? The one which isn't explained in any way in relation to how the world functions, and probably can't be explained, since it is essentially a balancing factor?
Is it not a lot better to just limit the number of magical items a person can use at any one time without the interference between them growing to levels that cause weird effects, like disabling some of them?
Sorry I wasn't clear. When I say "slots", I meant number of magic items you can have working at one time. We're dropping the body-slot system entirely. There's no reason you can't use more than 2 rings, or wear multiple magical necklaces, or stock up on magical belts until you look like Hennet the Sorcerer. :P
The limitation on number of magical items that exist is that your "aura" can only interact with a number of other auras, and anything past that point just doesn't bestow any benefits. Essentially the magic item's aura merges with your own to bestow its gifts, or something like that. :)
On Ability Score Descriptions
When I said that ability scores and their descriptions would probably change the way people looked at the need for those scores, I meant that the only reason people think they need a high Charisma score to be pretty is because some dood decided to write "appearance" into the description of Charisma without specifying if they meant physical appearance or appearance in the dictionary sense where it can also mean how well you are at projecting or concealing your emotions.
So we might look at something like this.
Strength: Strength represents how physically powerful and healthy your character is. Characters with high Strength can lift and carry more weight, survive great injuries, resist illness and life-draining attacks more effectively, and generally perform better in skills related to Strength such as Climbing and Swimming.
Dexterity: Dexterity represents how physically agile and coordinated your character is. Characters with high Dexterity can react faster in combat, dodge incoming attacks more easily, use light weaponry with deadly efficiency, and generally perform better in skills related to Dexterity such as Acrobatics and Stealth.
Mind: Mind represents how magically gifted and mentally strong your character is. Characters with high Mind can coordinate magical energies more efficiently, resist mental attacks and maladies more easily, use magical attacks and their will more effectively, and generally perform better in skills related to their Mind such Diplomacy and Knowledge.
.
.
.
Notice that the above specifies what a character is better at doing, rather than trying to pidgeon-hole a character into a particular set of roles or personality concepts based on ability scores (seriously, it aggravates me to no end when people on these boards try to assign hard meanings to ability scores, like trying to say things like Chimeras can't actually talk because they have a 3 Int; which actually happened a few months ago).
I feel like a sidebar or something with the extra space saved from axing three of the ability scores could be devoted to roleplaying stuff.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
AFK. Getting ready for work. I might post something else before I leave, but if I haven't posted anything else within the hour, I'm gone. :P
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I choose to believe you are always watching over us, our eternal lurker in the sky. :p
Yeah I like those descriptions way more.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
The order in which a person makes a character is probably as varied as alignment interpretations.
In most games I've played, we rolled for our stats. You can come up with a great concept, that just doesn't work well after you've rolled your stats. So, by experience I've learned to roll then conceptualize ;)(In a sort of foot note to this, the group I've been gaming with recently just started using an array for all characters:
18, 16, 16, 14, 12, 10. Since then I've conceptualized, then arranged the stats to fit.
Benefits also being, no one stuck with crappy rolls, or having to come up with appropriate point buys to net these stats.)
It's an interesting thing noticing the way characters are built based on score generation. It's one of the reasons that I'll include randomized ability scores in the options for character generation, for those who have come to love that particular style of play (I myself have switched the point buy and never plan to return to rolling, but arrays are good too since they're essentially point buy packages that you choose :P).
So, that isn't as important as a concern as the impact to RP choices. But, you and Icehawk seem to be on the same page as far as the amount of influence the stats have, so I'm willing to see how it pans out.
It may not always be super obvious since I'm usually discussing crunchy things on the boards but I'm deep into the axis of roleplay as well as rules. I think, whenever possible, rules shouldn't stifle roleplaying but enable it (which is why it irks me when people try to hardcode things to ability scores, because it means you only have a relatively small pool of potential characters, and some are right out by some definitions (such as "not handsome but amazingly inspiring and strong willed").
Whatever we go with, I'll make sure it has prevented as few concepts as possible. I strongly believe in a solid framework for modeling the reality of the game world, while also keeping an eye on the cost-to-benefit of system complexity (for example, I love things like hardness for objects because it increases the ways you can interact with the world, but rolling 3 checks for an attack roll (one to hit, one to penetrate, one for damage) can die in a fire (it's more "realistic" but it bogs the game down). :P
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hm, I should do a question instead of answering one of Ashiel's ones for once. :p
Have you seen the verbal duel rules in Ultimate Intrigue yet? If so, what do you think of them?
I'm still formulating an opinion on em myself. Though gotta say. It definitely made int matter more than cha for certain in social stuff. I kinda feel bad if I use em cus I'm a wizard but I've a social focused sorc in the party. He'll beat me hands down in any diplomacy checks but I'll win any arguments it seems.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It may not always be super obvious since I'm usually discussing crunchy things on the boards but I'm deep into the axis of roleplay as well as rules.
I've interacted enough with you on these boards and in think-tank types of threads to know you are just as into to RP as you are into crunch, and I also know you realize how tied together they are.
So, it's ok. Please don't take my concern as questioning your "RP-ness" :)| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Eye C Wat U D'd Thar...
>.>
*cough*
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oh my!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
?????
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't get it either, but Tels' post was pretty elite today.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hm, I should do a question instead of answering one of Ashiel's ones for once. :p
Have you seen the verbal duel rules in Ultimate Intrigue yet? If so, what do you think of them?
I'm still formulating an opinion on em myself. Though gotta say. It definitely made int matter more than cha for certain in social stuff. I kinda feel bad if I use em cus I'm a wizard but I've a social focused sorc in the party. He'll beat me hands down in any diplomacy checks but I'll win any arguments it seems.
I have not actually. I'll check them out soon-ish. :3
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't get it either, but Tels' post was pretty elite today.
Which post?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
>Sorry I wasn't clear. When I say "slots", I meant number of magic items you can have working at one time. We're dropping the body-slot system entirely. There's no reason you can't use more than 2 rings, or wear multiple magical necklaces, or stock up on magical belts until you look like Hennet the Sorcerer. :P
Phew. Was worried there for a second. Ashiel is still great, all is good.
Is there anything from Paizo that you don't allow in your games? Banned classes, feats, etc?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"RP-ness"
Try saying it aloud without the "r" - it sounds like a different word entirely.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Warfare, Strength, Psyche and Endurance ftw!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't get it either, but Tels' post was pretty elite today.Which post?
I'm probably showing my age here, but Tels' post was post #1337; which (in a roundabout way) means "elite" in leetspeak. :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
HAH! Awesome! :D
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
>Sorry I wasn't clear. When I say "slots", I meant number of magic items you can have working at one time. We're dropping the body-slot system entirely. There's no reason you can't use more than 2 rings, or wear multiple magical necklaces, or stock up on magical belts until you look like Hennet the Sorcerer. :P
Phew. Was worried there for a second. Ashiel is still great, all is good.
Yay! (^-^)
Is there anything from Paizo that you don't allow in your games? Banned classes, feats, etc?
Off the top of my head...
Aroden's Spellbane (spell), Sacred Geometry (feat), and the Antagonize (feat).
I can't think of anything else at this moment, but there is a lot of content for Pathfinder and I'm very open to homebrew as well. So what I usually do is just check new material "on demand" so to speak. If someone wants to use something that's outside of the core material, I look at what they want to use and accept or deny that, rather than saying "X book allowed", which I feel keeps the overall quality of our games pretty high since it sort of filters out some stuff.
While not explicitly banned, I make it clear that the core Fighter, Rogue, and Monk aren't recommended unless you know what you're getting into (Fighter is 100% trumped by Ranger and Path of War material, Rogue is 100% trumped by several classes and Path of War material, and I replaced the Monk in our games).
That's about it from what I can think of at the moment. I'm pretty open to ideas, homebrew, and 3rd party material if it's well done (or we can edit it to be well done).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
OMG leetspeek.
I'm so old I forgot about it...