Arkanzier's page

Arkanzier wrote:

I like having Paladins and the like in my games, but I'm not a huge fan of the alignment system, so I made my default setting such that there's a singular entity that alignment-relevant effects base themselves off of. As in, they use his moral compass to decide if any given creature is evil or lawful or what have you.

Granted, the characters aren't going to know that most of the time because that's not information that people tend to spread, but it's there and it makes my life easier.

Isn't this how the game already works? Or is it just something that I subconsciously invented too, to explain objective morality?

Different settings have different things going on, but from what I recall all the ones I've looked at have had some kind of objective morality that the multiverse was built on. Good is objectively known to be one list of things, evil is another list, and so on. So kinda the same, except that Smite Evil 'just knows' rather than having a guy that it asks.

Alignment is the cornerstone of any fantasy roleplaying game. In the real world, players have all sorts of murky moral and ethical dilemmas to deal with. RPGs are an escape from those difficulties into a black-and-white world where heroes are heroes and villains are villains.

Furthermore, the game mechanics revolve around it. How does detect evil make sense without alignment? What about an anarchic weapon? Do good and evil subtypes make sense any more and, if so, how do paladins know when they get bonuses from smite evil?

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

I like having Paladins and the like in my games, but I'm not a huge fan of the alignment system, so I made my default setting such that there's a singular entity that alignment-relevant effects base themselves off of. As in, they use his moral compass to decide if any given creature is evil or lawful or what have you.

Granted, the characters aren't going to know that most of the time because that's not information that people tend to spread, but it's there and it makes my life easier.

As for on-topic stuff, I'm not a fan of distinct turns. I prefer games with initiative systems more like that of Exalted (each action takes X time and you get to declare a new action after that many clock-ticks). That being said, D&D-style turns have much less to keep track of and there are definitely some days when I'm very fond of that.

To weigh in, I feel like there is no barrier between roleplaying and building effective characters. There are problems with building SOME roleplaying concepts in a mechanically-effective manner, but that's more of a problem with the particulars of the system. In the case of the old man adventurer, such a character could very easily be built in a mechanically effective manner if one stuck to the general description provided, but some of the particulars (must speak many languages, comes to mind) are things that the system does not do well at the extreme low end of the level spectrum (languages known being so closely tied to the number of ranks in Linguistics one has, for that example).

As for flavor being tied to mechanics, not really. There are some things that have to be the case (people with levels in Wizard getting mystical powers via their Int score, said powers being chosen from a particular list and being identifiable via Spellcraft, etc), but exactly what happens beyond that is mutable. One Wizard could be fluffed as your stereotypical book-toting frail guy, the next is someone who made a pact with some kind of Cthuloid entity for cosmic cheat codes (which he stores in a book in an elaborate code) and so on. As long as there's a plausible in-universe explanation for the stuff you're stuck with the sky's the limit.

For a better example than Wizards, in-universe a Fighter/Rogue isn't simultaneously a member of the Fighters and Thieves guilds; (s)he is a sneaky character who's good at backstabbing, going for the kidneys, and so on. Classes, feats, and so on are merely packets of mechanical stuff and a small portion of that is tied to in-universe stuff, with Wizards and other spellcasters being on the more obvious end of the spectrum.

The only reason I'm truly considering it is because right now, not many people multiclass* so really, it is just "choose an extra skill point or hp per level" rather than anything to do with a 'favoured class'.

I guess I'm just trying to think of a way to make it more.. thematic? fitting with the concept of a favoured class?

*YMMV...of course.

Does your group not play with the alternate favored class bonuses by race/class combo? Some of them are really interesting, though some are perhaps a bit too much (Human bonuses for spontaneous spellcasting classes, for example).

Anyway, now that I'm finally caught up, some of my houserules that I don't think I've seen posted:
1 - When someone heals someone else, both parties roll the appropriate dice and the character is healed the higher amount (so if someone casts Cure Light Wounds on someone else for d8+5, they both roll d8+5 and the target is healed whichever amount is higher). When someone heals themselves, they just roll once.

2 - I'm toying with the idea of changing the favored class HP bonuses to 1 (if the class's HD is d4 or d6), 2 (if d8), or 3 (if d10 or larger).

3 - And, finally, HP per level:
3a - At first level, characters receive their full HD + Con score + any miscellaneous modifiers (so a Fighter with 14 Con would start with 24 HP plus any other bonuses).

3b - At later levels HP works normally except that, instead of rolling, the characters receive average HP for their HD, rounded up (AKA half the maximum roll, +1). They then have a maximum bonus to HP from Con equal to the difference between that and their HD size (so a Wizard gets 4 HP per level off his d6 HD, and can get a maximum of +2 per level from Con). Other sources of HP (such as favored class bonuses) are applied after this maximum.

3c - To go with this, the Toughness feat is changed to increase one's HD size by 1 (and, because HD are never actually rolled, Barbarians and anyone else with a d12 HD is just bumped up to a d14). This includes the +1 HP per level due to a larger die size, and on top of that allows for more Con per level to HP.

When I sit down at your table you can worry about telling me how to play my character. Until then, I'll just keep playing it by the rules. I really don't give two figs what JJ said, since he is self-admitted not a rules guy.

Technically speaking, Greater Bane is a completely separate class feature that modifies the Bane class feature. They're very similar, but not the same thing.

It would work the way you think if the bit about Greater Bane were listed within the description for the Bane ability, but since they're listed separately then they're different class features.

That being said, it's not too much of a stretch for a DM to houserule that this would work, but it is technically a houserule.