Blaeringr's page

I've been researching historical weapons and armor recently, and the more I learn the more I feel the rules systems for most RPGs just don't grasp the concept.

I've looked at the variant rules: armor as damage reduction, but I feel that still somewhat misses the mark in some aspects, and completely misses it in others.

I'm determined to write up my own variant rules, and would like to toss out my rough ideas so far to see if I can gain more insights through this community.

Here's a link to the google document where I'm drafting this up: Revision: Armor as DR

And here's what I've written up so far:
Assumptions Behind Revision

1) Different armors and shields were more or less effective against different types of weapons. Just as an example, any metal armor tended to be extremely effective against any kind of slashing attack.
2) Many weapons were designed and used specifically with the purpose in mind of doing more damage to armored opponents
3) Weapons were regularly used both defensively and offensively, not either/or. Bonuses to defensive and offensive capabilities depended on several factors, including:

• user’s skill (BAB or ½ BAB added to Defense value? Weapon training?)
  
• weapon length (longer weapons have slight? moderate? large? advantage over shorter ones?)
  
• other design considerations (some weapons, like flails, just weren’t designed to parry well at all)
  sundering weapons

• a blast of fire to bare flesh should obviously hurt more than flesh encased in metal
  
• being encased in metal should make electricity hurt a lot less (eg. a tesla cage)

• ghost touch armor
  
• radiant energy armor
  
• bug repellent :D

Some of the Questions to Work Out

1) Magic weapon vs magic armor: how much DR is ignored per difference in weapon enhancement number above armor enhancement number?
2) Does the critical defense check really make sense? The target’s ability to defend their self is already taken into account in their defense total, why are they defending their self a second time just because the attack is worse?
3) Why does adamantine completely ignore armor DR? Does a little more hardness really make that kind of difference?
4) Additional bonuses to either DR or Defense that scale with BAB?
5) Should force spells ignore armor? Magic armor?

Some of you have already received PMs about this. Here's a little peek at what I've been working on lately: Baseless Propaganda

I'm brainstorming ideas for some kind of poster for different companies.

Ultimately I'd like to create a little collection, and hopefully the GW forums that they eventually set up will allow us to post images rather than just links; then I can create a thread showcasing the companies that were core participants in the early crowdforging days of PFO, not to mention spotlight myself a bit as an artist.

So start pitching me ideas, although don't get too specific: knowing me as I'm sure you do, you know I'll have more fun the more creative I can be with the final piece.

More explained at the link provided.

"Assassination is by contract. My concern here is that I as an assassin would rather remain faceless. That is when a person contracts for a hit I do not necessarily want them knowing the name of the assassin that will carry out the contract. I have read the dev blogs and as yet have not found anything that applies either way to this and therefore have to assume in the abscence of any information that the contract system will be much like that of Eve and the contractor name will be visible in some way to the contractee."

I personally hope that we will be able to use middlemen to receive and even issue contracts for assassinations and that the contract will be able to be passed between these messengers.

Through the blogs, GW tells us there will be a reputation system (see blog Screaming For Vengeance under alignment and reputation). Reputation will be "clearly" visible to players, and low reputation will come with penalties regarding quality of settlement you can build, and settlements you can enter.

The same blog talks about how reputation loss will be greater when killing someone with a high reputation, and lower when killing someone with a low reputation.

So far it just sounds like a system that provides consequences that are mild for engaging in some PvP, but higher for engaging in a lot of PvP (other than wars).

So then we get to the next blog (I Shot a Man in Reno Just To Watch Him Die) which talks about different PvP "flags".

First concept regarding reputation, is they introduce to the system a way for bandits and assassins to not lose reputation if they follow a code of conduct while doing their thing. And that kinda makes sense to me, and kinda not. Following a code of conduct while committing disreputable acts is not reputably neutral.

My suggestion there would be to put a cap on how much reputation can go down while following such a code of conduct. A good upstanding citizen can't continue to be seen in said light while he goes around mugging caravans, just because he's only making threats and not actually killing people. And it would be an absolute scandal if it were found out that your mayor were sneaking around in the night assassinating people. The scandal would not disappear simply because he pointed out that he was following a contract. Well, unless you live in Evilville.

Which brings us to the second point from said blog (I Shot a Man in Reno Just To Watch Him Die) that mentions the following:

If an Assassin has had his flag active for at least an hour and kills a character with an active bounty or assassination contract, the Assassin gains bonus reputation up to a daily max.

When an Outlaw receives a ransom from stand and deliver, they get reputation up to a daily max.

?!?

Taken from the Recruiting and Training sub forum located here:

If you are running a company that wishes to focus on shadier activities, then this is the place to post a thread about recruiting.

If you are a company of upstanding citizens who want to keep their hands clean and outsource the dirty work that needs doing to keep your settlement clean, then this is the place to post a thread about it.

If you want to set up a rotating door kind of organization that takes in newbs and sends them off with the skills they need to operated effectively in the shadows, post your thread here.

Be it for forming actual companies, or smaller, informal networks, or twisted apprentices, please use this section to advertise.

Boards where you don't have to constantly bump your recruitment thread just to keep it visible 24 hours from now. Tony will spread the word about your organization to all who drop into his establishment.

Thanks Skwiziks for writing up that awesome ad idea.

Here's the link to the picture itself.

It is also now up on Tony's official website.

And here's the link to the thread in which Tony first introduced himself to the PFO community and in which Skwiziks wrote up this brilliant piece.

Tony, the proprietor of Tony's Totally Legitimate Breadmaking Business, has relocated.

Guild Portal has a history of problems, including very recently deleting the newest accounts to have registered there, and so we have sought out a more reliable hosting site for PFO's premier underground discussion network.

We decided to go with Proboards who have an excellent reputation, including winning "Best Hosted Forum 2011.

The new site is located at http://tonys-breadmaking.proboards.com

Please drop by and check it out, and please remember to sign up with a different name than your PFO forum account.

What purpose does an underground forum server?
-Discuss bounty and assasination contracts. Get help from experienced hunters and cleaners, or find someone to take on a contract.
-Anti griefing: discuss ruthless ways to deal with the ruthless.
-Recruiting: find apprentices to follow you in your twisted trade.
-Venting: no holds barred ranting and raving.
-Lists: you know, the ones the devs won't allow on the official forums.
-Intelligence: a little espionage goes a long way.

A man in China hired virtual "assassins" to hunt down his son in online video games and kill off his avatar, according to local media.

link

So I think it's safe to assume that a lot of people are getting fed up with the bickering over the bounty system and whether it should be targeted at legitimate bandits, or just at the genuine griefers. So this is an attempt at a discussion about a way past the disagreements so that Goblinworks can stick to their current plan in a way that will work for all.

What is "Bounty Griefing"?
Instead of a long explanation of what the bounty system is, suffice it to summarize it in saying that it was conceived primarily as an attempt to make the lives of casual griefers hard enough that randomly ganking people would loose its fun for them.

Bounty griefing is when the system is renewed by the victim of the griefer over and over ad nauseum. No matter how many times a bounty hunter ganks the griefer, he can theoretically keep killing him.

But how could players afford to keep placing bounties on the same guy forever?
Bounty griefing works especially well when you have a bounty hunter or group of bounty hunters who are willing to hunt their targets just for the fun of it. When that is the case, the person issuing the bounty can put the price out at a single coin and keep re-instating it every time someone collects.

What about a minimum price for bounties?
That still doesn't work, because when you have a situation like that with bounty hunters who just want the amusement, not to mention the loot from each kill, then they'd be willing to work out a system with the person issuing the bounty where they pay him the money back. So it's the exact same money going into the bounty contract each time.

Ok, then what about a cap on the number of times a bounty can be issued for a given crime?
The challenge that creates is that you are now going softer on genuine griefers. The option to punish abusive behavior should still be there.

Are bandits griefers?
Goblinworks has made it clear that bandits should be an integral part of PFO. For an example, see this post by Ryan Dancey.

He suggests non-violent ways for bandits to get what they want, but threats only continue to work if they are occasionally backed up by violence. Pacifist bandits may get what they ask for the first few times, but people will eventually stop taking the threats seriously unless they're backed up with force every now and then.

And that will give people the option to place bounties on them. Some people will choose to bounty grief the bandits. And that's only one scenario where people will get the opportunity.

But unlike casual griefers, aren't bandits prepared to accept the added danger?
That may be so for many bandits, or it may not. It seems safe to assume that hardcore bounty griefing will change the minds of some from following the bandit playstyle.

************************************************************************
But that issue takes backseat to the way bounty griefing creates a new set of rules for bandits. A bandit who is constantly being chased by bounty hunters hired by the same guy (and he may merely suspect they're from one guy, he doesn't have to know for sure to get this idea), may conclude that the best way to stop the harassment is to harass back the guy paying the bounties.
************************************************************************

Bounty Griefing Griefing
When a bandit, or similar target of bounty griefing needs to take the heat off themselves, they need to organize. If they just start repeatedly killing the same guy over and over and follow him everywhere, eventually because they aren't legitimate bounties it's going to become apparent that he is griefing, and quite likely get himself a little or even a big ban. Targets of bounty griefing are going to figure this out. If they are organized, they are going to discuss the bounty griefing outside of the game and figure out ways of getting revenge that are not so apparent to in game moderators. The idea is to either keep the guy issuing the cyclical bounties to be stuck in an NPC settlement (where PvP is impossible), or to be bullied into cancelling the bounty. He may even forget his grudge for the first bounty target as he's had so many more people to spread his grudges thin over.

This type of planning doesn't tend to happen over the official forums, so forum mods won't be able to control it. It will likely start off on individual company forums, but if the need grows then we'll see collaboration between companies, likely eventually forming official unofficial PFO forums where griefing will be discussed, names will be named, and insults thrown without official PFO moderation.

As they get more and more organized, they can target bounty griefers with more and more players, making the sharp rise in attacks against said player more and more difficult to prove as targeted. Plausible deniability will be used to tell any inquiring mods whatever story they come up with about their reasons for any given attack.

But won't the anti bounty griefing get just as bad or worse than the bounty griefing itself?
Yes, and that is why it needs to be organized early and fairly.

A forum needs to be set up where players can report their suspicions that they are being bounty-griefed. Other players can read it and, through espionnage, attempt to confirm what is going on. Players can establish their own rules on how to deal with bounty griefing (and other types of griefing as well), like required evidence to confirm a legitimate case of bounty griefing, coordinating espionage to locate the source of bounties, and how to take non-violent steps to try to negotiate an end it, or when negotiations fail with the griefer, a large organized effort to make them re-think an well over-used bounty.

Tony's Forums: Anti Griefing Sub Forum
And so I proudly present to the Pathfinder online community Tony's Totally Legitimate Breadmaking Business' Anti Griefing sub forums. Please feel free to enjoy some fresh hot bread while you tell us all about that big bad griefer!

Disclaimer: It is not Tony's intentions to encourage anti griefing griefing, but in the realization that it will happen it is his goal to attempt to bring a rational methodology and cooperation to it to make sure innocents aren't mistakenly targeted.

The question was asked

How does the Bounty system apply to the Attacker in the wilderness?

To which a game designer and employee of goblinworks replied:

You can Bounty and/or Death Curse anyone who kills you* unless you had one of the mitigating flags when you died (Attacker, Criminal, At War, etc.).

This is a very big leap from earlier blogs that very explicitly stated that kills in the wilderness would not trigger the bounty system.

Fair enough, it's your guys' game.

But there are players already contributing money, several players, who intend to pursue PvP opportunities in the wilderness areas. This latest update from Stephen has made it clear that they can no longer do so without the consequences of the bounty system which, as Ryan Dancey wrote, "will dissuade all but the most hardcore griefers from bothering". When Ryan originally wrote that, it applied to attacking people in lawful ares, but Stephen now tells us it has been expanded everywhere. The question that Stephen was asked above was worded very clearly to put it in the context of a wilderness attack.

So rather than the heavy risk vs reward balance that Ryan described early on:

Of course, those who simply wish to avoid any PvP at all will choose to remain within the very high security zones close to NPC settlements where PvP is effectively impossible. Such players will have fewer opportunities to find adventure or to earn treasure than their braver and less risk-averse peers, but they'll be safe

now we have a situation where someone would have to be insane to bother you outside of town.

Well, good luck with that Goblinworks.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, it's possible that Stephen didn't mean that quite the way he said it, but given all the conversation that's ensued, and that he has remained silent, if that is the case and this has all been a misunderstanding, then consider a second request: put a little more emphasis on your development crew with the importance of giving clear answers and not mistakenly saying the exact opposite of what you meant to say. But I'm sure that's not really the problem, is it?

Interesting fact about trolls: when you chop a troll's finger off it is not a big loss to the troll. The troll just grows a new finger, and the finger just grows a new troll.

This is important for adventurers to understand. When a big mob of like minded adventurers encounters a troll, their first instinct is often to just start hacking back at the offending monster. But this is a tragic mistake. Often the attacking troll isn't even hungry, but just wants to be a mommy, and the over zealous adventurers unwittingly partake in the beast's fiendish act of procreation. Kinda gross, yeah.

So next time you meet a troll, don't go trying to justify your aggressive reaction by telling us all how brave and stubborn you are, because your stubbornness is just icing on the cake for the troll. The longer the troll can get you to lash out with that mighty e-peen of yours, the more the troll is satisfied. And you can never be so stubborn as to win. The more you drive your point home, the more it should be obvious that the troll doesn't actually have a counter point - he just wants to see how far he can get you to go with yours, you big strong knight you!

I just recently learned about Roll20 (link. It's a free (thanks to Kickstarter) browser based virtual tabletop that has managed to put together a pretty impressive set of features. Compared to other tabletops I've personally used, this one is my favorite.

What do the rest of you out there use?

Cryengine3.

That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying what it's about. Just the word "Cryengine". Oh, and the words "leaked info" That's it.

Please feel free to speculate rampantly.

Just saying...the mail icon for these forums doesn't exactly dazzle the eye. When Goblinworks get around to setting up their own forums, it would be delightful to see that icon be a little more visually prominent.

Hey, we make bread! Come on in and try some.

Maybe while you eats it, you tells us what's on your mind. Tell us about your problems, and maybe we'll make your problems go away. Disappear. Just like that.

No, I don't know what happened to you uncle Vince, or how your brother Guido ended up floating in the canal.

Jeez, this is a legitimate business I'm running here.

No we aren't some kind of intermediary for hitmen or assassins!

What's with all the questions? You eat bread, you tell us your problems, you feel better. What's so complicated about that?!

So Goblinworks has announced that there will be the occasional instanced adventure in PFO (aka "Modules"). One of my personally favorite things I've seen in instanced quests is puzzles.

Sometimes it's just your simple little one person puzzle.

Sometimes it's a bigger puzzle.

Sometimes a complicated non-euclidean maze.

And sometimes something more complicated that requires cooperation and coordination to complete it.

The point is there are more ways to make a quest challenging and memorable than just hack and slash.

I am curious what the Goblinworks development team has in mind for implementation of stealth mechanics. Also curious to hear player input.

Players hiding from NPCs?

Players hiding from players?

Hiding when being observed?

Hiding with help of invisibility or similar spells?

I know these things are pretty straightforward in PnP, but my experience with MMOs, as well as other RPG, even D&D video games has shown that actual implementation is rarely so straightforward.

Not to mention the idea of being able to hide player built structures (hideouts).

As you enter the tavern, you and your friends make your way over to a table near the hearth and wave over the skinny young mouse haired waitress.

As you take your seat, you feel, or rather hear the sound of paper sliding between your britches and the wood of your seat. Briefly elevating yourself and reaching down, you settle back into your seat and get a batter look at the rough piece of parchment now in your left hand.

It reads:
"Dear inhabitant of the River Kingdoms,

Living in a frontier land can be challenging at the best of times. There are all kinds of characters trying to make their fortune in these parts, and still so little civilization for so much wilderness. We all appreciate the authorities and the efforts they are making to try to keep the peace and deliver justice, but far too often people are still taken advantage of, and justice left undone.

Did you know that the laws here don't protect you much further than the walls of our few larger settlements? Get mugged, despoiled, and left clinging to your life by a thread while seeking your fortune out in the rich wilds and what can you expect from the guard? You'd be lucky indeed to be wished well in your recovery. They'll merely tell you to pay more money next time for an armed escort. But justice? Even if you know the precise identity of the perpetrator? Absolutely not.

Well, not from the guard in any case. You might be pleased to know, however, that there are concerned citizens who are interested in seeing that you get what you deserve: justice! It's quite simple really. Bring the identity of the perpetrator(s) as well as where the incident occurred, and we'll be happy to take matters from there.

As you can imagine, we wish to remain discreet. If you wish to contact us, send a couriered letter to our intermediary who receives mail under the alias 'Phantasm' and he'll arrange a meeting with you to discuss terms.

Be well, people of the River Kingdoms, and don't let your enemies, nemesis, annoying neighbors, or mother-in-laws go unpunished any longer.

Sincerely,

The Dark One"

Some games out there have windows tailored for players looking for groups, or groups looking for players, whereas some games require you to shout out in whatever chat channel you think will get the best response before it gets quickly flooded out of view by a torrent of chat messages about irrelevant and frivolous topics.

Good grouping mechanics are important so that an MMO can actually be an MMO rather than a whole bunch of people connecting online to be able to chat and see each other's characters while they play the same single player game.

Please make it important and functional to group frequently with other players. Having said that, soloists like to have options as well, as well as people who don't consider themselves strictly soloists, but like the challenge of going it alone from time to time.

When WoTC made the move from 3.5 to 4e, my opinion was that Paizo went in the correct direction: you guys made Pathfinder more or less what WoTC should have had the sense to make 4e.

The big thing that stands out to me is what combat looks like. As opposed to Joe-Barbarian choosing between melee attack without power attack vs melee attack with power attack, and then adding all applicable feats, they now have this abominable monstrosity of a system where Joe-Barbarian decides whether he wants to pirouette into a group, or tippity-toe frenetically down a whole line of foes. The attack "powers" have made 4e look like an exaggerated Japanese cartoon where your character stops what he's doing to crouch down and shout some gibberish while he gathers his energy to make some big fancy move that looks more like a dance number...

I bring it up because this approach seems to be disgustingly common in MMOs. Hitting several hotkeys to cycle through a set of ballerina-like moves, all waiting for your grand-finale-super-high-kicking-piroutte-combo to charge up. Gah!

Please keep combat away from that silliness.

An action oriented combat system, like elder scroll games or DDO, helps keep combat moves simplified (unless of course you're playing a wizard or someone with a bunch of spells) by making players focus their attention on the movement and placement during fights. Monsters trying to flank us, us trying to keep out of their circle, trying to slip around behind out of their attack arc every now and then, etc.

Please!

I know some people look at warforged and can't help but see them as some kind of stempunk monstrosity, but that's ok. I disagree and happily accept that meatbags are also entitled to their glandularly charged opinions ;)

Death to all Fleshlings!!!