ColbyMunro's page

All of what you are saying basically makes sense, and is well reasoned. I guess what's really sticking in my craw is that the spell uses the words "As beast shape III, except that you change the subject into a Small or smaller animal of no more than 1 HD." instead of "assume the form like beast shape I through III."

If it said "as per beast shape III except you force a creature to assume the form of a small or smaller creature of the animal type" it wouldn't stand out to me as so strange. It feels bizarre to me that you can't cast something like speak with animals on a baleful polymorphed creature, but i suppose it makes sense for balance reasons. Someone would probably try to baleful polymorph + awaken themselves and play the game as a really smart monkey or something.

Either way, it ultimately serves our interests if he is a a little bit dumbed down as we don't really need to question him on facts so much as we just need him to be able to learn new information. If we just wanted info, there's mind reading spells and whatnot.

But, I suppose if awaken wont work, we'll just have to find a headband of intellect or something. Doesn't solve the language issue (especially if we can't use speak with animals on him) but there might be some item-based work-arounds there.

I did find the Tauhoti animal statblock potentially intriguing (and hillarious, to turn a devil into a "round squirrel like creature.") With the +4 bonus to intelligence checks for recalling information/facts. That seems to mitigate the INT penalty completely, though their score is still low for ranks, language and probably just rational thinking skills.

So this is meant to be a centerpiece for a 20 floor megadungeon-esque tower (meant to be routinely visited throughout the game) and players are meant to return to this puzzle-fight multiple times. The ultimate goal is to put the king into checkmate which opens a portal like door to treasure rooms. The players must be able to navigate to him, or it was all for naught. It's probably broken to all hell, which is why I'm posting it here and asking for the expert's advice. So, my main questions are these:
-If you were a player how would you break this (keep in mind that nothing past the basic rules of the "King's Game" will be made aware to the players, and even then they must roll a DC 11 Knowledge (Nobility) skill check for their characters to understand the rules) and everything else must be found out through trial and error. It's important that the players be rewarded for their cleverness in "cheating" but it shouldn't be easy or without cost.
-As a dm who is probably more experienced than I, what would you change to make this flow more smoothly? What problems do you see arising from it being played as described?
-I currently only have the stats for the first level of the game. How would you increase the difficulty of the constructs as the levels progress, aside from having them hit harder and have more health.

The King’s Game Construct
At the top of the tower of the moon is an unusual forty foot square construction. On the western side, is a forty foot wide by five foot long stairway leading down to eight alternating black and white five foot square tiles, starting with black from the northernmost corner. A 35x40 foot acid pit is the rest of the square.

Starting Placement:
Stepping onto the western tiles can activate a number of Construct Pieces ranging from 35 to 28. It will also create 28 alternating 5 foot tiles of black and white. Eight of these tiles will be immediately adjacent to the western tiles. 16 tiles will be on the eastern side of the acid pit.

16 of these construct pieces are black. These pieces are eight Pawn Constructs, two Rook Constructs, two Knight Constructs, two Bishop Constructs, one Queen Construct and one King Construct. These constructs are placed in this order; 8 pawns in the second to easternmost row from top to bottom, in the easternmost row from top to bottom is Rook Construct, Knight Construct, Bishop Construct, Queen Construct, King Construct, Bishop Construct, Knight Construct and Rook Construct.

15 to 8 white construct pieces will activate depending on how many creatures step onto the first row of tiles. These constructs mirror exactly the constructs on the east, save for the fact that any creatures that step on the westernmost row to begin the Kings Game at approximately the same time will be “counted” as their constructs and will not generate white constructs for that tile. To activate the King’s game, at least one creature must step onto the white King Construct’s starting tile.If any creature steps into a western tile designated for a Knight Construct Piece, three of the five foot alternating black and white tiles will appear exactly two rows east of it.

Movement and Actions:
Movement in the Kings game works like this; Any creature (that is not a kings game construct) may move to any placement on the board available to them. However if they move to tiles not designated to their piece, some strange things happen (see below.) If a creature designated as a white construct has a move speed that is short of the total move it takes to reach the tile it desires to reach, the black constructs will wait for it to move to that location, delaying a turn. The creature who took the white King’s position may call out moves to any white construct on the board it’s movement allows (Using phrases like “Knight to F3 or Rook to B5”.) If a construct or creature designated as a white construct moves to a space occupied by an opposite colored construct, it will instantly destroy it.

Creatures may also take moves not typically allowed to them in chess. If any creature attacks a construct not within it’s capturable space, the black constructs takes their next turn as an immediate action. In addition, any black constructs will also return an attack if it is within their reach. White constructs may also be attacked. If a white construct is attacked, they do not retaliate, however the black constructs will take their turn.
On each white turn, all possible moves that creatures designated as constructs can make as their construct type raise the tiles out of the acid. This means that creatures can make movements not typically allowed for them (they can either walk to another tile, if the tile is adjacent, or make an acrobatics check to jump onto an available tile.). As soon as a creature does this, as an immediate action, the black constructs will take their next move. After this is resolved though, the creature may move with their normal designated construct’s movement without the black constructs taking a turn.

- Creatures may also stop in places which are not typically allowed movements in the King’s Game. If a Creature who took the place of a knight, stops one or two tiles short of a knight’s move, the black constructs will wait for them to move a the space they are supposed to move to. Here they may either take an attack on a construct, or wait out the timer and end their turn here. If the creature makes an attack on a black construct here, the black constructs take a retaliation and a move. If the creature attacks a white construct here, the black constructs take a move. If the creature waits out the timer the black constructs take their move.
- Any time a creature with the designated construct as a bishop moves onto a tile that is the “wrong color”, the black constructs will take their next move. The black constructs will take their move even if the creature designated as bishop moved onto a “wrong color” tile the last turn. Tiles will also not raise for a creature designated as bishop until it moves onto a white space.
- If a construct is attacked by range from a creature outside the King’s Game board, a black bishop construct will attempt to retaliate, and black takes a turn.
- Flying for more than six seconds will trigger the black constructs to take their turn. Landing after this will also trigger the black constructs to take their turn.

Unless the black constructs are taking a retaliatory action, they always move in their designated way after a white construct or creature designated as a white construct takes its move. If they capture a white construct, they attack it, destroying it, and they move into that construct’s square. If they capture a creature, the construct makes an attack roll against the creature. The creature’s tile then falls out from under it, but they may roll an acrobatics check to move onto an available square as the tile disappears underneath them (use the rules for jumping without a running start.) If the “captured” creature moves onto another tile, the black constructs will take another turn.

It should be noted that the constructs move with unnatural grace and speed, and can take multiple moves in the span of a split second, even if creatures try to move at the same time. If this happens, have the creatures roll initiative to determine which creature moves first.

Captured Creatures and Acid Pit:
A creature designated as a construct that is not the white king does not take acid damage when it is captured or falls into the acid pit. The acid instead moves around the creature with a subtle grace, protected by an abjuration effect similar to mage armor. Other creatures above the acid pit may note the effect of the acid moving around the creature with a DC 20 perception roll. This effect will not generate if all the white pawns have been captured or destroyed, and the creature will take acid damage as normal.

Swimming through the acid at this time is impossible as there is no mass to push against. If they wish they can attempt a DC 20 will save to negate this effect, but they will immediately begin to take damage. If a pawn becomes promoted during this game, the creature gets to take it’s place. If more than one creature became captured and fell below the acid, only one creature may take the promoted pawn’s place.

After the game ends or is forfeited the protective effect ends, and creatures may attempt to surface and swim to safety at this time, taking damage for each turn they must swim (as well as rolling swim checks)

Settings:
The Kings game has Seven settings, each unlocked with a different key, except for the easiest setting which needs no keys to be unlocked. Upping the difficulty of the Kings Game alters a few portions of the game, including the intensity of the acid pit, timer to make each move, the health points and damage output of each individual construct piece, and the location for which the gate spell takes you, although the win condition is always the same (which is to put the king into “checkmate” and be able to enter the black king’s gate-door.)

Boundaries:
At all times, the north, east and south walls are bordered by a spell similar to wall of force. This can be be bypassed by any object or creature moving with enough speed; which is about 100 feet per second (any attack roll over 14 can be assumed to be moving at this speed. It can also be assumed that they draw their weapons back fast enough that it does not get stuck in the wall of force unless they specifically request to try leaving their weapon in between this force.) Spells, also have no issue passing through this wall of force (and therefore disintegrate can not destroy it). If any creature that is captured attempts to leave the game using the stairs the west wall will generate a similar wall of force effect, just long enough to prevent it from leaving, sending it falling into the acid. Otherwise, (except on the hardest difficulty) it may leave onto the stairs, resetting the game and dropping all constructs and creatures into the acid.The DC to dispel this wall of force is 31 and Mage’s Disjunction will deactivate the entire board, preventing the Black King’s Gate door from connecting to it’s location.

Low Risk Play:
Creatures may also attempt to to beat the kings game by placing only one creature into the king’s position and keeping them close to the west boundary. Playing this way takes 1d4 hours playing a number of different games until success or defeat (it’s assumed that every time a creature comes close to defeat, they step off the game, resetting it.)
They can roll an opposed knowledge nobility check or an intelligence check at -10 against the Kings Game Construct in this way. For every 5 feet the creature in the King Construct’s position is willing to move away from the western border to achieve victory they add a +2. This leaves them this many spaces away upon a victory, and must use acrobatics to return to safety or fall into the acid (again, use standing still rules for this jump.) Creatures not playing may use the aid another action for this way of playing. A tied roll in this case means a stalemate.

Winning this way may not actually get the desired result, as the black king construct could very well be on the other side of the board. The door on the hatch will open, but if the creatures can’t find a way to enter, they can not get inside (though they will likely get to see what’s inside the door). To achieve a win condition of being able to enter the King Construct’s Door, by driving the king to their side, their check must exceed +5. If a second creature with the ability to fly takes a white construct piece and spends the game in the air, this check must exceed +2.

While this is a low risk way of playing, it is not a no risk way of playing. It is possible to make an oversight and become checkmated even when taking caution. If the check fails by 5 or more, the Black Queen Construct places the creature designated as the White King Construct in checkmate and takes an attack, then sending them into the acid. Make an attack roll as the Queen Construct, then roll acid damage for every turn the creature must take to swim to safety and then climb out.

The puzzle was inspired by this youtube video.

It's a lot more powerful if it can be applied to some sort of moving vehicle. How would you rule that at your table?

I have one thing to add to this discussion which hasn't been brought up yet. I have absolutely zero tolerance for any sort of rape or sexual assault storylines or role play. It's actually really weird that that has to be stated but sometimes we have new players (friends of friends) come in that I havent had a chance to properly vet and they don't know the etiquette?

Tl;dr, it's not game of thrones guys.

So I think a player in my campaign just broke the game. He'd been saving up gp for some big construct project for a while, and then dropped his intentions on me only recently. Which is to make a cutlass spider and drop his black blade into it. It's gonna take him like a week and a half in game to finish his work on the Cutlass Spider, but I have absolutely no idea how to let him use it?

I mean, it's too cool to not let him do it.

2. Battlemaps, grids, and moving around dolls.

They're not dolls they're action figures, mom!

lmao nevermind they got in a inter-party bar brawl that lasted two hours so problem solved.

ColbyMunroe wrote:

Edit: also i'm getting tired of defending this system that I havent tried to people who also havent tried it and are coming off a little more than dismissive. If you don't think its a good idea, that's not the thread.

Then stop defending it. No one is forcing you to respond to the posts that point out its flaws.

Flaws are fine, im more talking about "it's bad because it's bad" or "the way you want to game is wrong" sort of posts. I don't know that it is bad, it seems fun to me, but it also seems extremely interpretive, so I'm trying to fortify myself from the inevitable weirdness that will arise from running it. I'll try to be less defensive.

Although it's talking about a somewhat different system, this article addresses a few of the complaints Cyrad raises, so you may find it useful to think about.

The short version is, declaring you action beforehand doesn't mean you can't still choose where to move and whom to target, so tactical teamwork is still possible.

Feats like Improved Initiative might retain their value by having that player declare their action last, so they can act on slightly better information than the others.

I'd also support the idea of light weapons rolling a smaller dice, and larger weapons rolling a larger one.

Also thank you Schadenfreude, I'm reading the article now.

So I watch Matt Colville's videos pretty religiously and today he dropped a video talking about Mike Mearl's homebrew initiative system. I really like it, and I'd like to try running it, but maybe you should tell me why it wouldn't work, or what might be adjusted to make it work better. Especially because there's a pretty big gap between 5e and Pathfinder, I'm guessing there's a lot I haven't considered on this topic.

ColbyMunro wrote:

Also: is "girl" actually offensive? I thought that was cool these days. (In my head it's more feminist to have a word that isn't derived from "male" or "man" like female or woman, but hey maybe i'm wrong.)

It's got similar problems as calling someone "boy" is that it's largely a diminutive and thus not generally appropriate, IMO. It's okay to call yourself that, or to talk about people you are already familiar with (e.g. "A night out with the boys/girls") but in general if you're talking about adult women you should just say "women" IMO. If you would describe your group as 4 men and 3 girls, despite them all being roughly the same age, there's an asymmetry in how you're according them status that is worth examining for your own benefit.

Don't call people "females", though, it makes you sound like a Ferengi.

All right, apparently Supergirl lied to me. If you can't trust the CW, who can you turn to these days. I'm gonna go ahead and assume "Woms" is also off the table.

So I tapped the original post on my phone before I went into class on four hours of sleep, so there's definitely not the level of subtlety I would usually convey around such an issue. If it came off as a little cringe, I'm sorry, but I would expect any post of this nature likely would. I probably could have mitigated that a little. First and most obviously there is some truth in what was said that I should talk to people individually, and for my close friends I absolutely will.

The west marches game is me drawing from a wider group of people than my core friend group which is where I'm having some issues, and have taken to advertising the campaign at school. My mythology professor even let me do an announcement in front of the class. I do have a single female friend interested, but I am worried about the whole "one girl sitting around a table with a bunch of dudes" vibe happening.

If I came across as stereotyping, that's a fair assessment. I was. I am primarily an individualist, which means I recognize that any person that belongs to any group can be totally unique from said group. I don't think it's unfair to assume things about larger populations. I know it's not the same, but I identify as genderfluid, so I think I can relate on some issues here?

My comment to player weirdness surrounding harassment is just a residual thought from Matt Colvilles videos in which he discussed a disgusting trend for male players to engage in sexual harassment or rape storylines when female players are at the table, and my original point was towards that possibility. Since I am playing with a number of strangers and new classmates, what I was trying to explain is if this crops up at all the player responsible would be gone from the table in an instant and a lightning bolt would crack down from the heavens and kill his character.

Maybe it's silly at all to think I can "market" my game to girls/women. Maybe it's the wrong motivation to try? Is it wrong to want a level of diversity in the game? I don't know. But if you guys have the answers, maybe it will help me understand what I'm doing wrong here.

Also: is "girl" actually offensive? I thought that was cool these days. (In my head it's more feminist to have a word that isn't derived from "male" or "man" like female or woman, but hey maybe i'm wrong.)

I'm laughing because he makes a sexist generalization about women, then men and then calls himself a feminist all in one sentence.

Preferred pronouns are they/them. Thanks.

I am running a west marches game, which means the game can consist of anywhere between 12 and 20 players who alternate in and out of sessions. Despite getting a large number of people interested, I'm having issues convincing my female friends to sign up to play. I would really enjoy the diversity of gender because I think generally women tend to be more focused on character development and interparty politics which would be a good counterweight to the more masculine murder-hoboism method of playing (although I'm a feminist and recognize that women too can be murder hobos.) I think of myself as pretty good at managing any sort of weirdness that might arise concerning sexual harassment between people or characters.

That all being said, what could I be doing wrong in this department? Any ideas? It's not like I don't have any female friends who would be interested in D&D/Pathfinder, I just seemingly can't grab their attention for this game.

Are you starting at level one? Is this happening to other people in your party? Also are your characters just going unconscious or are they actually getting killed?

If it's the latter it might just be a DM thing, talk to your dungeon master and see if maybe he can throw weaker enemies at your party and save potential TPKs for encounters that deserve it.

Otherwise it's just simple tactical choices. Make sure your heavies/tank have high constitution, and always to get flanking, either with rogues or fighters. If you are playing a rogue, ask your tanks to use aid another to sure up your defense until you can withdraw from melee if you're hurt, or consider using thrown weapons entirely.