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Just as background - I run my campaign "diceless"; everything is handled by software that I have written myself. This software has the ambition of being able to do *everything", which is only possible by growing it at the pace that the players progress (or I would be writing it for the next 10 years).
Working this way does, however, get you to get to grips with the rules in some detail, and it does highlight inconsistencies and general strangenesses (excuse the made up english). I would very much like to suggest that, should there ever be a v 2 of this excellent RPG (unlikely, but anyway), that some effort be taken to minimise these peculiarities. When things don't go with the flow, I find we either forget them, choose not to use them, or get them wrong.
For example yesterday I implemented Shadows. A normal sort of monster you would have thought but no - this creature does Ability Damage to Strength which kills you when you get to 0.
Ability Damage to Strength is not supposed to do this, so this doesn't sit very comfortably with other sorts of Strength Damage. It is difficult to add them up without introducing oddities (for example, if I lose the first half of my strength to poison then the final half to a Shadow, I die, but if I do it the other way around I'm only paralysed), or you keep track of the two sorts of damage separately, wandering exactly how you should handle recuperation.
To a certain degree I believe that this rule system and its predecessor did try to build up from a fixed set of "axioms", though I think both lost their way a bit. Should there ever be a review, I would very much like to encourage trying to stick to an axiom-based system as much as possible.
I'll get off my soap-box now :-)
Richard
As someone who has tried (and vaguely succeeded at) writing a combat tracker for D&D4e I have to ask... how are you undertaking the massive task of handling ALL aspects of PF in *one* program?? It must be a lot of lines of code... and what language are you using?
More on topic, yeah, there are odd little things in all RPGs which makes the systematic approach of computers kind of have a hard time with them, but that's what happens when you make a system which attempts to emulate real life. Not to mention the absurdly huge number of combinations of classes/archetypes/races/class-specific things (bloodlines, magic schools, etc.) means tracking every single bonus is a nightmare. And that's before you add in situational things, for example the feat Death from Above; +5 to attack if you're falling from a height onto a target. How would a program know this? Even with an integrated battle map, they're usually 2d.
I guess my point is; they've tried streamlining it as much as they can, but there's only so much you can do if you want to retain a whole host of options for people to play with. It's an inevitably complex system...
how are you undertaking the massive task of handling ALL aspects of PF in *one* program?? It must be a lot of lines of code... and what language are you using?
My questions as well.
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As someone who has tried (and vaguely succeeded at) writing a combat tracker for D&D4e I have to ask... how are you undertaking the massive task of handling ALL aspects of PF in *one* program?? It must be a lot of lines of code... and what language are you using?
More on topic, yeah, there are odd little things in all RPGs which makes the systematic approach of computers kind of have a hard time with them, but that's what happens when you make a system which attempts to emulate real life. Not to mention the absurdly huge number of combinations of classes/archetypes/races/class-specific things (bloodlines, magic schools, etc.) means tracking every single bonus is a nightmare. And that's before you add in situational things, for example the feat Death from Above; +5 to attack if you're falling from a height onto a target. How would a program know this? Even with an integrated battle map, they're usually 2d.
I guess my point is; they've tried streamlining it as much as they can, but there's only so much you can do if you want to retain a whole host of options for people to play with. It's an inevitably complex system...
What you have discovered is exactly why most of us play this game. We play it for the exceptions to the rules and not the rules. When you try to account for all the possible exceptions you quickly discover you why most people don't go the route you are going.
I have been writing software for over 25 years and would suggest to you what you are doing is almost impossible. I wish you luck. You are a better man than I for attempting this!
Ability Damage to Strength is not supposed to do this, so this doesn't sit very comfortably with other sorts of Strength Damage. It is difficult to add them up without introducing oddities (for example, if I lose the first half of my strength to poison then the final half to a Shadow, I die, but if I do it the other way around I'm only paralysed), or you keep track of the two sorts of damage separately, wandering exactly how you should handle recuperation.
I think that this is a great opportunity to explore the strange cases.
I would love it if someone explored strange rules conflicts and stuff in an article. Writing a program is a good way to run across such problems.
I'm pretty sure there's some cool P vs NP stuff in pathfinder.
I run my campaign "diceless"
While I've seen this work before, there is psychologically a certain amount of fun in a table-top game that comes from rolling dice. I'd be a sad panda if I had to forego my dice bag.
I'm all about the dice. An unexpectedly great roll or an ill-timed fumble can turn a whole adventure massively, and that's part of the fun.
I'm all about the dice. An unexpectedly great roll or an ill-timed fumble can turn a whole adventure massively, and that's part of the fun.
Yeah dice!, gives one a feeling of control. Picking your favourite dice for that critical roll, etc.
Having said that tracking the game and character state would be great to help manage the game.
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I think that there are two key things about writing this sort of software.
The first is to remember that it is not a commercial proposition, it's only for me and my group to use. Therefore, it only has to support what we're going to need in the next session (or two - to plan ahead a bit).
Having said that, it is a lot of work, but it's ongoing.
The second trick, which I only realised recently, is that it's very important to have a screen for the players to look at. I run this software on my laptop now with an extra screen plugged in showing a window which I support for the players. Here's a screenshot:
http://www.qusheet.com/pathfinder/screenshot.jpg
As well as using the green progress bar to track hit points (nobody asks me how many hps they've got left now, which I rather like), the big coloured numbered boxes show what the latest D20 roll made for the player was (the top one) and the running average (the bottom one, so people can see how lucky they've been this session).
There are also little icons there (with a 3.5 picture you'll notice - for flat-footed) to show conditions which I think are obvious.
The software, otherwise, is written in C# with Visual Studio. It's principle purpose is to keep track of all the rules involved in actions / protections, which it does with individual code (i.e. laboriously).
Richard
Nice screenshot :) ...but some poor players seem to have been rolling averages of 2/3 this session... O.o
To what extent does the program support stuff? I.e. do you have the program automatically (or manually) counting rounds? Have you got all the conditions down, even the fiddly ones like ongoing damage? Also, are you using Forms or WPF?
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The software resets all the d20 averages every time I start it up, so what you're seeing there is the result of a couple of init rolls I did just to demonstrate.
I use Forms.
I do automatically sort out ongoing damage, stabilisation and so on. Not everything - like I said, I implement as I need it.
I track time in two ways.
Round based stuff goes in the initiative table, with its own initiative. When my software recognises that it's hit an "event" initiative entry it automatically decreases the counter and removes the entry if the counter has reached 0. This then has the knock on effect of removing whatever it is was being monitored.
Stuff that takes longer is tracked using a separate Timer tab which marks the expiry date for the whatever. I then have a Diary tab to fill in the passage of time, and this then checks the Timer tab for expirations.
I don't count rounds at the moment, funnily enough, though I might be about to start (it isn't really necessary). I also produce a log every session which I post up on my web site (Obsidian Portal - but I have to keep it private because I post up copyrighted material).
Richard
Log Example:
http://www.qusheet.com/pathfinder/Attack.07%20November%202011.log.txt
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The big strengths of Pathfinder are versatility and freedom. Not everything is standardised, compartmentalised and unified. If that ever changed, the game would probably lose the majority of its players.
A lot of people stuck to 3e/went to Pathfinder because they felt that "D&D" 4e took that freedom and versatility away. Every class must fit in a pigeonhole like "defender" or "striker", everything must be done as daily powers or at will powers which are given out at specific levels (that are the same for all classes), and so on.
A lot of people hate this, because it puts limits on what can be done. These people will not be kindly disposed towards anyone who tells them their character concept will not work because that would mean extra work for the software developers.
Sure, the current system can be a nightmare if you want to create a software that simulates the rules exactly. Add in the fact that there are house rules, and it gets worse.
That's why I prefer to get the best of both worlds: While I use the computer (when I run the game, I also have a laptop with an extra screen for the players) and many pieces of software to help with lots of things, and use a tablet PC when I'm a player, there's still stuff I don't use a computer for.
By the way, a friend of mine (Treyu on these boards, for when he's around) told me of a phenomenal webpage for dice:
hamete virtual dice server (LINK)
You can let it drop the lowest or highest results (for ability generation or something like that), reroll 1s, have exploding dice, have stuff like 4d6+3, and more. It shows pictures of actual dice (very nice, as it has quite the collection of dice types), you can check for success, etc. And you can mail dice results (great for PBP, but I didn't test that yet).
As I said: it's the best of both worlds.
On my old job, I used to work on a CA(X) software that had at its heart an object-based database to store and track all the data it needed (and then had event-based scripts as well as DLLs to control the workflows).
I often mused whether I could do a good D&D/PF character/rules application if I took the software, stripped a database of all the unneeded stuff like measuring transducers and instead built up structures for all the races, classes and monsters.
I still think that would work well for a PF rules application. Maybe not that particular software, since it would be a tad expensive for hobbyists (I think the most basic license for the software itself was 3500€), but building up everything in an object-oriented database.
It would probably be quite easy to handle all the special cases in the rules if everything had the usual OO structure.
Have a strength drain that kills for a change? Just derive a specialised strength drain from the normal one with a different "on 0" effect.
Of course, that would be more work, but we already established that PF is a nightmare for programmers :D
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I like that hamete dice server for its pretty pictures, but there's an even more serious dice calculator out there... http://anydice.com/. You can literally write programs in this to simulate any sort of dice rolls imaginable, over different scenarios e.g. you can ask how often you'd hit a target with different weapons and such. It's most awesome.
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Well, I just use C#, without any database as such, beyond stuff stored in tables in the GUI which do, indeed, co-refer (so it's a database of sorts).
In terms of axiom-based rules, I believe that there are some things which should be based on axioms (the laws of the universe) and some which definately shouldn't (people's behaviour).
To take the Shadow as an example, if it did 1d6 points of normal negative energy damage as well as 1d6 points of (ordinary) strength damage, wouldn't it fulfil the same monster-niche that it currently does without needing to create a special-case with regards to its ability damage?
Richard
Interesting topic.
First up, a quick diversion. If your players are happy, feel free to disregard this entirely, but it's always possible there's a viewpoint you're not aware of. From a couple points you've made, your game would drive me nuts. It may not be your intent, but it sounds like you've removed a lot of control from your players. Others have already commented on the dice-less aspect so I won't. What additionally bothered me was the throwaway about your players asking you how many hit points they had. Err? Normally it's up to the player to track the condition of their character. It makes the situation visceral and "real" as they have to write down they've taken yet-another-horrible-condition or blow.
Second, it's cool that you're trying to do this. So kudos. I'm going to suggest that you need to think of anything that happens procedurally. At low levels when things are just doing straightforward damage it's easy to just treat it as a static numbers-altering routine, like a spreadsheet. As things progress and as PCs and monsters get more complex, you're going to need to introduce the concept of procedure. Monsters are going to have "do X to some numbers THEN impose some condition THEN do Y to some other numbers". You're going to have to come to terms with that, code-wise. You're going to find a monster some day that say... bites (deals damage), gets an automatic grab (CMB attempt), then if it grabs, it automatically gets to inflict tail spike damage (deals damage), then pumps some kind of poison into the PC which damages Strength and Dex (deals ability damage). That MUST be done in that order because the poison impacts their CMB against the grab in the first place. I bring this up because that's the answer for your Shadow problem. A Shadow's procedure is to make an attack roll, deal Strength damage, then check if it has dropped the target's Strength below zero, in which case it applies the Dead condition. No exceptions, no quandaries, no exceptions, no difficulty.
TLDR; your code MUST "think" like a DM to adjudicate this game.
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The point I was trying to make about tracking hit points is that the players are now happy just to see the progress bar. I think they feel this is more role-play-realisticky, if you see what I mean, rather than have an actual number in front of them, and I rather like that. The player screen also doubles up as a statement of what anyone on the field could sensibly know about anyone else, and I use it as a means of informing the opposition as well when I'm deciding what they should do. The icons that I use, therefore, are only there for things which I think are visible. "Blind", for example, has an icon, but "deaf" does not.
In terms of procedure, my shadow does this (hope you get the idea - apologies to non software engineers)
private static void Strength_Damage_Normal_Shadow()
{
Strength_Damage_Shadow( 6 );
}
private static void Strength_Damage_Greater_Shadow()
{
Strength_Damage_Shadow(8);
}
private static void Strength_Damage_Shadow(int _d)
{
int damage = _The_random_controller_.S.Anonymous_Next( _d );
if ( _The_effect_panel_.S.MY_ATTACK_CRIT )
{
damage += _The_random_controller_.S.Anonymous_Next( _d );
}
_The_status_panel_.S.Damage_Ability(_The_effect_panel_.S.MY_TARGET_PLAYER, _The_effect_panel_.S.MY_TARGET_ID,
_Sub_status_std_bonus_cb_.c_strength, damage);
if (_The_status_panel_.S.Get(new _The_status_panel_._PP_
{
PLAYER = _The_effect_panel_.S.MY_TARGET_PLAYER,
ID = _The_effect_panel_.S.MY_TARGET_ID,
ABILITY = _Sub_status_std_bonus_cb_.c_strength
}) <= 0)
{
if (
MessageBox.Show(
string.Format( "{0}:{1} may be dead if the only strength damage taken has been through a shadow's strength damage ability. Are they dead?", _The_effect_panel_.S.MY_TARGET_PLAYER, _The_effect_panel_.S.MY_TARGET_ID ),
@"Shadow strength damage double-check", MessageBoxButtons.YesNo ) == DialogResult.Yes )
{
_The_status_panel_.S.Add( new _The_status_panel_._PP_
{
META = _Status_meta_type_cb_.c_permanent,
PLAYER = _The_effect_panel_.S.MY_TARGET_PLAYER,
ID = _The_effect_panel_.S.MY_TARGET_ID,
ABILITY = _Sub_status_std_cond_cb_.c_dead
} );
_The_init_panel_.S.Add_A_Reference_Row( string.Format( "shadow spawn {0}", _The_uid_controller_.S.Next() ),
_The_random_controller_.S.Anonymous_Next( 4 ),
string.Format( "{0}:{1}", _The_effect_panel_.S.MY_TARGET_PLAYER,
_The_effect_panel_.S.MY_TARGET_ID ), "countdown to rise as a shadow" );
}
}
}
I see what you're doing. There's an easy way to handle this. Assuming an object-oriented design or other data collection, you should be able to basically have variable attributes. You create an array of variable objects and then address those object attributes using a syntax similar to:
PC(x).Str = PC(x).Str - damage
PC(x).ShadowStr = PC(x).ShadowStr - damage
if PC(x).Str < 1 then PC(x).unconscious = True
if PC(x).ShadowStr <= PC(x).MaxStr then PC(x).dead = True
I apologize; I'm a system administrator so all the code I've done in the last 20 years has been fragments of script in vbScript, Kixtart, PowerShell, and a few utilities in VB. I haven't touched a real language since my university days and those are far behind. As such my syntax and terminology will be inaccurate/imprecise. That said, while I'm producing pseudocode, I've absolutely seen (and used) structures (why does something about ANSI C struct declarations claw at my subconscious?) like this.
You should be tracking elements of a PC's status on the fly and modifying it as you need. You may need a "scrape" subroutine that gets called at the end of every "action" subroutine, to do sanity checking and to react to things like a PC who has suddenly been declared both unconscious and dead. Basically, I'm suggesting a calculation phase followed by a render phase that updates your cool status board.
Also, I see you're passing dice-maximum values to your subroutines. How do you handle multiple dice? If you decide to make a unique greater shadow with Improved Natural Attack (incorporeal touch) and its damage goes up to 2d6, what are your plans? Just curious.
Having somebody track hit points (whether that is the GM or another player who tracks them for everyone) is such a huge NON-issue, that I'm surprised you commented on it.
Really? Getting off-topic (my own fault), but I wouldn't play with a DM who didn't let me track my own hit points. I also wouldn't play with players who wouldn't track their own hit points. As a DM I am doing entirely too much crap every time it's "my turn" (ie. always) to also do book-keeping for PCs. As a player I personally really enjoy the sense of dread that comes with writing ever-decreasing numbers beside my hit-point total, or scrawling conditions on my sheet.
That all said, I'm increasingly getting the impression the original poster has a completely different agenda than controlling his players. I'm getting the feel (now) that he's instead trying to build more of a reactive movie experience than the traditional RPG one. The players tell him what they want their actors to do, and then get to watch the action unfold... be it on the LCD billboard or on the battle-mat or both. So my original concern is ebbing.
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The motivation behind the software is not to control but to try to get the rules system right. My monday night group has been playing 3.5 / Pathfinder for over 5 years now and we still get our calculations and rules completely wrong (frequently).
I think there's also the appeal of having a rigid even playing field which having the computer do all the die rolling (and reporting this on screen) gives you. I think we all of us belong to the "don't fudge the dice" school of RPG, and there's certainly been in the past some suspicion between players (possibly true or not - I wont comment!) that die rolling was not completely honest, so we've got rid of that element too.
From my point of view as well, I'm using rules now that I wasn't using in the past because I never knew where to find them and I didn't want to interrupt the flow of the game with long book searches. I threw my first tanglefoot bag at someone the other day!
With respects to the software, basically this is what happens except that you can't modify Strength or what have you, you have to keep tables of all the modifiers so that you can add / remove them later. I think what you might be suggesting is keeping track of "shadow-str-damage" and "other-str-damage" separately, which I thought about but decided against since this seemed to be just a "shadow" special, and I didn't want to pollute the whole code with this new different style of ability damage concept.
Your point about Improved Natural Attack is a fair one which I hadn't considered, since I hadn't realised you could use INA in this way (i.e. to improve an ability's damage). Might lead to some refactoring but, like with everything in this software, I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it. For normal natural attacks I already handle size changes so INA will just do something similar (Shillelagh does something like that too, and I've got that implemented since the PCs fought a kobold druid recently).
Cheers
Richard
The motivation behind the software is not to control but to try to get the rules system right.
I figured that out as noted above. Amusing enough, I re-thought my impression of your motivations pretty much because you didn't freak out that I brought it up. Your level-headed moving on with the meat of the discussion was what sold me on the idea you're on track.
From my point of view as well, I'm using rules now that I wasn't using in the past because I never knew where to find them and I didn't want to interrupt the flow of the game with long book searches. I threw my first tanglefoot bag at someone the other day!
I totally agree. There's a tonne of depth that isn't easy to plumb.
I think what you might be suggesting is keeping track of "shadow-str-damage" and "other-str-damage" separately, which I thought about but decided against since this seemed to be just a "shadow" special, and I didn't want to pollute the whole code with this new different style of ability damage concept.
I chuckled when I read that. You understood me. Only thing is I wasn't proposing to track strength damage. Just current strength score. That way it's flexible in terms of short-term modifiers like bull's strength. Just add four when the spell is cast and subtract four again when it expires. But yes, definitely track the value of shadow-str-damage. Here's why I stand by this... there's a tonne of edge conditions and stacking rules that make it inevitable you're going to need dozens upon dozens of values tracked. You need to track str-bonus-from-enhancement as a stat. Why? So that when your PC with a belt of giant strength +2 becomes the recipient of a bull's strength spell, you don't actually add four to the strength-score value. They don't stack. Of course, that complicates life when the spell elapses. You need to re-scan the PC for the belt to know you only reduce his str-bonus-from-enhancement by two. Ugh. Someone used dispel magic on the belt? Ugh.
Did I mention I applaud your... gumption? The whole system is chalk full of special situations and rules that impact other rules. I like to think of it as rich. You'll think of it as aneurysm-inducing.
Your point about Improved Natural Attack is a fair one which I hadn't considered, since I hadn't realised you could use INA in this way (i.e. to improve an ability's damage). Might lead to some refactoring but, like with everything in this software, I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it. For normal natural attacks I already handle size changes so INA will just do something similar (Shillelagh does something like that too, and I've got that implemented since the PCs fought a kobold druid recently).
Cheers
Richard
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w.r.t Strength, etc, modifiers, this is indeed what I do.
Well, I don't actually modify the strength, I calculate it when I need it using the base value and all current modifiers (subject to stacking rules).
It's laborious, but then, it is a computer and they're good for that sort of thing :-)
Richard
As things come up I'll post them here.
Death Knell - effective caster level increase: any reason why this doesn't stack?
Richard
Step 1: Beat up a bunch of captives, let them lie bleeding
Step 2: Death KnellStep 3: ???
Step 4: Profit
For those who wonder, step 3 involves involves going nuts on enemies with your new, vastly improved caster level. Unholy Word sounds frightening? Try killing enemies that are higher level than you with it because your caster level has doubled or tripled because the bonus caster levels stack.
That's why the spell would break the game if the caster level bonus stacked.
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Fair enough.
Not in the rules, as such, because as far as I know if a bonus is untyped it stacks, however I can see the argument. I also imagined evil death priests getting a few sacrifices under way before wading into combat.
The temporary hit points I imagine does stack (?).
Another small one now:
Do the two Feint penalties stack (non humanoid and animal intelligence)?
The Feint duration is a little odd, I thought - before the end of your *next* turn. I haven't come across that before.
Richard
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Interesting thing about Vargouilles:
Their kiss provokes AoOs, but only works on helpless opponents. Where does the AoO come from?
I note also that their paralysing shriek ends as soon as they attack. There is no definition that I know of about whether this phrase refers to the attack instigation or the attack completion, but I assume the intention here is that a target paralysed by a Vargouille's shriek is susceptible to its kiss, at which point it loses its paralysis condition (i.e. *after* the attack), regardless of whether the attack succeeded.
Richard
Their kiss provokes AoOs, but only works on helpless opponents. Where does the AoO come from?
From other characters who threaten the Vargouille.
Really? Getting off-topic (my own fault), but I wouldn't play with a DM who didn't let me track my own hit points. I also wouldn't play with players who wouldn't track their own hit points. As a DM I am doing entirely too much crap every time it's "my turn" (ie. always) to also do book-keeping for PCs. As a player I personally really enjoy the sense of dread that comes with writing ever-decreasing numbers beside my hit-point total, or scrawling conditions on my sheet.
I'm a DM who doesn't uses any dice rolling software, but I do track HP of my group. There are several reasons to do that, but first and foremost is it adds to the reality of situation when you say to players 'you're bleeding from multiple of stab wounds profusely and you don't know how much longer can you keep up, you're badly injured'. That sounds better than 'you have 15 HP left'.
That's how we've done for ages and nobody has a problem with that. We've esablished a system (based on Black Isle games):
100% HP - Uninjured
75% - 99% - Barely Injured
50% - 75% - Injured
25% - 50% - Badly Injured
1% - 25% - Near Death
Second reason is, you're in a battle that takes usually about 1-2 minutes, with adrenalin pumping through your character's veins. You really have no idea how badly you're injured all the time, unless you spend a moment to assess the situation, say a swift action. If the party has a healer who casts Status, they usually know all the time their situation.
And lastly, it disallows player to micromanage the situation. If I say that a flail-wielding orc chieftain hit a PC for 20 damage and he has 20 HP left he'll go, 'oh ok I can probably take one more hit'. But if I say 'you feel as if a brick wall has fell on you and you're nearing death', well that adds to the gravity of the situation and the player doesn't know whether he'll remain standing after the next hit.
Grapple specifically states that it provokes AoO from the target of your maneuver. If an ability simply states that it provokes an AoO it means it provokes from anyone who threatens the target.
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Ok - fair enough.
Looking at Vampiric Touch now, I see there has been a little bit of debate in the past about sneak attack, however if I read the spell verbatim it appears to me that you simply do damage with a touch which you then get as temporary hit points.
Since the type of the damage isn't specified, I assume it is normal lethal concussion damage, so DR applies (and I wouldn't say it was an untyped type of damage, so neither slashing, puncturing or bludgeoning).
I would also imagine that temporary hit points protect you as well, and I would equally imagine that these temporary hit points don't simply transfer across to you (i.e. they don't count as part of the damage you do) - at least, in terms of the spirit of the spell.
I think sneak attack should therefore count, and I think the way to run this would be to make it act like a damaging attack in every sense of the word, but where the amount of hps finally inflicted on the target come back as temp hp for yourself.
Just my thoughts.
Richard
P.S. I imagine criticals would also affect this spell in the normal way
Since the type of the damage isn't specified, I assume it is normal lethal concussion damage, so DR applies
No, it doesn't. Because it isn't specified, it's untyped. There are spells and spell-like abilities that do piercing/slashing/bludgeoning damage and it is noted so in their description. If it's not, or if the spell doesn't have a descriptor, it's untyped damage.
You *touch* the target and drain it's life force, you do not hit the target and do impact damage.