I'm surprised that a certain someone hasn't shown up to ruin the party yet.
And yeah, I second the opinions of Umbri and Magnus, Ashiel should get in on that.
I will begin writing those blog posts right now. :o
First part of the article is up. It can be found here!
Alvena Publishing. Hope you enjoy it. Took a long time to write, but the encounter took little time to generate, so I'm going to say that it works. (^_^)"
The encounter design guide I linked to is just chopped liver I take it :PI'm surprised that a certain someone hasn't shown up to ruin the party yet.
And yeah, I second the opinions of Umbri and Magnus, Ashiel should get in on that.
Reading now.
Um...
Looking through the spell lists we see Scrying at level 4. Just next to that? Detect scrying. Science! O_O
You mean the one limited to wizards and sorcerers? The one without any indication that it's anything more than just another optional spell that an NPC sorc or wiz might use?
The 3.5 DMG mentions that the game changes as levels go up, but it doesn't explain how it changes. It spends pages giving DMs detailed guidelines for city populations and available magical bling by gp value, but it lacks useful advice like "These are the spells and counter-spells that change the game world and demand your attention and use."
Again, you're taking a very black-and-white -- and I suspect a defensive -- attitude toward this. You're a regular Paizo poster. For you, reading game books is enjoyable. Spending significant portions of your leisure time talking and writing about the nitty-gritty of D&D is fun. You've had years to learn and incorporate all the nitty-gritty stuff into your DM style. But not so for every DM, and that doesn't make them lazy.
You're right that you reap what you sow: DMs unwilling or unable to put in the exorbitant amount of time and energy -- as some see it -- into learning the ins-and-outs of a complex system aren't going to get much out of that system. Much better to play a game that doesn't vary quite so radically with level.
Thanks for the guide, Ashiel (and mentioning me in it. Wheee! :D). I hate to be a stickler for details, but some technical stuff stood out as being off for the Worg encounter.
- You can't charge double your speed in the surprise round.
- Actually, you can't charge over difficult terrain at all.
- The whole "you see as clear as day on a moonlit night" thing with low-light vision is still a topic of contention, with no input from the developers on how it applies across the board.
That having been said, I loved how you went into detail on the terrain and light conditions and how you mentioned group synergy (a topic which very seldomly gets much attention, with most people seeming to prefer to focus on individual character power). Very nice flavor on the last encounter as well!
A topic which might be interesting to expound upon is how low you can go with combining low CR opponents into larger forces, before the difference in attack bonuses versus armor class (or save DC's versus saves) becomes too large to still present a credible challenge.
Thanks for the guide, Ashiel (and mentioning me in it. Wheee! :D). I hate to be a stickler for details, but some technical stuff stood out as being off for the Worg encounter.
- You can't charge double your speed in the surprise round.
- Actually, you can't charge over difficult terrain at all.
Perhaps I could have been more clear. The idea was there are supposed to be portions of the field that are normal terrain, portions that are difficult, and so forth (it actually mentions this specifically at a certain point, but I'll try to edit it and see if I can't make it more clear early on that only some portions are difficult.
Otherwise, you can charge during a surprise round up to your speed as a standard action (and worgs have a 50 ft. speed). So the idea is the worgs charge through the path and then flee outward into the brush. ^_^
Unfortunately I had to get up and return to the post a few times due to some unrelated stuff going on, so the middling section may have a few mistakes where I dropped off and tried to pick up my train of thought when I got back.
- The whole "you see as clear as day on a moonlit night" thing with low-light vision is still a topic of contention, with no input from the developers on how it applies across the board.
Really? Wow, I didn't know that. Honestly I never knew there was any confusion or contestation about creatures with low-light vision being able to see in low-light. That being said, I'll consider editing it to mention a dwarf and his darkvision instead since the the lighting rules specifically note that darkvision creatures are not affected by dim light concealment.
That having been said, I loved how you went into detail on the terrain and light conditions and how you mentioned group synergy (a topic which very seldomly gets much attention, with most people seeming to prefer to focus on individual character power). Very nice flavor on the last encounter as well!
Thank you. I feel like a pure mechanics thing can get boring quickly, and honestly I feel like the mechanics are more like the physics of the world telling a story. I'm also a sucker for ecology and things making sense (hence why the hobgoblins have a pit trap with a swarm of ravenous rats as both a moat-like-tool and a garbage disposal).
A topic which might be interesting to expound upon is how low you can go with combining low CR opponents into larger forces, before the difference in attack bonuses versus armor class (or save DC's versus saves) becomes too large to still present a credible challenge.
I'll consider working this into the next article (which should discuss high-level encounters, where this sort of issue is lightly to come up more). In general you may have to eyeball it. Generally attack-roll creatures are going to contribute very little against an enemy greatly out-matching them unless the creature is just functioning as a living wall or agitator.
Instead, creatures with special powers, unavoidable attacks, energy attacks, or effects that force saves repeatedly can remain viable for many, many levels. I almost TPK'd a group of players in tonight's game because they were on an airship that was attacked by two harpies. About 25% of the crew leaped from the ship to their dooms trying to get to the harpies while under their song. Almost all the party made their save vs one of the harpies but then failed against the other. One of the NPCs fortunately managed to daze the party, then daze the harpies so that they had to stop singing. Otherwise the party was about this close to taking their last leap of faith off the side of the airship.
I gave them a +1 CR since an aerial encounter where the harpy's song was essentially a "two saves or die" effect was definitely within the favor of the harpies in a serious way (if the harpies had managed to get enough of the crew to leap until they couldn't fly the ship properly the adventure was going to end up going a different way where they had to make their way from a downed airship).
Fortunately, after the NPC-hero in the group managed to break the song long enough for the rest to snap out of it, the party managed to down one of the harpies during her fly-by attack and then smack 'er down. When she was slain, her sister freaked out and flew away in shock and trauma due to their plain failing so miserably (hey, it's a monster but she loved her sister and nobody wants to see their sister die for what seemed like a good bit of sport).
Yeah, us AP users have it a bit more rough in designing our own encounters, although that is by choice. But that encounter with the harpies sounds just right. :)
Of the games I've tried recently, I only really enjoy Pathfinder. My friends around here have a lot of homebrewed systems they like to run and playtest but they're mostly very rules light.
I like the fact that in pathfinder, every action I could take has a slightly different variation to how it's executed or what effect it will have. I don't like systems that are all description and no crunch.
For instance, in my friends game, CREEP, I ended up doing making the same roll (which happened to be my Coordination stat) every round and everything seemed to have the same chances of success regardless of what I was actually doing. There were no nuances.
The only exception to this is Cthulu, but Cthulu is more about mystery and intrigue than combat or rules-related things, and the GM here that does it is very good with making it cinematic.
Yeah, us AP users have it a bit more rough in designing our own encounters, although that is by choice. But that encounter with the harpies sounds just right. :)
Well I'm glad you think so. I'm not sure my players were so amused. My brother was (and he said he was also really scared), but the other player at the time wasn't super amused at being fascinated for several rounds of the combat with the threat of jumping to his doom. :P
That being said, I can't help but to have felt it was totally worth it because of my brother's horse. You see, my brother's playing a Paladin that belongs to a particular order. Because he belongs to this order, he had the special option to acquire a "templar steed" which is essentially a super warhorse. It's a heavy warhorse that possesses enough combat training that it actually has two levels of the warrior NPC class to represent its extra toughness and ferocity in combat.
That horse failed its save and was trotting towards the various edges of the ship while the harpies flew around. The whole time he was like "Nooo, don't jump horse!". He really loves that horse. lol
You mean the one limited to wizards and sorcerers? The one without any indication that it's anything more than just another optional spell that an NPC sorc or wiz might use?
It doesn't matter nearly as much if there's no sorcerer or wizard to use it. You don't need to know anything about detect scrying if you arcane casters aren't scrying (though I'd recommend knowing anyway since it could help your world consistency avoid fridge-logic).
The 3.5 DMG mentions that the game changes as levels go up, but it doesn't explain how it changes.
I just read it recently. It mentioned pretty important things about the change from fragile lil' dudes with limited resources to supercharged energizer bunnies who have powers that change the flow of adventures and stuff.
It spends pages giving DMs detailed guidelines for city populations and available magical bling by gp value, but it lacks useful advice like "These are the spells and counter-spells that change the game world and demand your attention and use."
I think the reason they don't say "here's a list of spells that change the game world" is because the DMG is connected to core, and non of the spells in core change the game world. They are the game world. That would be like insisting that there be a special section in Shadowrun explaining how summoning and binding elementals to spells changes the game world. But it doesn't. It's really powerful but it's in the world.
I mean, there are costs for spellcasting services (including high level spells for decently sized communities) listed under "spellcasting and services" which is alongside only methods of traveling.
Again, you're taking a very black-and-white -- and I suspect a defensive -- attitude toward this. You're a regular Paizo poster. For you, reading game books is enjoyable. Spending significant portions of your leisure time talking and writing about the nitty-gritty of D&D is fun. You've had years to learn and incorporate all the nitty-gritty stuff into your DM style. But not so for every DM, and that doesn't make them lazy.
You're right that you reap what you sow: DMs unwilling or unable to put in the exorbitant amount of time and energy -- as some see it -- into learning the ins-and-outs of a complex system aren't going to get much out of that system. Much better to play a game that doesn't vary quite so radically with level.
I'll be honest...I'm just being honest. I've played a number of RPG systems, and while I'll say I haven't played as many as probably many posters here have, I've played the most out of people I personally know.
I've played...
- 3.x/PF
- D20 Modern/StarWarsd20/BESMd20
- Deadlands
- Shadowrun
- Rifts (oh god, and I played it when I was 9)
- Legend of the Five Rings
- Toon
- Warhammer fantasy (for all of half an hour then we abandoned character creation and played Pathfinder instead)
- Some 2E (which was the biggest cluster-**** of nonsensical and arbitrary rules I've ever seen with little consistency)
- Vampire the Requiem (played a one-shot game with some pre-mades)
And honestly Pathfinder is one of the simplest games out of the bunch, and has more consistency that most of them. Meanwhile, while I've never personally played GURPS, I've hung out with a lot of people that have told me that GURPS is an incredibly rule-heavy system where players can be given the same guidelines and make characters of wildly different potentials and that it's also complex (YMMV since this is secondhand knowledge).
I really cannot imagine how a game could give you as much as Pathfinder gives everyone and give it in a nicer package other than releasing a strategy-guide for core. But that's just the thing. I'm not asking that a GM know every spell ever, but you really should at least be familiar with spells in a given level range. If your party has the capability to scry and teleport, why would you not spend a few minutes to see what those spells do and if there are any basic methods to deal with them?
That would be like reading the equipment section through the weapons but never through the armor, so all your NPCs aren't wearing armor and it's Pathfinder's fault for not telling you which is the best armor for NPCs to wear in a given situation.
- You can't charge double your speed in the surprise round.
- Actually, you can't charge over difficult terrain at all.
- The whole "you see as clear as day on a moonlit night" thing with low-light vision is still a topic of contention, with no input from the developers on how it applies across the board.
I edited the blog post a bit to make it clearer that there is normal terrain but also a lot of difficult terrain surrounding a small pathway. Hopefully it should be more clear. It can be difficult describing a map that doesn't yet exist (and I don't have a great but easy mapmaking tool :P).
Also, adjusted elf to dwarf to prevent any confusion since apparently their is question about that. Though I will say I've never heard anyone question low-light vision functioning in low-light before. Otherwise cats couldn't prowl at night time. In fact, virtually all the nocturnal animals only have low-light vision.
It also seems odd that "Here is a torch, it has this much dim light. You can see in that dim light as if it were bright. Here is the moon, it has this much dim light, you can't see in it."
Oddities abound. XD
EDIT: Actually I reverted the thing back to elves until there's some sort of clarification on how the rules are supposed to work in this case. Because if low-light vision doesn't work this way, then I'll need to edit the worg encounter further since they have low-light vision too.
EDIT 2: I was just checking. Candles only provide dim illumination but elves see in that illumination as normal light. I think that clears it up for me that elves treat dim light as normal light. And the reason elves see twice much normal light as humans from torches and such is because they're seeing the normal dim-light beyond as normal light.
I infer that Tequila Sunrise meant "change the way the game is played." All those spells exist within the game-world, of course, and allowances for their existence need to be kept in mind by all the NPCs in that game world. But words of advice to the GM are still a fine idea, since no GM is born magically knowing that as soon as the party cleric hits 7th level, divination is going to be available and he'd better start bearing that in mind for mystery plots; or that the odds of teleport rendering 'road trip' adventures obsolete start when the wizard/sorceror hits 9th and increase in probability from then on. Details that actually change what the GM can present as plausible challenges, d'ya see?
I'm all for shelling out advice. I do think that tipping the GM off to things is a great idea, and if they wanted to devote a couple of pages exclusively to explaining in minute detail how the game changes from level to level...I'd support it. We've all been there as the clueless GM in a great big world.
I just don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be. I remember having to learn about how stuff worked. There were lots of little mistakes I made here and there (especially when some of the spells that remove or counter others weren't available at the same levels, but they're pretty good about that these days). I just feel like if the GM won't at least familiarize themselves with the core rules they probably shouldn't be GMing yet. They don't have to be experts, but if reading through the spell lists (lists, the section with the summaries of each spell, not every individual spell in great detail) requires too much time, then RPGs are not for you because you'll never have several hours to devote to a game if you can't spend 5 minutes scrolling through the core spell list page.
Well I'm glad you think so. I'm not sure my players were so amused. My brother was (and he said he was also really scared), but the other player at the time wasn't super amused at being fascinated for several rounds of the combat with the threat of jumping to his doom. :P
That being said, I can't help but to have felt it was totally worth it because of my brother's horse. You see, my brother's playing a Paladin that belongs to a particular order. Because he belongs to this order, he had the special option to acquire a "templar steed" which is essentially a super warhorse. It's a heavy warhorse that possesses enough combat training that it actually has two levels of the warrior NPC class to represent its extra toughness and ferocity in combat.
That horse failed its save and was trotting towards the various edges of the ship while the harpies flew around. The whole time he was like "Nooo, don't jump horse!". He really loves that horse. lol
I admit that I really miss the spontaneity of writing your own campaigns, but it's simply a question of time and also investment of money... I already own all those AP's. ;)
EDIT 2: I was just checking. Candles only provide dim illumination but elves see in that illumination as normal light. I think that clears it up for me that elves treat dim light as normal light. And the reason elves see twice much normal light as humans from torches and such is because they're seeing the normal dim-light beyond as normal light.
The problem stems from the "you can see in a moonlight night like during the day" phrase coming as an addendum after all the rules text which states that you can see doubly as far in limited light conditions. The two parts seems kind of contradictory instead of supplemental to each other.
Yeah, I can see where the confusion comes in, but if you look at the entirety of the lighting thing, you can see that the dim light becomes normal light in all instances for the elves. The candle pretty much solidifies it, showing that it's the dim light effectively becoming bright light for elves and stuff.
That being being said, if there is dim light at all there must be a light source creating that dim light. :P
So I'm playing a 1st level cleric in a 2nd ed game the other night, and the thought "can we play Pathfinder now" kept rattling around in my head. The only reason I'm playing is because a friend is running it. ...Has anyone else had to make a system shock test when they set down to play older D&D systems, or is it just me?Of course not, we Rule 0'd system shock out. :)
I love the fluff of old systems. However some old systems have withstood the test of time because of adherence to timeless concepts.
Tunnels and Trolls takes 5 minutes to learn and it is quite simply, FUN. I still play it. With zero changes.
Champions is still playable, in fact more so, in it's earlier (a few dozen pages) incarnations before it became Encylopedia Ruletanica (a.k.a. FRED).
And then there were others...
I read my Traveller (little black booklets) for the fluff and nostalgia...but no one plays it. Though I did kickstart 5E and seeing the support for it gives me hope.
I still have my 1st edition AD&D. Mint even. And the Fiend Folio. And Dieties and Demigods with Melnibonéan and Cthulhu Mythos...sadly no Cimmerian, didn't get that printing. And really, did anyone really play the older editions without personal edits (later known as Rule Zero or DM fiat?)
I'm working on converting Queen of the Demonweb Pits to Dungeon World. (Well the entire Against the Giants, Slavers, and Temple of EE actually.)
Tales from the Floating Vagabond is great fluff.
Does anyone remember Villains and Vigilantes?
I have Palladium and Rifts. No one plays it though. So it's just reading material.
I also played Arduin. Still have those booklets somewhere. And the modules with those nifty Artifact cards. When Artifact meant "ugh...do I have to touch it?"
Chartmaster...er Rolemaster. And it's Lord of the Ring's spin, MERP.
Twilight 2000. Love the story, great crunch.
World of Darkness...um, no. Had it, played it, LARPed it. I just cannot maintain that...
I played a lot of Rifts while in the Navy. Love the setting but the rules just...
And calling Rolemaster Chartmaster is perfect. I tried to get into and all that cross referencing about killed me.Love WoD but as a ST, not a player.
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I infer that Tequila Sunrise meant "change the way the game is played." All those spells exist within the game-world, of course, and allowances for their existence need to be kept in mind by all the NPCs in that game world. But words of advice to the GM are still a fine idea, since no GM is born magically knowing that as soon as the party cleric hits 7th level, divination is going to be available and he'd better start bearing that in mind for mystery plots; or that the odds of teleport rendering 'road trip' adventures obsolete start when the wizard/sorceror hits 9th and increase in probability from then on. Details that actually change what the GM can present as plausible challenges, d'ya see?It spends pages giving DMs detailed guidelines for city populations and available magical bling by gp value, but it lacks useful advice like "These are the spells and counter-spells that change the game world and demand your attention and use."I think the reason they don't say "here's a list of spells that change the game world" is because the DMG is connected to core, and non of the spells in core change the game world. They are the game world. That would be like insisting that there be a special section in Shadowrun explaining how summoning and binding elementals to spells changes the game world. But it doesn't. It's really powerful but it's in the world.
Thank you, Lincoln Hills.
Certain spells radically shift the game world away from the image that many DMs and players come into the game expecting, based on the fairytales and fantasy fiction they've previously enjoyed. That is, they expect a world that is essentially medieval Europe with uncommon and isolated magic-users, with plot device spells. They don't necessarily expect every king to need his castle warded with seven different protection spells 24/7, because their enemies are capable of all kinds of spell-based tactics.
You mean the one limited to wizards and sorcerers? The one without any indication that it's anything more than just another optional spell that an NPC sorc or wiz might use?It doesn't matter nearly as much if there's no sorcerer or wizard to use it. You don't need to know anything about detect scrying if you arcane casters aren't scrying (though I'd recommend knowing anyway since it could help your world consistency avoid fridge-logic).
If, if, if. Yes, there are a hundred ifs, and the DMG doesn't walk anyone through even all of the big ones.
The 3.5 DMG mentions that the game changes as levels go up, but it doesn't explain how it changes.I just read it recently. It mentioned pretty important things about the change from fragile lil' dudes with limited resources to supercharged energizer bunnies who have powers that change the flow of adventures and stuff.
Yeah, and this kind of vague advice is about as useful as telling a teenager "Your new car will get worn down and stuff as it ages. So...good luck with that." Mentioning the existence of a couple vaguely-described problems isn't the same as identifying specific problems and their remedies. Maybe if you had written the DMG, it would've been more useful.
I really cannot imagine how a game could give you as much as Pathfinder gives everyone and give it in a nicer package other than releasing a strategy-guide for core. But that's just the thing. I'm not asking that a GM know every spell ever, but you really should at least be familiar with spells in a given level range. If your party has the capability to scry and teleport, why would you not spend a few minutes to see what those spells do and if there are any basic methods to deal with them?
Because it gets to feel like homework for many DMs? Step outside of your own head, where prep work is fun. Now imagine that prep work is like homework...homework for a game that's supposed to be fun.
Also try imagining that you don't want a game with 3.x's range of stuff. Try imagining that you don't want campaigns to go from the grimly comedic adventures of bumbling apprentices to the details of tactical spell espionage and warfare.
If you can't make this simple leap of imagination, I suspect you're full of bologna, because...you're a DM! You imagine all kinds of things in a pretend world, so you're absolutely capable of imagining how 3.x gets to be a hassle for some DMs.
You might just not want to imagine 3.x being less than ideal.
So I'm playing a 1st level cleric in a 2nd ed game the other night, and the thought "can we play Pathfinder now" kept rattling around in my head. The only reason I'm playing is because a friend is running it. I started with 1st/2nd ed hybrid way back when, and I remember having loads of fun playing, but now it feels like a dinosaur. I know old timers (I'm one of them) like to view things through foggy lenses of nostalgia, but who honestly has fun playing those screwy rules and weak characters? Yeah, I know any rule set can be fun, but some games should be appreciated through the mists of time. Has anyone else had to make a system shock test when they set down to play older D&D systems, or is it just me?
Alas no, I've gone back to older and simpler systems. Cleaner, less bloated, less super hero, more challenging.
I've tried to go back to older systems I've played and admittedly, while the system was simpler, I found we had to house rule more and more things. In addition, I found less customization and I disliked a lot of the racial restrictions on classes. Overall felt it to be stifling.
Funnily enough, when I talked to my dad about all this, since he got me started when I was a kid, he himself said that when I played, the group had a literal packet of all the houserules, pretty much removing a lot and adding more options. So, while I do look back at older editions with fond memories, I'll honestly stick with Pathfinder. I prefer having more options, both as a GM and as a Player.
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Because it gets to feel like homework for many DMs? Step outside of your own head, where prep work is fun. Now imagine that prep work is like homework...homework for a game that's supposed to be fun.
Also try imagining that you don't want a game with 3.x's range of stuff. Try imagining that you don't want campaigns to go from the grimly comedic adventures of bumbling apprentices to the details of tactical spell espionage and warfare.
If you can't make this simple leap of imagination, I suspect you're full of bologna, because...you're a DM! You imagine all kinds of things in a pretend world, so you're absolutely capable of imagining how 3.x gets to be a hassle for some DMs.
You might just not want to imagine 3.x being less than ideal.
I can see that, and honestly I myself don't like a lot of prep time. In fact, most of the prep time I do is pretty last minute (it's a bad habit of mine). But I'll gladly admit that 3.x/PF is less than ideal for many things, but I'd really rather those be for real things.
A valid criticism could be: "Characters become very powerful as they gain levels. Superhuman in fact. Perhaps even super-beyond-human. I'm looking for a game that is gritty and dying is easy."
A criticism I don't find to be valid: "Everything at X level is rocket tag, no tactics are involved, it's only up to whoever wins initiative, dragons aren't epic enough, etc". That's not a valid criticism because I know that it is factually full on nonsense. Especially when it's just because they're not using the stuff in the core rules or even thinking really.
Side Tangent: And what I mean by not even thinking is that you've got this ancient creature of great age, incredible intellect, who has magical powers, and is also a sorcerer for kicks (like actually knows how to incant magic and stuff and can answer impossible questions about magic by taking 10). This guy even knows the dudes are coming, and the best the GM can come up with is "Yep, yep, I'm gonna just sit right here on this pile of gold and wait for them to murder me. Yep, that's definitely how I got to be an ancient dragon and not vendor-fodder to make some druid's plate mail."
Not even a few kobold servants for window dressing. I mean, this isn't just a matter of mechanics. This is a lack of...everything. This dragon was effectively a nobody. O.o
End Side Tangent
I can accept valid criticism. If you're looking for a gritty game, high level D&D isn't for you. Never has been, never will be. You could make a very good gritty D20 RPG and you might use D&D as a starting point, but to do it you'd need to gut a lot of stuff, remove hit points, remove most high level powers, and so forth.
That being said, one of my favorite things about D&D is in fact that it offers a really wide variety of power levels within the same RPG. Honestly, "play E6" or some variation is in fact a valid response if all you want is E-X gameplay. In a similar fashion, there are lots of people who hate starting at low levels and only want to play at higher levels. I've met some players who don't want to roll a PC under 5th or even 7th level.
For example, if I wanted to do a grittier game, I'd dispense with HP entirely, use Constitution + class bonus (1 for d6, 2 for d8, 3 for d10, and 4 for d12) and then +1 per level, and stick within the lower-level stuff. I'd probably also homebrew low-level versions of "classic" spells which are usually high level. For example, I'd make low level versions of spells like baleful polymorph and flesh to stone and most of the shapeshifting spells so you could have classical bits like turning people into toads, or statues, and so forth (naturally I'd either set them up to be dispellable, broken with remove curse, or a de-leveled version of their restoration methods).
You could do it, it would just require some modding. Or you could go play another game that already fits what you're looking for. That's A-Ok. :)
That being said, I still maintain that out of all the RPGs I've played, D&D 3E/PF was the easiest for me to pick up, learn, and run. Most of all run. Because for the longest time I was the only person around in my area that even knew what D&D was, and so I was GMing everything I was involved in. A large part of that is because it really isn't that had to GM with a little practice and if you are willing to get feedback.
There's a big reason I'm not over on the Deadlands, or Shadowrun, or Legend of the Five Rings, or some other forum talking to people about not knocking that game for bogus reasons. And that reason was because D&D 3E was consistent, deep, and encompassed tons of possibilities, all while being simple enough to start running and keep running.
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As an aside, I really need to gather my E6 notes and post them up. Because I think people would really enjoy them. I always joked to my friends, saying that I'm writing this ruleset for low magic as a person that hates low magic and has seen it done poorly ;)
Find a system that really works for your players, and which you find easy to grasp. House rule it as need be, slowly and carefully over time, perhaps scrapping some rules and trying new ones once in a while, and have fun.
Expansion books can be a problem that leads to bloat. We have to be very careful what we take in (gunslingers are one addition many have said no no no to).
Hey, part two of Ashiel's encounter design article is up. :)
Alright, I just read the guide and I really liked the flavor and set-up of the encounter, Ashiel. :)
Some things to consider for future articles:
- Advice on how to deal with the buff synergy of high level groups
- How to lengthen encounters at high levels beyond two rounds
- How can you deal with overwhelming offensive capabilities from player characters?
I hope you can get to these, those were the main problems I faced in the endgame of my Jade Regent campaign (which just finished yesterday with a, sadly, pretty anti-climactic fight, over in one round with several enemies not even getting their turn).
Tales from the Floating Vagabond is great fluff.
:) Fond memories of "Don't point that gun at my planet" skills...
-TimD