Bad guys fail saves, if no important bad guy ever fails a save their is no fucking reason to ever play a mage.
You're upset because your bad ass villain spent the encounter babbling. The mage is going to remember that time he was such an awesome bad ass that the super villain failed his save.
I realize this, which is why I made this post.
As for my mage, he doesn't think he's a badass for what he did, he thinks my boss that they had been hearing about was a pussy and boring to fight. This is exactly what I DIDN'T want that fight to be. The whole session becaume a yawnfest because I failed to consider what might happen if my boss failed his save. I want to make sure that doesn't happen again without being a cheap bastard about it, and without putting balance-breaking items in my NPCs or my character's hands.
A common thing in my games is to give the bosses special abilities, skills, spells, etc. that are not seen in other places in the game. For instance, one low level boss had an action where he would taunt the party. If anyone in the party attacked him within a round of him using that ability, the attack would miss, and the opponent would tumble behind the character and attempt to sneak attack him.
This, obviously, worked the first time. The fighter accepted the challenge, and got stabbed for it.
Next time, though, they rethought their actions and didn't attack him that round, but instead prepared themselves in various ways. The fighter, for example, took a prepared action against him and stepped up. They found out about the second part of the ability-- that if nobody attacks him, he loses his stance and dexterity bonus to AC for one round, and is denied his action. Sweet! Party wins there. Free sneak attacks and a round of heals.
One idea for something like your scenario is to give a bad guy a resilience ability... for instance, make debuffs last only half as long, or somesuch. Or give him an ability where he can use one or two full round actions to purge himself. It awards the player for casting the spell by stunning the opponent, but allows the opponent to still remain challenging by not being screwed over the entire fight, from round 1.
I like this idea, but I have a feeling that my rules lawyer would have none of it.
"Where the heck is that ability in the DMG? You can't just make shit up!" etc etc...
Again, I suspect that this would be yet another opportunity for me to tell him to STFU
I like this idea, but I have a feeling that my rules lawyer would have none of it.
"Where the heck is that ability in the DMG? You can't just make shit up!" etc etc...
Again, I suspect that this would be yet another opportunity for me to tell him to STFU
Tell him it's in a "special supplement" that he can read after the encounter is done. Then, when the boss is defeated, hand him the boss's character sheet, with all his abilities listed on the back. Then the players get a keepsake for beating the boss, kind of a memory, and you can name the moves, too, which is extra fun.
Scribble a little d20 system logo on it for humor value and "official-ness" [EDIT]The more obviously fake the scribble, the better [/EDIT]
Thats what I do, anyway, minus the d20 logo. It makes encounters alot more cinematic when the veterans don't know what a boss is capable of. Last night, my party met a barbarian boss who, once every 1d3+1 rounds, could pull off a triple attack, headbutting a character, throwing them down, then axing them. The _SECOND_ I used the move, the party perked up and started taking countermeasures against it.
This is pretty simple really, and I feel it applies to any game with dice, but it's okay to fudge a roll whenever it means that everyone involved is going to have more fun than if you didn't.
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Caulk Bite 6One of the multitude of Dans infesting this placeRegistered Userregular
But ask yourself this: Even if your big villain had say, an amulet of mind blank, and thus was immune to confusion... what if the spellcaster dropped "Flesh to Stone" instead? And you rolled a 1 on the villains save? Now he's at your players' mercy, easy to kill with a single pickaxe. And for good, most likely.
This reminds me of a recent time, when our druid (or was it the bloodmage, I can't recall), cast Baleful Polymorph on your bigass evil dude, the evil guy choked and wound up as a gerbil. Last he was seen, he was in a cage, on a shelf and casting hateful looks at our party.
t Romantic Undead:
As for the fudging thing, deciding to start is one thing, if you keep doing it though, you'll get predictable. My first DM was like that. And when he got into the player's seat, he kept on hiding his rolls, even from whoever was DMing at the time, even if he was sitting right next to the guy. That last example was from personal experience, when I was running a very brief d20 Silver Age Sentinels campaign, and I had to keep asking him to reroll his "natural" 19-20's where I could see them. It didn't help that his dice were coloured in that speckled way that make them hard to read.
Well, although it's no unreasonable to say a character shouldn't repeatedly try to nullify an encounter by hitting that 5 percent, and then complain about it, I can also see that the mage didn't want to have to hold back at all against a badass boss. Attempting to make sure that an encounter can't be trivialized by a lucky roll doesn't seem easy. In this particular situation, I could see you being justified to fudge a roll (one of the recovery rolls might be nicer than the whole damn spell), although it seems that there are some other things you could have had the boss do within the rules.
I've got absolutely no experience here, but how overpowered would a hypothetical item be that, say, automatically freed a user from mind altering effects (or whatever) say, 3-5 rounds after it first takes effect? It seems like a limited application thing, so maybe that's the sort of safety valve you could plan on in the future.
Well, I guess I'll just chalk it up to inexperience for now and try and take these things into consideration for the next boss encounter.
I think my main fear in making challenging encounters is that my newbies will get slaughtered and/or frustrated while the vets do all the heavy lifting.
The best part of being a GM is that you can have some fun and change up your own story. Your party slaughtered this guy? Well, bring him back. Maybe somewhere along the way they'll encounter Mr. Shark Rider again, but this time he's undead. Or has a crown that blocks confusion. Or whatever. Maybe this time he attacks them from surprise, or when they're already tied up with another enemy. Make him a nemesis that your players will simultaneously look forward to and hate meeting. Gloat a little.
Generally speaking, though, yes, fudge away. As long as you're being fair, and not screwing anyone over, go for it.
[EDIT]And as long as you're not doing it too often. Fudging rolls is like ginger in spaghetti sauce...a little goes a long way, but too much makes things gross.
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Caulk Bite 6One of the multitude of Dans infesting this placeRegistered Userregular
I've got absolutely no experience here, but how overpowered would a hypothetical item be that, say, automatically freed a user from mind altering effects (or whatever) say, 3-5 rounds after it first takes effect? It seems like a limited application thing, so maybe that's the sort of safety valve you could plan on in the future.
have the hypothetical item take up a specific slot, like a ring or better yet, neck or head slot. if you really want it in the game, make your players decide if it's worth using up an important slot with a limited use (if somewhat over powered) item.
As far as the veteran players outshining the new guys, I think I may have a helpful suggestion.
In a game I started running a few weeks ago, I have a mix of people who have played D&D and people who would barely recognize a d20. One of the veteran players is a number-crunching munchkin (however, not the horrible kind that intentionally ruins games. He rarely rolls above a 3 on his die, and thus developed his munchkinism out of necessity.). During character creation, I asked him (read: pretty much forced him) to helpd the other players with their characters - not build it for them, but recommend things that would go well with the class and stats, and then help them pick equipment. This has helped to balance out the curve a bit.
As far as the veteran players outshining the new guys, I think I may have a helpful suggestion.
In a game I started running a few weeks ago, I have a mix of people who have played D&D and people who would barely recognize a d20. One of the veteran players is a number-crunching munchkin (however, not the horrible kind that intentionally ruins games. He rarely rolls above a 3 on his die, and thus developed his munchkinism out of necessity.). During character creation, I asked him (read: pretty much forced him) to helpd the other players with their characters - not build it for them, but recommend things that would go well with the class and stats, and then help them pick equipment. This has helped to balance out the curve a bit.
Yeah, that's pretty much what's happening in our game. My rules lawyer's girlfriend is new but she's also the most beefed up character in the group outside of the two vets, mainly thanks to having been coached by mr. RL.
My girlfriend is our rogue, and I've offered to help her, but she declines because she doesn't want to be seen as being coddled by her boyfriend, the GM. So I let her be, but, as a result, she's now a vanilla rogue, with great sneak attack, but who is otherwise useless when fighting constructs or undead, and has no ideas or intention of going PrC.
One way to balance the game is to intentionally beef up the inexperienced characters, knowing they won't be capable of breaking the game with their power. For instance, give your vanilla rogue a special dagger or something that allows her to use half of her sneak attack dice against constructs and undead. Call it "The Builder's Eraser" or something cool.
Give the dwarven defender a shield that can provoke an enemy as a move equivalent action a certain number of times per day or something.
And if you're really afraid they'll break the game anyway, place restrictions, like that the shield can only work when the target's current target is below half health or something.
An even simpler solution is give them a level or two on your veterans
If your vets hoot and holler like a bunch of dickholes then just lay it out and say it's in the interest of balance; they need the extra boost to compete and have fun with the vets
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Caulk Bite 6One of the multitude of Dans infesting this placeRegistered Userregular
One way to balance the game is to intentionally beef up the inexperienced characters, knowing they won't be capable of breaking the game with their power. For instance, give your vanilla rogue a special dagger or something that allows her to use half of her sneak attack dice against constructs and undead. Call it "The Builder's Eraser" or something cool.
Give the dwarven defender a shield that can provoke an enemy as a move equivalent action a certain number of times per day or something.
And if you're really afraid they'll break the game anyway, place restrictions, like that the shield can only work when the target's current target is below half health or something.
Also, the Magic Item Compendium is a great tool for this kind of thing. Even a simple armor or weapon crystal can mean the difference between vanilla [class] and Kick Ass.
Specifically, there's the Demolition Weapon Crystals.
Least (1000gp, suitable for 4th+, weapon must be master work): Weapon with this crystal attached, deals 1d6 extra points of damage to constructs.
Lesser (3000gp, suitable for 7th+, weapon must be at least +1): As least, and weapon is treated as adamantine for overcoming DR of constructs.
Greater (6000gp,suitable for 10th+, weapon must be at least +3): As lesser, and weapon can be used to deliver crits and sneak attacks against constructs as if they were living critters.
Of course, if you never put them up against constructs, or whatever, they'll go back to feeling useless.
I try to avoid fudging when I can, both in the player's advantage and in my own, though I have toned down hitpoints or damage midfight just because things weren't going in my favor. I'm especially of the opinion that if you put yourself into a situation and you got killed by it, whoop for you. It makes it all the sweeter when you don't die, as fourteen player games of Shadowrun had taught me.
But it also depends on the type of game. I tend to run gritty, where there is no such thing as a story significant uber badguy. Magical plot is not an issue, and at the end of the day, even if you kill him, you still can't bring down the corp single handedly. But with something like D&D there's an additional challenge. I guess I try to keep my fudges away from the rolls. "Instead of giving this guy +8, I'll give him +4" or instead of giving him 64 life, I'll tone it down to 32.
I beleive that helps the illusion. I hope my players do not read this.
I am a huge proponent of letting the dice roll where they may. Really, the only time I will fudge a roll is if that roll will kill the entire party and ruin the campaign, unless my players do something PHENOMENALLY stupid.
Edit: Like trying to punch Mephistopheles in the nards, or something.
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
But ask yourself this: Even if your big villain had say, an amulet of mind blank, and thus was immune to confusion... what if the spellcaster dropped "Flesh to Stone" instead? And you rolled a 1 on the villains save? Now he's at your players' mercy, easy to kill with a single pickaxe. And for good, most likely.
This reminds me of a recent time, when our druid (or was it the bloodmage, I can't recall), cast Baleful Polymorph on your bigass evil dude, the evil guy choked and wound up as a gerbil. Last he was seen, he was in a cage, on a shelf and casting hateful looks at our party.
t Romantic Undead:
As for the fudging thing, deciding to start is one thing, if you keep doing it though, you'll get predictable. My first DM was like that. And when he got into the player's seat, he kept on hiding his rolls, even from whoever was DMing at the time, even if he was sitting right next to the guy. That last example was from personal experience, when I was running a very brief d20 Silver Age Sentinels campaign, and I had to keep asking him to reroll his "natural" 19-20's where I could see them. It didn't help that his dice were coloured in that speckled way that make them hard to read.
it was the blood magus. i was dming.
and the DM caulk is talking about who hid his dice... he was the worst DM and D&D player I've ever seen.
He used fudging basically vengefully to fuck over players who were annoying him. Specifically, since I was playing an illusionist/necromancer, he was constantly fudging the saves of enemies because otherwise I'd destroy them. The worst part was, he'd always fudge so that the number was just higher than my DC. It was dickish and he was doing it a lot.
I got so sick of it, I decided to trap him.
We were fighting some big nasty undead warlord guy, and I decided to Plane Shift him.
"I make a touch attack and cast Plane Shift. Sending him to the Positive Energy Plane. Ha ha, he'll be destroyed in seconds."
"Okay... what's your DC?"
"22"
He rolls behind his screen.
"Ohhhhh.... 23. Sorry."
"Wait a sec, did I say 22? I meant 25, sorry, was reading a lower level DC."
The look on his face was priceless. How can he fudge now? He's already said what he rolled.
You fudge or change rolls any time that the roll itself would ruin the storyline or overall enjoyment of the game. I doubt the players had much fun just smashing the final nemesis like that too.
I seriously doubt the guy who cast the spell is upset it worked.
You're kidding, right? What player would actually be having fun if the 'ultimate showdown' was completely one sided? Am I the only player who enjoys an actual struggle rather than 'one lucky roll'?
Don't get me wrong, it's cool to smoke a bad guy with a crit - but not the last bad guy, that's pretty anti-climactic and pretty damn boring.
A BBEG fight will ALWAYS, eventually, come down to a last roll. Sometimes that roll is a crit you weren't expecting, but if that is all it takes to derail your campaign, then IMO (and I know it's a little dickish) you didn't plan the encounter enough. Really, if such an NPC is SO important to the campaign, the party shouldn't even SEE him until they are near the end of the campaign anyways.
Besides, even if the players catch you COMPLETELY off guard and coup de grace your villain in his sleep, what's to stop him from coming back from the dead? Or coming back as a powerful demonic thrall escaped from the Hells themselves? It is Dungeons and Dragons, after all.
Now in Exalted, on the other hand, you just have the villain turtle up with a Perfect Defense while he runs away. 8-)
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
You fudge or change rolls any time that the roll itself would ruin the storyline or overall enjoyment of the game. I doubt the players had much fun just smashing the final nemesis like that too.
I seriously doubt the guy who cast the spell is upset it worked.
You're kidding, right? What player would actually be having fun if the 'ultimate showdown' was completely one sided? Am I the only player who enjoys an actual struggle rather than 'one lucky roll'?
Most people would shrivel up and blow away in what I consider a "good challenge" in D&D. Having played for years now I am well aware that spellcasters are often all or nothings. Either you Flesh to Stone the end boss or you do nothing. The swinginess goes with the territory and is acceptable provided you keep the saves legit.
Don't get me wrong, it's cool to smoke a bad guy with a crit - but not the last bad guy, that's pretty anti-climactic and pretty damn boring.
It's the stuff legends are made of. I have a paladin who smoked the general of an army with the >50 fort save rule in the first attack of combat. I shall never forget his awesomeness. Because of that awesome display of power (and luck) he got the Devil's backing the dude up to swear an oath to not return to the Prime for a 101 years and go home.
There wasn't much in the way of "Hot dice rolling action!" that week but the RPing and the story that results were totally worth it.
As far as the veteran players outshining the new guys, I think I may have a helpful suggestion.
In a game I started running a few weeks ago, I have a mix of people who have played D&D and people who would barely recognize a d20. One of the veteran players is a number-crunching munchkin (however, not the horrible kind that intentionally ruins games. He rarely rolls above a 3 on his die, and thus developed his munchkinism out of necessity.). During character creation, I asked him (read: pretty much forced him) to helpd the other players with their characters - not build it for them, but recommend things that would go well with the class and stats, and then help them pick equipment. This has helped to balance out the curve a bit.
Yeah, that's pretty much what's happening in our game. My rules lawyer's girlfriend is new but she's also the most beefed up character in the group outside of the two vets, mainly thanks to having been coached by mr. RL.
My girlfriend is our rogue, and I've offered to help her, but she declines because she doesn't want to be seen as being coddled by her boyfriend, the GM. So I let her be, but, as a result, she's now a vanilla rogue, with great sneak attack, but who is otherwise useless when fighting constructs or undead, and has no ideas or intention of going PrC.
i have a question, and i think it's a lesser evil to hijack this thread down a bit of a tangent here than whore up a whole new thread. sorry if im wrong \( ._.)/
are there any rules in 3.5 (or saga and thus potentially 4th) for incidental knockdown? specifically, im looking at changing the way i might adjudicate something like a fireball (bad example because the description specifically states "The explosion creates almost no pressure.", but bear with me ;p). currently: 'ok save for half or take 7d6' etc.. but it would make sense to call for a save, a 'keep your feet' tumble check or something similar with a DC correlating to damage taken and/or proximity to the blast epicenter.
are there knockdown rules in existence outside trip attack scenarios?
does anyone use anything like this, from a resource or a home-brewed system?
similarly, does anyone implement much use of 2ndary effects from a fireball, such as melting gold carried or requiring item saving throws vs combustion? do most people use the "if you rolled a 1 on your save, your items are in jeopardy" rule?
i have a question, and i think it's a lesser evil to hijack this thread down a bit of a tangent here than whore up a whole new thread. sorry if im wrong \( ._.)/
are there any rules in 3.5 (or saga and thus potentially 4th) for incidental knockdown? specifically, im looking at changing the way i might adjudicate something like a fireball (bad example because the description specifically states "The explosion creates almost no pressure.", but bear with me ;p). currently: 'ok save for half or take 7d6' etc.. but it would make sense to call for a save, a 'keep your feet' tumble check or something similar with a DC correlating to damage taken and/or proximity to the blast epicenter.
are there knockdown rules in existence outside trip attack scenarios?
does anyone use anything like this, from a resource or a home-brewed system?
similarly, does anyone implement much use of 2ndary effects from a fireball, such as melting gold carried or requiring item saving throws vs combustion? do most people use the "if you rolled a 1 on your save, your items are in jeopardy" rule?
No, I don't know of any knockdown rules in any official D&D book. Not even Unearthed Arcana, otherwise full of rules varients.
Silver Age Sentinels has an entire rules system for knockback and knockdown, but it's a completely different game.
I would recommend this:
Don't use knockdown rules. Especially for big spells like fireball. Seriously. Those spells are powerful enough already without the secondary effect of knocking down enemies.
I know there's a part of your brain that says to you "Fireball is a big explosion. It should knock people over!"
Tell that part of your brain to shut up. Fireball, despite how it is often presented in fiction (ie FR novels especially) is not actually an explosion at all. It is a burst of fire. A big ole "fwoosh" of sudden heat. Now, scientifically, such a massive heat expansion should, logically, cause a correspondant displacement of air. That's the very essence of explosives, after all. However, fireball is magic, not science. It fills an area with magically evoked fire.
It does Fire damage, not bludgeoning or wind damage or any of that. It doesn't knock things over, or have the chance to blow open doors with break DCs or whatever. By definition, a fireball burns things, it doesn't blow them up.
Now, more important than all this, would such a rule add fun to the game, or would it just be more realistic? The answer, I think, is that while it would be more realistic, it would not be more fun. From a pure game balance perspective adding a "knockdown" quality to certain spells makes them more powerful than they were originally built for, which is fine if you are okay with that. Similarily, adding a knockback effect to say, critical hits from weapons, or whatever, adds a game balance issue that didn't exist before.
Does this game balance issue and extra layer of rules (And ultimately, a whole extra layer of rolls) actually increase the fun of an encounter, or does it slow down play and add un-necessary levels of detail to what is already a complicated combat system? That's an opinion question. My opinion is that no, it doesn't increase the fun. It just adds tedium and book-keeping.
This also goes for damage to equipment from area-of-effect attacks and spells. I never, ever use these things, even with stuff that is normally fragile, like scrolls, potions, etc.
Why? It just slows combat right the hell down. Imagine this scenario:
A character is in the radius of a fireball. He rolls a Reflex save and fails. The DM then calls for an additional Reflex save or Balance check, or he includes the knockdown effect as part of a failed save, and just assumes the character is prone.
Also because of the failed save, the player now has to check his equipment, comparing the damage done to the hardness of each item, each item's HP, and then has to record which items were damaged, which items were destroyed, and which items were unaffected.
Now, take all that book-keeping for a single fireball against a single character
i have a question, and i think it's a lesser evil to hijack this thread down a bit of a tangent here than whore up a whole new thread. sorry if im wrong \( ._.)/
are there any rules in 3.5 (or saga and thus potentially 4th) for incidental knockdown? specifically, im looking at changing the way i might adjudicate something like a fireball (bad example because the description specifically states "The explosion creates almost no pressure.", but bear with me ;p). currently: 'ok save for half or take 7d6' etc.. but it would make sense to call for a save, a 'keep your feet' tumble check or something similar with a DC correlating to damage taken and/or proximity to the blast epicenter.
are there knockdown rules in existence outside trip attack scenarios?
does anyone use anything like this, from a resource or a home-brewed system?
similarly, does anyone implement much use of 2ndary effects from a fireball, such as melting gold carried or requiring item saving throws vs combustion? do most people use the "if you rolled a 1 on your save, your items are in jeopardy" rule?
snip of stuff about balance
There's much to be said for keeping it simple.
you should always add the disclaimer though that fun > everything else all of the time
I'm still annoyed that Balance doesn't play some role in tripping. It would at least give some defense against trip monkeys.
Yeah, tripping could use some extra defense against it. It's really quite powerful.
Also, fudge whenever you think it's for the good of the game. Will making the bady last longer make everyone enjoy the fight more by being more epic? Will keeping someones back up character from dying in his first fight due to a series of unfortunate rolls make that player not get very frustrated? Then fudge! The first thing the D&D vet of my group told me when I started playing D&D was:
i have a question, and i think it's a lesser evil to hijack this thread down a bit of a tangent here than whore up a whole new thread. sorry if im wrong \( ._.)/
are there any rules in 3.5 (or saga and thus potentially 4th) for incidental knockdown? specifically, im looking at changing the way i might adjudicate something like a fireball (bad example because the description specifically states "The explosion creates almost no pressure.", but bear with me ;p). currently: 'ok save for half or take 7d6' etc.. but it would make sense to call for a save, a 'keep your feet' tumble check or something similar with a DC correlating to damage taken and/or proximity to the blast epicenter.
are there knockdown rules in existence outside trip attack scenarios?
does anyone use anything like this, from a resource or a home-brewed system?
similarly, does anyone implement much use of 2ndary effects from a fireball, such as melting gold carried or requiring item saving throws vs combustion? do most people use the "if you rolled a 1 on your save, your items are in jeopardy" rule?
If you think it would be cooler if fireballs were a big awesome explosion that knocked people down...
...all you have to do is narrate them that way.
Not everything that happens has to be a game mechanic.
i agree with what's being said, and i definitely recognize the potential tedium & drawbacks present... but i still wanna use it
i may look into including spells that specifically include knockdown in their descriptions, or a metamagic feat ~2 spell levels for adding knockdown to 1 target or something.
Explosive spell pushes people out of the AOE, which is kinda what you're looking for.
It also knocks targets prone and deals extra damage based on distance pushed. It's a metamagic feat that you apply to area effect spells for the cost of +2 spell level. You can find it in Complete Arcane.
I never fudge dice rolls when I GM. In our games, if a situation warrants the roll of dice, then it is as if the player and the GM say "We expect the task to either succeed or fail, not based on what the story requires, but based on the luck of the roll". Part of the exhilaration and excitement of RPGs is the fact that sometimes, things happen that you did not intend or expect, which is why RPGs are different than pure collaborative storytelling. Part of the fun is when the GM sets up a challenge, and you know that what you did matters, and not because of some boob behind the screen (Me, the GM) faked some dice rolls for you. I'm sure I can come up with some crude metaphors for "faking it" and such, but the concept is similar... the experience feels less genuine when you fudge and the players know you are fudging. Did I mention that I don't use dice screens?
If I DO introduce some fudge factor, I tend to do it before the roll actually takes place. My main game is Shadowrun, so usually this means adjusting the target number a bit (if it's 3rd edition) or adding more dice pool (if it's 4th edition). This happens very rarely, though, as my gaming group enjoys consistency between encounters, and situational-specific modifiers have to make sense for them in order to "work" within our fiction.
This isn't to say that our games are "castrate the GM and let the players do what they want" (after all, rolls work BOTH ways, as far as bad and good luck). But if I'm going to roll the dice, I know in my mind that there's a chance for failure. If I want an encounter to go a certain way (very rarely), then dice rolls don't even come into the equation. My thought is that the only real freedom that players have within the mechanics is being able to play with the probabilities of their dice rolls, so why deny them that privilege? Unless you are deliberately trying to coddle them or be a total dick.
couldn't you just make it so that one isn't necessarily an auto-failure? just add one to whatever the guys save is so that there is at least a chance of him not automatically failing.
Explosive spell pushes people out of the AOE, which is kinda what you're looking for.
It also knocks targets prone and deals extra damage based on distance pushed. It's a metamagic feat that you apply to area effect spells for the cost of +2 spell level. You can find it in Complete Arcane.
Explosive spell pushes people out of the AOE, which is kinda what you're looking for.
It also knocks targets prone and deals extra damage based on distance pushed. It's a metamagic feat that you apply to area effect spells for the cost of +2 spell level. You can find it in Complete Arcane.
Hmm, does explosive Cloudkill work?
Nope. If I remember correctly, it requires a Reflex Save.
It's really fun with that Feat that gives any damage dealing spell the cold descriptor and a Reflex Save for half.
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I like this idea, but I have a feeling that my rules lawyer would have none of it.
"Where the heck is that ability in the DMG? You can't just make shit up!" etc etc...
Again, I suspect that this would be yet another opportunity for me to tell him to STFU
Tell him it's in a "special supplement" that he can read after the encounter is done. Then, when the boss is defeated, hand him the boss's character sheet, with all his abilities listed on the back. Then the players get a keepsake for beating the boss, kind of a memory, and you can name the moves, too, which is extra fun.
Scribble a little d20 system logo on it for humor value and "official-ness" [EDIT]The more obviously fake the scribble, the better
Thats what I do, anyway, minus the d20 logo. It makes encounters alot more cinematic when the veterans don't know what a boss is capable of. Last night, my party met a barbarian boss who, once every 1d3+1 rounds, could pull off a triple attack, headbutting a character, throwing them down, then axing them. The _SECOND_ I used the move, the party perked up and started taking countermeasures against it.
[EDIT2] "Alright, let me just go pick up forgotten realms and a good adventure supplement then..."
This reminds me of a recent time, when our druid (or was it the bloodmage, I can't recall), cast Baleful Polymorph on your bigass evil dude, the evil guy choked and wound up as a gerbil. Last he was seen, he was in a cage, on a shelf and casting hateful looks at our party.
t Romantic Undead:
As for the fudging thing, deciding to start is one thing, if you keep doing it though, you'll get predictable. My first DM was like that. And when he got into the player's seat, he kept on hiding his rolls, even from whoever was DMing at the time, even if he was sitting right next to the guy. That last example was from personal experience, when I was running a very brief d20 Silver Age Sentinels campaign, and I had to keep asking him to reroll his "natural" 19-20's where I could see them. It didn't help that his dice were coloured in that speckled way that make them hard to read.
I've got absolutely no experience here, but how overpowered would a hypothetical item be that, say, automatically freed a user from mind altering effects (or whatever) say, 3-5 rounds after it first takes effect? It seems like a limited application thing, so maybe that's the sort of safety valve you could plan on in the future.
The best part of being a GM is that you can have some fun and change up your own story. Your party slaughtered this guy? Well, bring him back. Maybe somewhere along the way they'll encounter Mr. Shark Rider again, but this time he's undead. Or has a crown that blocks confusion. Or whatever. Maybe this time he attacks them from surprise, or when they're already tied up with another enemy. Make him a nemesis that your players will simultaneously look forward to and hate meeting. Gloat a little.
Generally speaking, though, yes, fudge away. As long as you're being fair, and not screwing anyone over, go for it.
[EDIT]And as long as you're not doing it too often. Fudging rolls is like ginger in spaghetti sauce...a little goes a long way, but too much makes things gross.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
have the hypothetical item take up a specific slot, like a ring or better yet, neck or head slot. if you really want it in the game, make your players decide if it's worth using up an important slot with a limited use (if somewhat over powered) item.
In a game I started running a few weeks ago, I have a mix of people who have played D&D and people who would barely recognize a d20. One of the veteran players is a number-crunching munchkin (however, not the horrible kind that intentionally ruins games. He rarely rolls above a 3 on his die, and thus developed his munchkinism out of necessity.). During character creation, I asked him (read: pretty much forced him) to helpd the other players with their characters - not build it for them, but recommend things that would go well with the class and stats, and then help them pick equipment. This has helped to balance out the curve a bit.
Yeah, that's pretty much what's happening in our game. My rules lawyer's girlfriend is new but she's also the most beefed up character in the group outside of the two vets, mainly thanks to having been coached by mr. RL.
My girlfriend is our rogue, and I've offered to help her, but she declines because she doesn't want to be seen as being coddled by her boyfriend, the GM. So I let her be, but, as a result, she's now a vanilla rogue, with great sneak attack, but who is otherwise useless when fighting constructs or undead, and has no ideas or intention of going PrC.
*edited for hueg run-on sentence*
Give the dwarven defender a shield that can provoke an enemy as a move equivalent action a certain number of times per day or something.
And if you're really afraid they'll break the game anyway, place restrictions, like that the shield can only work when the target's current target is below half health or something.
If your vets hoot and holler like a bunch of dickholes then just lay it out and say it's in the interest of balance; they need the extra boost to compete and have fun with the vets
Also, the Magic Item Compendium is a great tool for this kind of thing. Even a simple armor or weapon crystal can mean the difference between vanilla [class] and Kick Ass.
Specifically, there's the Demolition Weapon Crystals.
Least (1000gp, suitable for 4th+, weapon must be master work): Weapon with this crystal attached, deals 1d6 extra points of damage to constructs.
Lesser (3000gp, suitable for 7th+, weapon must be at least +1): As least, and weapon is treated as adamantine for overcoming DR of constructs.
Greater (6000gp,suitable for 10th+, weapon must be at least +3): As lesser, and weapon can be used to deliver crits and sneak attacks against constructs as if they were living critters.
Of course, if you never put them up against constructs, or whatever, they'll go back to feeling useless.
But it also depends on the type of game. I tend to run gritty, where there is no such thing as a story significant uber badguy. Magical plot is not an issue, and at the end of the day, even if you kill him, you still can't bring down the corp single handedly. But with something like D&D there's an additional challenge. I guess I try to keep my fudges away from the rolls. "Instead of giving this guy +8, I'll give him +4" or instead of giving him 64 life, I'll tone it down to 32.
I beleive that helps the illusion. I hope my players do not read this.
Edit: Like trying to punch Mephistopheles in the nards, or something.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
it was the blood magus. i was dming.
and the DM caulk is talking about who hid his dice... he was the worst DM and D&D player I've ever seen.
He used fudging basically vengefully to fuck over players who were annoying him. Specifically, since I was playing an illusionist/necromancer, he was constantly fudging the saves of enemies because otherwise I'd destroy them. The worst part was, he'd always fudge so that the number was just higher than my DC. It was dickish and he was doing it a lot.
I got so sick of it, I decided to trap him.
We were fighting some big nasty undead warlord guy, and I decided to Plane Shift him.
"I make a touch attack and cast Plane Shift. Sending him to the Positive Energy Plane. Ha ha, he'll be destroyed in seconds."
"Okay... what's your DC?"
"22"
He rolls behind his screen.
"Ohhhhh.... 23. Sorry."
"Wait a sec, did I say 22? I meant 25, sorry, was reading a lower level DC."
The look on his face was priceless. How can he fudge now? He's already said what he rolled.
Bye bye, undead guy.
This made me a little happier on the inside.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
You're kidding, right? What player would actually be having fun if the 'ultimate showdown' was completely one sided? Am I the only player who enjoys an actual struggle rather than 'one lucky roll'?
Don't get me wrong, it's cool to smoke a bad guy with a crit - but not the last bad guy, that's pretty anti-climactic and pretty damn boring.
Besides, even if the players catch you COMPLETELY off guard and coup de grace your villain in his sleep, what's to stop him from coming back from the dead? Or coming back as a powerful demonic thrall escaped from the Hells themselves? It is Dungeons and Dragons, after all.
Now in Exalted, on the other hand, you just have the villain turtle up with a Perfect Defense while he runs away. 8-)
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Most people would shrivel up and blow away in what I consider a "good challenge" in D&D. Having played for years now I am well aware that spellcasters are often all or nothings. Either you Flesh to Stone the end boss or you do nothing. The swinginess goes with the territory and is acceptable provided you keep the saves legit.
It's the stuff legends are made of. I have a paladin who smoked the general of an army with the >50 fort save rule in the first attack of combat. I shall never forget his awesomeness. Because of that awesome display of power (and luck) he got the Devil's backing the dude up to swear an oath to not return to the Prime for a 101 years and go home.
There wasn't much in the way of "Hot dice rolling action!" that week but the RPing and the story that results were totally worth it.
the one who was bad for fudging?
yeah so later on in that campaign i got sick of playing a wizard and being forced to rely on him arbitrarily telling me if i did anything useful
so i made a new character
a treant fighter armed with a scythe
so we go up against his big villain. the big, unkillable super-awesome evil guy that had been the villain for this campaing since the first adventure
i one-rounded him by critting twice
ho ho ho
Hook her up with some augment crystals.
are there any rules in 3.5 (or saga and thus potentially 4th) for incidental knockdown? specifically, im looking at changing the way i might adjudicate something like a fireball (bad example because the description specifically states "The explosion creates almost no pressure.", but bear with me ;p). currently: 'ok save for half or take 7d6' etc.. but it would make sense to call for a save, a 'keep your feet' tumble check or something similar with a DC correlating to damage taken and/or proximity to the blast epicenter.
are there knockdown rules in existence outside trip attack scenarios?
does anyone use anything like this, from a resource or a home-brewed system?
similarly, does anyone implement much use of 2ndary effects from a fireball, such as melting gold carried or requiring item saving throws vs combustion? do most people use the "if you rolled a 1 on your save, your items are in jeopardy" rule?
No, I don't know of any knockdown rules in any official D&D book. Not even Unearthed Arcana, otherwise full of rules varients.
Silver Age Sentinels has an entire rules system for knockback and knockdown, but it's a completely different game.
I would recommend this:
Don't use knockdown rules. Especially for big spells like fireball. Seriously. Those spells are powerful enough already without the secondary effect of knocking down enemies.
I know there's a part of your brain that says to you "Fireball is a big explosion. It should knock people over!"
Tell that part of your brain to shut up. Fireball, despite how it is often presented in fiction (ie FR novels especially) is not actually an explosion at all. It is a burst of fire. A big ole "fwoosh" of sudden heat. Now, scientifically, such a massive heat expansion should, logically, cause a correspondant displacement of air. That's the very essence of explosives, after all. However, fireball is magic, not science. It fills an area with magically evoked fire.
It does Fire damage, not bludgeoning or wind damage or any of that. It doesn't knock things over, or have the chance to blow open doors with break DCs or whatever. By definition, a fireball burns things, it doesn't blow them up.
Now, more important than all this, would such a rule add fun to the game, or would it just be more realistic? The answer, I think, is that while it would be more realistic, it would not be more fun. From a pure game balance perspective adding a "knockdown" quality to certain spells makes them more powerful than they were originally built for, which is fine if you are okay with that. Similarily, adding a knockback effect to say, critical hits from weapons, or whatever, adds a game balance issue that didn't exist before.
Does this game balance issue and extra layer of rules (And ultimately, a whole extra layer of rolls) actually increase the fun of an encounter, or does it slow down play and add un-necessary levels of detail to what is already a complicated combat system? That's an opinion question. My opinion is that no, it doesn't increase the fun. It just adds tedium and book-keeping.
This also goes for damage to equipment from area-of-effect attacks and spells. I never, ever use these things, even with stuff that is normally fragile, like scrolls, potions, etc.
Why? It just slows combat right the hell down. Imagine this scenario:
A character is in the radius of a fireball. He rolls a Reflex save and fails. The DM then calls for an additional Reflex save or Balance check, or he includes the knockdown effect as part of a failed save, and just assumes the character is prone.
Also because of the failed save, the player now has to check his equipment, comparing the damage done to the hardness of each item, each item's HP, and then has to record which items were damaged, which items were destroyed, and which items were unaffected.
Now, take all that book-keeping for a single fireball against a single character
And think about if it hit the whole party.
There's much to be said for keeping it simple.
you should always add the disclaimer though that fun > everything else all of the time
Especially when people call for Reflex saves on uneasy terrain
That is what Balance is for.
Yeah, tripping could use some extra defense against it. It's really quite powerful.
Also, fudge whenever you think it's for the good of the game. Will making the bady last longer make everyone enjoy the fight more by being more epic? Will keeping someones back up character from dying in his first fight due to a series of unfortunate rolls make that player not get very frustrated? Then fudge! The first thing the D&D vet of my group told me when I started playing D&D was:
"Above all else it must be fun."
If you think it would be cooler if fireballs were a big awesome explosion that knocked people down...
...all you have to do is narrate them that way.
Not everything that happens has to be a game mechanic.
i may look into including spells that specifically include knockdown in their descriptions, or a metamagic feat ~2 spell levels for adding knockdown to 1 target or something.
It also knocks targets prone and deals extra damage based on distance pushed. It's a metamagic feat that you apply to area effect spells for the cost of +2 spell level. You can find it in Complete Arcane.
What it may well be is give you some basis for making a +1 adjustment metamagic feat that just does the knockdown thing if you like.
If I DO introduce some fudge factor, I tend to do it before the roll actually takes place. My main game is Shadowrun, so usually this means adjusting the target number a bit (if it's 3rd edition) or adding more dice pool (if it's 4th edition). This happens very rarely, though, as my gaming group enjoys consistency between encounters, and situational-specific modifiers have to make sense for them in order to "work" within our fiction.
This isn't to say that our games are "castrate the GM and let the players do what they want" (after all, rolls work BOTH ways, as far as bad and good luck). But if I'm going to roll the dice, I know in my mind that there's a chance for failure. If I want an encounter to go a certain way (very rarely), then dice rolls don't even come into the equation. My thought is that the only real freedom that players have within the mechanics is being able to play with the probabilities of their dice rolls, so why deny them that privilege? Unless you are deliberately trying to coddle them or be a total dick.
Hmm, does explosive Cloudkill work?
It's really fun with that Feat that gives any damage dealing spell the cold descriptor and a Reflex Save for half.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
In all fairness, I did have the book on hand.