this whole argument is weird because i had a player explicitly say to me the other day that he enjoys playing a fighter because being tougher than the other characters makes it possible for him to resolve situations in ways they can't
so, categorically, for some kinds of game, fighters are fun and have a role to play. this isn't a hypothetical situation, it's something that happens in my games all the time. i don't see how the point can be refuted
I've been thinking, if I have another day without work this week, I'll sit down and try to write out a standard dungeon crawl.
No over-arching story, no complicated plot.
Just a big dungeon for my friends to run through as a one-off.
At every turn they'll be expecting something awful, and every time it doesn't happen, they'll be expecting it even more at the next turn, and on and on until they go mad.
And then, at the end of it all, rum ham for everyone.
A CR 20 encounter.
if i remember right, you run a lot of pathfinder right? Or used to?
I've been wanting to incorporate a yamaraj psychopomp ever since I came across it in Bestiary 4. They are draconic in form, but instead of scales, covered in feathers (crow dragons!). Their breath weapon is a 60 foot cone of beetles and rot grubs. They're true neutral servants of the goddess of death. And since they're true neutral, they throw elegant soirees where both high level angels and demons meet to try to curry favor with the psychopomp.
I mean I just explained this but I guess I'll type the same thing in different words: you make the optimal decision based on how extreme you think the GM has decided size effects HP.
But you don't know that. In the game you don't know-so that is at least one judgment call you're making.
I mean I just explained this but I guess I'll type the same thing in different words: you make the optimal decision based on how extreme you think the GM has decided size effects HP.
But you don't know that. In the game you don't know-so that is at least one judgment call you're making.
You are trying to make the optimal choice, sure, but there isn't enough data that one is obvious. So you have options, plural. And you have to pick one.
Thus you have more than one option.
You can also get a klik more complex with "high-risk/high-reward" options vs more conservative ones. But all we have to prove right now is that there is more than one thing to do that "move to optimal position, hit guy" if only because "optimal position" is often unclear (and unclarifiable).
Also the fact that you have to do basic combat math when you're a Fighter does not make the Fighter interesting. All classes should be doing the same combat math.
They have different sets of best-options once the math is done though.
Anyone can grab a guy, and any player has an equal chance of seeing which guy is best to grab (or when grabbing is the best move) but there are many situations where the fighter is the one who can grab at the least cost and so has the option to do that or opt to try another thing.
Unless you're imagining every single player memorizing every single stat, aptitude and piece of equipment of every other and then picking for each other as a communal unimind every round, each player has a set of better and worse options (not always "possible" and "impossible" but merely better and worse) to go through once threat-analysis is carried out.
Every player is trying to figure out their "optimal" move and every one of them often has insufficient information, resulting in situations where, even with the best math in the world, multiple options all have different risk-reward profiles such that it would be accurate to claim more than one choice is viable with what they know.
Zak Sabbath on
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
I've been thinking, if I have another day without work this week, I'll sit down and try to write out a standard dungeon crawl.
No over-arching story, no complicated plot.
Just a big dungeon for my friends to run through as a one-off.
At every turn they'll be expecting something awful, and every time it doesn't happen, they'll be expecting it even more at the next turn, and on and on until they go mad.
And then, at the end of it all, rum ham for everyone.
A CR 20 encounter.
if i remember right, you run a lot of pathfinder right? Or used to?
I've been wanting to incorporate a yamaraj psychopomp ever since I came across it in Bestiary 4. They are draconic in form, but instead of scales, covered in feathers (crow dragons!). Their breath weapon is a 60 foot cone of beetles and rot grubs. They're true neutral servants of the goddess of death. And since they're true neutral, they throw elegant soirees where both high level angels and demons meet to try to curry favor with the psychopomp.
I used to yeah! Now I play D&D 5E, but that monster sounds awesome.
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
in the last game i played the fighter sank a ship by punching a hole in the side, then swam to safety using their superior athletics check
advantage: fighter
The rogue passed a stealth check and secretly rode the fighter to shore though.
Well, halfway there, then they both died. For you see, it's in the rogues nature to sting.
Guys, you're all forgetting that only the fighter gets to yell "Cheese it, gang!" and the party gets away scot free because the DM is laughing so hard.
I'm trying to think of my favorite fighter archetype to play in Pathfinder
Two-handed is appealing, because you just do a shitload of damage, and that's inherently satisfying to me
On the other hand, I do really love being a polearm fighter with some DEX investment so I can do ALL the opportunity attacks and control the battlefield with tripping and shit
So what you're saying is that everything is irrelevant other than initiative because the fighter cannot possibly disable enough orcs to save his own life and everyone else is potentially going after the orcs.
Oh wait flour counts as caltrops now? Shit I can never let my players read this thread.
It doesn't matter whether the fighter or the rogue throws the bag of flour into the room, because when it's the wizard's turn he's going to cast Fireball.
Today I started designing a mini-game for my homebrew setting that can best be described as Wizard Soccer, where actually touching the ball with your body is forbidden, so you use all kinds of magic to do it for you. This may be as simple as conjuring an implement like a cricket bat or hockey stick, or using blasts of elemental energy to knock the ball around, or it may be as complex as creating a proxy body out of elemental force that's capable of complex maneuvers, or hijacking one of your opponent's bodies and just forcing them to kick the ball for you (with the sweet bonus that they'll have to eat a penalty for it anyway). Also, players start a match by creating a personal magical field that places an area close to them more easily under their control, and manifests as a circular glyph extending outward below their feet. If two players come close enough that their glyphs overlap, their magic clashes until one or both of them are stunned, possibly knocked back or prone, and forced to waste some time re-casting their magical field spell. Since these interactions can be very unpredictable, even players with strong glyph control will typically avoid closing distance with their opponents, unless they're a specialist in glyph clashing.
Anyway, about half an hour into the design, my imagination disappeared up my own asshole, as it is prone to do, and I forgot about plotting out the fundamentals of gameplay in favor of designing a bunch of super esoteric permutations. Like a variant where the playing field is a cylinder with altered gravity so that there's no lateral out of bounds, or rules for if a team arranges their starting positions to create some kind of occult structure like a constellation, or even manages a play where their movements trace out some rune or sigil on the field. Or a variant that takes place in the Dream World, hosted in the actual mindscape of the referee, which is popular for allowing individuals of vastly different size (giants vs. dwarves) or geographical comfort zone (merfolk vs. birdmen) to share a balanced match.
Realizing lately that I don't really trust or respect basically any of the moderators here. So, good luck with life, friends! Hit me up on Twitter @DesertLeviathan
So I'm looking to pick up the Pirate themed Dungeon World game I ran a while ago
It was mostly a great success, but I found myself underwhelmed with a couple of the base rules, like Hack and Slash
They weren't really capturing the swashbuckling vibe I was hoping for, so I made a new rule, appropriately called Swash and Buckle, and I wanted to share it for criticism.
Swash and Buckle
When engaged with an enemy in a melee,
roll 2d6 + Str. On a 10+, gain 2 hold. On a 7-9, gain 1 hold. Hold is spent to achieve the actions below:
-Deal damage to your foe.
-Avoid taking damage.
-Relocate the fight.
-Disarm your opponent.
These four options hit a sweet spot, I think, of variety without any of them being mutually exclusive. So far the only problem I see is that maybe I'll have to retool combat scenarios so that it's against a handful of named, tough opponents vs a bunch of faceless kobolds, but honestly that feels more like Dungeon World anyway
Today I started designing a mini-game for my homebrew setting that can best be described as Wizard Soccer, where actually touching the ball with your body is forbidden, so you use all kinds of magic to do it for you. This may be as simple as conjuring an implement like a cricket bat or hockey stick, or using blasts of elemental energy to knock the ball around, or it may be as complex as creating a proxy body out of elemental force that's capable of complex maneuvers, or hijacking one of your opponent's bodies and just forcing them to kick the ball for you (with the sweet bonus that they'll have to eat a penalty for it anyway). Also, players start a match by creating a personal magical field that places an area close to them more easily under their control, and manifests as a circular glyph extending outward below their feet. If two players come close enough that their glyphs overlap, their magic clashes until one or both of them are stunned, possibly knocked back or prone, and forced to waste some time re-casting their magical field spell. Since these interactions can be very unpredictable, even players with strong glyph control will typically avoid closing distance with their opponents, unless they're a specialist in glyph clashing.
Anyway, about half an hour into the design, my imagination disappeared up my own asshole, as it is prone to do, and I forgot about plotting out the fundamentals of gameplay in favor of designing a bunch of super esoteric permutations. Like a variant where the playing field is a cylinder with altered gravity so that there's no lateral out of bounds, or rules for if a team arranges their starting positions to create some kind of occult structure like a constellation, or even manages a play where their movements trace out some rune or sigil on the field. Or a variant that takes place in the Dream World, hosted in the actual mindscape of the referee, which is popular for allowing individuals of vastly different size (giants vs. dwarves) or geographical comfort zone (merfolk vs. birdmen) to share a balanced match.
The players are investigating a wizard superstar player for demon worship, and the party knows a specific obscure tattoo is a sign of such worship. They also know their target played Wizard Orb in the mind of a referee, so the party must play Wizard Orb until they can compete in the match that specific referee judges. By playing off the mental "field" the players can look at the refs memories of their target.
With clever improvisation only possible due to the lack of other choices built into the class and my enormous swinging brass hit die, I hurl this sack of finely ground wheat powder to blind the mod with my clever shenanigans...
So I'm looking to pick up the Pirate themed Dungeon World game I ran a while ago
It was mostly a great success, but I found myself underwhelmed with a couple of the base rules, like Hack and Slash
They weren't really capturing the swashbuckling vibe I was hoping for, so I made a new rule, appropriately called Swash and Buckle, and I wanted to share it for criticism.
Swash and Buckle
When engaged with an enemy in a melee,
roll 2d6 + Str. On a 10+, gain 2 hold. On a 7-9, gain 1 hold. Hold is spent to achieve the actions below:
-Deal damage to your foe.
-Avoid taking damage.
-Relocate the fight.
-Disarm your opponent.
These four options hit a sweet spot, I think, of variety without any of them being mutually exclusive. So far the only problem I see is that maybe I'll have to retool combat scenarios so that it's against a handful of named, tough opponents vs a bunch of faceless kobolds, but honestly that feels more like Dungeon World anyway
Technical nit: it seems like you want all these things to happen right away as a result of move resolution, so you should be using "choose" rather than "get/spend hold".
Balance nit: seize by force in AW is pick 3/pick 2, and assumes a damage exchange, using do more/take less rather than do/dodge. I can't see a reason not to just go pick 3/pick 2 with the same caveats.
I should ask, though. If you don't relocate the fight, is it assumed it'll get relocated somewhere detrimental, or does it stay where it is?
It does look like I will probably not be a fan; I don't like the dice system and there were a lot of quirks in the system that I can't tell whether or not they fixed (like how much more difficult it was to recover strain than wounds).
The magic system does look neat though, seems inspired by Star Wars d20, which I liked in theory. I always like the idea of channeling and spending HP/fatigue as a resource, but I've never seen a game pull it off without there being some kind of issue, so hopefully they nail it!
What I want, one day, is a high fantasy RPG which lets you play powerful high fantasy beings like Mages who can shatter castle walls and fighters who can slaughter a hundred men
But without classes or levels, without being horrendously unbalanced, without being super-tied to any setting, and without being entirely shit
Kingdom death?
Kingdom Death has a really slick art style and super detailed minis and is apparently a pretty decent game but also costs £300 for a base game
Which is a lot
Also you cannot buy it fresh and new
You can soon pre-order 1.5 core box.
Why
Why do you hate me so to tell me this
We actually love you and want you to join our happy cult family.
Yay I love cults families
Kingdom Death is a little too pin-up-y for me
BUT at the same time it does remind of Dark Souls and fuck me I love Dark Souls so much
What's the dealio with this 1.5 then?
1.5 is the updated/revised edition of the game. It includes both errata and revisions since the initial printing, and will also include some new events and weapons and stuff.
The 1.5 Kickstarter had an 1.5 update set that people who have the original release of the game to update, while all pre-orders that will be available will be the updated 1.5 version.
So where would I be able to buy this fabled 1.5 set?
I prefer ordered at gencon. Outside f that I think you have to pay attention to their retail site for the pre-order.
ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
(Characters in the FFG Star Wars game already have specific powerful abilities that use Destiny points. The career splatbooks give two abilities only available to that career and only if you're progressed to the bottom tier of the talent tree that need Destiny points to activate.)
Posts
so, categorically, for some kinds of game, fighters are fun and have a role to play. this isn't a hypothetical situation, it's something that happens in my games all the time. i don't see how the point can be refuted
if i remember right, you run a lot of pathfinder right? Or used to?
I've been wanting to incorporate a yamaraj psychopomp ever since I came across it in Bestiary 4. They are draconic in form, but instead of scales, covered in feathers (crow dragons!). Their breath weapon is a 60 foot cone of beetles and rot grubs. They're true neutral servants of the goddess of death. And since they're true neutral, they throw elegant soirees where both high level angels and demons meet to try to curry favor with the psychopomp.
They have different sets of best-options once the math is done though.
Anyone can grab a guy, and any player has an equal chance of seeing which guy is best to grab (or when grabbing is the best move) but there are many situations where the fighter is the one who can grab at the least cost and so has the option to do that or opt to try another thing.
Unless you're imagining every single player memorizing every single stat, aptitude and piece of equipment of every other and then picking for each other as a communal unimind every round, each player has a set of better and worse options (not always "possible" and "impossible" but merely better and worse) to go through once threat-analysis is carried out.
Every player is trying to figure out their "optimal" move and every one of them often has insufficient information, resulting in situations where, even with the best math in the world, multiple options all have different risk-reward profiles such that it would be accurate to claim more than one choice is viable with what they know.
I used to yeah! Now I play D&D 5E, but that monster sounds awesome.
pocket sand?
advantage: fighter
The rogue passed a stealth check and secretly rode the fighter to shore though.
Well, halfway there, then they both died. For you see, it's in the rogues nature to sting.
Actually how your spaceships defend themselves against lasers in Traveller.
Also how spaceships kill soft targets in Stars Without Number.
Two-handed is appealing, because you just do a shitload of damage, and that's inherently satisfying to me
On the other hand, I do really love being a polearm fighter with some DEX investment so I can do ALL the opportunity attacks and control the battlefield with tripping and shit
but fred's traps almost always backfired
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
That was the implication I was making, yes.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Attack ship
And
Move out of the water
It's all the same boring fighter stuff
move out of four-dimensional spacetime
Anyway, about half an hour into the design, my imagination disappeared up my own asshole, as it is prone to do, and I forgot about plotting out the fundamentals of gameplay in favor of designing a bunch of super esoteric permutations. Like a variant where the playing field is a cylinder with altered gravity so that there's no lateral out of bounds, or rules for if a team arranges their starting positions to create some kind of occult structure like a constellation, or even manages a play where their movements trace out some rune or sigil on the field. Or a variant that takes place in the Dream World, hosted in the actual mindscape of the referee, which is popular for allowing individuals of vastly different size (giants vs. dwarves) or geographical comfort zone (merfolk vs. birdmen) to share a balanced match.
It was mostly a great success, but I found myself underwhelmed with a couple of the base rules, like Hack and Slash
They weren't really capturing the swashbuckling vibe I was hoping for, so I made a new rule, appropriately called Swash and Buckle, and I wanted to share it for criticism.
When engaged with an enemy in a melee,
roll 2d6 + Str. On a 10+, gain 2 hold. On a 7-9, gain 1 hold. Hold is spent to achieve the actions below:
-Deal damage to your foe.
-Avoid taking damage.
-Relocate the fight.
-Disarm your opponent.
These four options hit a sweet spot, I think, of variety without any of them being mutually exclusive. So far the only problem I see is that maybe I'll have to retool combat scenarios so that it's against a handful of named, tough opponents vs a bunch of faceless kobolds, but honestly that feels more like Dungeon World anyway
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
I hadn't heard about these improvements, are they making any significant changes or just minor tweaks?
(I really don't like the system so I doubt I'll like Genesys but you never know!)[/quote]
You probably still won't!
So in SW you have Destiny points that the DM and players can both use to increase/decrease difficulty or minor deus ex machina.
The new system has Story Points that will work largely the same but characters also have specific powerful abilities that use SP as a resource.
Also I dig the new magic system.
Here's some links to character sheets and some ref pages. The char sheets have some good examples of both the above things.
http://imgur.com/a/MxhH2
https://imgur.com/a/Tsgsg
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
The players are investigating a wizard superstar player for demon worship, and the party knows a specific obscure tattoo is a sign of such worship. They also know their target played Wizard Orb in the mind of a referee, so the party must play Wizard Orb until they can compete in the match that specific referee judges. By playing off the mental "field" the players can look at the refs memories of their target.
With clever improvisation only possible due to the lack of other choices built into the class and my enormous swinging brass hit die, I hurl this sack of finely ground wheat powder to blind the mod with my clever shenanigans...
That scene is so amazing.
J.K. Simmons' face when he learns that John Malkovich's character is still alive is so good
Technical nit: it seems like you want all these things to happen right away as a result of move resolution, so you should be using "choose" rather than "get/spend hold".
Balance nit: seize by force in AW is pick 3/pick 2, and assumes a damage exchange, using do more/take less rather than do/dodge. I can't see a reason not to just go pick 3/pick 2 with the same caveats.
I should ask, though. If you don't relocate the fight, is it assumed it'll get relocated somewhere detrimental, or does it stay where it is?
So if a player says that word during the game (even if it's like "pass the chips") something happens. I forget what.
Interesting, thanks!
It does look like I will probably not be a fan; I don't like the dice system and there were a lot of quirks in the system that I can't tell whether or not they fixed (like how much more difficult it was to recover strain than wounds).
The magic system does look neat though, seems inspired by Star Wars d20, which I liked in theory. I always like the idea of channeling and spending HP/fatigue as a resource, but I've never seen a game pull it off without there being some kind of issue, so hopefully they nail it!
DIESEL
Against the Fall of Night Playtest
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
I prefer ordered at gencon. Outside f that I think you have to pay attention to their retail site for the pre-order.