Quote from: Black Vulmea;726049And 3 . . . and 2 . . . and 1 . . .


Case in point.


Lest anyone be fooled by Lambchop's bilious wankage, the rules for house cats in 1e AD&D are indeed completely borked - stories of people mauled by their pets notwithstanding - which is why I, possessed of both a shred of common sense and a modicum of self-restraint, never used them as written. Anyone who did deserved whatever ridiculous outcome they got.

Exactly. Why would anyone use a monster as written if the stats are clearly inappropriate?


The 1hp level one wizard fleees from the mighty housecat!

Quote from: S'mon;725719Most of these animals were not originally statted by Gygax - there is none of this in the 1e Monster Manual. Killer housecats is a 3e thing, due to AIR three attacks/round doing 1 hp each - no housecat entry to 1e as far as I can find. But yes Gygax does stat ravens, squirrels, and ordinary rats in the MM2 as doing 1 hp damage per attack. Stupid, and arguably marking a degenerate phase of the game (MM2 monsters in general look to be on steroids compared to the MM originals). But not 3e-level stupid.

Edit: Just found the Cat, Domestic entry in MM2. OK, there is a lot of shit in that book! Having been bitten badly by a cat I was trying to put in a cat box, I suppose that in 3e you could say a cat bite does 1 hp non-lethal damage, but can only attack if you are grappling it at the time...

Totally off topic. But my youngest brother has a scar down his forearm that looks like a suicide scar. It isnt. He was screwing around with my cat and the cat raked him down the arm with her back claws and laid open something gushy. That was alot of blood. He didnt die. But he did pass out from blood loss before I got a tournequett on. Had he ben alone... well...

As for AD&D. For me as a Magic User player it is forever the damn kobold with a dagger. Not like they ever needed a dagger. But why go half way... When you have just 1 HP pretty much a stiff breeze can kill you.

As for 4th ed. It was an experiment with a foundation you should never experiment with. Reserve that for the sideline stuff where fewer will care if you totally screw it.

As much as I may revile it in action. Slapping the experimental CCG onto the 4eD&D GW sideline game was a good idea. If it fails then you arent dragging down the foundation with it.

Quote from: Omega;726097Totally off topic. But my youngest brother has a scar down his forearm that looks like a suicide scar. It isnt. He was screwing around with my cat and the cat raked him down the arm with her back claws and laid open something gushy. That was alot of blood. He didnt die. But he did pass out from blood loss before I got a tournequett on. Had he ben alone... well...

As for AD&D. For me as a Magic User player it is forever the damn kobold with a dagger. Not like they ever needed a dagger. But why go half way... When you have just 1 HP pretty much a stiff breeze can kill you.

As for 4th ed. It was an experiment with a foundation you should never experiment with. Reserve that for the sideline stuff where fewer will care if you totally screw it.

As much as I may revile it in action. Slapping the experimental CCG onto the 4eD&D GW sideline game was a good idea. If it fails then you arent dragging down the foundation with it.

The '1hp' fully healed character in dnd is less bizaare if you use the dead at -10 optional rule from the dmg. (I prefer -con or - 1/2 con)

Bleeding to death is slightly less foolish than being struck dead by a housecat.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;726091Man......gotta love that historical weapon creep. Thus a gladius became a "dagger".

In Pendragon, gladius = dagger

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;725795Right off the top of my head: Final Fantasy XIII. No defense stat, no armor "stat", just hit points and pieces of equipment that increased your number of hit points. I kind of admired the simplicity, transparency, and honesty of it. (There are a lot of unorthodox things I admire about that game, which puts me at odds with a rather vocal minority of fans who despise every part of it)

Which reminds me - Ever notice that in most Final Fantasy games combatants almost never miss? Instead, it's as if they totally skip the "to hit" roll and use the abstraction of hit points and damage to represent a poor attack instead. Like this: "Ooh, you rolled very low for damage against a creature with very high HP, so in this abstraction it's as if you swung wide and the creature only tired itself out a little bit to avoid it."

Are there any tabletop RPGs out there that exploit the abstraction of HP to the fullest like that?

Im on retainer creating a game design that does exactly that. No to hit rolls. Just damage. Unfortunately there is competition for the position. But even if it gets passed for someone elses design. I A: still get payed a little and B: can apply the idea to a different theme.

I am pretty sure there was an RPG that used the "damage only" system way back. But no clue what it was now.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;725893I don't have an issue with that. It happens all the time in my OD&D game.

The part that becomes an issue is when we are dealing with a monster that is no longer weak.

Goblin minions- no problem.

Balrog minions- problem.

Rule that Balrogs aren't minions in your game - no problem.

Quote from: Bill;726093Exactly. Why would anyone use a monster as written if the stats are clearly inappropriate?


The 1hp level one wizard fleees from the mighty housecat!

See, this is what gets up my nose about edition warring. It's perfectly fine to fix your D&D with a house rule or two. But that other edition is broken because it's in the rules.

Every edition of D&D I've played has stuff that annoys me. That's why I've tweaked every version of D&D I've played, including 4E Essentials.

If citing RAW is a legitimate tactic in these disputes, then it's a legitimate tactic for all editions. If house-ruling is a legitimate and expected method to customize one edition, it's legitimate for all editions.

Quote from: Sommerjon;726010Riiight.:rolleyes:
 If you have 60 rules and 11 are dissociative you're good, but once it hits 15...

Actually, yes. That's how people feel about RPGs, and a lot of other things. You'll tolerate a 30 minute commute to work in traffic, but you won't tolerate a 40 minute commute. No game is completely gamist. Otherwise we'd dispense altogether with the notion of monsters and evocative abilities, and just give the monsters IDs like Humanoid Class A and call spells things like Blast 1, Blast 2, etc.

D&D does have some whoppers baked right into the core of the system. Only the most fanatical OSR Taliban would deny that. But familiarity tends to smooth out the rough edges. I guarantee if D&D had discrete fatigue and wound systems by default from the outset, and the abstraction of HP was introduced in 4E, it would right at the top of the list of fun-destroying disassociative mechanics denounced by traditional players.

That doesn't change the fact that everyone has their own threshold for tolerance of these things.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;726042This is how it is for me as well.  I play sports.  The analogy I like to use is that 4e made me feel like I could only dunk once a quarter.  Or I could only hit a 3 point shot once a game.  That doesn't make sense in my head.  If I have the ability to dunk and make a 3 point shot, I should be allowed to attempt it whenever the scenario presents itself.

The counter argument I've heard to this is, "Well, it just means you are guaranteed to make a 3 point shot when you want."

Hell, that's even more disassociative, in my mind.  So yeah, I get how a lot of people aren't bothered by that, and more power to them.  I'm not taking away their game.  But my mind has a hard time grasping concepts like that for mundane actions.

Essentials ditches encounter powers for non-magical classes, and replaces them with stances. Probably the biggest reason I decided to give it a try recently, after ignoring 4E since is publication. Also, they cut back HP substantially, so combats run faster.

Quote from: Haffrung;726114Rule that Balrogs aren't minions in your game - no problem.

Don't need to because I don't run such systems. As a player, when something like balrog minions show up I just laugh at them. Its just a game.

Quote from: Haffrung;726114See, this is what gets up my nose about edition warring. It's perfectly fine to fix your D&D with a house rule or two. But that other edition is broken because it's in the rules.

As far as I am concerned 4E isn't broken. It works just fine for what it is. The game just isn't of a flavor I really care for. So not liking it is not the same as it being broken.

Quote from: Haffrung;726114If citing RAW is a legitimate tactic in these disputes, then it's a legitimate tactic for all editions. If house-ruling is a legitimate and expected method to customize one edition, it's legitimate for all editions.

While such methods may be legitimate, the pain in the ass factor certainly changes with regard to houseruling depending on how tightly interconnected the RAW happens to be.

Using initiative as an example, in AD&D or B/X I can use the group or individual method and they are interchangable. If I want to use group initiative in 4E the universe implodes. The concept of YOUR TURN and all the fucking shit that depends on when it begins and ends means the whole game comes to a crashing halt with that one little houserule.

So no, not every RAW is equal.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;726042This is how it is for me as well.  I play sports.  The analogy I like to use is that 4e made me feel like I could only dunk once a quarter.  Or I could only hit a 3 point shot once a game.  That doesn't make sense in my head.  If I have the ability to dunk and make a 3 point shot, I should be allowed to attempt it whenever the scenario presents itself.

The counter argument I've heard to this is, "Well, it just means you are guaranteed to make a 3 point shot when you want."

Hell, that's even more disassociative, in my mind.  So yeah, I get how a lot of people aren't bothered by that, and more power to them.  I'm not taking away their game.  But my mind has a hard time grasping concepts like that for mundane actions.

For me it isn't the martial daily powers that make it hard for me to immerse in 4ed it's stuff like "Warden's Fury" which lets you hurt people who attack your allies (standard part of 4ed marking mechanics). It says "you lash out with nature's wrath at a foe that has attacked your ally and diminish its defenses."

OK, what does that power actually DO? I get to hit things with nature's wrath? What form does that take? Does it still work if I'm in the vacuum of space or other very unnatural place? If I can summon the anger of nature is there anything else I can do with it?

4ed players have told me that in situations like this you should be creative and make up any kind of specific description of the power on the spot, it doesn't matter what the power is doing specifically (zapping people with lightning? hitting their feet with thorns that grow out of the ground?) all that matters if you can hurt people who attack your allies.

That just takes me right out of the game since I like making character decisions based on the fluff as that makes me feel like a character that's part of the world, but if the fluff is anything that I say it is then I don't have much to go on.

Basically when playing RPGs it is very hard to get myself to care about things that will never have any impact on my character. If something is just descriptive color that I can never use for anything interesting, then why should I care about it? 4ed is full of that kind of thing. Basically all of the things that make 4ed easy to reskin are the exact same things that make me less enthusiastic about playing it (basically the proverbial wall make out of tigers with tigers on top between fluff and crunch in 4ed).

Quote from: LibraryLass;725981That seems like it would make high level monsters virtually unhittable, though, would it not?

I reduced monster attack values and defenses by 1/2 level.  I also had to work up my own skill DC chart.

Without level affecting d20 rolls, the game took on interesting dynamics.  The whole monster manual really opened up.  1st level characters who focus on it could be specialists at a skill.  

Very similar to the flat math of DDN.

Quote from: S'mon;726050I remember that being a problem when I ran the game in 2009 with MM + MM2, but by now there's a good amount of stuff across the level range. The problem is more IME the narrow range of levels the PCs can fight, Party Level -2 to +4, roughly, or the system gets creaky. This was a problem in 3e too but in 3e low level critters died fast & easily, high level critters killed the PCs fast & easily. In 4e lower level critters die slow and boringly, higher level critters used to mean an endless drag, but post MM3 they work better.

I am the oddball who prefers MM1 & 2 to MM3 & Vault.  The later monsters rarely had any skill or other mechanical non-combat hook, and so, did not have nifty little nuggets to fit into the milieu.  

Another reason I didn't like the latter monsters was because the damage increase they received put them above par to a PC of equal level.  Something feels wrong to me when an orc can dish out more damage on a basic sword whack than a fighter.

Quote from: Daztur;726216For me it isn't the martial daily powers that make it hard for me to immerse in 4ed it's stuff like "Warden's Fury" which lets you hurt people who attack your allies (standard part of 4ed marking mechanics). It says "you lash out with nature's wrath at a foe that has attacked your ally and diminish its defenses."

OK, what does that power actually DO? I get to hit things with nature's wrath? What form does that take? Does it still work if I'm in the vacuum of space or other very unnatural place? If I can summon the anger of nature is there anything else I can do with it?

4ed players have told me that in situations like this you should be creative and make up any kind of specific description of the power on the spot, it doesn't matter what the power is doing specifically (zapping people with lightning? hitting their feet with thorns that grow out of the ground?) all that matters if you can hurt people who attack your allies.

I didn't play it like that.  Nobody played a warden, so I never encountered that specific power, but the paladin player was very specific that the damage from his mark was visible divine energies.

All the powers have descriptive text.  We used it to adjudicate same as playing AD&D.  For example, if the spell's text call out a spell as having a glowing nimbus around the caster, wizard just ruined his chance to hide.

Only a handful were actually awkward to describe.  The fighter one where everyone moved adjacent to him we just kind of eyerolled and let him do his thing.  What all the angel summoned by a low level cleric could do was another whammy, but we worked it out.

Stuff like this was pretty easy to fix up, same as any rpg needs some elbow grease.  

The true grit when it comes to 4e is whether one likes the combat engine.  Like it and any other issues with the game can be worked out.  Don't like it, and other issues appear larger than they really are.

Yeah, not all RAW is equal. What I compliment 4e in elegant integrated design later ends up complicating my house rule editing.

Like Jenga, pulling here or there leads to unpredictable collapse. I may be pleasantly surprised to learn removing 1/2 level bonus, something I hated, opens up range of viable encounter monsters and aids GMing. But it isn't what I would have expected in pulling that piece out.

That's just the nature of complexity and mechanics integration. For all that previous design effort, I am left with what is essentially more pages of code. And programming from scratch or bare bones is a lot easier than repurposing pages of legacy code. So now that I'm older and have a stronger grasp of what I want, that feature is now definitely a bug in my play.

Perhaps the better question is...

Had not WOTC been on the 5 year plan and scrapped 4th ed anyhow...

Would 4th ed have stood on its own or would it have collapsed more than it already had?

At the time of its cancellation. How far into the death spiral was - or wasn't it?

Quote from: Old One Eye;726258I reduced monster attack values and defenses by 1/2 level.  I also had to work up my own skill DC chart.

Without level affecting d20 rolls, the game took on interesting dynamics.  The whole monster manual really opened up.  1st level characters who focus on it could be specialists at a skill.  

Very similar to the flat math of DDN.

Huh, neat.

Quote from: Old One Eye;726261Another reason I didn't like the latter monsters was because the damage increase they received put them above par to a PC of equal level.  Something feels wrong to me when an orc can dish out more damage on a basic sword whack than a fighter.

At higher level I pretty well never see a (non-Essentials) character make an at-will attack, and the monster damage compares reasonably to encounter powers. A high level non-minion orc is a warchief or somesuch, so it doing big damage is not a problem I've seen. If anything the problem I've seen is that even after the damage upgrade, high level non-Brute Minions by default don't do enough damage to be threatening. I initially statted my Zhent Troopers as 13th level soldier minions; the (13+8)/2= 10 damage they did on a hit was no threat to Paragon PCs.

Edit: Some Monster Vault critters do have OTT damage though, eg the owlbear and the savage orc minion.