Every justification works for magic, "because magic." I rarely dwell long on its justifications unless I have something like "school" or "theory" to work with.

The logic, again, traces back to HP being an abstracted measure of combat resilience. It is a mix of conditioning, battle readiness, experience, luck, and so on.

Yes, it would affect the lower 15 HP targets before the 20 HP target, and that's it working as intended.

Yes, it would work almost 100% on a solo 20 HP target, and again that's it working as intended.

This is not regular dust (or sand, or dirt) thrown into one's eyes. This is not a regular attack. It is an advanced item attack, represented by such "disposable powder" costing a whole gold piece.

Similar products like Caltrops and Ball Bearings work 100% in their area of effect regardless of character — unless they take the proper precautions. And they too are emblamatic of an advanced item attack, costing a gold piece per use. Their threshold for viable effect remains long after a round or two, far longer than this item.

You need to exceed 60 HP to completely avoid succumbing to this while alone. This expects a higher battle-hardened-ness (as in greater familiarity with close-to-mid range danger), or extra allies to possibly buy you luck by them failing first. (Like when outrunning a bear has better chances with more allies/victims in tow.) This also keeps the item's viability from being wholly forgettable after the first few levels.

No, your concern is exactly about design as I intended. But it's useful to spell out such design thought for others. So thanks for this exchange.

Quote from: Opaopajr;883561Every justification works for magic, "because magic." I rarely dwell long on its justifications unless I have something like "school" or "theory" to work with.

But there's less freedom to hand wave for non-magical equipment.

QuoteYes, it would affect the lower 15 HP targets before the 20 HP target, and that's it working as intended.

Yes, it would work almost 100% on a solo 20 HP target, and again that's it working as intended.

But I'm still mystified as to how the back rank of lower HP targets protect the 20 HP target. Is the glitter more attracted to lower hit point creatures or what?

QuoteSimilar products like Caltrops and Ball Bearings work 100% in their area of effect regardless of character — unless they take the proper precautions. And they too are emblamatic of an advanced item attack, costing a gold piece per use. Their threshold for viable effect remains long after a round or two, far longer than this item.

I'm not claiming this item is too powerful or too weak; only that it doesn't seem consistent with actual physics. (OK, yes, that also applies to lots of other things in D&D. I get what HPs represent and I'm OK with it. This just seems a gratuitous introduction of a counter-intuitive element.)

Caltrops and Ball Bearings call for Dexterity saving throws (avoidable by moving half speed); that seems better, whether or not you put a randomly rolled limit on how many HPs a creature might have to be affected. For the glitter bomb, it might be better to require a Constitution saving throw (which correlates with higher hit points as well), and also accepting disadvantage by protecting your eyes to avoid the blinding effect (if you have reason to expect a glitter bomb).

Quoteextra allies to possibly buy you luck by them failing first. (Like when outrunning a bear has better chances with more allies/victims in tow.) This also keeps the item's viability from being wholly forgettable after the first few levels.

Outrunning a bear, sure; avoiding a bear's initial attack through allies ten feet farther from the bear? Maybe, if more hit points means looking less tasty to a bear. But why is glitter more attracted to weaker characters?

Caltrops and ball bearings remain viable into the second tier of adventuring levels; even characters with proficiency in Dexterity saving throws can miss a DC10, let alone a DC15, saving throw. Give the expert user the opportunity to add proficiency to the DC and they're even better.

QuoteNo, your concern is exactly about design as I intended. But it's useful to spell out such design thought for others. So thanks for this exchange.

I like the glitter bomb in general, but the mechanic specified encourages weird tactics, like trying to isolate a single target with the glitter bomb to be sure of having the blinding effect on that target, or bringing extra characters behind to protect against its effects.

The "physics" is the intangibles attached to HP, including experience, luck, etc.

It hits lower HP first because their intangibles succumb first. You're rationalizing it from the direction of "glitter getting sucked into their eyes," instead of the reverse "their eyes are less familiar with such an attack." That's why HP works better, IMO, than CON saves and the like. Being physically healthier (or whatever such stat) shouldn't make such a difference from level 1; the item should only be overcome through lengthy exposure to danger, hence tied to increased HP through levels.

You're tapping into the intangibles of battle, particularly veteran experience, as a design resource.

Quote from: rawma;883698I like the glitter bomb in general, but the mechanic specified encourages weird tactics, like trying to isolate a single target with the glitter bomb to be sure of having the blinding effect on that target, or bringing extra characters behind to protect against its effects.

Why would those be weird tactics?

Isolating a target for a strong blast effect is good tactics. Greater chance for the individual to run out of luck and succumb. Also having allies to raise your luck to survive a strong blast effect makes sense, too.

I am interested in continuing this thread of design. My current bete noir is representing Formations. Part of me is curious to tap Ready Action as a source, without it becoming overwhelming or over-costed.

I am going to need criticism to hammer out my weaknesses and biases!

Rough Draft - Formations:

Formations can occur in or out of combat. They require everyone who chooses to cooperate to stand with a Leader -- that person will become the Formation's initiative during a turn. If started within combat this requires each participant in the formation - except for the Leader - to move into Formation and use a Ready Action (consuming their action and reaction) to "obey the Leader" during the Leader's acting turns (starting possibly next turn, depending on how high the Leader's initiative is in turn order).

Those persisting in Formation may wave away their turn to assume the same Ready Action again as above during their next turn. This allows autonomy to leave at any time, while also speeding up resolution for those continuing.

You gain certain benefits while retaining a Formation, as explained therein per Formation.


Properties of Formations:

Participants in Formations retain autonomy to leave at any time, to be done so by expressing one's desire to the GM at the top of the next turn.

Participants retain their Movement action, Bonus Action (if any), and One Interact with the Environment action. These still can only be used on their participant's original initiative. These may be directed by the Leader, but direction can only be given during the Leader's own turn and in only 6 second bursts of communication. Feel free to time them and watch the attempt to coordinate.

Formations often have a minimum number and maximum number of participants to be effective.

Formations, particularly more powerful yet complex ones, often have a shape and or coherence allowance.

Formations break when a simple majority of participants as needed for a minimum split off, break coherence, or fall in battle.

The basic trigger available to all Formations is Dash, so the Leader can move or reshape the Unit as Speed allows all during the same initiative.


Formations & Classes

Some classes work better with certain Formations than others.

Several martial classes work exceedingly well with Formations, and may even regain the usage of either their Action or Reaction for additional synchronized benefits.

Be mindful when designing benefits for Formations as it is a multiplier effect.

OK, first foray into a Formation after the foundation has been established. Let's see how this works.

This is a template with obvious places for expansion, like class and tier benefits. I wanted to clarify where to put benefits and costs so that it makes life easier for DIYers later. This one is actually open to spellcasters in the future, and even supports the odd Wizard grabbing a shield and running in formation.

Formation — Shield Wall

Requirements
Participation: Ready Action triggered to Leader's Command on Leader's initiative.
Minimum Participants: 4
Required Gear per Participant: Shield
Coherence: Maintain continuous chain within 5' of each other at the start of the Leader's turn.

Leader Commands
Dash, Disengage, Dodge, and special Attack-Shove.

Formation Benefits
Half Cover bonus of +2 AC to each participant.
Bonus Action Shield Wall Attack.
LC - Special Attack-Shove.

Bonus Action, Shield Wall Attack: non-heavy, non-two-handed, non-ammo weapon physical attack, add combat modifiers as normal. (Does not work in conjunction with feats, abilities, & features that require an Action, such as "Extra Attack.") Bonus Actions, like movement and one free interact with the environment, go on the individual's own initiative.

Special Attack-Shove: Use the best of the participants' Athletics (STR) and Proficiency Bonus, along with Advantage, in the contested roll. May shove 10' instead of 5' if successful and target is smaller than the formation.

Class Benefits
Fighters: retain Attack as a Leader Command option, and can be ordered separately to Attack as the rest of the formation follows another leader command.

Rogues: retain Use an Object as a Leader Command option, and can be ordered separately to Use an Object as the rest of the formation follows another leader command.

...

Tier Benefits
Second Tier: Leader Command Casting a Spell opens, only if all participants are the same class, shield proficient, and using the same spell at the same spell level.

Second Tier: Leader Command Attack and Use an Object open, but are restricted to the same attack target and usage of the same item (as available).
...

Quote from: Opaopajr;883949Why would those be weird tactics?

Isolating a target for a strong blast effect is good tactics. Greater chance for the individual to run out of luck and succumb. Also having allies to raise your luck to survive a strong blast effect makes sense, too.

Do you use miniatures or in some way actually pin down where characters are? The mechanic only makes sense to me if there's some sort of quantum mechanical uncertainty over who is where.

Hiding behind tougher characters is a normal defensive tactic. Shooting at a character who is behind someone can be harder, and well worth choosing an angle with a clear line of sight. But arranging to stand in front of weaker characters to improve one's defense makes no sense. Choosing an angle for a glitter bomb that avoids characters in the background (whether deploying it from farther away or moving to the side so that the main target does not have anyone behind) to make the attack more effective makes no sense.

Quote from: rawma;884860Do you use miniatures or in some way actually pin down where characters are? The mechanic only makes sense to me if there's some sort of quantum mechanical uncertainty over who is where.

Hiding behind tougher characters is a normal defensive tactic. Shooting at a character who is behind someone can be harder, and well worth choosing an angle with a clear line of sight. But arranging to stand in front of weaker characters to improve one's defense makes no sense. Choosing an angle for a glitter bomb that avoids characters in the background (whether deploying it from farther away or moving to the side so that the main target does not have anyone behind) to make the attack more effective makes no sense.

:confused:
And now you lost me. The effect is akin to saves in that it checks who succumbs regardless of position. Whether you are in the front or the back with the highest HP gives you no additional advantage.

It is only the "quantified unquantifiables" — such as worldly experience and luck — necessary for games that helps protect you from the effect.

The effect checks succumbing for those with lesser experience with close range tricks & tactics. Now that can be anything the game uses where progression through experience occurs. What HP check does differently than Saves is that it checks a different intangible value, using attacker's than defender's success.

In 5e, Saves are a bit wonky. Where you don't progress on most saves over time, you can front-load save advantage by better early attributes. The gradual +2~+6 PB advantage on two saves over time looks weak to the -4~+5 Attr Mods on all saves affecting you immediately.

In practice this means, outside Feats and Class Attr Raises, Saves are very WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). This is quite different than save progressions during TSR era of the game, where class and level advantages were more prononced in Save progressions. This becomes a design element challenge if you want to focus on the intangible benefits of becoming a veteran over time.

Stragely enough, HP checks from Sleep and Color Spray spells recreate a remarkable likeness to Breath Saves of yore. And further, they didn't complicate their binary matters with Save/Fail partials; it was either on or off, dependent on how many whose luck and experience were in the way. It's a great "grenade simulator" as there's little else besides luck and experience as to the rhyme or reason why blasts and shrapnel take out who they do.

Quote from: Opaopajr;883253Glitter Bomb
1 gp
Finely ground, colorful, shimmering powder in a bag. As an action, the contents may be thrown as a 15' cone blast of sparkly dust, clinging to things and creating a Heavily Obscured Area for one round. Creatures within the blast may be Blinded for one round — affecting 6d10 HP worth of creatures, starting with lowest HP creature — even if they later leave the Heavily Obscured Area.

Quote from: Opaopajr;884944:confused:
And now you lost me. The effect is akin to saves in that it checks who succumbs regardless of position. Whether you are in the front or the back with the highest HP gives you no additional advantage.

So perhaps we need a concrete example. I recall approaching the necromancer near Red Larch in the early Princes of the Apocalypse play; because of the zombies we encountered, we theorized that the necromancer had 3rd level spells and therefore possibly Fireball, and we were not high enough level to take that lightly. My wizard's bat familiar preceded us, and we thus chose a space and formation that was most conducive to avoid dying from multiple Fireballs (although the necromancer turned out not to have that spell).

So, imagine a party of perhaps 3rd level characters being approached by two zombies in a 20 foot wide corridor with the necromancer ten feet behind them. Suppose that a single party member is able to be behind the necromancer undetected (whether by Misty Step, Invisibility, stealth, being a Warlock's imp familiar, or something else) armed with a glitter bomb. And the area looks something like this, with the NPCs advancing to the left (with most of the party somewhere ahead in that direction):

       
.........    M=mage, Z=zombie
..Z.M1.3.    1,2,3 = points from which to launch the glitter bomb
..Z.2....    one space is a five foot square
.........
The players hope to blind the mage, making their advance easier and perhaps negating the mage's Shield spell by gaining advantage on attack rolls. Without this, depending on the dimensions of the space, a bad initiative roll might mean two well targeted Fireballs on almost all of the party before the mage can be defeated. It's a good plan, but how does the character behind the mage launch the glitter bomb?

1. A natural approach; come up directly behind the mage and launch it at point blank range (toward the left of the diagram), hoping for enough effect to blind the mage. But a fifth level mage (as a PC) has 22 hit points plus CON bonus (and probably 23 without CON bonus from 5d8 given the Mage HP listed in the Monster Manual for NPCs), while a zombie has 22 hit points, so the zombies in the cone of effect are able to "suck up" the blinding effect, leaving the mage able to step aside and cast Fireball.

2. The character can advance to point #2 and aim the glitter bomb cone toward the top of the diagram; only the mage is hit and is probably blinded.

3. The character can hang back and launch the glitter bomb cone toward the left of the diagram; the zombies are too far away to be affected, so the mage alone is hit and is probably blinded.

Do you not see why I am bothered that the glitter bomb is more effective from an odd angle or farther away? In #1, how could the presence of the two zombies actually protect the mage? The physical nature of the attack and its cone shape suggests that the mage at point blank range should be more likely to be affected.

I understand that, for a given roll, a target with more HPs will be protected by the benefit of the experience, luck and training that led to the greater HPs. It's the "lowest HPs first even if they're farther away" rather than "nearer targets first" that bothers me. (Since HPs are strongly affected by CON bonus, you still haven't entirely removed the effect of ability bonuses, though.)

I agree with your points about saving throws in 5e; I worry about how it's going to play in 5e when most DCs are 17+ and player characters still have few bonuses for saves (that is, over time your chance of saving goes down, because the casters are adding to their single spell casting ability and thus DC while the defenders can only benefit one save per feat/ability increase).

Ah, now I see. And yet — having played with throwing powder (colored and otherwise) — what you describe in that example is actually closer to how thrown powder acts. (I don't recommend this anymore, especially indoors, now knowing more about the explosive dangers of fine powders.)

You seem to presume a more consistent stream of powder emanating from one point. It's actually way more irregular than you are presuming, especially with regards to who ends up blinded and coughing when they leave. Someone may end up with more powder streaks on them, yet be the only one of a group who got away from the blast not blinded or coughing.

It's counter-intuitive and strange at first, I know, but it's how I saw it actually work from childhood shenanigans (it's a miracle I'm still alive it seems).

Also remember, within the area of effect is Heavy Obscurement. So everyone within is effectively blinded. That means everyone, zombie and necromancer alike, are blinded from position 1 unless they: a) leave the area, b) wait for the effect to end, or c) have another Sense besides visual sight.

I think you may have forgotten that the blinded effect you are talking about is an extra blinding effect. It's a lingering blindness as you leave the area. Everyone gets blinded in the area, but only a few succumb to blindness even if they leave.

Quote from: Opaopajr;885036Ah, now I see.

Ah, now I have explained.

QuoteYou seem to presume a more consistent stream of powder emanating from one point.

For me, it follows from the description as a cone, which emanates from its point in 5e, and I think thus implies my interpretation (but as with many things in 5e is subject to widely varying interpretation). The effect you describe would in my opinion be better represented in 5e as a 10 foot cube (although for spells that is also supposed to emanate from a point on one face, it still seems less directional).

QuoteAlso remember, within the area of effect is Heavy Obscurement. So everyone within is effectively blinded. That means everyone, zombie and necromancer alike, are blinded from position 1 unless they: a) leave the area, b) wait for the effect to end, or c) have another Sense besides visual sight.

I think you may have forgotten that the blinded effect you are talking about is an extra blinding effect. It's a lingering blindness as you leave the area. Everyone gets blinded in the area, but only a few succumb to blindness even if they leave.

I changed midway through typing my example from a 10 foot wide corridor in order to make moving from the area a likelier strategy for the mage (and I also discovered I had misremembered the Shield spell, which does not require seeing the attacker to use and so is not itself negated by blindness). So quoting the earlier description was really for my benefit, as it turned out.

Well, a cube could be useful shape. Scattered powders don't follow much of a reliable shape after the initial scatter, so any one shape is as representative as another. I will say that after the first few seconds the dust cloud rapidly diffuses out into an amorphous blob and a see-through patchwork, so Heavily Obscured period is very short. So starting cubes do seem a touch weird from my experience, as that's kinda hard shape to initially throw.

However the reasoning behind it is I rather like the effect reaching 15' out but without becoming a possibly overpowering 15' cube (or sphere). It mimics the range of Color Spray, so it is not overshadowing the spell. And it keeps a tight range so stepping out of the Heavy Obscured effect is quite easy.

But at this point it feels this exchange is like navel gazing design polishing, getting away from what I feel is a far more fruitful open design space exploration. Maybe you can experiment with different blast shapes and give a report what works best! (I strongly discourage experimenting fine powder fights indoor, though. Outside, like a holiday like Hinduism's Holi festival of color, should be fine.)

Quote from: Opaopajr;885198Well, a cube could be useful shape. Scattered powders don't follow much of a reliable shape after the initial scatter, so any one shape is as representative as another. I will say that after the first few seconds the dust cloud rapidly diffuses out into an amorphous blob and a see-through patchwork, so Heavily Obscured period is very short. So starting cubes do seem a touch weird from my experience, as that's kinda hard shape to initially throw.

:idunno: Just trying to work with what 5e provides. Lowest hit point first still feels off, outside of magical effects that might plausibly gravitate to weaker creatures. I do have to remember to supply my next low level NPC patrol with a flock of sheep to help fend off the Sleep spell; "counting on sheep to stay awake" for the win!

Lance Haverdale (I think that is his name), a 2e writer, compiled the 2e arms and equipment guide and complete book of x equipment into a pdf that I downloaded a few years ago.  I don't think this is available anymore.  Would something like this be of interest to the OP?

Quote from: rawma;885668:idunno: Just trying to work with what 5e provides. Lowest hit point first still feels off, outside of magical effects that might plausibly gravitate to weaker creatures. I do have to remember to supply my next low level NPC patrol with a flock of sheep to help fend off the Sleep spell; "counting on sheep to stay awake" for the win!

Heh, you'll be surprised the chaos that spell can cause from poor player judgment. Had more than one player try to target the largest mass of creatures but forget that some friendly casters or recently "bounced" PCs to 1 HP were the first to suffer. People still get greedy and forget that it affects friend and foe.

5e really turned Sleep from an auto-win encounter spell into being strongly mitigated by mook numbers or densely urban environs. With the either friend or foe blast, unconscious condition rules (lack of PHB coup de grace), and ease to shake allies out of sleep with an action, Sleep took a massive power hit. It's actually a good thing in retrospect. Mooks actually serve a purpose again, it's great!

Quote from: Teazia;885680Lance Haverdale (I think that is his name), a 2e writer, compiled the 2e arms and equipment guide and complete book of x equipment into a pdf that I downloaded a few years ago.  I don't think this is available anymore.  Would something like this be of interest to the OP?

You know, it might? But tenbones has mentioned before on this site his sizeable AD&D 2e collection, so he may already have it. That said, I am sure it could be a great brainstorm resource for this topic.

Why don't you throw some nifty weapon or equipment ideas from there and see if we can't 5e-ify them?