Quote from: Sacrosanct;749717That's what I was getting at then I said I don't see how 4e can support a style of play in AD&D in the context of large dungeons or areas.

I think you're probably right, though few of my AD&D combats really sprawl over huge areas. My 4e combats tend to stick to one 24"x30" Paizo flipmat, which is pretty much the ideal size for a 4e encounter. Occasionally I'll use two, or one with a bit of extension when characters wander slightly off-mat. Don't think I've ever gone beyond about 48"x30", which is the most that most playing areas can handle. Usually a 4e dungeon expedition involves 2-4 discrete encounters.

Quote from: aspiringlich;749747I guess morale won't have any place in 5e?

Come to think of it, that's something that 4e would have really benefited from, as a way of cutting short all those interminable grind sessions.

Lack of morale rules in 3e/PF is really annoying too. Personally I tend to use BX's 2d6-roll-over for morale in every game I run. 2e AD&D's 2d10-roll-over is fine too, but I find 2d6 probability distribution easier to grok.

One thing about 4e though is that it's very obvious when the PCs are going to win. Often the players can sense when the tide has shifted in their favour and they start asking for Intimidate checks; that's a good time to have surviving monsters flee or surrender.

Here's my morale rules for 4e: when a monster is bloodied, it makes a Morale saving throw (D20 roll vs. 11+ with whatever modifier makes sense for the situation) and then makes another Morale saving throw each time they get hit while bloodied.

Morale - in any edition - is the key to keeping fights from dragging forever.

Quote from: elfandghost;749761Yeah, because role-playing and conversing with creatures would get in the way of XP :rolleyes:

Intelligent humanoids can speak some common. That's how you roleplay and converse. Any other languages are irrelevant. Language is one of those nitpicky legacy artifacts hardly any uses (or used).

Quote from: S'mon;749765Lack of morale rules in 3e/PF is really annoying too. Personally I tend to use BX's 2d6-roll-over for morale in every game I run. 2e AD&D's 2d10-roll-over is fine too, but I find 2d6 probability distribution easier to grok.

I just use my judgement. Intelligent creatures rarely fight to the death.

Later editions get roasted by grognards for turning everything into a number and a die-roll. And yet they want mechanical support for morale. Morale is perfectly fine handled with DM judgement, just as most NPC roleplaying and reactions are. No need for the dice.

Quote from: Haffrung;749780Later editions get roasted by grognards for turning everything into a number and a die-roll. And yet they want mechanical support for morale. Morale is perfectly fine handled with DM judgement, just as most NPC roleplaying and reactions are. No need for the dice.

I agree with you on that last point. In fact I think the dice can really screw things up. In B/X there's a reaction roll for attempting to hire henchmen, so let's say the party bends over backwards to hire the guy, offers him a really sweet deal, and goes the whole 9 yards with the role play, then they roll a 2 ... sorry, the guy thinks you're a bunch of dicks and starts badmouthing you all over town. What?

Quote from: Haffrung;749780Intelligent humanoids can speak some common. That's how you roleplay and converse. Any other languages are irrelevant. Language is one of those nitpicky legacy artifacts hardly any uses (or used).

I've used languages since 1975. They are important enough that I allow characters to learn additional languages during play if they move to an area where a different language is spoken. "Common" exists, but it is like Basic English (limited vocabulary, etc.) so simple, common things are easy to express clearly while more complex things are hard to express and easier to miscommunicate so having a real language in common between characters makes things much easier for all but the most basic communication.

Quote from: Haffrung;749780Any other languages are irrelevant. Language is one of those nitpicky legacy artifacts hardly any uses (or used).

You are speaking entirely for yourself here you realise, right? It was a factor in the last game I DMed, and has been an extremely significant factor in the PbF I'm currently playing in with a DM new to old school (completely different group).

Quote from: Haffrung;749780I just use my judgement. Intelligent creatures rarely fight to the death.

Later editions get roasted by grognards for turning everything into a number and a die-roll. And yet they want mechanical support for morale. Morale is perfectly fine handled with DM judgement, just as most NPC roleplaying and reactions are. No need for the dice.

Your endless complaining about "Grognards" and this site is getting a bit old. Morale is useful for a variety of reasons in the same way random encounter tables are useful. It's one of the things I missed even when I first started 3.x back in 2000. YMMV and all that, but it's not some strange outlier, and, in my experience, works far better when randomised than when the DM chooses (due to the tendency for bias and patterns taking hold).

Quote from: Haffrung;749780Intelligent humanoids can speak some common. That's how you roleplay and converse. Any other languages are irrelevant. Language is one of those nitpicky legacy artifacts hardly any uses (or used).

"Some common" being the key point. That's going to be enough for basic negotiations but it's going to be tricky if you want to express more nuanced points. Additionally, the ability to converse with someone in a language they are fully fluent in - or even better, their native tongue - confers a diplomatic advantage which I hope would be obvious. The party member who can speak politely to goblins in their own tongue might be able to sway them better than the opponent who barks orders at them in common.

Also, having languages creates a sense of verisimilitude and helps maintain the sense that we're exploring an actual world here, rather than a cardboard set with invisible walls and fanciful linguistic coincidences.

FWIW, this is not just theory, the fact that none of my groups' PCs speak Elvish was decidedly relevant to the D&D session I ran Wednesday night.

Quote from: Haffrung;749780Language is one of those nitpicky legacy artifacts hardly any uses (or used).

Language is a major part in all my games. My first houserule is there ain't no Common.

QuoteI just use my judgement. Intelligent creatures rarely fight to the death.

Later editions get roasted by grognards for turning everything into a number and a die-roll. And yet they want mechanical support for morale. Morale is perfectly fine handled with DM judgement, just as most NPC roleplaying and reactions are. No need for the dice.

I use both dice and judgement. If there are just a few intelligent opponents, they'll flee or fight based on judgement. If it's a big battle with lots of factions involved, rolling for morale is a convinient way to decide what the NPCs/monsters do regardless of what their leader is shouting at them.

More to the point; when I run fantasy campaigns with non-humans in it, creatures, monsters and other races don't automatically attend their equivalent of language school. They speak their language and their language alone - unless they are highly cultured and intelligent. So; goblins could only speak darkspeech/goblinoid, with perhaps some 'common' swear words. Elves would likely speak a variety of languages.

I think languages are important (heck, a major plot point will be missed in my superdungeon if the PCs don't have someone who speaks goblin), but I don't think it's necessary to have a stat block value for it.  I mean, if I read the "goblin" entry, I can assume it speaks goblinoid, right?  I don't need something there to tell me that.

I will agree that I don't think there has to be real rules around morale either.  I much prefer to handle that organically based on what's happening in the game, rather than a random die result.

Talked to one of my gaming groups last night.  As long as it's not crippleware we'll buy the starter set in July.

Quote from: Opaopajr;749728Mods: S -1, W -1, Ch -1

That's all you need.  It's default 0, and you just need one letter to represent the ability name other than Con and Chr which take two.

Quote from: Haffrung;749780Language is one of those nitpicky legacy artifacts hardly any uses (or used).

Believe it or not, Gary Gygax ended up agreeing with you, as in Lejendary Adventures and Lejendary Earth he assumed all people, including other races, ended up speaking the same language after centuries of assimilation--an admitted game device--but it definitely simplifies things.

Quote from: JRT;749798Believe it or not, Gary Gygax ended up agreeing with you, as in Lejendary Adventures and Lejendary Earth he assumed all people, including other races, ended up speaking the same language after centuries of assimilation--an admitted game device--but it definitely simplifies things.

Well we haven't managed such a feat here on earth and we are all the same species. If we can't get our collective shit together as a single species, how does a world inhabited by dozens of sentient races go about it?