Quote from: beejazz;514661I think you knew what I actually meant. We were talking about toughness. Which is only useful at low levels in a game with 20 levels, but which will also show up in every single session after the player chooses the toughness feat, unlike Orcus.

I gave you the list of things Toughness was explicitly designed for. None of them were "20th level PCs". So, basically, you're still pursuing a strawman.

QuoteThis is why in the homebrew I'm tinkering with, all scaling bonuses are stat bonus plus level with an optional +5 for training. You say that the range of numbers shouldn't be more than 10, but I think setting that max around 15 works fine if you handle it right (the range in mine may be closer to 13, but the bell curve means most players won't be running around with too many 3s in their stats either).

I think we're basically saying the same thing.

In general, game designers agree that your useful range for difficulty is between 25% and 75%: 25% feels possible, but very difficult. 75% feels challenging, but satisfying. Get below that range and you get into "I can't possibly hit" frustration; go above it and everything feels like an automatic gimme.

At an 10 point differentiation there is a single DC you can set that lands you within that range for both ends of the differentiation. Anything beyond that and your DCs is going to land outside of the range for one or the other. (For example, at +0 and +9, you can set a DC 16 task and it will be 25% for the +0 and a 75% for the +9.)

At a 15 point differentiation, any target number you set which is within the "sweet spot" for the higher number will be unachievable by the low end. (For example, at +0 and +14 you can set a DC 21 task to give the +14 guy a 75% chance of success to hit the top end of his range. But that's unachievable for the guy at +0.)

So it's at +10 that the system starts to get very limited. At +15 it breaks for all practical purposes. At +20 it's completely broken.

Quote from: jibbajibba;514691You caveats are all situational bollocks

And your head is so far up your ass I just wish you'd shut the fuck up.

Neither of us is going to get what we want.

Benoist, I don't want to piss you off, but I just have a major problem with this rule. I've run a 1e/2e hybrid game, and if I had a situation where the 7th-level Cleric got stabbed in the back with a non-poisoned, non-magical dagger for 1 point of damage, and instantly died without the player getting even a saving throw, I'd have a fucking mutiny on my hands, and be subsequently known as "Dick DM". Guess who doesn't need the headache? Me.

There are other aspects of AD&D worth defending, but this isn't one of them. :idunno:

This isn't one of them TO YOU.

I hate it when we're talking past each other like this. There's no point in continuing. And yes, I am super frustrated by these kinds of "discussions". Like I said, it's fine, I'm going to get over it in a matter of hours. Let's just call it quits and move on, please.

Quote from: Benoist;514726This isn't one of them TO YOU.

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I think this is the heart of the dispute. I have an assasination skill in one of my own games that allows you to go around regular combat in order to instant kill a bit like with the ad&d assasin. I find it all boils down to the players at the table whether the rule is considered fun or unfun. Some people really enjoy this sort of mechanic. Others get irritated, so I include or not depending on the group. Really this seems a debate about preference rather than brokeness.

The assassination rules are not spelled out very clearly I think.  Every cry of abuse over the assassination rules overlooks the term "near optimum conditions", which if you're talking about an assassination is like killing a nun alone in church while she's praying.  If you're the kind of person someone would send an assassin after, in a world in which people kill other people for money, you watch out for that, constantly, or pay people who do.  Any type of environment that could become combat at any time is obviously going to be using heavy penalties.

In any game system that isn't Magical Tea Party for Broken Vibe-beggers, a professional assassin sent after a PC is going to kill that PC if the PC hasn't taken steps to prevent such a thing from occurring.  Assassins are not so much a mechanic as a plot device.

However, in this case, the rule is being used in vacuum (and yes I'm the one who said this is over-argued).  Yeah I assassinated him, and, so what?  He can be raised, resurrected, wished back, he could have a clone ready, or even if none of that stuff is on the table, and he stays dead, he has a group of adventurer buddies who are going to be pissed as well as anyone that guy has helped or aided in the past.  PCs tend to have friends.

Rule 0 of Assassination - Make sure the assassination doesn't cause more problems then it solves.

The reason I think this is a "vacuum" situation is that AD&D really was written to take all this shit into account.  There is practically no balance at the individual rules level - anywhere.  It's all meant to be looked at as a whole and have a GM on overwatch to make sure it all runs the way he wants it to run.  

If your DM was incompetent or an asshole, well, then you were brain-damaged and spend your life looking at a purple website wondering what your gender classification is, or you write a RPG where nasty DM's can't touch your character.  

Seriously though, I never really saw the rules as being for assassins used against the characters, but for NPCs hired by the characters or very rarely for characters themselves.  The Magic-User is taking god knows how long to make his Staff of Power, the Fighter is overseeing the construction of the latest wing of his castle, wtf is the assassin going to do?  Take some contracts, so just like we're not spending 10 game sessions going over the other scenarios above, we abstract the assassination as well.  The rules work even better for a PC sending an NPC assassin to off a rival NPC lord, etc.


tl;dr - There's a depth to the interlaced rules in AD&D that puts a lot of rules discussions in the "Spherical Cow" category, assassination rules being one of them.

Quote from: CRKrueger;514737The assassination rules are not spelled out very clearly I think.  Every cry of abuse over the assassination rules overlooks the term "near optimum conditions", which if you're talking about an assassination is like killing a nun alone in church while she's praying.  If you're the kind of person someone would send an assassin after, in a world in which people kill other people for money, you watch out for that, constantly, or pay people who do.  Any type of environment that could become combat at any time is obviously going to be using heavy penalties.

In any game system that isn't Magical Tea Party for Broken Vibe-beggers, a professional assassin sent after a PC is going to kill that PC if the PC hasn't taken steps to prevent such a thing from occurring.  Assassins are not so much a mechanic as a plot device.

However, in this case, the rule is being used in vacuum (and yes I'm the one who said this is over-argued).  Yeah I assassinated him, and, so what?  He can be raised, resurrected, wished back, he could have a clone ready, or even if none of that stuff is on the table, and he stays dead, he has a group of adventurer buddies who are going to be pissed as well as anyone that guy has helped or aided in the past.  PCs tend to have friends.

Rule 0 of Assassination - Make sure the assassination doesn't cause more problems then it solves.

The reason I think this is a "vacuum" situation is that AD&D really was written to take all this shit into account.  There is practically no balance at the individual rules level - anywhere.  It's all meant to be looked at as a whole and have a GM on overwatch to make sure it all runs the way he wants it to run.  

If your DM was incompetent or an asshole, well, then you were brain-damaged and spend your life looking at a purple website wondering what your gender classification is, or you write a RPG where nasty DM's can't touch your character.  

Seriously though, I never really saw the rules as being for assassins used against the characters, but for NPCs hired by the characters or very rarely for characters themselves.  The Magic-User is taking god knows how long to make his Staff of Power, the Fighter is overseeing the construction of the latest wing of his castle, wtf is the assassin going to do?  Take some contracts, so just like we're not spending 10 game sessions going over the other scenarios above, we abstract the assassination as well.  The rules work even better for a PC sending an NPC assassin to off a rival NPC lord, etc.


tl;dr - There's a depth to the interlaced rules in AD&D that puts a lot of rules discussions in the "Spherical Cow" category, assassination rules being one of them.

A far more reasoned approach because you highlight the fact that their is raise dead. In effect you are saying at a certain level instant kill is irrelevant beause you have raise dead so much like in an MMO dead is an inconvenience rather than a permanent state.
That is key. Once you can treat dead just like stun, prone or any other temporary state then inflicting that state as a class power is fine. But assassins can do this from 1st level. And when a PC Assassinates an NPC they stay dead.

Much like SL I have an issue with the whole idea just because it has no parallels. If there was an attack type called 'unapposed' or something the crossbow across the table, the knife to the throat, whatevert then I would happily allow assassins to access that attack type with a suprise attack. In fact in my DnD where you have wounds under hp an assassin's suprise attack comes straight off wounds, but so does poison, fire, falling onto spikes etc etc

Quote from: jibbajibba;514741A far more reasoned approach because you highlight the fact that their is raise dead.

Which I did. In like. My very first post about the question.

Quote from: jibbajibba;514741Much like SL I have an issue with the whole idea just because it has no parallels.

That's pretty much the hallmark of AD&D, though. A lot of discrete subsystems, with no attempts to systematize them. (% chance disease, etc.) No notion that doing so is a good idea. (Compare thief % with non-weapon proficiencies.)

I prefer a game with systematic rules: subsystems that are integrated into the game as a whole, which are flexible enough to apply to several similar situations. (Hence my "Massive Damage" falling suggestion.)

But once you move away from "grab bag of unintegrated subsystems", you move towards 3e (or d20 Old School clones) and the whole discussion becomes moot.

Quote from: Benoist;514742Which I did. In like. My very first post about the question.

You saw the rest of my reply right ....... just asking ?

Quote from: jibbajibba;514746You saw the rest of my reply right ....... just asking ?

I'm asking myself the same question in regards to my posts on the topic, actually.

Quote from: Benoist;514748I'm asking myself the same question in regards to my posts on the topic, actually.

Okay if you are happy with reducing death to a temporary game state akin to stun or prone....
And if you accept that whole premise only works when we are looking specificallyt at NPCs killing PCs which is very rare. And you shoudl then admit that as a PC power it has no such meta level check.....

You see

But look as you have noted its not a topic you want to discus sand you will just get pissy so lets leave it eh...

Have I mentioned how much I hate henchmen .... (sorry trollign , trolling ...)

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;514744That's pretty much the hallmark of AD&D, though. A lot of discrete subsystems, with no attempts to systematize them. (% chance disease, etc.) No notion that doing so is a good idea. (Compare thief % with non-weapon proficiencies.)

I prefer a game with systematic rules: subsystems that are integrated into the game as a whole, which are flexible enough to apply to several similar situations. (Hence my "Massive Damage" falling suggestion.)

But once you move away from "grab bag of unintegrated subsystems", you move towards 3e (or d20 Old School clones) and the whole discussion becomes moot.

I agree with that to a degree and certainly thief skills versus non-weapon is a glaring disonence.
But I don't really mind if there is one system for one sort of thing, say climbing, and something totally different for something unrelated say swimming. But if 2 things work in the same arena say combat related stuff and 1 is d20 target v AC and deal damage and one is % to kill ignore AC and Hitpoints etc then I find that difficult.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;514744"grab bag of unintegrated subsystems"

This right here is kind of the key to AD&D.  Each subsystem mechanically connects to other systems very rarely, if at all.  All of them, however, are meant to be integrated into the campaign as a whole, under the guidance and authority of the DM.  It's a different design goal even from parts of AD&D 2e, and worlds away from most games designed today.

When it comes to assassinating players, I usually put on the "Yeah, I burned your fucking barge" attitude. Obviously they did something to grab interest of an assassin powerful enough. And Raise Deads are ultrarare in my games.