Brigandage - Another AIMHack Campaign

[Lilith]

i was almost just going to say "don't do this" it wasn't really a serious suggestion

 

ideally we would just make it impossible to build a bad character but that's hard to do without an outright class system

[Slawbug]

Being a Pastry Chef is more than just putting the frosting on cakes.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

ideally we would just make it impossible to build a bad character but that's hard to do without an outright class system

Well, that certainly seems to be the approach Jeff is trying in Avadon...

That said, I suppose it could be implemented. Half a dozen to maybe eight classes, it wouldn't be too difficult. Or course, then this just loops back to limiting roleplaying that you were discussing earlier.

[Triumph]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

do you get upset when a knight captures a rook in chess because a horse can't knock down a castle?

This quote is so amazing it wins the whole discussion.

One other thing I'd add is that I think one of the draws of AIMHack is simplicity and ease of access. I am willing to put up with the occasional inconvenience, such one character not having quite as much power as another, for the sake of that simplicity and easy use. Part of what happened in Selos was learning on the part of the players. Once players understand that they don't need to raise Magic to 11 and ignore all other skills, they stop doing it. I haven't seen anyone in subsequent games maxing out a single skill in the way people did in the first games (magic skills at 10, 13, and 10, respectively, for Selos, for example). I haven't seen any characters outside Selos who have had the problem I felt Lanrezac did. Don't rush to change the system for a problem caused simply by player inexperience or misunderstanding. I think an RPG assumes a degree of player maturity in order for it to work.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

Being a Pastry Chef is more than just putting the frosting on cakes.

It's a line from 8 Bit theater. Red Mage is the stat obsessed munchkin RP-er, and yet he has 8 ranks in Knowledge (Decorative Cake Frosting).

Actually, I think that line was from a guest comic done by the author of OOTS. *checks* Yes, indeed it was.

[Sarachim]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: Sarachim

3. Present the party with a variety of challenges, so that the characters who are weaker in combat get chances to shine outside of it. The Platonic ideal of a GM will find ways for History and Divination and Crafting (Pastry Chef) to be the difference between life and death.

And if they just took a variety of combat traits...?

And it's Knowledge (Decorative Cake Frosting):, by the way

If that happened, I'd make the rest of the campaign combat-heavy, since that's what the players seem to want. It's not the kind of campaign I'd prefer to run, but I doubt that any players who wanted it would sign up for one of my campaigns, so I'm not too worried.

If only some of the players focus exclusively on combat, then hanging around uselessly while the others do skill checks is the price they pay for dominating the battlefield. You can't shine all the time.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Triumph

Originally Posted By: Lilith

do you get upset when a knight captures a rook in chess because a horse can't knock down a castle?

This quote is so amazing it wins the whole discussion.

The rook was derived from the elephant piece in the ancient Indian ancestor of chess. I believe that it remained the Elephant in the Middle East, but there was some confusion over the translation from Persian and it wound up "rukh", or something semantically similar to the Persian word for castle (it's the same with the word for sine. The Indian word means "chord", but the Persian word for Chord is similar to the Persian word for hollow. Sinus = hollow in Latin, so it's the sine function, not the chord function). The Europeans mistranslated it and we now play with a castle instead of an elephant. Since I'm sure that cavalry on horseback have defeated cavalry on elephants before, at some point in history, your comparison is incorrect.

[Triumph]

It depends on how well trained the elephants and horses are. Trained war elephants can seriously freak out enemies who've never met an elephant. On the other hand, an untrained elephant can get really freaked out by all the noise and commotion and pain of a battle.

 

 

That, and I doubt there have ever been any true elephant vs. cavalry engagements to really use to compare. There's always the rest of the army to take into account.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: Triumph

Originally Posted By: Lilith

do you get upset when a knight captures a rook in chess because a horse can't knock down a castle?

This quote is so amazing it wins the whole discussion.

The rook was derived from the elephant piece in the ancient Indian ancestor of chess. I believe that it remained the Elephant in the Middle East, but there was some confusion over the translation from Persian and it wound up "rukh", or something semantically similar to the Persian word for castle (it's the same with the word for sine. The Indian word means "chord", but the Persian word for Chord is similar to the Persian word for hollow. Sinus = hollow in Latin, so it's the sine function, not the chord function). The Europeans mistranslated it and we now play with a castle instead of an elephant. Since I'm sure that cavalry on horseback have defeated cavalry on elephants before, at some point in history, your comparison is incorrect.

loooooooooool

[Slawbug]

"chess piece," c.1300, from O.Fr. roc, from Arabic rukhkh, from Pers. rukh, of unknown meaning, perhaps somehow related to the Indian name for the piece, rut, from Hindi rath "chariot." Confused in M.E. with roc.

 

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=rook&searchmode=none

 

(from just about the least untrustworthy of all the armchair etymology sources out there, which is saying something but not much)

 

Wikipedia also seems to buy the chariot theory for rooks, although it does mention a few cases where the names are switched in India:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess#Early_history

 

Anyway, this makes more sense to me. Chariots moving in a straight line, elephants being surprisingly awkward in a melee.

[Slawbug]

Also, if you're confused about how any capturings could REALLY happen, you obviously did not spend enough time playing BattleChess.

 

(1:15 Knight captures Rook)

[Sarachim]

Elephants' tendency to move in a straight line made Hannibal lose the battle of Zama.

[Sudanna]

Quote:

Good, let's test this. You get a gun with a full clip of ammo, and I get to select a martial artist at the top of his form who has like eight black belts. Twenty paces, who wins?

The maximum distance an attacker can close before you can react, ready your firearm and fire is 21 feet. Now hit him.

[Wiz]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

"chess piece," c.1300, from O.Fr. roc, from Arabic rukhkh, from Pers. rukh, of unknown meaning, perhaps somehow related to the Indian name for the piece, rut, from Hindi rath "chariot." Confused in M.E. with roc.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=rook&searchmode=none

(from just about the least untrustworthy of all the armchair etymology sources out there, which is saying something but not much)

Wikipedia also seems to buy the chariot theory for rooks, although it does mention a few cases where the names are switched in India:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess#Early_history

Anyway, this makes more sense to me. Chariots moving in a straight line, elephants being surprisingly awkward in a melee.

The Rook is still called a Chariot in at least a few of the Indian languages. Ditto with the Bishop and the Elephant. So thats quite possibly true.

[Nioca]

Okay, wow. You leave for one day, and the thread explodes.

 

That said, there's a little adage that needs to be kept in mind here: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

Anyway... I sort of regret bringing damage up. Me and my big mouth... But yes, I was running damage where different weapons/spells had different damage potential. However, the difference was pretty small; Erika's Daggers, for example, did at most 4 damage, whilst Iliau's staff had the highest maximum... of 6. Furthermore, simpler weapons like staves get small a bonus to accuracy, so while you might not be doing as much damage per blow, you're landing blows more often. In short, someone preferring one weapon over another isn't getting royally shafted.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Well, in all honesty, (and I'm talking all honesty here), it seemed like this bit was just pandering fanboy service (since I'm being brutally honest here) to Eph. You included his backstory NPC to the point where he was a central ficure in the campaign, you centered the campaign around his character, you marginalized or ignored other character, etc. This was a very bad idea. (NB: I'm guilty of this too, )

I wouldn't go quite that far. I was subconsciously favoring the character, yes, but not the player. There's a difference.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Well if you wanted to get more stuff done, don't spend so much time travelling. We had how many sessions wasted on wandering through he wilderness/sailing again? Four? More?

Yeah, I know. Again, there are mistakes I'll be aware of to avoid the next time I do this.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Oh, and there are always sequels. Who says that there isn't some crucial text in the monastery that will allow Reat to further his goals of archipelagaic domination? (I am fairly sure that's not a word, but it is now!)

I've actually already got an idea of where a sequel would go and how it would end.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Also, it majorly irked me not being able to see my damage roll. I'd roll a critical and then do minimum damage, which really sucked.

Actually, as I was running it, criticals automatically did maximum damage.

 

Anyway, I definitely prefer keeping damage to enemies transparent. I'd rather have the party marveling at a boss enemy's toughness or ability to shrug off attacks, rather than wondering just how many hitpoints I loaded into the thing.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Cool campaign, liked the atmosphere, liked the combat, liked the RPing, plot was a bit cliché but workable, despised the ending. Reat was/is not a good villain, and I blame that for the failure to bring closure.

Actually, I think Reat is a good villain, just presented poorly. At the end, I tried to give him some legroom so that he seemed less like a mustache-twirling cliche, which... backfired rather spectacularly. It probably would have ran better if I hadn't tried to cram two sessions worth of exposition into two hours.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: Lilith

wizards don't generally run around with greatswords because (apart from not needing to hit things with weapons) they don't have weapon proficiency for it and God help me if you try to get a class-based weapon proficiency system shoehorned into AIMHack i will personally throttle you through your computer screen

 

This sounds like a challenge. But weapon proficiency always struck me as pointless, because every point you wizard puts into a martial skill is one less point they are putting into a Magic skill. Eventually they'll have to pick one or the other, I suppose, because the difficulty will scale with the PC's that are dumping all their points into one skill, and you'll have a character that is proficient in all skills but not good enough at any of them. A few points in Swords at the beginning is fine, but you can't expect someone with 6 in Swords and 6 in Evocation to be able to compete with someone with a 12 in Evocation or a 12 in Swords

 

That said, Red Mages are cool.

Dantius? A certain Etris Tanner would like to have a word with you.

 

You see, the thing with having a mage with 12 in Evocation or a swordsman with 12 in swords is that they become something of a one-trick pony with glaring weaknesses, one that a more versatile character, like the 6/6 battlemage you mentioned above, would be able to take advantage of. Swordsman vs. Battlemage? The battlemage would be able to just dance out of reach of the swordsman whilst blasting him with fire. Wizard vs. Battlemage? Use a magic-disrupting spell to turn off the magic, then go to town with the sword.

 

Seriously, the two examples you listed above would have no choice but to run with their tails between their legs if they came across a unique challenge. An L1 archer on an unreachable cliff could take down all but the most powerful single-classed swordsman, and if a single-classed wizard ran across a monster with magic resistance? The results wouldn't be pretty. There's a power in versatility. To quote another adage, Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Good, let's test this. You get a gun with a full clip of ammo, and I get to select a martial artist at the top of his form who has like eight black belts. Twenty paces, who wins? You're clearly not as well trained as he is (unless you are, in which case replace "you" with "someone off the street", so why did you just win? It's because the gun is so much more powerful than hands. Now image you're playing a game where shooting someone in the face does the same amount of damage as smacking someone upside the head. Wouldn't your enjoyment of the game be diminished by you having to constantly suspend disbelief about "I've shot him five times in the head and he's still kicking the crap out of me!"?

You watch too much television. In real life, taking a bullet doesn't instantly kill or incapacitate unless it hits vital parts of the spine or brain. Furthermore, it's actually rather difficult to hit a moving target, and especially difficult to hit a small target like someone's head. And on top of that, the shooter would have adrenaline pumping, which makes it different to concentrate and focus, screwing up his aim even more... Then, if the shooter burns up all 16 of his shots (assuming he has a gun that can support 16-bullet magazines), he's effectively screwed, since the Monk has an unlimited supply of fists. Plus, the monk could likely close the distance before the shooter could get a shot off like Nalyd mentioned. So, yeah, the monk wins hands-down.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: Triumph

Something along this line sort of happened to Lanrezac - by splitting skill points between magic and a weapon, he was nowhere near as proficient at combat as Boregloaf, and nowhere near as magically proficient as the other three party members. To some extent I planned him that way, as a supplementary sort of character who could fill in and help a little on both sides. However, I think he also struggled some as combat scaled more to match the rest of the party, and by the end he had a tough time landing a hit.

This is a quandary. If the PC's aren't balanced, the DM gets a bad choice between

1. Letting the more powerful characters obliterate the setting with ease by scaling to the lower reaches of the party

or

2. Screwing over the less optimized party members by scaling to keep the powerful characters engaged in the setting.

 

Of course, the third alternative is even worse, which would be to simply let the DM level the characters to keep the scaled. But we've seen that happen (in The World), and the result is that they players feel a disconnect between them and their character, which is worse than just some unrealistic combat.

You're forgetting option #4: scale the challenges to the party's level, rather than their skills. This makes it imperative for characters to keep their secondary skills up (though it also makes it imperative for the DM to implement skill challenges with enough frequency to warrant this).

 

Originally Posted By: Lilith

it would probably be a good idea to revamp the skill point system

 

maybe something like this:

 

* raising a skill costs a number of skill points equal to its new value, just like in character creation

* when you level up, you get a number of skill points equal to, say, 3 times your new level

 

that way you can either have one skill that's as high as possible or a few skills that are only a couple of points behind

Hmm... that could work. The only problem is that, at low levels, you'd really be getting very few skill points, and at high levels, you'd be getting a truly freakish number of them.

 

Originally Posted By: Lilith

btw my kokoro wish is to get rid of the Str/Dex/Int stats altogether and just have skills, maybe i'll run a campaign sometime and see how it goes

Eh... On one hand, I can see how this could work. On the other hand, it'd likely result in the introduction of a whole beepload of skills just to handle all the things Str/Dex/Int used to handle. I'm not saying it wouldn't work, I'm just saying that it'd probably wind up introducing a whole new level of complexity.

 

Originally Posted By: Triumph

One other thing I'd add is that I think one of the draws of AIMHack is simplicity and ease of access. I am willing to put up with the occasional inconvenience, such one character not having quite as much power as another, for the sake of that simplicity and easy use. Part of what happened in Selos was learning on the part of the players. Once players understand that they don't need to raise Magic to 11 and ignore all other skills, they stop doing it. I haven't seen anyone in subsequent games maxing out a single skill in the way people did in the first games (magic skills at 10, 13, and 10, respectively, for Selos, for example). I haven't seen any characters outside Selos who have had the problem I felt Lanrezac did. Don't rush to change the system for a problem caused simply by player inexperience or misunderstanding. I think an RPG assumes a degree of player maturity in order for it to work.

QFT. Even with the best system, when you've got new players and new DMs, you're going to have problems. No two ways about it.

 

Woo. I think I criticaled my "Summon Gigantic Post" roll.

[Lilith]

yeah there are definitely issues to be ironed out with my idea still

 

i'll probbo start up a shortish proof-of-concept campaign once there aren't so many other rps going on

[Slawbug]

"In real life" -- people are more often than not down for the count if a single good blow connects. Maybe dead or maimed, maybe just temporarily incapacitated. So don't bring real life into this stuff.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Nioca

Actually, I think Reat is a good villain, just presented poorly. At the end, I tried to give him some legroom so that he seemed less like a mustache-twirling cliche, which... backfired rather spectacularly. It probably would have ran better if I hadn't tried to cram two sessions worth of exposition into two hours.

Part of the reason Dikiyoba thinks it backfired is that none of the PCs were terribly heroic, so it didn't take much for them to find Reat sympathetic.

[Triumph]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Part of the reason Dikiyoba thinks it backfired is that none of the PCs were terribly heroic, so it didn't take much for them to find Reat sympathetic.

Very interesting point. Hmm...who would be be more heroic or honorable examples of PCs from other games? Esstra? Gramzon? Eric? People who would have been less inclined to just ignore Reat's past misdeeds... Intriguing.

Also:

Originally Posted By: Nioca

That said, there's a little American adage that needs to be kept in mind here: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

This.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Triumph

That, and I doubt there have ever been any true elephant vs. cavalry engagements to really use to compare. There's always the rest of the army to take into account.

Hannibal and the battle of Cannae would like to disagree with you. While that was against Roman infantry and not cavalry, it was certainly very, very decisive.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

"chess piece," c.1300, from O.Fr. roc, from Arabic rukhkh, from Pers. rukh, of unknown meaning, perhaps somehow related to the Indian name for the piece, rut, from Hindi rath "chariot." Confused in M.E. with roc.(from just about the least untrustworthy of all the armchair etymology sources out there, which is saying something but not much)

Wikipedia also seems to buy the chariot theory for rooks, although it does mention a few cases where the names are switched in India:
Anyway, this makes more sense to me. Chariots moving in a straight line, elephants being surprisingly awkward in a melee.

Hm. Then it was the bishop who was the elephant, not the rook. I mean, I suppose both make sense (try stopping an elephant once it decides to get moving in a straight line), but I wasn't off by far .

Originally Posted By: Nioca

Actually, as I was running it, criticals automatically did maximum damage.

Anyway, I definitely prefer keeping damage to enemies transparent. I'd rather have the party marveling at a boss enemy's toughness or ability to shrug off attacks, rather than wondering just how many hitpoints I loaded into the thing.

I distinctly recall Erika's critical ballistae hit on Lord Garth not hitting, as I was quite shocked at the time. And I'm sure that there was at least one occasion where I rolled a crit and you replied "It did min damage".

Originally Posted By: Nioca

Actually, I think Reat is a good villain, just presented poorly. At the end, I tried to give him some legroom so that he seemed less like a mustache-twirling cliche, which... backfired rather spectacularly. It probably would have ran better if I hadn't tried to cram two sessions worth of exposition into two hours.

Perhaps. But the fact that the switch was so sudden and so abrupt and that we had no warning made it feel the other way. And Reat was definitely mustache twirling in the prison session, so him suddenly switching to being a nice guy was a little too abrupt to be believable

Originally Posted By: Nioca

You see, the thing with having a mage with 12 in Evocation or a swordsman with 12 in swords is that they become something of a one-trick pony with glaring weaknesses, one that a more versatile character, like the 6/6 battlemage you mentioned above, would be able to take advantage of. Swordsman vs. Battlemage? The battlemage would be able to just dance out of reach of the swordsman whilst blasting him with fire. Wizard vs. Battlemage? Use a magic-disrupting spell to turn off the magic, then go to town with the sword.

Yes, but in both cases a wizard or a swordsman would be better equipped to deal with those challenges than a 6/6 battlemage- the wizard could employ the same dance-and-blast tactics, but more powerful, and the swordsman could bring down the wizard faster, since antimagic fields probably wouldn't be castable by a 6/6 battlemage (in order for there to be any semblance of balance, antimagic fields would require a seriously powerful wizard to cast, because if every piddling battlemage could do it, then there'd be no reasons for wizards to even exist.)

Originally Posted By: Nioca

You watch too much television. In real life, taking a bullet doesn't instantly kill or incapacitate unless it hits vital parts of the spine or brain. Furthermore, it's actually rather difficult to hit a moving target, and especially difficult to hit a small target like someone's head. And on top of that, the shooter would have adrenaline pumping, which makes it different to concentrate and focus, screwing up his aim even more... Then, if the shooter burns up all 16 of his shots (assuming he has a gun that can support 16-bullet magazines), he's effectively screwed, since the Monk has an unlimited supply of fists. Plus, the monk could likely close the distance before the shooter could get a shot off like Nalyd mentioned. So, yeah, the monk wins hands-down.

No, you've been watching too much television. One shot with a hollow-point bullet, or even just a more powerful gun, will straight up kill just about anything. The force from being hit with a hollow point bullet can break your neck and kill you instantly if you get hit in the shoulder. A large enough caliber gun hitting you will kill you so fast that you'll be dead before the sound from the gun actually reaches you. If I shoot you in the thigh, not only have I shattered you femur and made it easy for me to kill you at my leisure, I have also severed several major arteries. Ditto for the shoulder, or the stomach. Being hit in the knee will pretty much cripple you instantly. Plus, the pain from getting shot just about anywhere will incapacitate you so thoroughly that you'll be a sitting duck for the next shot.

Where I live, the gun would probably be a 10-bullet magazine, since otherwise it would be classified as an assault weapon IIRC. But that's still a lot of chances to make a hit. And you forget the fact that the monk is not technically a "moving" target- he's heading towards the shooter, so the odds of hitting increase as the gets closer. Really, anyone unable to hit a man sized target at 10 feet with multiple shots deserves to be beaten into a pulp by the monk.

Plus, 20 paces (standard for pistol duels) is about 100 feet. That's plenty of time to ready you weapon, aim, and fire off a spray. If even one bullet hits anywhere in the arms, thighs, chest, stomach, head, shoulder, then he's pretty much down for the count. And even if he does manage to still make it to you, then he'll probably die of blood loss after the fight.

That's just how powerful guns are- with little to no training, someone with a gun can easily take down someone who has spent his life achieving mastery of something that's not, in fact, a gun.

Originally Posted By: Nioca

Originally Posted By: Lilith

it would probably be a good idea to revamp the skill point system

maybe something like this:

* raising a skill costs a number of skill points equal to its new value, just like in character creation
* when you level up, you get a number of skill points equal to, say, 3 times your new level

that way you can either have one skill that's as high as possible or a few skills that are only a couple of points behind

Hmm... that could work. The only problem is that, at low levels, you'd really be getting very few skill points, and at high levels, you'd be getting a truly freakish number of them.

I've only suggested fixing the skill system since it was first implemented in the Labyrinth campaign. However, this does result in the fact that you'd need to be at least level 3 or higher before you managed to actually raise a skill that's more than 4, which is the what most people's primary skill starts out at in the beginning, which as Nioca mentioned, does make it very difficult for beginning players. Besides, shouldn't things scale the other way- it's easy to learn something or be competent at it, but hard and time-consuming to master it?

I like my system .

Originally Posted By: Nioca

Woo. I think I criticaled my "Summon Gigantic Post" roll.

Yep, definitely .

[Sudanna]

Kurex, obviously.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Eld

Kurex, obviously.

Note to self: Give Kurex either a Meteor spell or Hadoken for the next campaign. Then we'll actually be capable of nuking the library.

[Triumph]

Umm...Dantius...there were no elephants at Cannae. Sorry. Military history fail. Stick with engineering.

 

Yes, Hannibal is famous for using elephants (and his was not only ancient army to use them), and he did use them as some battles...but not Cannae. Cannae was all about brilliant tactics on Hannibal's part. Double-envelopment FTW. While there were no elephants, there WERE infantry and cavalry on BOTH sides.

 

I don't think my original point was clear. I was trying to say it's hard to compare elephants vs. horses because in all such battles that I know of where the two were involved, other forces were also involved (i.e. loads of infantry). So you can't say "Oh, elephants single-trunkedly won that battle," or "Oh, those cavalry utterly pwned those elelphants" because there are other factors involved the battle.

 

 

 

On another matter: Yes, I was subbing as Erika and got a crit on a ballista roll...and it missed completely.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Triumph

Umm...Dantius...there were no elephants at Cannae. Sorry. Military history fail. Stick with engineering.

Yes, Hannibal is famous for using elephants (and his was not only ancient army to use them), and he did use them as some battles...but not Cannae. Cannae was all about brilliant tactics on Hannibal's part. Double-envelopment FTW. While there were no elephants, there WERE infantry and cavalry on BOTH sides.

Damn, mixed up Cannae and Trebia again. For whatever reason I keep thinking that Cannae was in northern Italy and was fought soon after crossing the Alps, when it's the other way around. I knew I was going to get something messed up.

However, if you just substitute those two names, it suddenly become magically correct! We were never at ware with Eastasia!

EDIT: I must have rolled a 1 on my history check when I said Cannae. After all, I have a 5% chance at failing miserably at everything I do!

[Slawbug]

GREY AS A MOUSE,

BIG AS A HOUSE.

NOSE LIKE A SNAKE,

I MAKE THE EARTH SHAKE,

AS I TRAMP THROUGH THE GRASS;

TREES CRACK AS I PASS.

WITH HORNS IN MY MOUTH

I WALK IN THE SOUTH,

FLAPPING BIG EARS.

BEYOND COUNT OF YEARS

I STUMP ROUND AND ROUND,

NEVER LIE ON THE GROUND,

NOT EVEN TO DIE.

OLIPHAUNT AM I,

BIGGEST OF ALL,

HUGE, OLD, AND TALL.

IF EVER YOU'D MET ME

YOU WOULDN'T FORGET ME.

IF YOU NEVER DO,

YOU WON'T THINK I'M TRUE;

BUT OLD OLIPHAUNT AM I,

AND I NEVER LIE.

[Rowen]

I don't think that a critical roll on a skill that you have no points in should act like a normal critical. If it did then everyone would just keep rolling until they got a 20 on what ever they wanted. If Nixak had roll the 20 on shooting the balista I would have liked to see him fail. He has no skill with shooting anything physically and definitely no Artifice skill to use a balista. But when Nixak rolled a 20 in a mind duel it was definitely a critical hit because Nixak knew what he was doing.

[Triumph]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

<pre><b>GREY AS A MOUSE,
BIG AS A HOUSE.
NOSE LIKE A SNAKE,
I MAKE THE EARTH SHAKE,
AS I TRAMP THROUGH THE GRASS;
TREES CRACK AS I PASS.
WITH HORNS IN MY MOUTH
I WALK IN THE SOUTH,
FLAPPING BIG EARS.
BEYOND COUNT OF YEARS
I STUMP ROUND AND ROUND,
NEVER LIE ON THE GROUND,
NOT EVEN TO DIE.
OLIPHAUNT AM I,
BIGGEST OF ALL,
HUGE, OLD, AND TALL.
IF EVER YOU'D MET ME
YOU WOULDN'T FORGET ME.
IF YOU NEVER DO,
YOU WON'T THINK I'M TRUE;
BUT OLD OLIPHAUNT AM I,
AND I NEVER LIE.</b></pre>

YES!!!!!!!! Sam rocks.

[Triumph]

Originally Posted By: Rowen

I don't think that a critical roll on a skill that you have no points in should act like a normal critical. If it did then everyone would just keep rolling until they got a 20 on what ever they wanted. If Nixak had roll the 20 on shooting the balista I would have liked to see him fail. He has no skill with shooting anything physically and definitely no Artifice skill to use a balista. But when Nixak rolled a 20 in a mind duel it was definitely a critical hit because Nixak knew what he was doing.

Well, you could just make a rule that characters auto-fail (or just can't roll at all?) all rolls for which the character has no skills. Should that be the rule? I don't know. But if you DON'T make that the rule...then of all possible rolls, if any roll on something a character is not skilled at should have an effect...it would be a 20. Not sure how this SHOULD be handled, just trying to point out what I see as the logical consequence of what you're saying. After all, if you are automatically going to fail at something even if you roll 20, you might as well just let the player know advance not to bother trying. Maybe some skills should be auto-fails unless they have training, and others should just have a penalty?

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Triumph

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Part of the reason Dikiyoba thinks it backfired is that none of the PCs were terribly heroic, so it didn't take much for them to find Reat sympathetic.

Very interesting point. Hmm...who would be be more heroic or honorable examples of PCs from other games? Esstra? Gramzon? Eric? People who would have been less inclined to just ignore Reat's past misdeeds... Intriguing.

Well, we ended up killing the leader of a city, so basically every other PC in every other Mote campaign but Vitze would do.

Quote:

On another matter: Yes, I was subbing as Erika and got a crit on a ballista roll...and it missed completely.

In all fairness, Nioca spent that entire fight telling the party that the ballistae would suck as weapons because they weren't designed to be used on person-sized targets.

Dikiyoba.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Quote:

On another matter: Yes, I was subbing as Erika and got a crit on a ballista roll...and it missed completely.

In all fairness, Nioca spent that entire fight telling the party that the ballistae would suck as weapons because they weren't designed to be used on person-sized targets.

Dikiyoba.

I think I landed a hit on him by making a 17 on an Artifice check, but I probably would have been better off just blasting him with magic.

[Dintiradan]

Handgun debate: I ain't no expert, but there are two factors that aren't being made clear here. The first is skill level. The average person with no experience firing a sidearm will have difficulty hitting a stationary target with a low-recoil handgun when in a low-stress gun range. Let the target move around (even predictably), take away aiming time after the first shot, take away ear protection, and add a helluva lot of adrenaline, and Joe Bloggs will be lucky to get two shots off. Of course, the whole situation changes when the person with the sidearm has actual combat training and battlefield experience.

 

Second factor is calibre. I'd imagine the effects of being shot by a Luger pistol is quite different than being shot by a Desert Eagle. As I understand it, modern handguns meant for self-defence are designed to push the assailant back with the high-powered rounds (I am not an expert, so this is all hearsay -- correct me if I'm wrong). You also do more damage with fun stuff like hydrostatic shock. Of course, if you miss the target, good luck re-aiming with that recoil. On the flip side, you hear about people who've taken lower-calibre bullets to the lungs and not even realize they've been shot until later. The tactic with older/lower-calibre sidearms seems to be 'take rapid potshots until you hit a vital area'.

 

 

 

At this moment, it's very important for me to point out the following: Whenever Wybren makes a shot with his crossbow, he holds it sideways. That way, the bolt travels faster.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Handgun debate: I ain't no expert, but there are two factors that aren't being made clear here. The first is skill level. The average person with no experience firing a sidearm will have difficulty hitting a stationary target with a low-recoil handgun when in a low-stress gun range. Let the target move around (even predictably), take away aiming time after the first shot, take away ear protection, and add a helluva lot of adrenaline, and Joe Bloggs will be lucky to get two shots off. Of course, the whole situation changes when the person with the sidearm has actual combat training and battlefield experience.

You don't even need combat training or battlefield experience. Once you get used to the recoil and the noise and the relative mechanics of aiming, it's quite simple- an hour or two hours of practice will do. Small caliber guns don't have much recoil and are quite easy to handle, and can probably get off enough shots in a wide enough spread that at least one would hit, and even being hit by a .22 is enough to give someone pause. Granted, it probably won't be fatal instantly unless you get off a shot to, say, his eye, but he should be slowed/wounded enough for you to take your time with the next shots and finish him off. Of course, there are problems with using a .22 for self defense...

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Second factor is caliber. I'd imagine the effects of being shot by a Luger pistol is quite different than being shot by a Desert Eagle. As I understand it, modern handguns meant for self-defence are designed to push the assailant back with the high-powered rounds (I am not an expert, so this is all hearsay -- correct me if I'm wrong). You also do more damage with fun stuff like hydrostatic shock. Of course, if you miss the target, good luck re-aiming with that recoil. On the flip side, you hear about people who've taken lower-calibre bullets to the lungs and not even realize they've been shot until later. The tactic with older/lower-calibre sidearms seems to be 'take rapid potshots until you hit a vital area'.

This is why using, say, a .22 for self defense is a bad idea. I mean, pulling out a gun on someone who's assaulting you is great for intimidation, and sure, it's light and compact and easily concealed and maybe even has low recoil (.22 rifles are toys, they have about as much recoil as a Nerf gun), but you can't do much damage. If you wanted to stop someone, using a Magnum or a 9mm would be better, but those have recoil and noise and such, and maybe an untrained user would have trouble . Still, I stand by my claim that a few hollow point 9's to anywhere in the body would stop the ********** out of anyone and anything that was attacking you, regardless of their skills in unarmed combat.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

"In real life" -- people are more often than not down for the count if a single good blow connects. Maybe dead or maimed, maybe just temporarily incapacitated. So don't bring real life into this stuff.

yo i already said this don't steal my ideas >_>

but seriously i've come up with a campaign idea and now all i gotta do is finish planning it out and wait for a good time to start, it's gonna be a.w.e.s.o.m.e

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

I've only suggested fixing the skill system since it was first implemented in the Labyrinth campaign. However, this does result in the fact that you'd need to be at least level 3 or higher before you managed to actually raise a skill that's more than 4, which is the what most people's primary skill starts out at in the beginning, which as Nioca mentioned, does make it very difficult for beginning players. Besides, shouldn't things scale the other way- it's easy to learn something or be competent at it, but hard and time-consuming to master it?

actually it's 3x the new level -- so you'd get 6 skill points at level 2, which is enough to raise a skill from 5 to 6. in hindsight though i think 3x level creates a bit of a wonky growth curve anyway, it might be better to do 2x level plus a flat bonus

also my system is explicitly designed to make skills easy to learn and hard to master by making skill cost proportional to skill level, how is it not doing that

[Slawbug]

So it's like a SW game, with diminishing returns that create a bottleneck of viable builds?

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

So it's like a SW game, with diminishing returns that create a bottleneck of viable builds?

might and magic 6 did it before SW did, but yes, that's the idea

it's not actually diminishing returns though, since the number of skill points you get with each levelup increases over time. so you can keep raising your best skill by 2 points each level if you really, really want to, but low-level skills become cheaper by comparison and at some point missing out on one point in Swords in order to distribute five points between other skills instead becomes attractive. the aim is to encourage people to diversify a little more, or rather, to not make them feel that they're compromising their character's effectiveness by doing so

[Triumph]

I understand the goal of your proposed system tweak...but I go back AIMHack's simplicity as a draw, and feel like this change would just be more multiplication and addition and math than I think we really need. The problem is just not worth this particular solution. /2cents

[Lilith]

But... it's exactly the same skill point system that already exists in character creation. It's actually removing complexity by having one system for raising skills instead of two (which currently interact in fairly complex ways). The only new mechanic that's being added is the increasing number of skill points per level.

[Lilith]

anyway i'm the one sticking my neck out by planning to use it in a campaign, none of you guys have to adopt it unless and until i've shown it works

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

it's not actually diminishing returns though, since the number of skill points you get with each levelup increases over time. so you can keep raising your best skill by 2 points each level if you really, really want to, but low-level skills become cheaper by comparison and at some point missing out on one point in Swords in order to distribute five points between other skills instead becomes attractive. the aim is to encourage people to diversify a little more, or rather, to not make them feel that they're compromising their character's effectiveness by doing so

yo i already made this system don't steal my ideas >_>

[Sarachim]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: Lilith

it's not actually diminishing returns though, since the number of skill points you get with each levelup increases over time. so you can keep raising your best skill by 2 points each level if you really, really want to, but low-level skills become cheaper by comparison and at some point missing out on one point in Swords in order to distribute five points between other skills instead becomes attractive. the aim is to encourage people to diversify a little more, or rather, to not make them feel that they're compromising their character's effectiveness by doing so

yo i already made this system don't steal my ideas >_>

Anyone who wants to steal my ideas is welcome.

[Lilith]

Come to think of it, there's only one other campaign going on here right now, since the others seem to have wrapped up. Would anyone terribly object if I started the thread for my RP now?

[Triumph]

There's two RPs currently running, really: the Twilight Saga (...of the Imperium), and Dust Bowl.

 

Not that that should stop you.

[Lilith]

Oh, I thought that one ended already.

 

Well, it'll be at least a couple of weeks between the thread going up and the RP actually starting anyway. I might as well do it.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Oh, I thought that one ended already.

Yeah, if you're going to steal my system you might want to at least have the courtesy to wait until it's forgotten so nobody notices

[Lilith]

If it makes you feel any better I wasn't paying much attention to that thread since I wasn't involved in it.

[Nioca]

*ka-bump*

 

The log for Session 10 is now complete! My sincerest apologies for not getting it up sooner; it slipped my mind a few times.

 

Anyway, we currently only have two epilogues in thusfar! Please, make sure to send in an epilogue for your character; if you don't really know what to write, you can just send me a simple idea of what you want your character to do, and I can fill it in from there.

[Tirien]

Finally! Now I can cheer when Xuan dies.

[Ephesos]

All things are properly mirrored over yonder.

 

Also, I can't believe I wasn't the last person to submit an epilogue.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Nioca

*ka-bump*

The log for Session 10 is now complete! My sincerest apologies for not getting it up sooner; it slipped my mind a few times.

Anyway, we currently only have two epilogues in thusfar! Please, make sure to send in an epilogue for your character; if you don't really know what to write, you can just send me a simple idea of what you want your character to do, and I can fill it in from there.

Oh, did I not post my epilogue? My bad.

Click to reveal..