session report

[Mary K. Kuhner]

SPOILERS for _Age of Worms_ module #2.


We did the next bit of _Age of Worms_, which I'd predicted to be
a TPK.

It wasn't. It didn't look much like either of us had expected,
either.

Part I (Temple of Hextor):

We'd agreed without much discussion to use the v3.0 version of the
Darkness spell (which makes things pitch dark) and not the v3.5
(which makes them gloomy with 20% concealment, and actually
illuminates a naturally dark area). One of the PCs is of a strange
class (warlock) from one of the expansion books and sees in
magical darkness like a demon. When an NPC cast Darkness on
a coin and threw it on her, she picked it up and carried it
around. For the next ten minutes she effectively had a
better-than-Improved-Invisibility advantage, and she used it
ruthlessly. This screwed up the rest of the PCs nearly
as badly as the enemies; the warlock essentially won singlehanded
except for the final fight against the High Priest, which came
down to a two-on-one fight between him and two PCs. One of the
PCs was badly hurt but not killed. All other foes were killed
singlehandedly by the warlock with ranged magical damage. No
enemy was ever able to target her.

Much bitching from the player about armor class; his PCs had an
inordinately hard time hitting. The warlock hits touch
AC and even without the darkness she would have been doing most
of the damage.

The Darkness advantage was so great that I think the best approach
to this scenario would have been for the warlock to do it by
herself once the first three rooms were finished. It was somewhat
interesting watching her do it, but the player started to become
snappy (I would call one of the other PCs on the initiative
chart, and he would snap "Does nothing, just like last round" at
me). With multiple players I think this would have been a severe
problem.

Part II (Grimlock caves):

The PCs questioned the Hextorites, got high rolls and were able to
get a fair idea how the grimlocks were situated. They killed
five by impersonating the Hextorites and pretending to have a food
shipment. Then they went in, and fought through all the rest.

The two boss fights at the end were solved with Silence, looking
exactly the same, oddly, as the Darkness effect earlier: grimlocks
"see" with sound, so are totally blind in Silence, and this is
catastrophic.

The earlier fights (grimlocks with levels of fighter or barbarian,
krenshars, chokers) gave the PCs considerable trouble and one was
taken to -8 but lived.

The thing I really noticed about this scenario was that, even though
we had agreed to play it as it was written, and I had told the
player that I thought it was too hard, he was continually offended
by how hard it was. I had to keep looking up rules for him.
We found one clear rules violation: the module author beefed up
the grimlocks by giving them shields (making them AC20 and very
hard for the PCs to hit) but left their damage at the two-handed
weapon level. The player also felt that grimlocks should not be
CR1 (I tend to agree).

I kept saying "You asked me to play it as written" because I
felt so defensive. I was also bothered by lots of logic problems:
I had to work hard to hide from the player the fact that the
Hextorites apparently never sleep (everyone is on watch all the
time) and that the grimlocks get their food supplies by walking
past two hungry monsters.

By the end the player was snapping at me whenever I made a rules
call against his PCs, which he usually doesn't do. It was
a very stressful session to run. The PCs "did fine" but the player
and GM didn't seem to be enjoying themselves.

The player's reaction was to tell me that he didn't think his
PC party would be viable past a few more levels, due to less than
optimal character design choices, and I ought to "do something
about that" or he was going to have to abandon these PCs and do
more heavily optimized ones. He also complained that he was
not satisfied with his characterizations.

Toward the end I was forcing myself, with gritted teeth, not to
fudge.

Despite the outcome, I'll stand by my initial evaluation: these
are too hard for us at the stated levels. I don't care too much
about the spell-dominated outcomes, though if it turns out to be
standard for the warlock to win every scenario single-handed (she
will get Darkness at will in a few levels) we're likely to be
unhappy. But the amount of player bitching was hard to take. I
don't fault my player for it. I would have felt the same.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[psychohist]

I have to say, your post reminded me of why I refuse to play AD&D as
written. Optimal tactics are all about finding exploitative uses of
things like the uses of darkness and silence that you mention. I don't
fault your player for them, but I'm really not interested in a system
that has so little use for real tactics.

I would note that perhaps you discovered why version 3.5 darkness was
changed from version 3.0.

Warren J. Dew

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by psychohist
I have to say, your post reminded me of why I refuse to play AD&D as
written. Optimal tactics are all about finding exploitative uses of
things like the uses of darkness and silence that you mention. I don't
fault your player for them, but I'm really not interested in a system
that has so little use for real tactics.

It was disappointing. We've had some fights which were much more about
manuver tactics and much less about one-spell-beats-everything. I was
rather surprised to see that at this level (4th) as in my experience
it's a much worse problem later on, and dominates after 9th level.

Post by psychohist
I would note that perhaps you discovered why version 3.5 darkness was
changed from version 3.0.

No doubt of it. We are discussing various fixes. My player is violently
adverse to the v3.5 version as written because the idea that casting
Darkness in a dark room makes it *lighter*--you can in fact cast this
on a lantern and use it as a light source--offends him. But one possibility
is to just rename the spell "Darklight" or "Gloom."

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Ken Arromdee]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by psychohist
I would note that perhaps you discovered why version 3.5 darkness was
changed from version 3.0.

No doubt of it. We are discussing various fixes. My player is violently
adverse to the v3.5 version as written because the idea that casting
Darkness in a dark room makes it *lighter*--you can in fact cast this
on a lantern and use it as a light source--offends him. But one possibility
is to just rename the spell "Darklight" or "Gloom."

Or just rule that the spell darkens the area down to that light condition
but has no effect if it's already at that level or worse.

[John Morrow]

Post by Ken Arromdee
Or just rule that the spell darkens the area down to that light condition
but has no effect if it's already at that level or worse.

I think this is a great solution but then it's really a "Darken" spell and
not a "Darkness" spell.

John Morrow

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
I have to say, your post reminded me of why I refuse to play AD&D as
written. Optimal tactics are all about finding exploitative uses of
things like the uses of darkness and silence that you mention.

No they're not.

Exploitative uses of the rules has a much more negative term like
power-gamer or munchkin or the like. That is, some one who's interesting in
victory over the spirit of the rules and the game.

[gleichman]

Post by gleichman

Post by psychohist
I have to say, your post reminded me of why I refuse to play AD&D as
written. Optimal tactics are all about finding exploitative uses of
things like the uses of darkness and silence that you mention.

No they're not.
Exploitative uses of the rules has a much more negative term like
power-gamer or munchkin or the like. That is, some one who's interesting
in victory over the spirit of the rules and the game.

Went back and looks at the Mary's post which sparked that statement and need
to clarify: That use wasn't exploitative as such (because as far as I know,
it was allowed by the rules) and thus wouldn't count as power-gaming in 3.0
which was the agreed upon version of the spell.

I'm no sure I'd use the word tactics either however. Spell usage and combos
are more about finding 'holes' in the game structure (as this case shows)
than supporting tactics. This type of intensely unsporting system behavior
is also a reason that I long ago abandoned D&D.

[tussock]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
We'd agreed without much discussion to use the v3.0 version of the
Darkness spell (which makes things pitch dark) and not the v3.5
(which makes them gloomy with 20% concealment, and actually
illuminates a naturally dark area).

It has been officially rules that the wording is screwy, it's not
intended to illuminate anything.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
One of the PCs is of a strange class (warlock) from one of the
expansion books and sees in magical darkness like a demon.

Which is a 3.5 class ability, and obviously isn't supposed to be
/Improved Invisibility/ at will.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
We found one clear rules violation: the module author beefed up
the grimlocks by giving them shields (making them AC20 and very
hard for the PCs to hit) but left their damage at the two-handed
weapon level. The player also felt that grimlocks should not be
CR1 (I tend to agree).

Nearly all 2HD humanoids are CR 1. There is the rough rule to give
+50% XP for any monsters that have a signifigant advantage over their
default stats.

Sheilds are pretty easy to sunder, but that depends on feats for
safety. It's probably a solid tactic for the front line to make a wall
of full defence (low level PCs should hit AC 22 easy) and have the
Warlock pick them off one at a time.



Just out of interest, how many encounters does your group do
between exits? There's a good string of EL 3 and EL 4 ones there, and
the 4th EL = APL in a day is supposed to wipe out your resources.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by tussock
Just out of interest, how many encounters does your group do
between exits? There's a good string of EL 3 and EL 4 ones there, and
the 4th EL = APL in a day is supposed to wipe out your resources.

They did all of the described encounters in one pass, taking careful
account of their own resources.

For roleplaying reasons, it seemed unreasonable to do them
one or two encounters at a time: it was hard to imagine, given
the setup, that the NPCs would neither improve their position
nor retaliate against the PCs' allies. The module assumes that the
PCs don't care what happens to the NPCs most deeply in the grip of
the cultists, but in our case, those NPCs are the parents of two
of the PCs, and the PCs do care.

I don't think Hextor would have been easier in multiple passes.
The PCs used Darkness, which they cannot cast, to make it work.
The grimlocks would have been, because Silence is a perfect
defense against them but only lasts long enough for 1-2 encounters.
But it is hard to imagine that the third faction wouldn't do
anything in the meantime. And the grimlock casters might also
get smart and cast Darkness themselves (it was foolish of
them not to be carrying it in the first place).

As the PCs have a wand of CLW, healing/hit points were not an issue;
they were at full hp for every encounter.

My experience is that at these levels, encounters do not wipe out
your resources all that quickly: the PC deaths come from either
single too-hard encounters or from dice, not from resource exhaustion.
(This assumes the party doesn't push past the end of their spells,
which this one hadn't, and still hasn't. They are, however, running
a bit low and are out of alchemist's fire. They may retreat now and
hope that the remaining cultists are too few to mount an effective
response.)

The module seems to assume that the PCs can take this room by
room and nothing will ever change, but my player won't tolerate
that kind of thing.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[tussock]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by tussock
Just out of interest, how many encounters does your group do
between exits? There's a good string of EL 3 and EL 4 ones there, and
the 4th EL = APL in a day is supposed to wipe out your resources.

They did all of the described encounters in one pass, taking careful
account of their own resources.

It looks set out for three runs at a minimum, and they'd each be
insanely hard days for a standard party. I can agree that any partially
defeated section would likely team up with one of the others, but
presumably there's an unstated reason the Evil cults don't like to live
in each others pockets for extended periods.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The module assumes that the PCs don't care what happens to the NPCs
most deeply in the grip of the cultists, but in our case, those NPCs
are the parents of two of the PCs, and the PCs do care.

Then it's not the module that's too hard, it's the conditions
you've added. It's basically linear in each section, there's no chance
to zip in and do the mission without hitting most of the fights, so
insisting the missions must be completed in the one run is harsh.

Your 10th level characters in a 5th level module post earlier is a
similar thing, doing what would normally be a level or two worth of
adventure in one run is about five or six times as hard as expected in DnD.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I don't think Hextor would have been easier in multiple passes.

Your house rule gimped the whole Hextor bunch, and will do the same
for most every opponent until you change it. /Improved Invisibility/ is
supposed to be harder to cast, of much shorter duration, and be avilable
when enemies have more stuff available to cope with it.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The grimlocks would have been, because Silence is a perfect
defense against them but only lasts long enough for 1-2 encounters.

What works so well for one party can cripple another; it's not so
good when it takes out your own spellcasters in the cramped conditions
the Grimlocks live in, and you can't communicate at all.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
But it is hard to imagine that the third faction wouldn't do
anything in the meantime.

If they come after you, avoid them. If they stay home, so what?
Their defences are already layed out as best they know how.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
And the grimlock casters might also get smart and cast Darkness
themselves (it was foolish of them not to be carrying it in the
first place).

Considering your house rules, that's true. It's a 3.5 module, and
expects 3.5 /Darkness/, which isn't all that great a spell.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
As the PCs have a wand of CLW, healing/hit points were not an issue;
they were at full hp for every encounter.

That, combined with a Warlock (even without the cheesy Darkness
mod), changes the one day gameplay somewhat. I suppose you don't have a
lot of resources that don't just come back next fight.

There's a fair bit of character class stuff coming out from WotC
that's balanced per fight rather than per day lately. They're trying to
cut back on the impact of a spellcaster or Psion that dumps everything
in one fight, but making it easier and easier to just keep on going.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
My experience is that at these levels, encounters do not wipe out
your resources all that quickly: the PC deaths come from either
single too-hard encounters or from dice, not from resource exhaustion.

IME death comes when PCs are too cautious with their resources, and
far too slow to spend anything on really hurting the enemy. That's what
makes the single tough encounters seem too hard.



You know, I get the impression your games are a self-fulfilling
prophecy. Can't rest or the bad guys will do something horrible, so you
have to crush the baddies in one go, so they have to make an OTT
response because they only get one chance. Using higher level PCs would
be a great idea if that's what you like, they're likely already adjusted
for long runs about as well as can be.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by tussock
It looks set out for three runs at a minimum, and they'd each be
insanely hard days for a standard party. I can agree that any partially
defeated section would likely team up with one of the others, but
presumably there's an unstated reason the Evil cults don't like to live
in each others pockets for extended periods.

That "unstated" bothers me a lot. There are detailed tactics for
each section individually, but nothing beyond that. There are a lot
of suggestions that the cult *should* act: the 6th and 7th level NPCs
in town think they will, and those folks aren't stupid. But nothing
on how they'll act, to help the GM out if the PCs do as you suggest.

At a minimum, guarding the single point of access to the complex
would seem like a good idea! Anyone coming down in that elevator
should be very vulnerable. If guard duty is too boring for live
people, undead could be tried, with a ready response force nearby.
And a Glyph or so wouldn't go amiss, or a booby trap. A 200'
elevator sounds like an awfully appealing spot for a booby trap.

Admittedly the Hextorites are the military brains of the bunch, and
the player quite reasonably hit them first. But the Vecnites
aren't stupid either.

I'm also bothered by the fact that nobody apparently ever sleeps, or
changes guard, or anything like that--the descriptions are 100%
static. *Were* they expecting the PCs to hit it repeatedly? If
so, it should really have a non-static description. At a minimum,
when are the food deliveries, and who receives them? Is the night
guard different from the day guard?

Post by tussock

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The module assumes that the PCs don't care what happens to the NPCs
most deeply in the grip of the cultists, but in our case, those NPCs
are the parents of two of the PCs, and the PCs do care.

Then it's not the module that's too hard, it's the conditions
you've added. It's basically linear in each section, there's no chance
to zip in and do the mission without hitting most of the fights, so
insisting the missions must be completed in the one run is harsh.

I didn't insist; the player could have tackled it the way you suggest,
though the Vecna-cultists would certainly have had *some* kind of
response. The player insisted, saying flatly, "I can't maintain
suspension of disbelief doing this one room at a time."

And yes, it's a disadvantage that the PCs have family and connections
in Diamond Lake. I warned the player about this, but he finds it's
a lot more interesting that way. There are several "Motivate the
PCs by threatening NPCs they care about" scenario hooks in _Worms_
but one has the impression that they are meant to give the players
an *excuse* for doing the adventure the GM wants, because at every
other turn the module undercuts that kind of motivation.

Post by tussock
Your house rule gimped the whole Hextor bunch, and will do the same
for most every opponent until you change it. /Improved Invisibility/ is
supposed to be harder to cast, of much shorter duration, and be avilable
when enemies have more stuff available to cope with it.

Yes. I know I have to fix that rule, and we have a couple of proposals
on the table to do so.

I think I might have spotted it earlier if the PCs could *cast* Darkness,
but they can't. It's hard to vet abilities the PCs don't have. There
are so many of them!

Post by tussock

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The grimlocks would have been, because Silence is a perfect
defense against them but only lasts long enough for 1-2 encounters.

What works so well for one party can cripple another; it's not so
good when it takes out your own spellcasters in the cramped conditions
the Grimlocks live in, and you can't communicate at all.

I think this comes partly from the expectation that of course all of
the PCs have to have something useful to do in each encounter. Silence
can really hurt the PC spellcasters, but if you know that, and there
isn't a player bitching about it, you can very usefully have two fighters
with a Silence up front, and the rest of the party (including another
demi-fighter as bodyguard) in back, outside the Silence. This is how my
player did the last two grimlock encounters. Sometimes the back group
could contribute, sometimes not, depending on terrain, but when they
couldn't they just waited.

Post by tussock

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
My experience is that at these levels, encounters do not wipe out
your resources all that quickly: the PC deaths come from either
single too-hard encounters or from dice, not from resource exhaustion.

IME death comes when PCs are too cautious with their resources, and
far too slow to spend anything on really hurting the enemy. That's what
makes the single tough encounters seem too hard.

Maybe. The two PC deaths were against melee foes that killed them in
one action each. They moved faster than the PCs and had much better
to-hit rolls. More buffs might have helped, but as I recall, the PCs
were fresh when they hit that.

Similarly, the near-death in the grimlock caves was a hidden monster
that no one had Spotted nailing a PC late in the movement order, and
taking him down in a round. He had Mage Armor, but it wasn't enough;
at these levels he's not likely to have too much more.

(I said this to the player, who disagreed. "If I was playing one-room-
per-day, the other 5 PCs would never have been in that room at all. We
would put all the buffs on one PC and have her search every square in
the room." So I guess if you are willing to do that, yes, you can greatly
reduce mortality.)

I am coming to think my sense of "too hard" is not just threat level,
it's other things. In _SCAP_ my rogue hit the first scenario and
was so clearly outclassed by all locks and traps that she quit trying,
and never really tried again until 7th or 8th level. Similarly, I'm
concerned that Jon's PCs will adopt an attitude of "We are so outclassed
as fighters, we can only ever win by spell-backed tactics, so that's
all we do." He's likely to find such PCs "unheroic" (in the capability
sense, not the courage/sacrifice sense) and ultimately unsatisfying.

A mindset of "No one go into the room until the one PC whom we've poured
backing magic into has searched it; and then we'll go home and rest up"
is rather...it's hard to combine it with thinking of the PCs as real
adventurers with real goals, at least for me.

Post by tussock
You know, I get the impression your games are a self-fulfilling
prophecy. Can't rest or the bad guys will do something horrible, so you
have to crush the baddies in one go, so they have to make an OTT
response because they only get one chance. Using higher level PCs would
be a great idea if that's what you like, they're likely already adjusted
for long runs about as well as can be.

I put this to the player, who sighed and said, "They're describing Neverwinter
Nights. I just finished playing that, and it was okay, but I hoped for
more from D&D. Of course you can have no enemy responses and no connection
to any of the NPCs, but my suspension of disbelief goes right out the
window."

So yes, I think you've hit the nail on the head, but it's not a "problem"
that we can fix. We enjoy the sense of a world being there that was, for
me, so badly missing in Neverwinter and Baldur's Gate--that you can't
just walk away from any threat and never worry what it will do, that there
are NPCs whose lives you really care about and who are genuinely at
risk.

I didn't understand how many levels worth of disadvantage that is. Now I
do: a valuable lesson.

My player is bummed. He was interested in trying to play _Worms_ "straight",
at its stated levels and without GM fudging, as a challenge. But he's not
so interested if doing so requires abandoning PC or NPC complexities that
he enjoys, and I'm afraid that's the choice we face.

I felt that way about SCAP for a while too, but the module broke me of it;
tactical challenge is all very well but the price is way too high. I know
that I would not have enjoyed taking 2 weeks to kill the monsters in the
Night of Terror one at a time; my own suspension of disbelief would not
have survived it. (There's still a town there, with 32 hellhounds roaming
the streets burning things down deliberately? There are still people, with
bone devils hunting them for sport? And the enemy neither accomplishes
anything serious on their own plans, nor locates and kills the PCs?) We
did that in two sweeps, taking two days at it, but cleaning up the most
town-killing stuff in the first night. *That* felt like the kind of heroics
(again, capability sense, not moral sense) I'd play a high-end fantasy game for.

It's unfair of me, of course, to expect the modules to support my play
style. But it does seem strange that they waste paper on things like
NPC personality sketches, if the best thing to do is ignore them.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[tussock]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
At a minimum, guarding the single point of access to the complex
would seem like a good idea! Anyone coming down in that elevator
should be very vulnerable. If guard duty is too boring for live
people, undead could be tried, with a ready response force nearby.
And a Glyph or so wouldn't go amiss, or a booby trap. A 200'
elevator sounds like an awfully appealing spot for a booby trap.

Can't set a 200' trap for that low level PCs, as it's 20d6. They
could've done it on a 40' elevator, but then they could've had a proper
warning system, interconnects for escape, better hardpoints, and so on.

A typical party here would collapse the entry, or pour a ton of
lantern oil down it and set fire (either way they're dead). Not finding
the back way in is a licence to avoid the likely linear adventure module
with a little creative destruction.
At least, that's what I like to see. 8]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I'm also bothered by the fact that nobody apparently ever sleeps, or
changes guard, or anything like that--the descriptions are 100%
static. *Were* they expecting the PCs to hit it repeatedly? If
so, it should really have a non-static description. At a minimum,
when are the food deliveries, and who receives them? Is the night
guard different from the day guard?

I'd have to assume they're all tucked away in secrecy, not
venturing out, and the guards off in side rooms are actually sleeping in
armour ready for the big day. Not that it makes any sense like that
either, it's really just a dungeon crawl with random monsters. 8]

The new path, Savage Tide, seems to deal with all that sort of
thing quite neatly, from what I've read thusfar. Especially love stuff
like "if the PCs switched sides in adventure #2 ...", and it's always
said how to handle things if plot points go astray where I noticed they
might easily do so.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The player insisted, saying flatly, "I can't maintain suspension of
disbelief doing this one room at a time."

OK, group contract thing. Personally I love one room at a time. As
in first run hits room 12; second run hits room 23, gets the goal, and
gets out with some clever avoidance tactics.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
It's hard to vet abilities the PCs don't have. There are so many of
them!

True that.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by tussock

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The grimlocks would have been, because Silence is a perfect
defense against them but only lasts long enough for 1-2 encounters.

What works so well for one party can cripple another; it's not so
good when it takes out your own spellcasters in the cramped conditions
the Grimlocks live in, and you can't communicate at all.

I think this comes partly from the expectation that of course all of
the PCs have to have something useful to do in each encounter.

DnD has signifigant synergies between the classes in combat, half
of the party in a fight is typically well less that half as capable, no
matter who gets left out.
Like using summons to get the Rogue an easy flank, and the baddie a
new target to save him some HPs.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
A mindset of "No one go into the room until the one PC whom we've poured
backing magic into has searched it; and then we'll go home and rest up"
is rather...it's hard to combine it with thinking of the PCs as real
adventurers with real goals, at least for me.

There's spells and such to do it quicker if you have them, and I
encourage Gather Information or spot interrogation type prep with ample
hints. Personally I'm not a fan of the lone scout; while it /might/ be
an optimal tactic that I don't happen to like, it does have some serious
failings.
Rat familiars do it very well, BTW, everywhere has rats already.

But that's just an aside: I find studious prep and deep concern for
their immediate survival is a fine meta-goal for any adventuring sort.
One can't acheive anything great while currently dead.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by tussock
You know, I get the impression your games are a self-fulfilling
prophecy. Can't rest or the bad guys will do something horrible, so you
have to crush the baddies in one go, so they have to make an OTT
response because they only get one chance. Using higher level PCs would
be a great idea if that's what you like, they're likely already adjusted
for long runs about as well as can be.

I put this to the player, who sighed and said, "They're describing Neverwinter
Nights. I just finished playing that, and it was okay, but I hoped for
more from D&D. Of course you can have no enemy responses and no connection
to any of the NPCs, but my suspension of disbelief goes right out the
window."

Heh. In NWN you can't climb in the 2nd floor window, in this module
there is no 2nd floor window to climb in. In NWN the NPCs can't help, in
this module the NPCs won't help. In NWN the only right answer must be
scripted in, in this module all the other answers have been made
unavailable.
I'm not surprised that NWN tactics would work well. It's not
nessicarily true of DnD, though it's still a bit common in the modules.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
My player is bummed. He was interested in trying to play _Worms_ "straight",
at its stated levels and without GM fudging, as a challenge. But he's not
so interested if doing so requires abandoning PC or NPC complexities that
he enjoys, and I'm afraid that's the choice we face.

I haven't read every step of the path in detail, but it's fairly
likely to hold true to the 'physically close sets of hard encounters'
style. That's why they keep running short of treasure in the designs
too, a lot of moderate and hard encounters with nothing easy to chew
through messes with the default treasure assumptions.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I know that I would not have enjoyed taking 2 weeks to kill the monsters
in the Night of Terror one at a time; my own suspension of disbelief would
not have survived it. (There's still a town there, with 32 hellhounds
roaming the streets burning things down deliberately? There are still
people, with bone devils hunting them for sport? And the enemy neither
accomplishes anything serious on their own plans, nor locates and kills
the PCs?)

Answers ... No, the town and surrounding farms are burned to the
ground. No, the people that couldn't be evacuated are long dead. The
enemies plans are well advanced and making things interesting, when
their scouts find us we kill them, and when they try and hit us in force
we avoid and go make them remember why they were staying at the town.

And if they manage to open the hell mouth and all, tell Elminster
and co. about it, because they'll happily come in and gib it in two rounds.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
It's unfair of me, of course, to expect the modules to support my play
style. But it does seem strange that they waste paper on things like
NPC personality sketches, if the best thing to do is ignore them.

Heh. My own preferences are also unsupported. Endangered towns that
can't handle evacuation schemes. Powerful NPCs won't get off their ass.
No 2nd floor windows. Bad guys that are always in armour but never have
scrolls to hand. Hell, modules often can't handle the PCs bringing along
a company or two of archers and pikemen, or a few adepts.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by tussock
A typical party here would collapse the entry, or pour a ton of
lantern oil down it and set fire (either way they're dead). Not finding
the back way in is a licence to avoid the likely linear adventure module
with a little creative destruction.
At least, that's what I like to see. 8]

Unfortunately in a series of linked modules, doing so will end you
up so severely lacking in treasure that you'll die. I hate to
encourage money-grubbing, but if the thing is run "by the book" you
really have grub (and even then there is not enough).

Both the current _Worms_ PCs and the SCAP PCs like to spend money on
other things than equipment, too, which is important for roleplaying but
makes the treasure even more essential.

Post by tussock

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The player insisted, saying flatly, "I can't maintain suspension of
disbelief doing this one room at a time."

OK, group contract thing. Personally I love one room at a time. As
in first run hits room 12; second run hits room 23, gets the goal, and
gets out with some clever avoidance tactics.

He's perfectly okay with this when the PCs' goal can be met that
way, but in this case his goal was to capture or kill everyone in
the complex; avoidance tactics weren't going to do what he wanted.
I don't get in the player's way on things like this if I can help
it.

(He then delivered almost all the prisoners to the Cult of the
Green Lady: I think the politics will be fun.)

The SCAP PCs tried to make their near-TPK scenario easier by
bribing a significant baddie not to be there--and it helped, though
not enough. We have no qualms about doing things like this.

But "one room at a time" wasn't meant to mean "we only hit the bits
we need to hit." It was meant to mean "We hit a room and retreat for
a day, then come back and do it again." The NPCs really have to
respond if you do very many iterations of that, unless they are
mindless undead or bound demons or something. And of course events
in the world have to advance too. It takes *forever* to do a big
dungeon this way.

Neverwinter Nights flatly gave up: you seem to sleep for a few
seconds, and nothing ever happens during that time.

Post by tussock
DnD has signifigant synergies between the classes in combat, half
of the party in a fight is typically well less that half as capable, no
matter who gets left out.
Like using summons to get the Rogue an easy flank, and the baddie a
new target to save him some HPs.

What size party are you used to? This is less true the larger the
party is, in my experience. With 4 PCs you definitely use everyone in
every combat if you can. With 8 it is often much better to keep some
back out of the others' way, doing support casting or missile fire
or just guarding the back. Otherwise it is very easy to get tangled
up. And frequently you *can't* reasonably bring 8 characters to
bear, for example in a fight in a 10x10 room with a dogleg entry.

Post by tussock
I haven't read every step of the path in detail, but it's fairly
likely to hold true to the 'physically close sets of hard encounters'
style. That's why they keep running short of treasure in the designs
too, a lot of moderate and hard encounters with nothing easy to chew
through messes with the default treasure assumptions.

As well as the player's morale, though Jon is much tougher-minded about
this than I am.

Post by tussock
Heh. My own preferences are also unsupported. Endangered towns that
can't handle evacuation schemes. Powerful NPCs won't get off their ass.

Gods, yes. I hate this.

We were talking through the personalities that the SCAP party ended
up with--even the paladin is not, in a classical sense, a very good
person--and finally asked the party leader flat-out why the PCs behave
as they do.

"Because, without exception, the only people we have ever seen being
effective were evil. Being good mostly seems to make you passive
and helpless. In a few exceptional cases good people have tried
to do something, but they always died immediately--like the High
Priest of Cuthburt--or were immediately turned bad."

And then (if the questioner is someone he's willing to trust): "And
no one has ever shown the least bit of interest in the discoveries
I've made or the great twist of fate I'm involved in, except people
who are, by any conventional standard, evil. Being good seems to
mean being numb, indifferent to the world and its glories and terrors."

Even Charis sees this. Paladins who fall from grace traditionally
end up chaotic evil, but I think this one could end up lawful evil.

Post by tussock
No 2nd floor windows. Bad guys that are always in armour but never have
scrolls to hand. Hell, modules often can't handle the PCs bringing along
a company or two of archers and pikemen, or a few adepts.

"Can't handle" in the sense of "the encounter is no longer challenging",
or "can't handle" in the sense of "the plot is broken"? I can live with
a certain amount of the former. There are *so many* fights in one of
these paths that it really doesn't matter if some of them are easy, or
even if a whole bunch are easy. But if the later events all collapse
due to early PC actions, that's a pain.

The SCAP PCs just tricked a fairly important foe into letting herself
be Dominated. If the GM hadn't already been committed to going off
the path, this would have forced him to do so: I don't see any way
things could go as originally plotted, given that. But gosh, it was
a satisfactory conclusion. (Catching her with the spell would have
been nice, but it's all luck--she makes the save on a 5. Persuading
her to throw the save, *that* was a coup.)

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Even Charis sees this. Paladins who fall from grace traditionally
end up chaotic evil, but I think this one could end up lawful evil.

Heh. In most of the games I've played in, fallen paladins were
typically still good-aligned -- they just had performed one sin they
thought wasn't wrong. So: we have a fighter without bonus feats with
all the evil enemies made back when he or she had superpowers, a sense
of obligation to still oppose them, and just for kicks the holy
inquisition was also after them.

It's kind of surprising how being utterly, hopelessly doomed can make
a PC scary and intimidating.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Even Charis sees this. Paladins who fall from grace traditionally
end up chaotic evil, but I think this one could end up lawful evil.

Heh. In most of the games I've played in, fallen paladins were
typically still good-aligned -- they just had performed one sin they
thought wasn't wrong. So: we have a fighter without bonus feats with
all the evil enemies made back when he or she had superpowers, a sense
of obligation to still oppose them, and just for kicks the holy
inquisition was also after them.

You found paladins to have superpowers? I'm continually frustrated
with the class. SCAP (very appropriately, I think) has paladins as
very rare and individually significant people, and I really like that
flavor. But in play they just aren't, unless you load them up with
special-purpose equipment.

Arcanus Unearthed has the exact same problem with the Champion class.
They are dedicated champions of a person, place, organization or
ideal, and they should be *impressive* as such. But they are so
darned weak, you just feel sorry for them: they would have been
much better off as warmains (the heavy fighter equivalent).

I doubt Charis will ever lose her sense of obligation, but I could
see her giving up on her principles and deciding that the ends
justify the means, and I think that would make her, in this case,
closer to lawful evil than lawful good. She has never been very
solidly good anyway; she's a Law-paladin rather than a Good-paladin.

At the moment Fritz is saying to her, "I think this prisoner can
be redeemed. I know she's too dangerous to turn loose and too
difficult to keep, but I have a Plan for dealing with that." It
is hard for Charis to say "No, I don't care if she can be redeemed--
kill her." But if she agrees to Fritz' plan, well, it's blackest
necromancy to start with, and the odds are quite good that rather
than redeeming the NPC, it will corrupt Fritz. Fritz is the big
chink in Charis' personal ethics anyway; he's not a nice person at
all, but he's her older brother and she doesn't want to lose him,
no matter how badly she needs to.

I have been surprised at how hard it's been for Charis to maintain
her personal standards in this setting. Much harder than for any
paladin I'd played before, even though nothing has tried to corrupt
her directly at all. (At least, I don't think so.)

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[gleichman]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami
Heh. In most of the games I've played in, fallen paladins were
typically still good-aligned -- they just had performed one sin they
thought wasn't wrong. So: we have a fighter without bonus feats with
all the evil enemies made back when he or she had superpowers, a sense
of obligation to still oppose them, and just for kicks the holy
inquisition was also after them.

You found paladins to have superpowers? I'm continually frustrated
with the class.

Same here. Most game systems have them to be wimpy fighters with rather
wimpy spells that do little to improve them. The current D&D version is
nothing worth bragging about (although I'll be forced to say that I only
gave them a once over).

In online MMORPGs they are typically even worse off.

Very few games treat them properly.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Same here. Most game systems have [paladins] to be wimpy fighters with rather
wimpy spells that do little to improve them. The current D&D version is
nothing worth bragging about (although I'll be forced to say that I only
gave them a once over).

I've been trying to figure out what would be a suitable improvement.

We found Charis extremely unsatisfactory after about 8th level; she
doesn't even get new powers anymore (just things like increasing her
Cure Disease from 2x/week to 3x/week) and the spells do not help.
A fighter with a few potion bottles in his pocket is as good or
better than Charis at doing what her spells do.

My mental image of what she should be doing involves being able to
walk onto a battlefield and make things go better for her side, not
by direct force of arms, but by strengthening and rallying her
allies. The fear-resistance power works for this except that the
10' range makes it next to impossible to use: in a lengthy campaign
a PC who needed to make a fear save has been within 10' of Charis
exactly *once*. A very few spells, mainly Bless, work for it.
Nothing else does.

I think she should be able to smash through the enemy's illusions
and fear-effects and charms. The old Holy Avenger rules did that,
I guess, but she should not be dependent on a magic item in
order to be a paladin. If this is going to be represented by
spells, it should be substantive spells: Break Enchantment,
Magic Circle Versus Evil, that sort of thing. The whole idea that
you can beef up an 11th level character by giving her another 2nd
level spell just doesn't work.

Jon thinks that explicit magical powers or feats would be a better
match to the conception than any spells at all. One complaint about
Charis is that with her very small number of spells per day (2
first, 2 second at 10th level) she invariably seems to have the wrong
spell, which doesn't feel paladinic. We'll go months without
seeing a devil, and suddenly run into a group of them: Bless Weapon
would actually help, but for months there has been no reason to carry
it. Mages and priests get enough spells that carrying a few "on spec"
is okay, but paladins don't. And it just seems wrong that a holy
warrior has to say "Sorry, can't help you: wasn't expecting these
devils." (Without Bless Weapon she is truly ineffectual against
devils, far and away the worst character in the party.)

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Gary Johnson]

My mental image of what she should be doing involves being able to walk
onto a battlefield and make things go better for her side, not by direct
force of arms, but by strengthening and rallying her allies.

The Knight in PHB2 has a number of effects like this - you may like to
take a look. I think, if the designers were doing it all again, the
paladin may have gotten more abilities like the knight class - certainly,
the knight has a better description of how the code of conduct affects
game play.

Cheers,

Gary Johnson

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:14:40 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Jon thinks that explicit magical powers or feats would be a better
match to the conception than any spells at all. One complaint about
Charis is that with her very small number of spells per day (2
first, 2 second at 10th level) she invariably seems to have the wrong
spell, which doesn't feel paladinic. We'll go months without
seeing a devil, and suddenly run into a group of them: Bless Weapon
would actually help, but for months there has been no reason to carry
it. Mages and priests get enough spells that carrying a few "on spec"
is okay, but paladins don't. And it just seems wrong that a holy
warrior has to say "Sorry, can't help you: wasn't expecting these
devils." (Without Bless Weapon she is truly ineffectual against
devils, far and away the worst character in the party.)

An idea that's been bubbling away in the back of my mind is that
paladins (and rangers) should get spontaneous casting rather than
prepared spells.

Of course this doesn't help with the problem that 1st and 2nd level
spells just aren't a big deal for 10th level characters in 3.5.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
An idea that's been bubbling away in the back of my mind is that
paladins (and rangers) should get spontaneous casting rather than
prepared spells.

We implemented this (tested only with paladin so far). It does help
a little, and certainly does not seem unbalancing. But I think
explicit per-day or at-will powers might be even better.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
Of course this doesn't help with the problem that 1st and 2nd level
spells just aren't a big deal for 10th level characters in 3.5.

Yes. A very few more-powerful spells have crept onto those lists
at low level (Lesser Restoration at Paladin 1st, Suggestion at
Bard 2nd, for example) but that's a poor way to address the basic
problem.

It's also painfully clear that paladins and similar make crappy
casters: they cast at half their level which ruins their durations
and their chance to go through SR, the spells (even if powerful) have
low nominal level so saves are too easy against them, and they
can't afford to take things like Concentration or Spell Penetration.

Charis just casts Bull's Strength over and over, with occasional
forays into Bless and Bless Weapon. It doesn't make her feel any
more holy: it's just a bookkeeping nuisance, frankly. At least
as a free caster she can occasionally get some use out of Lesser
Restoration etc. But the spell list, on top of its other faults,
is quite bland. And she is mysteriously unable, despite being
Lawful Good, to deal with an enemy which requires Lawful weapons
to hit--a priest could do it, but she can't.

You could build a better holy warrior using cleric as the base
class; you might even do okay with an even-split fighter/cleric.
(At least, if you can resist the temptation to play cleric
as a kind of mage, which is what I tend to do; in that case, the
fighter/cleric doesn't work well at all.)

I wonder what it is about this conception which causes it not to
work out well.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:54:29 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
It's also painfully clear that paladins and similar make crappy
casters: they cast at half their level which ruins their durations
and their chance to go through SR, the spells (even if powerful) have
low nominal level so saves are too easy against them, and they
can't afford to take things like Concentration or Spell Penetration.

One of my house rules is to change paladin & ranger caster level to
(character level -3) from (character level/2). Of course that still
leaves them unable to afford spell-boosting feats & skills.

It just seemed to me that "half the character's level" is way too big
a penalty to caster level, much as "half the character's level" is way
too big a penalty for cross-class skills. (I think I've mentioned
before that my house rule wrt cross-class skills is "double cost for
the first three ranks, then normal cost, with a cap of (level) for
cross-class vs (level+3) for class skills.)

I've tended to think of paladin & ranger spellcasting as being a bit
of nifty coolness worth the rough equivalent of a feat or two, rather
than as a major aspect of their power. The official rules seems to
have a split-personality view, though, between the spellcasting being
a Big Deal & it being a bit of valueless chrome.

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Chances are suprisingly good that Mary K. Kuhner was not wearing pants

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
We implemented this (tested only with paladin so far). It does help
a little, and certainly does not seem unbalancing. But I think
explicit per-day or at-will powers might be even better.

Complete Warrior has an alternative "spell-less" Paladin class designed
along these lines, but I haven't looked at it in ages and so have no
idea if it's any good.

(It also does the same thing for the Ranger, but then turns around and
introduces a third class with the same sort of 4-level spellcasting they
were trying to get away from with those variants.)

[DougL]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I wonder what it is about this conception which causes it not to
work out well.

Hmm, I typed a really long reply to this yesterday, and don't see it
today. I'll try again a bit shorter.

I think the basic problem is an overemphasis on play ballance.
Palladin's draw extra power from being "Champions of GOOD". If you take
that word EXTRA seriously that means that Palladin's are inherently
unballanced powerwise.

But PC to PC the ballance that matters is spotlight time not power, and
there's plenty of ways to limit the spotlight time of the champion of
good character type.

You get the same thing on the opposite end too. Sell your soul to the
Devil in D&D land (or most other games) and you get.... The opportunity
to join an allegedly ballanced prestige class. Fuck that. Why would
anyone even CONSIDER this deal if I can join a just as powerful
prestige class WITHOUT selling my soul instead?

Some character concepts just cry out to be unballanced in the internal
gameworld logic. Either don't allow those concepts or let them be
unballanced.

DougL

[Erol K. Bayburt]

Post by DougL

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I wonder what it is about this conception which causes it not to
work out well.

Hmm, I typed a really long reply to this yesterday, and don't see it
today. I'll try again a bit shorter.
I think the basic problem is an overemphasis on play ballance.
Palladin's draw extra power from being "Champions of GOOD". If you take
that word EXTRA seriously that means that Palladin's are inherently
unballanced powerwise.
But PC to PC the ballance that matters is spotlight time not power, and
there's plenty of ways to limit the spotlight time of the champion of
good character type.
You get the same thing on the opposite end too. Sell your soul to the
Devil in D&D land (or most other games) and you get.... The opportunity
to join an allegedly ballanced prestige class. Fuck that. Why would
anyone even CONSIDER this deal if I can join a just as powerful
prestige class WITHOUT selling my soul instead?
Some character concepts just cry out to be unballanced in the internal
gameworld logic. Either don't allow those concepts or let them be
unballanced.

Let me dissent here: I agree that Paladins, Jedi, etc. should be
superior folk, a cut or three above the ordinary denizens of the world
- but so should the other player-character types. Thus, in my view, a
paladin should be inherently superior and unbalanced to a (npc-class)
warrior, but NOT to a (PC-class) fighter. Making the paladin superior
to the warrior should be enough to satisfy the internal gameworld
logic.

To draw an example from the comic books: Being a Green Lantern makes
you a Specially Chosen Champion of goodness and light. It makes you a
superhero. It does not automatically make you superior to the other
superheroes - you're a peer to Superman, Flash, Martian Manhunter,
Wonder Woman, etc. not automatically better or more powerful than they
are.

That said, there is a tendency to overdo the balance thing and make
paladins and other Champions of Good too weak compared to standard
fighter-types. In the specific case of 3.5e D&D, I'd also add that the
paladins aren't "fighterly" enough (IMO), and that it's hard to scrape
together enough paladin-specific class features to make up for the
loss of 11 bonus fighter feats. A possible fix might be to give them
more-or-less their current set of paladin abilities, plus half the
bonus feats back: Bonus fighter feats at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and
18th levels.

[gleichman]

I'll dissent with your dissent. DougL nailed it perfectly.

[DougL]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
Let me dissent here: I agree that Paladins, Jedi, etc. should be
superior folk, a cut or three above the ordinary denizens of the world
- but so should the other player-character types. Thus, in my view, a
paladin should be inherently superior and unbalanced to a (npc-class)
warrior, but NOT to a (PC-class) fighter. Making the paladin superior
to the warrior should be enough to satisfy the internal gameworld
logic.

Fighter 1, multiclasses to Paladin. He's ALREADY the superior PC type,
now he's got the Paladin additional power too.

It's extra power, that means extra.

To take your green lantern vs. Superman analogy, there's NOTHING in
the gameworld to stop Superman from becoming a green lantern too. And
there's NOTHING in the gameworld that says a paladin wasn't as good as
a fighter PRIOR to getting the added power.

The Character already HAS the elite abilities and elite/PC character
type training PRIOR to becoming a Paladin. The extra power from
Paladin must thus be on top of that from being an elite PC type.

DougL

[Simon Smith]

Post by DougL

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
Let me dissent here: I agree that Paladins, Jedi, etc. should be
superior folk, a cut or three above the ordinary denizens of the world
- but so should the other player-character types. Thus, in my view, a
paladin should be inherently superior and unbalanced to a (npc-class)
warrior, but NOT to a (PC-class) fighter. Making the paladin superior
to the warrior should be enough to satisfy the internal gameworld
logic.

Fighter 1, multiclasses to Paladin. He's ALREADY the superior PC type,
now he's got the Paladin additional power too.
It's extra power, that means extra.
To take your green lantern vs. Superman analogy, there's NOTHING in
the gameworld to stop Superman from becoming a green lantern too. And
there's NOTHING in the gameworld that says a paladin wasn't as good as
a fighter PRIOR to getting the added power.
The Character already HAS the elite abilities and elite/PC character
type training PRIOR to becoming a Paladin. The extra power from
Paladin must thus be on top of that from being an elite PC type.

Your reasoning looks hole-free to me. But where does it say that all PCs
must be exactly balanced? And is there a GM out there who has succeeded in
this feat? While a party of PCs are going to be peers, it is unlikely - and
undesirable - for them all to be exactly equally as powerful. In Earthdawn
terms for example, I'm quite happy to have a couple of levels' difference
between different members of the same group.

So having an extra powerful paladin is not a problem per se. I actually
think having a fighter multi-class to paladin should produce a character
of slightly less power than a pure 100% paladin - because his skills are
being slightly diluted by the fighter abilities. Such a character is likely
to be more interesting to play, though, because he'll probably be a more
rounded character.

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:14:40 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Jon thinks that explicit magical powers or feats would be a better
match to the conception than any spells at all. One complaint about
Charis is that with her very small number of spells per day (2
first, 2 second at 10th level) she invariably seems to have the wrong
spell, which doesn't feel paladinic. We'll go months without
seeing a devil, and suddenly run into a group of them: Bless Weapon
would actually help, but for months there has been no reason to carry
it. Mages and priests get enough spells that carrying a few "on spec"
is okay, but paladins don't. And it just seems wrong that a holy
warrior has to say "Sorry, can't help you: wasn't expecting these
devils." (Without Bless Weapon she is truly ineffectual against
devils, far and away the worst character in the party.)

----------------
An idea that's been bubbling away in the back of my mind is that

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
paladins (and rangers) should get spontaneous casting rather than
prepared spells.

-------------------

This has become so D&D-specific that I have not had anything to say,
althought it has been interesting. However, what you suggest here is
almost exactly what we did with Paladins in several campaigns in the
area during First Edition AD&D.

Except that we didn't call them spells. We, the group of GMs and
players who did this, had their god or gods invest them with what we
called qualities. At least one campaign is still running and using D&D
of some sort among the loose group of players who were involved. Some
of the qualities:

They could gain the trust and cooperation of virtually any good-aligned
being, although this did not mean that everyone would cede a Paladin
tactical command. This quality worked even if there was no reason for
the "target" to know that he or she was dealing with a Paladin, even if
the Paladin avoided identifying his or her self. The Paladin could had
to constantly beware using this power unjustly. It could be lost or
damped if the deity felt it had been.

Good-aligned NPCs (and, in some campaigns, PCs) had some chance of
becoming followers, working for the Paladin as long as the Paladin had
some holy project under way.

They could get better-than-normal trust and cooperation from a
neutal-aligned being in the same way but this was far less powerful and
reliable.

They just knew if they encountered people or other beings who were
truly deeply evil.

They increased the morale of their direct companions and followers just
by being in the vicinity. They increased the morale of their
co-religionist allies simply by being recognizable and visible or
audible.

They struck fear into the enemies of their deity.

They increased the puissance of any allied cleric's spells as long as
the paladin was active and in the vicinity. This meant a +1 to various
healing spells, etc.

Those qualities all started out as fairly minor but improved as the
character went up levels and their were other qualities as well. In
some campaigns, the Paladins of various deities had different
qualities.

In my current system, some gods have followers who resemble D&D
Paladins and we use modified versions of the same qualities.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
Of course this doesn't help with the problem that 1st and 2nd level
spells just aren't a big deal for 10th level characters in 3.5.

-----------------------------------
An eleventh-level Paladin would have been really kick-ass in the First
Edition, either the way we ran it or, I think, the way it was written.

On the other hand, there is a cynicism about religion that makes it
tough to get people to take Paladins seriously in some campaigns.

Will in New Haven

--


If you take in a starving dog off the street, and feed him, and make
him prosperous, he will not bite you.
This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
- Mark Twain

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
--
Erol K. Bayburt

[gleichman]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Same here. Most game systems have [paladins] to be wimpy fighters with rather
wimpy spells that do little to improve them. The current D&D version is
nothing worth bragging about (although I'll be forced to say that I only
gave them a once over).

I've been trying to figure out what would be a suitable improvement.

You have to start with what is your vision of Paladin and go from there.
Which you already have a good start one from the rest of your post.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
My mental image of what she should be doing involves being able to
walk onto a battlefield and make things go better for her side, not
by direct force of arms, but by strengthening and rallying her
allies.

More the Joan of Arc style than say the Dresden File's Michael's. That
works, although I'd think that the name Paladin implies significant combat
ability as a given and it's what I based the AoH class around..

Here is what my approach was, it may or may not be useful to you.


1. Start with a core class, *take nothing away*. This is what you build a
Paladin on top of, much like say God would build one on the base of a normal
man.

This has the advantage of allowing a fallen Paladin to default back to a
normal class without becoming a complete cripple- thus making the temptation
to do for various reason more tempting.



2. Decide what basic abilities have to be given to the Paladin in order for
him to remain steadfast in his service.

Things like being immune to disease, magical aging attacks, fear and the
like fit in here. The basic idea is that it should be impossible to ruin the
representative of God without first killing him (and thus making him a nice
Christian style martyr that will inspire with his death instead of
demoralize).



3. Decide what basic function the Paladin was created for?

You want leadership, truth, and protection given your examples. Create
abilities around those requirements.

Extend the protection from Fear to line of sight out to 20 yards per level,
and say 2 yards per level even without line of sight.

Add a Aura of Righteousness that results in anyone viewing the Paladin
become aware (if even only unconsciously) what the Paladin is and what he
stands for. This can be useful- granting say bless bonuses to good people,
and curse modifiers to any who oppose the will that sent forth such a
champion. Have this be equal to the protection from fear range.

Allow the Paladin to turn (ie. dispell) Illusion, Fears, and Charms as if
they were Undead.

Often some of the Clerical augury style spells to represent divine
knowledge. Limit these in effect to what information should be granted to a
Paladin- and then make them immune from interference from mundane mortal and
demonic counters.

Etc.


4. Decide how you wish these abilities to function.

If spell like, they should not have to be chosen ahead of time and they
should function at the Paladin's full level if not even higher.

Another option is to have them be Faith based as it were. Make a will roll
representing a test of faith- if they succeed the spell goes off normally,
if they fail- it still goes off but they take a Fatigue hit or have to burn
a Spell (like the Sorcerer class). A strong will Paladin can basically on
like the energizer bunny, if his cause is just.

AoH offers both these options to fit various game backgrounds.



The balancing factor in all this is that the Paladin is a direct servant and
must be played as one. In addition to obeying the rules of their patron,
they can only count on drawing upon their special abilities in those tasks
for which they are granted divine duty.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:54:33 -0600, "gleichman"

Post by gleichman
1. Start with a core class, *take nothing away*. This is what you build a
Paladin on top of, much like say God would build one on the base of a normal
man.
This has the advantage of allowing a fallen Paladin to default back to a
normal class without becoming a complete cripple- thus making the temptation
to do for various reason more tempting.

Except that this creates a powerful temptation for everyone to play a
paladin, with no one wanting to play the core class, instead. And your

Post by gleichman
The balancing factor in all this is that the Paladin is a direct servant and
must be played as one. In addition to obeying the rules of their patron,
they can only count on drawing upon their special abilities in those tasks
for which they are granted divine duty.

might work for your group, but not, IMO, for most groups. It's like a
Champions character built on 250 points (100 + 150 in disads) vs one
built on 100 points and no disads. They're both "net" 100 points, but
the first one is so much more powerful as to render the second
unplayable.

[gleichman]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
Except that this creates a powerful temptation for everyone to play a
paladin, with no one wanting to play the core class, instead. And your

I've never encountered any group or any players for that matter who thought
that way, and I've ran for some die hard power-gamers at various times. And
as I note in another post, even MMO players (noted for non-rp power gaming
if anyone is) wouldn't jump at it.

Those who would seek powerful characters do so for reasons that are
completely countered by the Paladin behavior requirements- at least the ones
I put upon them. They has been about 4 that I recall in the sister game and
one in my in over 25 years. Of those, only one had a lengthy in-game career
and hes... dead now.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
might work for your group, but not, IMO, for most groups. It's like a
Champions character built on 250 points (100 + 150 in disads) vs one
built on 100 points and no disads. They're both "net" 100 points, but
the first one is so much more powerful as to render the second
unplayable.

You're talking to someone who plays Champions per concept and not points. I
run games that are balanced with point differences between characters of
over 1000.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 06:12:51 -0600, "gleichman"

Post by gleichman

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
Except that this creates a powerful temptation for everyone to play a
paladin, with no one wanting to play the core class, instead. And your

I've never encountered any group or any players for that matter who thought
that way, and I've ran for some die hard power-gamers at various times. And
as I note in another post, even MMO players (noted for non-rp power gaming
if anyone is) wouldn't jump at it.
Those who would seek powerful characters do so for reasons that are
completely countered by the Paladin behavior requirements- at least the ones
I put upon them. They has been about 4 that I recall in the sister game and
one in my in over 25 years. Of those, only one had a lengthy in-game career
and hes... dead now.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
might work for your group, but not, IMO, for most groups. It's like a
Champions character built on 250 points (100 + 150 in disads) vs one
built on 100 points and no disads. They're both "net" 100 points, but
the first one is so much more powerful as to render the second
unplayable.

You're talking to someone who plays Champions per concept and not points. I
run games that are balanced with point differences between characters of
over 1000.

OK, I hadn't realized that I was talking to someone who runs Champions
with characters having point differences of up to 1000 or more points.
But do you realize how *unusual* that is? It's something I might
expect to see work in the hands of a strong Dramatist, or someone who
otherwise runs "rules light" and ignores 90% of the rules in actual
play, but I'm awed at the though of a strong Gamist like yourself
managing to do that.

[gleichman]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
But do you realize how *unusual* that is?

Very judging from my short and unfruitful trip to the herogames boards.
It seems the balancing effect of points is taken on faith and few HERO
players question its underlying concepts- even while they are arguing
over things like what change is needed to balance the point cost of
STR.

Controlling combat values, attacks and defense, and most importantly
niche is far more important than points.

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

Post by gleichman
Very judging from my short and unfruitful trip to the herogames boards.
It seems the balancing effect of points is taken on faith and few HERO
players question its underlying concepts- even while they are arguing
over things like what change is needed to balance the point cost of
STR.
Controlling combat values, attacks and defense, and most importantly
niche is far more important than points.

This is completely true, and one of my standard modifications to a new
system is to throw out any point-buying schemes and then directly
specify character creation in terms of the stats that will actually
show up in play. (Eg, "Pick 5 skills at a rating of 10, 3 at 12, and 1
at 15, and set your five attributes from the array 5, 6, 6, 7 and 8.
Your skill at 15 cannot be the same as anyone else's, and you must
have a combat skill at 12 or higher.")

However, I think that a lot of Hero system players would find this
kind of character creation system extremely unsatisfying, because I
think that Hero is one of those systems that attracts players who find
/making/ characters more fun than /playing/ them.

If the main point of a game is making characters, then adding a point
system turns making characters into a game, precisely because the real
utility of an ability *doesn't* line up perfectly with the points. So
a player can go "bargain-hunting", and search for optimization
opportunities, and so on.

I do not personally find the character minigame a very interesting
sort of game, but de gustibus and all that. Maybe this tendency is
exaggerated on the Internet, because posting character designs to
message boards is probably an outlet for fans who are between groups.

[gleichman]

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami
However, I think that a lot of Hero system players would find this
kind of character creation system extremely unsatisfying, because I
think that Hero is one of those systems that attracts players who find
/making/ characters more fun than /playing/ them.

I think this is somewhat overstated. I've made a lot of characters, and
playing them is far more fun for me than building them. Even so, I imagine
some people do this for whatever reason.

The main fun I get out of HERO construction is not power optimization or the
like. It's simply examining various different combinations of construction
and what the result is. Perhaps most importantly- the translation of a
concept into a specific game construction. "So that's how to best represent
a Phaser Mk II..." and so on. HERO provides some of the most detailed and
interesting translations in the game world.

Thus you approach doesn't work. It's too grainy as it rounds all the numbers
off. I'd rather have the system or concepts that resulted in those end
values so that I can examine the design at a deeper layer. Makes modifying
the rules easier too.

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

Post by gleichman
The main fun I get out of HERO construction is not power
optimization or the like. It's simply examining various different
combinations of construction and what the result is. Perhaps most
importantly- the translation of a concept into a specific game
construction. "So that's how to best represent a Phaser Mk II..."
and so on. HERO provides some of the most detailed and interesting
translations in the game world.

Yup, this is not the way I like to set things up.

I work mostly with homebrews these days, and one of the things I try
to do is to eliminate mechanical distinctions between fictional
objects from the game rules. The purpose of this is so that game
balance can be evaluated independently of the fictional logic, which
makes the job a lot easier. It's just algebra and a smidge of game
theory, rather than requiring serious thinking about player
psychology.

I also make a serious effort to eliminate all interesting strategic
considerations from the game mechanics. The usual methods are to 1)
eliminate any shared resources from the game, 2) eliminate hidden
information from the game, and 3) to eliminate persistent resources.

Fundamentally, strategic complexity also arises when your options
depends on the other guy's *choices*, and vice-versa. This is what
distinguishes chess from rock-paper-scissors; your options depend on
how the other player moves, and you can also constrain his or her
moves with your own. Eliminating shared resources means that this
interdependence can't arise. Hidden information multiplies whatever
complexity does exist, so getting rid of it makes the game easier
still.

Finally, persistent resources are mechanical qualities (like luck
points) that can be spent, and I eliminate them so that strategic
considerations can't re-arise at a scene-by-scene level after I went
to all the trouble of eliminating them at an action-by-action level.

The purpose of all this work is to ensure that the players can reason
about the game entirely in terms of fictional considerations. The only
mapping between fiction and mechanics that the players have to do is
to turn "character A's skill is higher than character B's" into some
fictional fact, which is easy. (The other purpose the mechanics serve
is as a pacing mechanism, which is also easy to cope with.)

I'm well aware this is exactly opposite to your design aesthetics, but
to quote Mary, if we were all Scotsmen there wouldn't be enough haggis
to around. :)

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:55:32 +0000 (UTC), Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by gleichman
Very judging from my short and unfruitful trip to the herogames boards.
It seems the balancing effect of points is taken on faith and few HERO
players question its underlying concepts- even while they are arguing
over things like what change is needed to balance the point cost of
STR.
Controlling combat values, attacks and defense, and most importantly
niche is far more important than points.

This is completely true, and one of my standard modifications to a new
system is to throw out any point-buying schemes and then directly
specify character creation in terms of the stats that will actually
show up in play. (Eg, "Pick 5 skills at a rating of 10, 3 at 12, and 1
at 15, and set your five attributes from the array 5, 6, 6, 7 and 8.
Your skill at 15 cannot be the same as anyone else's, and you must
have a combat skill at 12 or higher.")
However, I think that a lot of Hero system players would find this
kind of character creation system extremely unsatisfying, because I
think that Hero is one of those systems that attracts players who find
/making/ characters more fun than /playing/ them.
If the main point of a game is making characters, then adding a point
system turns making characters into a game, precisely because the real
utility of an ability *doesn't* line up perfectly with the points. So
a player can go "bargain-hunting", and search for optimization
opportunities, and so on.
I do not personally find the character minigame a very interesting
sort of game, but de gustibus and all that. Maybe this tendency is
exaggerated on the Internet, because posting character designs to
message boards is probably an outlet for fans who are between groups.

Mileage varies. I would find your kind of character creation system
unsatisfying not because I enjoy the "character optimization game" (I
don't) but because I *do* find the Hero point system useful. It isn't
perfect, but it works much better, in my hands, than the sort of
direct-character-creation you describe here.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:27:44 -0600, Erol K. Bayburt

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:55:32 +0000 (UTC), Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by gleichman
Very judging from my short and unfruitful trip to the herogames boards.
It seems the balancing effect of points is taken on faith and few HERO
players question its underlying concepts- even while they are arguing
over things like what change is needed to balance the point cost of
STR.
Controlling combat values, attacks and defense, and most importantly
niche is far more important than points.

This is completely true, and one of my standard modifications to a new
system is to throw out any point-buying schemes and then directly
specify character creation in terms of the stats that will actually
show up in play. (Eg, "Pick 5 skills at a rating of 10, 3 at 12, and 1
at 15, and set your five attributes from the array 5, 6, 6, 7 and 8.
Your skill at 15 cannot be the same as anyone else's, and you must
have a combat skill at 12 or higher.")
However, I think that a lot of Hero system players would find this
kind of character creation system extremely unsatisfying, because I
think that Hero is one of those systems that attracts players who find
/making/ characters more fun than /playing/ them.
If the main point of a game is making characters, then adding a point
system turns making characters into a game, precisely because the real
utility of an ability *doesn't* line up perfectly with the points. So
a player can go "bargain-hunting", and search for optimization
opportunities, and so on.
I do not personally find the character minigame a very interesting
sort of game, but de gustibus and all that. Maybe this tendency is
exaggerated on the Internet, because posting character designs to
message boards is probably an outlet for fans who are between groups.

Mileage varies. I would find your kind of character creation system
unsatisfying not because I enjoy the "character optimization game" (I
don't) but because I *do* find the Hero point system useful. It isn't
perfect, but it works much better, in my hands, than the sort of
direct-character-creation you describe here.

On further thought, you have half a point. Character creation with
Hero or another point-based system is a "game" in a sense, for me and
for other gamers who think like me. But not a game with the goal of
producing the most powerful character for the points. Rather, the goal
is to produce the character that most closely resembles the original
character conception, while still remaining within the point budget.

That points aren't a perfect measure is an annoyance - a huge
annoyance in a highly optimizable/broken game like GURPS. But
coarsening the game system "resolution" the way you describe doing for
your campaigns is worse, from my point of view.

[psychohist]

Mary Kuhner posts regarding the paladin character Charis:

My mental image of what she should be doing
involves being able to walk onto a battlefield and
make things go better for her side, not
by direct force of arms, but by strengthening
and rallying her allies. The fear-resistance
power works for this except that the
10' range makes it next to impossible to use: in
a lengthy campaign a PC who needed to make
a fear save has been within 10' of Charis
exactly *once*. A very few spells, mainly Bless,
work for it. Nothing else does.

Interesting. Brian mentioned online games; the World of Warcraft
paladin matches your description almost perfectly. The aren't great
warriors, though they are difficult to kill, but in large groups, their
primary advantage is that they can substantially enhance the abilities
of everyone in their party.

Brian, your concept seems to make them more personally powerful than
other warriors, in return for adherence to a strict code of behavior.
I don't think that can work in online games, where there's no good way
to judge that adherence.

It also doesn't work in table top games where the gamesmaster prefers
not to judge players' play, but those games can just choose not to use
the character class. For my part, I just see the mechanical difference
between paladins and other warriors primarily as a matter of the
paladins being, on average, higher level.

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
Interesting. Brian mentioned online games; the World of Warcraft
paladin matches your description almost perfectly. The aren't great
warriors, though they are difficult to kill, but in large groups, their
primary advantage is that they can substantially enhance the abilities
of everyone in their party.

Never played WoW, but I've heard the claim that they do paladins better than
most.

Post by psychohist
Brian, your concept seems to make them more personally powerful than
other warriors, in return for adherence to a strict code of behavior.
I don't think that can work in online games, where there's no good way
to judge that adherence.

For online games, I think that they can indeed be handled in that fashion.

I played Star Wars Galaxies for a number of years and engaged the official
forum over this same subject with Jedi, who while significantly different
should operate under many of the same concepts. There I defined a number of
'social' and 'behavior' limits that could easily be enforced by the computer
program running the game world- the resulting reaction was almost an exact
mirror of players in my games- "That's cool and it models the subject
perfectly, but I'm not going to run that more powerful character class
because it limits my actions too much". Which is exactly what I think should
be the reaction to a Paladin class.

Post by psychohist
It also doesn't work in table top games where the gamesmaster prefers
not to judge players' play, but those games can just choose not to use
the character class.

I agree that such games should simply not use the class at all. In EQ for
example, Paladins functioned under no behavior codes at all, and I well
remember my grasp of surpise when I first saw a PC paladin (dwarf no less)
beheading other dwarves so that he could sell the heads for gold...

A game where the GM isn't willing to judge and act on such PC behavior
shouldn't have the class in it.

Post by psychohist
For my part, I just see the mechanical difference
between paladins and other warriors primarily as a matter of the
paladins being, on average, higher level.

One could say that a Submachinegun is just a high level pistol, but that
completely removes some significant image differences. Like any class, the
Paladin should feel different in play, if they do not- again they are not
really Paladins. Here the use of different mechanics than those used by
other classes can drive the point home.

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Post by gleichman
I played Star Wars Galaxies for a number of years and engaged the official
forum over this same subject with Jedi, who while significantly different
should operate under many of the same concepts. There I defined a number of
'social' and 'behavior' limits that could easily be enforced by the computer
program running the game world- the resulting reaction was almost an exact
mirror of players in my games- "That's cool and it models the subject
perfectly, but I'm not going to run that more powerful character class
because it limits my actions too much". Which is exactly what I think should
be the reaction to a Paladin class.

NIIICE. Would you happen to have a link to the relevant bit of the
discussion?

[gleichman]

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
NIIICE. Would you happen to have a link to the relevant bit of the
discussion?

Sure.

http://soe.lithium.com/swg/board/message?board.id=ngejedi&message.id=23545&query.id=0#M23545

Short little thread it was, but the reaction was interesting.

[psychohist]

Brian refers to some suggested constraints on Jedi behavior in Star
Wars Galaxies that would limit the number of people who would play
them, despite their being personally more powerful than other character
classes.

Reading over the constraints, I think that's the way I'd play a Jedi
anyway, with the possible exception of the "no PVP battlegrounds"
(depending on whether Luke on Hoth qualifies as a jedi in a
battleground). I guess I wouldn't see that list as a deterrent to
playing the class.

Obviously from the reactions of the other posters, though, most of them
would see it as such a deterrent. Clearly I'm missing something here.

Can you expand on how you came up with the list, and what most players
would feel they would be prevented from doing with it? (Also, would it
be okay to duplicate the list here so it would be easier for everyone
to follow the discussion?)

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
Reading over the constraints, I think that's the way I'd play a Jedi
anyway, with the possible exception of the "no PVP battlegrounds"
(depending on whether Luke on Hoth qualifies as a jedi in a
battleground). I guess I wouldn't see that list as a deterrent to
playing the class.
Obviously from the reactions of the other posters, though, most of them
would see it as such a deterrent. Clearly I'm missing something here.

I agree with you, and have one of the few players in my group to run a
Paladin.

I think I can explain some of this...

Most online MMORPG players IME are not really role-players. They are game
players. Those constraints remove much of the possible game from them and
they see that akin to playing Monopoly where they aren't allowed to land on
the blue or red property squares but everyone else is.

You and I on the other hand are interested in playing a character with
specific duties, beliefs, and morals. To us, the inability not to land on
those squares is our game.

Very different mindsets.

Even within those of a similar mindset to us, those constraints may be a
serious barrier because they aren't interested in running a character with
such duties, beliefs, and/or morals any more than I have any interest in
running a rapist.

Post by psychohist
Can you expand on how you came up with the list, and what most players
would feel they would be prevented from doing with it? (Also, would it
be okay to duplicate the list here so it would be easier for everyone
to follow the discussion?)

Here's the original Light Side Jedi list I posted from the SWG boards:

__________________________________
1. Jedi can't ever have more than X number of credits per month. Extra goes
to undefined 'needy' NPCs automatically.

2. No second character slot on a server. Ever.

3. Can own only one starfighter, and no buildings/installations except a
small house with limited storage space.

4. Can not use the /duel command, can only accept duel offers.

5. Are given System Quests that they must complete in order to remain a
Jedi. Refusal causes a turn to the darkside, failure results in a
significant setback in power level (lost of Force Points in the old system).

6. Doing 'evil' quests or attacking neutral mobs causes a turn to the
darkside.

7. Any Jedi turned to the darkside is a lost character. Make up a new one on
that server.

8. May only group with Rebels or Neutrals.

9. May not enter PvP battlefields because they must keep a low profile.

10. Reduced Inventory Space.

To original list, I'd like to add:

11. Only Jedi Master is allowed in a group. He may however bring his
Padawan. This may be waved in certain system areas- sort of like Jedi Raids,
which would be rather few in number.

____________________________________

And the reasons for the above.

1, 3 & 10: go together. A Jedi should not seek wealth, and this limit
enforces that to a great degree. Players spend a lot of time in SWG
crafting, selling, trading and that would basically be off limits to the
Jedi

2: A second character slot allows you to create another character that
avoids the limits of play placed on your Jedi. Sadly you could buy a second
account and get around that- but at least you have to pay real money to do
so. One could make it against th EULA as well perhaps...

4. One of the major things many Jedi players did in the game was show up in
various highly public locations and duel. It allowed them to play kill of
the hill and show off their leet skills- especially against other Jedi. A
very non-Jedi like behavior. This limit would make Jedi on Jedi duels all
but impossible plus enforce the fact that a Jedi's powers are for defense,
not attack.

5. Jedi should do Jedi like quests. This enforces that and places a time
burden upon the player to send at least some of his play time doing them.

6 & 7. Seems rather plain in reasoning.

9. PvP battleground at the time I wrote that had a specific meaning in SWG.
Nothing so grand as Hoth, they were instead basically farming areas for cool
drops where the opponents included other players. Jedi see not loot and
should in the time period of the game be doing more hiding than fighting
pitched rebel-Empire battles.

11. This forces one to match the adventuring groups of the movies more, in
the actual Game totally Jedi groups were common. This would remove that very
non-genre element plus add a significant play burden (in finding a open
group) upon the player to 'pay' for his great power.

[Indiana Joe]

Post by gleichman
2. No second character slot on a server. Ever.

...

Post by gleichman
2: A second character slot allows you to create another character that
avoids the limits of play placed on your Jedi. Sadly you could buy a second
account and get around that- but at least you have to pay real money to do
so. One could make it against th EULA as well perhaps...

I (generally) agree with the rest of your restrictions, but this one
would be a game-breaker for me. I realize that some players will use
their other characters to help their Jedi get around some of the other
restrictions, but restricting players to a single character is a recipe
for boredom.

[gleichman]

Post by Indiana Joe
I (generally) agree with the rest of your restrictions, but this one
would be a game-breaker for me. I realize that some players will use
their other characters to help their Jedi get around some of the other
restrictions, but restricting players to a single character is a recipe
for boredom.

Sort of the whole idea. Either the Jedi player is committed to the limits
placed on him (i.e. removing elements of the game from them) or they're not.
Only the former get to play the class.

As an aside, a single character slot was the original order of the day for
*everyone* in SWG except those who unlocked Jedi- the exact opposite of what
it should have been. In the last (or rather, second to the last) complete
revamp of the system everyone got another character slot. IMO it was a bribe
to stop the loss of yet more subs in a game that was dying quickly.

[Indiana Joe]

Post by gleichman
As an aside, a single character slot was the original order of the day for
*everyone* in SWG except those who unlocked Jedi- the exact opposite of what
it should have been. In the last (or rather, second to the last) complete
revamp of the system everyone got another character slot. IMO it was a bribe
to stop the loss of yet more subs in a game that was dying quickly.

Ah. I'm used to World of Warcraft, where multiple characters are the
rule, rather than the exception.

[psychohist]

Joe Claffey posts regarding restricting Jedi to one character per
account:

Ah. I'm used to World of Warcraft, where multiple characters
are the rule, rather than the exception.

World of Warcraft does have a similar restriction in the PVP servers,
which prohibit an account from having characters on both factions. I
think this is primarily intended to reduce certain forms of griefing by
promoting loyalty to one faction, but it also helps promote what might
be regarded as lore consistent roleplay.

People do use multiple accounts to get around the restriction, as they
might in the Jedi case.

Warren J. Dew

[Will in New Haven]

Post by gleichman

Post by psychohist
Reading over the constraints, I think that's the way I'd play a Jedi
anyway, with the possible exception of the "no PVP battlegrounds"
(depending on whether Luke on Hoth qualifies as a jedi in a
battleground). I guess I wouldn't see that list as a deterrent to
playing the class.
Obviously from the reactions of the other posters, though, most of them
would see it as such a deterrent. Clearly I'm missing something here.I agree with you, and have one of the few players in my group to run a

Paladin.
I think I can explain some of this...
Most online MMORPG players IME are not really role-players. They are game
players. Those constraints remove much of the possible game from them and
they see that akin to playing Monopoly where they aren't allowed to land on
the blue or red property squares but everyone else is.
You and I on the other hand are interested in playing a character with
specific duties, beliefs, and morals. To us, the inability not to land on
those squares is our game.
Very different mindsets.

---------------------
I agree with this distinction with one proviso. I know people who play
both MMORPG and tabletop RPG and they don't have the same approach to
both games. One of them is _somewhat_ on the game player side of things
in tabletop games but not extremely so and the other two are very
immersed in roleplaying in face to face gaming. All of them play their
MMORPG "characters" as if they were pieces in a more complicated game
of chess.I can imagine roleplaying in an MMORPG and I think some people
do but many people, even people who like roleplaying, don't.
-----------------------------

Post by gleichman
Even within those of a similar mindset to us, those constraints may be a
serious barrier because they aren't interested in running a character with
such duties, beliefs, and/or morals any more than I have any interest in
running a rapist.

----------------------------
Many people have a problem playing really dedicated selfless
characters. Playing a truly evil SOB is easy for a session, very
wearing and difficult for multiple sessions. However, I find it easy to
run an evil NPC.
-------------------------

Post by gleichman

Post by psychohist
Can you expand on how you came up with the list, and what most players
would feel they would be prevented from doing with it? (Also, would it
be okay to duplicate the list here so it would be easier for everyone

--------------------------------------------------------
I think that these fit Paladins very well, with adjustments.
-------------------------------------------------------
________________________________

Post by gleichman
1. Jedi can't ever have more than X number of credits per month. Extra goes
to undefined 'needy' NPCs automatically.

--------------------------------------------------------------
We always had that rule for Paladins. In our current campaign,
Paladin-equivalents usually have similar rules.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Post by gleichman
2. No second character slot on a server. Ever.

------------------------------------------------------------
Not applicable in face-to-face games where no one runs a second
character anyway. One of the things, however, that distinguishes a
Paladin or Paladin-equivalent in my campaigns is the frequency of their
attracting NPC or even PC followers. This somewhat makes up for their
spell situation. However, the player doesn't run the follower(s)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by gleichman
3. Can own only one starfighter, and no buildings/installations except a
small house with limited storage space.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Part of #1, really, or an extension. One Paladin in my first campaign
had three very fine warhorses, which would make a significant financial
asset. However, he had no intention of selling any of them and they
came into his hands honorably. To give away or sell one of them would
have been a slight to a noble friend.
------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Can not use the /duel command, can only accept duel offers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Dueling, qua dueling, would be something no Paladin would find
appealing. Fighting another Good person or even a Neutral person over
trivial matters of personal animosity would be avoided if possible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by gleichman
5. Are given System Quests that they must complete in order to remain a
Jedi. Refusal causes a turn to the darkside, failure results in a
significant setback in power level (lost of Force Points in the old system).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The whole career of this class can be spent on quests, major and minor.
Refusal of a quest would be refusing an order from ones deity or a
delegated authority.The former would mean instant dismissal. The latter
might mean that the Paladin knows/intuits/suspects that the delegated
authority has gone off the True Path. Might be an adventure hook.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by gleichman
6. Doing 'evil' quests or attacking neutral mobs causes a turn to the
darkside.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is "mobs" used in its normal meaning here or does it have an MMORPG
significance? Anyway, both rules would apply to Paladins, I would
think.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by gleichman
7. Any Jedi turned to the darkside is a lost character. Make up a new one on
that server.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Is it that no one can play a bad guy or that one has to create a bad
guy character from scratch? It seems as if this rule prevents an
interesting character arc, although a troublesome one as well.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by gleichman
8. May only group with Rebels or Neutrals.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Can't serve Evil, even if Evil appears to be the lawful government,
check.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by gleichman
9. May not enter PvP battlefields because they must keep a low profile.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Doesn't fit Paladins generally but historical situations could be
developed where it would.

Post by gleichman
10. Reduced Inventory Space.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Another extension of #1
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by gleichman
11. Only Jedi Master is allowed in a group. He may however bring his
Padawan. This may be waved in certain system areas- sort of like Jedi Raids,
which would be rather few in number.

----------------------------------------------------
Well, Paladins were so thin on the ground in any campaign I ever saw
that this wasn't necessary. However, it is clearly correct.

Will in New Haven

--

Post by gleichman
____________________________________
And the reasons for the above.
1, 3 & 10: go together. A Jedi should not seek wealth, and this limit
enforces that to a great degree. Players spend a lot of time in SWG
crafting, selling, trading and that would basically be off limits to the
Jedi
2: A second character slot allows you to create another character that
avoids the limits of play placed on your Jedi. Sadly you could buy a second
account and get around that- but at least you have to pay real money to do
so. One could make it against th EULA as well perhaps...
4. One of the major things many Jedi players did in the game was show up in
various highly public locations and duel. It allowed them to play kill of
the hill and show off their leet skills- especially against other Jedi. A
very non-Jedi like behavior. This limit would make Jedi on Jedi duels all
but impossible plus enforce the fact that a Jedi's powers are for defense,
not attack.
5. Jedi should do Jedi like quests. This enforces that and places a time
burden upon the player to send at least some of his play time doing them.
6 & 7. Seems rather plain in reasoning.
9. PvP battleground at the time I wrote that had a specific meaning in SWG.
Nothing so grand as Hoth, they were instead basically farming areas for cool
drops where the opponents included other players. Jedi see not loot and
should in the time period of the game be doing more hiding than fighting
pitched rebel-Empire battles.
11. This forces one to match the adventuring groups of the movies more, in
the actual Game totally Jedi groups were common. This would remove that very
non-genre element plus add a significant play burden (in finding a open
group) upon the player to 'pay' for his great power.

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman posts, in part:

Most online MMORPG players IME are not really role-players.
They are game players. Those constraints remove
much of the possible game from them and
they see that akin to playing Monopoly where they
aren't allowed to land on the blue or red property squares
but everyone else is.

I understand the words, but I still don't understand the concept.
Again, I believe it's there, I just want to understand it better.

Monopoly has a win condition. If you can't land on red or blue - at
least until someone else owns them and it's bad to land on them -
that's a disadvantage, and might be a reason not to play a variant role
that, say, gets to roll three dice to move.

What's the win condition in online games? In my experience -
admittedly, not with Star Wars Galaxies - simply collecting a large
amount of cash is not what most players pursue; cash is a means to
various ends, not an end in itself. What can the nonroleplayers do
with cash that they couldn't do with a Jedi character?

You and I on the other hand are interested in playing
a character with specific duties, beliefs, and morals.
To us, the inability not to land on those squares is
our game.

Yes. In fact, online games are the only place I roleplay as a player
any more - I find I need some play time as a player to keep my interest
up in being a gamesmaster.

In my experience, though, sticking to a fairly strict roleplay concept
has not prevented my characters from advancing in the games I'm
familiar with - Clan Lord, Lineage, and World of Warcraft. The only
limitations I've really run into were lack of sufficient time to
compete with the full time players and, to a lesser extent, lack of
support for continued play of the character concepts I started out
playing. Admittedly, cash was not tremendously important in any of
these games.

I'm trying to figure out what the equivalent constraints for Paladins
in World of Warcraft might be. Not being able to group with Warlocks,
perhaps? I suppose that would be a significant constraint, though
perhaps as much of a constraint on Warlocks as on Paladins, especially
if Paladins were otherwise more powerful and thus more desirable as
party members.

Even within those of a similar mindset to us, those
constraints may be a serious barrier because they
aren't interested in running a character with
such duties, beliefs, and/or morals any more than I
have any interest in running a rapist.

Sure. They may have preferences about the character concepts they'd
like to play, and "Jedi" might not be one of them. One might imagine
that other character concepts would have other constraints that they'd
perhaps be happy with.

If all the character classes were constrained in such a way, would we
see more roleplaying in online games, either because the nonroleplayers
would leave or because they'd have more reason to roleplay?

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
What's the win condition in online games? In my experience -
admittedly, not with Star Wars Galaxies - simply collecting a large
amount of cash is not what most players pursue; cash is a means to
various ends, not an end in itself.

SWG was (and still is to some degree I guess) something of different beast
among MMORPG. There people did have the collecting of a huge sums of money
as goals. I've done it myself in fact. It's likely due to how player driven
the economy was and the fact that having large sums of money was significant
prestige.

Once could also own houses (and other buildings), and the decoration of
these was a major money/inventory/time sink. My wife was a good example of
that, and people would pay her millions just to decorate their homes. Some
would pay hundreds of millions for a single item to put on display in their
home.

All that would be removed from a Jedi character (although they could keep a
small modestly decorated home).

Post by psychohist
Yes. In fact, online games are the only place I roleplay as a player
any more - I find I need some play time as a player to keep my interest
up in being a gamesmaster.

I actually get to play as well as GM so my PoV on this is likely very
different.

I find that I can only 'sort of' role-play in the online games. The world
doesn't make sense and it's nearly impossible to stay in character as a
result. In addition, everyone's advancement is basically the same with only
small details differing.

Thus I find that my online RP is more a case of deciding what things my
Character will not do than anything else.

Post by psychohist
I'm trying to figure out what the equivalent constraints for Paladins
in World of Warcraft might be.

As I have no experience nor real knowledge of WoW, I can't offer
suggestions.

In SWG it's very common to have mixes groups of Rebels, Imperials, and
Neutrals. In Everquest one would see human, elves, and dwarves in the same
group with Trolls and Ogres and Dark Elves. A good Jedi or Paladin system
would make such groupings impossible. The fact that these games allow those
types of groups in the first place (I believe original abandon concepts in
both was that they would be impossible) is a good indication of the impact
on the players.

Post by psychohist
If all the character classes were constrained in such a way, would we
see more roleplaying in online games, either because the nonroleplayers
would leave or because they'd have more reason to roleplay?

I doubt it.

For more RP in such games, the game worlds would have to be more reasoned
and one's actions would have to make a more visible and lasting impact. I
think we're a good ways away from that.

[Rick Pikul]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Jon thinks that explicit magical powers or feats would be a better
match to the conception than any spells at all.

I just realized something, what you might want is the Crusader class from
The Book of Nine Swords.

It's full BAB with good Fort saves, a series of toughness based special
abilities, (most notably the ability to delay some of the damage you take
until after your next turn), and a selection of powers from lists based
around zealousness/spiritual purity, strength/endurance, or
leadership/tactics.

The selected powers have semi-limited uses for most, (exact availablity
is semi-random and resets every three or four rounds).

Example powers, (each of these is a choice available at 1st level and is a
standard action involving a single melee attack).

From the Devoted Spirit dicipline:
Crusader's Strike, heal 1d6+1/level for you or an ally if you hit someone
of a different allignment.

From Stone Dragon:
Stone Bones, grants you DR 5/adamantine for 1 round if you hit.

From White Raven:
Douse The Flames, target cannot make attacks of opportunity for 1 round if
you hit.

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
You found paladins to have superpowers? I'm continually frustrated
with the class. SCAP (very appropriately, I think) has paladins as
very rare and individually significant people, and I really like that
flavor. But in play they just aren't, unless you load them up with
special-purpose equipment.

Actually, they are fairly mechanically weak. But still better than a
fighter without bonus feats. :)

We dealt with that with one part RP, and one part mechanics. The
roleplay edge was giving them a great deal of public trust. You could
go to random NPCs and they'd basically just believe what you said,
because you're someone known to be substantially trustworthy and
impartial.

The mechanical change was just to make up some new paladin spells. In
my view, ranger and paladin spellcasting is best thought of as a way
of adding some X/day abilities to a class without introducing a whole
new subsystem into the game. Tuning the spell list lets you buff the
class exactly as needed for the particular PC.

For your case, I would sugggest making up some long-duration group
buffs. This would support your party's MO of taking on multiple
encounters without a pause.

For example, a spell that increases the range of your fearlessness
aura. Another one might let you take damage on behalf of the other
PCs; this is a higher-level Shield Other:

Guardian Blessing

Level: Pal 3
Components V, S
Casting time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft + 5 ft / 2 levels)
Target: 1 creature / level
Duration: 1 hour / level
Saving throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell resistance: Yes (harmless)

This spell creates a mystic connection between the caster and its
subjects, giving each subject DR 2/evil, and enabling the caster to
take damage on behalf of the subjects. Whenever a subject suffers an
injury that inflicts hit point damage (including from special
abilities that cause hit point damage), the caster may choose to take
up to half the inflicted damage on the subject's behalf. The subject
takes the remainder.

Sources of harm that do not involve hit points are not affected. If
the caster and a subject of the spell move out of range of each other,
the spell is inactive for the caster and that subject while they are
out of range.

[psychohist]

Mary K. Kuhner posts, in part:

You found paladins to have superpowers? I'm
continually frustrated with the class. SCAP (very
appropriately, I think) has paladins as
very rare and individually significant people,
and I really like that flavor. But in play they
just aren't, unless you load them up with
special-purpose equipment.

I don't think you can ignore the equipment, at least if it's anything
like it used to be. I don't know if D&D Holy Swords still have
antimagic fields, but when they did, having a paladin in the party made
it hugely more powerful.

Warren J. Dew

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
You found paladins to have superpowers? I'm
continually frustrated with the class. SCAP (very
appropriately, I think) has paladins as
very rare and individually significant people,
and I really like that flavor. But in play they
just aren't, unless you load them up with
special-purpose equipment.
I don't think you can ignore the equipment, at least if it's anything
like it used to be. I don't know if D&D Holy Swords still have
antimagic fields, but when they did, having a paladin in the party made
it hugely more powerful.

My basic feeling is that if you have to earmark certain items for
a particular class, and someone isn't a fully functional member of
that class unless she has the item(s), something is very, very
wrong. Bryce is still a fighter even if he has to rip off a chair
leg and swing that; the flame-brand sword is nice but it doesn't
define who he is. Even more, Charis should still be a paladin
even if she doesn't have a Holy Avenger.

I'm suddenly reminded of the Smothers Brothers:

I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy.
--I see by your outfit that you are one too.
We see by our outfits that we are both cowboys;
If you get an outfit you can be a cowboy too!

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[psychohist]

Regarding Paladins and holy swords, Mary Kuhner posts, in part:

My basic feeling is that if you have to earmark
certain items for a particular class, and someone
isn't a fully functional member of that class
unless she has the item(s), something is very,
very wrong.

To clarify, I'm not arguing that it's a good idea, I'm just saying
that's how I see D&D as working.

Warren J. Dew

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
SPOILERS for _Age of Worms_ module #2.

This looks like a very good idea. I'm not worried about the spoilers.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
We did the next bit of _Age of Worms_, which I'd predicted to be
a TPK.
It wasn't. It didn't look much like either of us had expected,
either.

The unexpected can be good. When you expect a TPK, the unexpected can
be great.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
We'd agreed without much discussion to use the v3.0 version of the
Darkness spell (which makes things pitch dark) and not the v3.5
(which makes them gloomy with 20% concealment, and actually
illuminates a naturally dark area). One of the PCs is of a strange
class (warlock) from one of the expansion books and sees in
magical darkness like a demon. When an NPC cast Darkness on
a coin and threw it on her, she picked it up and carried it
around. For the next ten minutes she effectively had a
better-than-Improved-Invisibility advantage, and she used it
ruthlessly. This screwed up the rest of the PCs nearly
as badly as the enemies; the warlock essentially won singlehanded
except for the final fight against the High Priest, which came
down to a two-on-one fight between him and two PCs. One of the
PCs was badly hurt but not killed. All other foes were killed
singlehandedly by the warlock with ranged magical damage. No
enemy was ever able to target her.

This version of Darkness is, in my opinion, much too powerful. It looks
as if the other PCs should have just hung back and let the Warlock do
her thing. When that looks like the best tactic it means that the RPG
convention of "the party" is in trouble. I have played in campaigns
where this didn't bother anyone and we DID sometimes let someone solo
while we waited to cover her or his escape. Most of the time it wasn't
that good.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Much bitching from the player about armor class; his PCs had an
inordinately hard time hitting. The warlock hits touch
AC and even without the darkness she would have been doing most
of the damage.

Sounds unbalanced. As before, this attacks the concept of the
adventuring party. Some people can play with this concept broken; most
of the people I play with can but many cannot.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The Darkness advantage was so great that I think the best approach
to this scenario would have been for the warlock to do it by
herself once the first three rooms were finished. It was somewhat
interesting watching her do it, but the player started to become
snappy (I would call one of the other PCs on the initiative
chart, and he would snap "Does nothing, just like last round" at
me). With multiple players I think this would have been a severe
problem.

Usually, it would have been. Very few people can enjoy playing an
observer. If it only happens on occasion and, especially, if the focal
character changes from session to session, it can be tolerable.

This was no spoiler for the Temple but it brings up some very
interesting points about play balance, a concept I don't usually
consider much, and adventure design. Your warlock, probly less so with
the newer version of the spell, sounds like the "solution" to the
seeming terrible danger of this part of the module. The temple looks
much harder than it turns out to be. Maybe it was supposed to.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The PCs questioned the Hextorites, got high rolls and were able to
get a fair idea how the grimlocks were situated. They killed
five by impersonating the Hextorites and pretending to have a food
shipment. Then they went in, and fought through all the rest.

Reminds me of the guy who said he was "The door mechanic" when he was
overheard when he was checking for traps, etc. I don't know Hextorites
or grimlocks but I get the picture.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The two boss fights at the end were solved with Silence, looking
exactly the same, oddly, as the Darkness effect earlier: grimlocks
"see" with sound, so are totally blind in Silence, and this is
catastrophic.

Another situation with a perfect solution. So it isn't nearly as hard
as it looks.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The earlier fights (grimlocks with levels of fighter or barbarian,
krenshars, chokers) gave the PCs considerable trouble and one was
taken to -8 but lived.

At least everyone got to fight. When I am in character, of course, I
usually PREFER letting someone else dismiss our problems with a wave of
her hand.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The thing I really noticed about this scenario was that, even though
we had agreed to play it as it was written, and I had told the
player that I thought it was too hard, he was continually offended
by how hard it was.

It doesn't sound like it is as hard as one would expect.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I had to keep looking up rules for him.
We found one clear rules violation: the module author beefed up
the grimlocks by giving them shields (making them AC20 and very
hard for the PCs to hit) but left their damage at the two-handed
weapon level. The player also felt that grimlocks should not be
CR1 (I tend to agree).

I don't know what CR1 is. The shielded two-handed weapon use is easily
explained. Four-armed is four-armed.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I kept saying "You asked me to play it as written" because I
I had to work hard to hide from the player the fact that the
Hextorites apparently never sleep (everyone is on watch all the
time) and that the grimlocks get their food supplies by walking
past two hungry monsters.

This doesn't seem like much fun.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
By the end the player was snapping at me whenever I made a rules
call against his PCs, which he usually doesn't do. It was
a very stressful session to run. The PCs "did fine" but the player
and GM didn't seem to be enjoying themselves.

Maybe, and maybe you couldn't do it without the player's cooperation,
more of the spotlight should have been on the characters and less on a:
the module and b: the rules

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The player's reaction was to tell me that he didn't think his
PC party would be viable past a few more levels, due to less than
optimal character design choices, and I ought to "do something
about that" or he was going to have to abandon these PCs and do
more heavily optimized ones. He also complained that he was
not satisfied with his characterizations.

I haven't seen any evidence of characterization. I would not think he
had any time for characterization.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Toward the end I was forcing myself, with gritted teeth, not to
fudge.
Despite the outcome, I'll stand by my initial evaluation: these
are too hard for us at the stated levels. I don't care too much
about the spell-dominated outcomes, though if it turns out to be
standard for the warlock to win every scenario single-handed (she
will get Darkness at will in a few levels) we're likely to be
unhappy. But the amount of player bitching was hard to take. I
don't fault my player for it. I would have felt the same.

It looks tough enough to be distracting but it also looks like it is
set up for one (or possibly one of a small number) precise solution to
render each challenge less dreadful than it seems. It may read like a
tough run with lots of melee but it may be an out-of-character puzzle
for the players or partly that.

Will in New Haven

--

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail
better."
Samuel Beckett, "Worstward Ho", 1983

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Will, I'm not really sure how I should take your comments: did you
miss the point, earlier in the thread, that the player had asked
me to run the module exactly as written? So a lot of your "you did
this wrong...you did that wrong" were straight from module and rules,
not something that (by the agreement) I could have changed.

Also, since I was reporting on how the combat had gone, it's
natural that I didn't include a whole lot of roleplaying notes:
that wasn't central to the point I was trying to make. It seems
a bit offensive to conclude that there wasn't any roleplaying going
on.

I'm not going to reply in any detail as it seems we're totally on
different wavelengths about this.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Will, I'm not really sure how I should take your comments: did you
miss the point, earlier in the thread, that the player had asked
me to run the module exactly as written? So a lot of your "you did
this wrong...you did that wrong" were straight from module and rules,
not something that (by the agreement) I could have changed.

I was commenting on the module, not on your running it. I assumed that
you knew that I read the earlier post. I realized you had modified
nothing. It still seems that the designers had some of the solutions
your player found in mind and that is why it wasn't as hard, although
still very hard, as you expected.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Also, since I was reporting on how the combat had gone, it's
that wasn't central to the point I was trying to make. It seems
a bit offensive to conclude that there wasn't any roleplaying going
on.

I just went by his statement that he wasn't happy with his
characterization.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I'm not going to reply in any detail as it seems we're totally on
different wavelengths about this.

Will in New Haven

--

"This ring, no other, was made by the elves, who'd pawn their own
mother to grab it themselves..." <Bored of the Rings>

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Will in New Haven
I was commenting on the module, not on your running it. I assumed that
you knew that I read the earlier post. I realized you had modified
nothing. It still seems that the designers had some of the solutions
your player found in mind and that is why it wasn't as hard, although
still very hard, as you expected.

Okay, that's clearer, thanks.

I am sure they anticipated grimlocks+Silence. I would be shocked
if they anticipated warlock+Darkness; warlock is a splatbook (supplement)
class, and that is not generally one of its more popular powers, so
it's very, very unlikely that a party could do it. Seeing in magical
darkness is otherwise excruciatingly rare in the system, limited to
devils and a few monsters with sonar. And a warlock of Athas' level
can't actually have both Darkness and See in Magical Darkness; it
just happened that an NPC provided the missing link for her.

The author didn't say how he expected the grimlocks to go, but he did
say how he expected easy wins over the Hextorites to go: PCs get
ahead of the Hextorite response and defeat them in detail. I was
surprised that it was still easy even after the player allowed the
Hextorites to mostly get together (though he did *not* let them loose
the giant boar, and a good thing, too).

I didn't mind the surprise solutions, though the Darkness thing needs to
be fixed (a bad rules call on our part). I minded the player's griping
a lot more. He has clarified that the real stickler for him was the
mis-rating of the grimlocks. They break many system design rules about
what a monster of their type should be like, but offer no EXP bonus for
their nonconformity, and this made him feel cheated. "If the system
wants me to treat this like a video game, at least it should be a
*fair* video game."

I think I personally was the most offended by descriptions which repeatedly
described how the PCs would see a grimlock and notice the tattoos and
ritual scars on its chest. Then you'd look down at the equipment list
and notice that the grimlock is in full plate armor. Unless you check
every single description before reading it, this produces a strong
impression in the player's mind that the GM is lying deliberately about
the monster's armor; and if the player assumes from the description
that it's unarmored, he can get screwed for no reason. Plate armor is
not exactly a subtle visual detail!

This probably means that the person writing description and the
person writing stat blocks weren't talking to each other. I wish Paizo had
put this out as a hardback, as they seem to do more copy-editing on the
hardback versions than the magazine versions.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Will in New Haven
I was commenting on the module, not on your running it. I assumed that
you knew that I read the earlier post. I realized you had modified
nothing. It still seems that the designers had some of the solutions
your player found in mind and that is why it wasn't as hard, although
still very hard, as you expected.

Okay, that's clearer, thanks.
I am sure they anticipated grimlocks+Silence. I would be shocked
if they anticipated warlock+Darkness; warlock is a splatbook (supplement)
class, and that is not generally one of its more popular powers, so
it's very, very unlikely that a party could do it. Seeing in magical
darkness is otherwise excruciatingly rare in the system, limited to
devils and a few monsters with sonar. And a warlock of Athas' level
can't actually have both Darkness and See in Magical Darkness; it
just happened that an NPC provided the missing link for her.

Can Trolls see in magical darkness anymore? They could at one time, in
original D&D and in RuneQuest. Of course, a Troll player-character
would be impossible in any form of D&D that I know of, not so in
RuneQuest or in our local rules. If you had a PC who could naturally
see in magical darkness, all you would need is the NPC who provided the
Darkness spell. Even if they provided the NPC and the spell, it looks
unlikely that they expected that you could do this. If, however, they
anticipated that the PCs would use Silence versus the Grimlocks,
wouldn't that have reduced the threat-level a great deal from what one
would think at first look?

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The author didn't say how he expected the grimlocks to go, but he did
say how he expected easy wins over the Hextorites to go: PCs get
ahead of the Hextorite response and defeat them in detail. I was
surprised that it was still easy even after the player allowed the
Hextorites to mostly get together (though he did *not* let them loose
the giant boar, and a good thing, too).

Oh, that reminds me of a Hobbit character whose favorite phrase was
"Cry havoc and let loose the hamsters of war." Eventually, he MET the
hamsters of war. It was fun, although not really life-threatening. I
just figured the player had asked for it.

As a player, taking foes out piecemeal over time never seems completely
reasonable to most of my characters. Whatever keeps them from getting
together to hunt us down better be really convincing. Otherwise, I want
to move faster.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I didn't mind the surprise solutions, though the Darkness thing needs to
be fixed (a bad rules call on our part)

If it is still _fairly_ powerful under the new rules, it is still going
to make this adventure easier than expected If the characters have
someone who can see in it among them.

I minded the player's griping

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
a lot more. He has clarified that the real stickler for him was the
mis-rating of the grimlocks. They break many system design rules about
what a monster of their type should be like, but offer no EXP bonus for
their nonconformity, and this made him feel cheated. "If the system
wants me to treat this like a video game, at least it should be a
*fair* video game."

Wouldn't you feel within your rights giving him more EXP for them than
the rules provide? I might not _do_ it myself, as they had the Silence
"antidote" to the Grimlocks, but I used to do so in other situations.
For that matter, I still modify EXP awards at times and I wrote the
rules we play.I would probably have REALLY angered him because I would
probably give lots of EXP to the character that did the Silence and
less for the others.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I think I personally was the most offended by descriptions which repeatedly
described how the PCs would see a grimlock and notice the tattoos and
ritual scars on its chest. Then you'd look down at the equipment list
and notice that the grimlock is in full plate armor. Unless you check
every single description before reading it, this produces a strong
impression in the player's mind that the GM is lying deliberately about
the monster's armor; and if the player assumes from the description
that it's unarmored, he can get screwed for no reason. Plate armor is
not exactly a subtle visual detail!

Right. Of course, a player MIGHT claiim that this combination meant
that his character had developed X-Ray vision. The GM who reads the
description aloud without checking it against the stat blocks is going
to have a problem and checking the written description against the stat
block, time after time, is much more like drudgery and almost as
time-consuming as writing ones own adventures.

Will in New Haven

--

"Never try to outstubborn a cat." - Robert Heinlein
"I am not stubborn, Mr. Heinlein, I am just in charge." - Feather

[Rick Pikul]

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I am sure they anticipated grimlocks+Silence. I would be shocked
if they anticipated warlock+Darkness; warlock is a splatbook (supplement)
class, and that is not generally one of its more popular powers, so
it's very, very unlikely that a party could do it. Seeing in magical
darkness is otherwise excruciatingly rare in the system, limited to
devils and a few monsters with sonar. And a warlock of Athas' level
can't actually have both Darkness and See in Magical Darkness; it
just happened that an NPC provided the missing link for her.

Can Trolls see in magical darkness anymore?

No, they just have 90' Darkvision.

Post by Will in New Haven
They could at one time, in
original D&D and in RuneQuest. Of course, a Troll player-character
would be impossible in any form of D&D that I know of, not so in
RuneQuest or in our local rules.

A troll has a LA of +5 and starts with 6 racial HD, an 11 level
progression was published in Savage Species.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Will in New Haven
Wouldn't you feel within your rights giving him more EXP for them than
the rules provide? I might not _do_ it myself, as they had the Silence
"antidote" to the Grimlocks, but I used to do so in other situations.

If one has agreed to play "by the rules" it's hard to do this, though
in the end we did go back and give what we both considered to be the
correct (but non-book) EXP.

There are some strange decisions in the Monster Manual; I hoped they
would fix them all in v3.5 but they didn't. It's particularly a problem
since spells like Polymorph, plus the ability to take monster races as
PCs, mean that the players may directly stress any bad decisions in
the Monster Manual.

My first _City of the Spider Queen_ game was almost completely determined
by the mis-leveling of one of the angels (planetar? solar? I forget) which
allows the PCs to summon it with a modestly powerful spell, even though
it's much more powerful than that. (A 16th level cleric is CR16. I don't
know how something with the full spellcasting of a 16th level cleric,
plus a whole bunch more special powers, could be CR15. I guess some of
the AD&D game designers think of clerical casting as useless, but that
has not been my experience.)

Post by Will in New Haven
I would probably have REALLY angered him because I would
probably give lots of EXP to the character that did the Silence and
less for the others.

You're right, that would really have angered him. Me, too. I'd take
the GM's unspoken message to be "I'm punishing you for using that tactic,
don't do it again" and I'd wonder why.

What would you be trying to say or do with this? If one PC is
disproportionately powerful and effective, surely giving them more EXP
than the others is not really moving toward a solution. Are you
trying to enlist the other players into forcing that player to tone
down his PC? (Wouldn't work in a one-player dynamic, of course.) Or
is it purely a realism consideration? Do you think the PC who cast
the Silence learned more than the PCs who took advantage of it? (The
PC who cast the Silence then hung back and did little or nothing all
fight.)

I don't ever give differential EXP. I have found this to be a source of
bad feelings, even in single-player games and much more in multi-player
games, and not much else. But my own preference (in contrast to my
player's) is not to give EXP at all but to give levels when it seems
appropriate. The player won't accept this because it interferes with
use of AD&D's magic-item-creation system and he is interested in the
resource-management aspects of that system.

I rather like being able to say to the GM, "My PCs have finally taken
up the responsibility of being heroes, not just adventurers; I think
they should go up a level now." (That was 9th level in SCAP.) Or,
just as often, "Nothing has really changed, and they haven't settled
into the current level yet, so don't."

Might be a bone of contention in multi-player, though. I haven't tried
it there.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Chances are suprisingly good that Mary K. Kuhner was not wearing pants

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
My first _City of the Spider Queen_ game was almost completely determined
by the mis-leveling of one of the angels (planetar? solar? I forget) which
allows the PCs to summon it with a modestly powerful spell, even though
it's much more powerful than that. (A 16th level cleric is CR16. I don't
know how something with the full spellcasting of a 16th level cleric,
plus a whole bunch more special powers, could be CR15. I guess some of
the AD&D game designers think of clerical casting as useless, but that
has not been my experience.)

This was a pretty common complaint, and not just in the context of City
of the Spider Queen. I think they toned down the Planar Ally spells
quite a bit in 3.5, just FYI.

There is also extensive errata to Polymorph available somewhere on
WotC's Web site, though I haven't examined it closely enough to know
whether it would address your issues with it.

(BTW, they dropped the "A" in "D&D" when 3E came out, since there is no
longer a basic version for it to be an advanced counterpart *of*...)

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
There is also extensive errata to Polymorph available somewhere on
WotC's Web site, though I haven't examined it closely enough to know
whether it would address your issues with it.

We haven't hit this in v3.5 yet, so I don't know if the book rules
are improved enough; if they aren't, I'll look for the errata. This
spell has had more errata than anything else in the system!

The problem (a familiar one to computer programmers, I think) is
that Polymorph is an "import" spell. It imports into the core rules any
mistake made by the authors of whatever monster manual or other monster
source you are using: for example, if they rule that something is an
ability of a type emulatable by Polymorph when it should have been
something of a type not emulatable, you're suddenly confronted with
an ability that you thought was ruled out.

Someone told a story of a high level druid who found a way to Wild
Shape into a choker, and finally overcame the v3.5 restriction that
you can't cast two spells a round: the author of the choker should
have given it Haste, but instead gave it an extra standard action, and
voila.

The reason that Summon Monster does not allow you to summon
monsters of your choice within some constraint, but instead gives an
explicit list, is to keep it from being "import"--there's a high
cost in flavor but perhaps it's worth it.

Things are certainly better if one avoids all of the splatbooks.
The warlock's magical damaging attack is given no type! We had a long,
long discussion of this when we discovered it. The damage has to be
some type or other so that we know what can defend against it, but
there is no hint in the class writeup. And there are plenty of MM2,
MM3, Fiend Folio monsters which are a very bad idea to import.

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
(BTW, they dropped the "A" in "D&D" when 3E came out, since there is no
longer a basic version for it to be an advanced counterpart *of*...)

Okay, I'll save a character henceforth. Got yelled at too many times
for calling the game D&D back in the day, and managed to teach myself
not to do it....

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Chances are suprisingly good that Mary K. Kuhner was not wearing pants

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The reason that Summon Monster does not allow you to summon
monsters of your choice within some constraint, but instead gives an
explicit list, is to keep it from being "import"--there's a high
cost in flavor but perhaps it's worth it.

And actually, this is precisely the problem, not only with Polymorph,
but with the Planar Ally spells as well. You can pick any creature
within certain constraints of CR (which doesn't accomplish what the
designers were trying to do, because CR and character level don't
measure the same thing) and creature type (which *could* be a meaningful
restriction, but isn't in this case, because it confines you to
precisely the creature type most likely to get cool, abusable abilities
- namely Outsider).

[Justin Fang]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The problem (a familiar one to computer programmers, I think) is
that Polymorph is an "import" spell. It imports into the core rules any
mistake made by the authors of whatever monster manual or other monster
source you are using: for example, if they rule that something is an
ability of a type emulatable by Polymorph when it should have been
something of a type not emulatable, you're suddenly confronted with
an ability that you thought was ruled out.

Wizards of the Coast has, belatedly, acknowledged this problem:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060216a

Their latest approach is basically to throw up their hands in frustration
and firewall Polymorph away from the rest of the system, so that it's
easier for DMs to ban.

As a replacement, they created a new "polymorph subschool" series of spells,
each of which allows you to change into one specific form. Examples here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=5

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Things are certainly better if one avoids all of the splatbooks.
The warlock's magical damaging attack is given no type! We had a long,
long discussion of this when we discovered it. The damage has to be
some type or other so that we know what can defend against it, but
there is no hint in the class writeup.

I think that's actually supposed to be a feature, not a bug; since the
damage is untyped, only spell resistance protects against it.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Justin Fang

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Things are certainly better if one avoids all of the splatbooks.
The warlock's magical damaging attack is given no type! We had a long,
long discussion of this when we discovered it. The damage has to be
some type or other so that we know what can defend against it, but
there is no hint in the class writeup.

I think that's actually supposed to be a feature, not a bug; since the
damage is untyped, only spell resistance protects against it.

They may consider it a feature but I consider it a bug. The type
system is a powerful way to adjucate interactions between powers;
it shouldn't be bypassed in this fashion. "Force" damage was
invented specifically because the untyped Magic Missile damage was
awkward in the rules. Why repeat that mistake again? (We ruled
that the warlock does Force, which is probably the most powerful
option.)

I can't quite regret that I allowed this class, because the PC is
excellent and couldn't be done with the core rules. But I wish
I didn't have to allow it, because I really loathe the splatbooks,
especially _Arcane_. The material is not well enough tested to
safely use, in my opinion. It reintroduces a lot of problems which
were finally cast out of the core rules.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Justin Fang]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Justin Fang

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The warlock's magical damaging attack is given no type! We had a long,
long discussion of this when we discovered it. The damage has to be
some type or other so that we know what can defend against it, but
there is no hint in the class writeup.

I think that's actually supposed to be a feature, not a bug; since the
damage is untyped, only spell resistance protects against it.

They may consider it a feature but I consider it a bug. The type
system is a powerful way to adjucate interactions between powers;
it shouldn't be bypassed in this fashion. "Force" damage was
invented specifically because the untyped Magic Missile damage was
awkward in the rules.

Hm. Probably they should have explicitly defined a generic magic damage
type, to handle cases like the Warlock, Disintegrate, Horrid Wilting, etc.
I think there's only a couple examples of those in the core rules, which is
perhaps why they didn't do it.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Why repeat that mistake again?

Lack of continuity between the people who wrote the core rules and the ones
who wrote the splatbooks, maybe.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I can't quite regret that I allowed this class, because the PC is
excellent and couldn't be done with the core rules. But I wish
I didn't have to allow it, because I really loathe the splatbooks,
especially _Arcane_. The material is not well enough tested to
safely use, in my opinion. It reintroduces a lot of problems which
were finally cast out of the core rules.

They do seem to have acquired the software company habit of using customers
as beta testers. I guess the eventual solution will be a 4th edition. Of
course, then they'll start releasing splatbooks for that...

[DougL]

Post by Justin Fang

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
The problem (a familiar one to computer programmers, I think) is
that Polymorph is an "import" spell. It imports into the core rules any
mistake made by the authors of whatever monster manual or other monster
source you are using: for example, if they rule that something is an
ability of a type emulatable by Polymorph when it should have been
something of a type not emulatable, you're suddenly confronted with
an ability that you thought was ruled out.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060216a
Their latest approach is basically to throw up their hands in frustration
and firewall Polymorph away from the rest of the system, so that it's
easier for DMs to ban.
As a replacement, they created a new "polymorph subschool" series of spells,
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=5

My solution was to declare that Polymorph type spells change your
SHAPE, and virtually nothing else. You get limited size based bonuses
or penalties to strength and dex, you may get natural armor, movement
modes or speed, natural weapons, and some senses, but all of those are
limited to typical values for the size of the final creature. Magical
gear changes form with you and if at all possible remains functional in
the new form.

Basically I have a list of the highest values in a bunch of stuff that
a polymorphed creature can have, and if you polymorph into something
that exceeds the listed values then tough luck, you get the listed
value and nothing more. (Natural armor bonuses are also limited to
caster level.)

Level 2 spells change your shape to anything else of the same size,
level 4 allows within one size category (and extends the resulting
range if neccessary to include small and medium), level 6 allows any
size. +2 to spell level changes the target from personal to touch.

Their problem is that they insist that having the shape of an orc makes
you stronger, that looking like a zombie gives you DR, and that looking
like a drow gives you SR. You're a caster, if you need to be able to do
X to act like your new shape then cast a spell that lets you do X. If
your druid wants to have a Bull's Strength when in the shape of a bull,
well, he gets +2 for size and there's a spell for additional strength
on his list, wonder what it's called....

DougL

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by DougL
My solution was to declare that Polymorph type spells change your
SHAPE, and virtually nothing else. You get limited size based bonuses
or penalties to strength and dex, you may get natural armor, movement
modes or speed, natural weapons, and some senses, but all of those are
limited to typical values for the size of the final creature. Magical
gear changes form with you and if at all possible remains functional in
the new form.

Water-breathing? Non-breathing (as for a zombie)? Ability to live
on what the critter naturally eats? Sonar? Tremorsense? Tunnelling?

I'd fuss over those edge cases a bit, but basically, this makes sense
to me. To fully change into a powerful magical creature should take
a dedicated spell, so that it can be leveled properly.

I had one PC party which was fond of using Polymorph as an area-effect
weapon. They would Polymorph something very big, like a whale, into
a mouse and keep it in a little bamboo cage. Then they'd use Dispel
(nowadays I think you could just Dismiss) to turn it back inside a
tight space. It's hard to argue that a blue whale appearing in a
10' square room will be anything less than catastrophe for the
occupants; if it's upstairs, it will probably destroy the whole
building.

I got very tired of this strategy after a while. It's particularly
hard to rule against because you are *not* trying to Polymorph something
into a shape which doesn't fit in the available space (which the GM
might rule as a failure); instead, you are Dispelling an existing
spell, and it's not clear that Dispel should respect available space.
The main limit was availability of whales, though elephants and rhinos
produce a fairly dramatic effect too, and big monsters are of course
spectacular.

It's hard to write Polymorph so that the fun, colorful uses remain
and strategies like this one don't.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[gleichman]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
It's hard to write Polymorph so that the fun, colorful uses remain
and strategies like this one don't.

In my D&D days, I would have overruled the whale trick on genre
grounds- i.e. you can't do anything with a spell that violates genre.
That may be a troublesome ruling for some playstyles, but it certainly
got us by.

Or I would have also taken great joy in the result of the players being
hit by an area dispell at a bad moment...


In AoH, the various shape-change spells are seriously limited as to
size and type to match the genre. They are rare in the first place,
typically only allow a single form or type of form, and of limited
duration. Almost none work on anything other than the caster.

[DougL]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by DougL
My solution was to declare that Polymorph type spells change your
SHAPE, and virtually nothing else. You get limited size based bonuses
or penalties to strength and dex, you may get natural armor, movement
modes or speed, natural weapons, and some senses, but all of those are
limited to typical values for the size of the final creature. Magical
gear changes form with you and if at all possible remains functional in
the new form.

Water-breathing? Non-breathing (as for a zombie)? Ability to live
on what the critter naturally eats? Sonar? Tremorsense? Tunnelling?

Water-breathing yes, the aquatic subtype and the ability to breath air
are both specifically allowed. Tunnelling at up to 5'/round through
soft earth yes, again specifically allowed in the house-rules. All
others no, they aren't listed as things that CAN be added/changed and
the list in my houserules of what can be given by the new shape is
comprehensive. If I didn't SAY in the full houserules that something
can be granted by the new form then the new form doesn't grant it.

Had it occured to me I'd have allowed that how much you need to eat is
influenced by your new size. (Or maybe not... That might be a dandy way
to prevent the polymorph to small size abuse Brian mentioned, I'd
rather not have to appeal to genre or to a strict reading of the rules
on occupying impossible spaces to stop that. Note that with my rules
the abuse requires a level 8 spell so it isn't all that big a problem
since CR15+ foes are likely to be able to ignore a whale occupying
their space.)

But polymorph to a Zombie and you still need to eat and breath since
your type hasn't changed and you're still alive. Hence the reason for
the zombie's abilities/immunites doesn't apply to you.

Sonar and Tremorsense no, you're ability to interperet vibrations is
still limited to what it was in your natural form. You also don't get
blindsense/blindsight/blindfight type abilities. Darkvision and
Lowlight vision yes though, you get the new form's eyes.

DougL

[Del Rio]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I had one PC party which was fond of using Polymorph as an area-effect
weapon. They would Polymorph something very big, like a whale, into
a mouse and keep it in a little bamboo cage. Then they'd use Dispel
(nowadays I think you could just Dismiss) to turn it back inside a
tight space. It's hard to argue that a blue whale appearing in a
10' square room will be anything less than catastrophe for the
occupants; if it's upstairs, it will probably destroy the whole
building.
I got very tired of this strategy after a while.

LOL, sorry for the campaign, Mary, but that's hysterical. It
reminds me of the early days of my AD&D1 campaign, when players
wanted to get back at enemy wizard by flying over his mansion
with a mouse and polymorphing it into a whale.

There's nothing in the system to prevent this kind of thing,
and truth be told, I think that in a non-script protected
universe, people would make "creative" use of spells like this
all the time. (Collapse a cathedral roof through judicious use
of Stone to Flesh, anyone?) Sucks for trying to run a serious
minded campaign, though.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

In article <ep8a3v$22p$***@reader2.panix.com>, Del Rio <***@panix.com> wrote:

[mouse to whale]

Post by Del Rio
There's nothing in the system to prevent this kind of thing,
and truth be told, I think that in a non-script protected
universe, people would make "creative" use of spells like this
all the time. (Collapse a cathedral roof through judicious use
of Stone to Flesh, anyone?) Sucks for trying to run a serious
minded campaign, though.

I don't think the effect is necessarily non-serious; my big
problem is when the PCs are the first people ever to think of
this stuff, which is almost invariably the case in published
settings, and hard to avoid even in your own if the spell
system is at all complex.

If castles can be taken out by a fairly low level spell, either
there should be no castles, or defenses should have been developed,
or people who can do that spell should be under some form of
societal control. Any of those are fine, but the GM needs to
know about them!

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Del Rio]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
[mouse to whale]

Post by Del Rio
There's nothing in the system to prevent this kind of thing,
and truth be told, I think that in a non-script protected
universe, people would make "creative" use of spells like this
all the time. (Collapse a cathedral roof through judicious use
of Stone to Flesh, anyone?) Sucks for trying to run a serious
minded campaign, though.

I don't think the effect is necessarily non-serious; my big
problem is when the PCs are the first people ever to think of
this stuff, which is almost invariably the case in published
settings, and hard to avoid even in your own if the spell
system is at all complex.

Yes, whales being used to block corridors is obviously a
desireable standard combat tactic in a serious minded
game. ;-)

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
If castles can be taken out by a fairly low level spell, either
there should be no castles, or defenses should have been developed,
or people who can do that spell should be under some form of
societal control. Any of those are fine, but the GM needs to
know about them!

See, I have a problem with the first part of the proposition.
In most of my D&D campaigns, I have no desire to create a
civilization based on radically different attack/defense
measures than were used in history, because (1) that's
altogether more world creation than I want to get involved in,
and (2) making something so far removed from the fantasy
literature they've read and their previous gaming experience
would reduce the resonance that the players have with the
campaign. There's a reason that in Tolkien's writings kings
were tall, queens were fair, and swords were symbols of
authority. It resonated with him and his intended readership
because that symbolism and mythology are ingrained in their
culture. I don't want a pseudo-medieval D&D campaign where
castles are useless because people keep dropping whales on
them. Do. Not. Want.

[Thomas Lindgren]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
[mouse to whale]

Post by Del Rio
There's nothing in the system to prevent this kind of thing,
and truth be told, I think that in a non-script protected
universe, people would make "creative" use of spells like this
all the time. (Collapse a cathedral roof through judicious use
of Stone to Flesh, anyone?) Sucks for trying to run a serious
minded campaign, though.

I don't think the effect is necessarily non-serious; my big
problem is when the PCs are the first people ever to think of
this stuff, which is almost invariably the case in published
settings, and hard to avoid even in your own if the spell
system is at all complex.
If castles can be taken out by a fairly low level spell, either
there should be no castles, or defenses should have been developed,
or people who can do that spell should be under some form of
societal control. Any of those are fine, but the GM needs to
know about them!

I can only agree; basically, the world should be 'in equilibrium' with
respect to spells, effects, monsters and whatnot. An efficient market
theory, if you will: the "societal shock" of introducing each spell
etc should already have been accounted for, and/or compensated,
because all the INT 18+ magic-users have already tried their hand at
abusing the spells. The practical difficulty is for the poor GM to
actually implement this equilibrium, of course. (Also, modern RPG
publishing seems to thrive on supplements with cool new powers, which
really drive things in the other direction.)

And even if the adventurers were first in abusing polymorph this way,
why doesn't such a fairly simple and useful technique quickly spread,
along with countermeasures (if any)?

Best,
Thomas

[Del Rio]

Post by Thomas Lindgren
I can only agree; basically, the world should be 'in equilibrium' with
respect to spells, effects, monsters and whatnot. An efficient market
theory, if you will: the "societal shock" of introducing each spell
etc should already have been accounted for, and/or compensated,
because all the INT 18+ magic-users have already tried their hand at
abusing the spells. The practical difficulty is for the poor GM to
actually implement this equilibrium, of course. (Also, modern RPG
publishing seems to thrive on supplements with cool new powers, which
really drive things in the other direction.)

Probably my single biggest problem with D&D is that the
"default" campaign world, and indeed every D&D campaign world I
have seen firsthand (including my own, despite large scale
removals of spells and abilities) is in fact nowhere near
equilibrium, and is only protected by script immunity. That
doesn't make it a terrible system, it's still fun as long as
you ignore the man behind the curtain, and the players all
agree to play according to the aesthetics of the genre,
and don't go around dropping whales on manor houses.

[Thomas Lindgren]

That doesn't make it a terrible system, it's still fun as long as
you ignore the man behind the curtain, and the players all agree to
play according to the aesthetics of the genre, and don't go around
dropping whales on manor houses.

Right. A gentleman's agreement, one might call it. Though IMO D&D
isn't the only villain here, just the one getting the greatest workout.
As far as I know, most systems like awesomeness and flashy special
effects, which tends to eventually put whales in the sitting room.

Best,
Thomas

[gleichman]

Post by Del Rio
There's nothing in the system to prevent this kind of thing,
and truth be told, I think that in a non-script protected
universe, people would make "creative" use of spells like this
all the time. (Collapse a cathedral roof through judicious use
of Stone to Flesh, anyone?) Sucks for trying to run a serious
minded campaign, though.

The exact same concept has been used in other systems, like HERO. There
they even published Planet Man as an example of rule abuse (he'd shrink
planets and carry them in his pocket, taking them out and tossing them
and revoking the shrinking just before impact).

There are basically two approaches to that sort of thing.

The original HERO approach was to laugh at it and leave it up to the GM
to control in his games. HERO was viewed as a toolset open to as wide
of an array of concepts and uses possible- thus any use had to be
judged individually as to it suitability to a specific campaign. This
concept applied not only in construction- but in use during a game
session as an outgrowth of special effects.

The current approach in 5th edition has in large measure turned its
back upon that original concept and has attempted to remove such abuses
mechanically. The result has been vast growth in rule word count, lost
of system flexiability, and the use of 'cute builds' for what were
previously easily managed concepts that didn't need to take up space on
the character sheets.


Personally I'm a big fan of the older method and think it should be
applied to every rpg bought off the shelves. Those are intended for a
wider market than any individual buyer and thus cover styles and
methods not suitable for that individual. IMO, one of the 'must do'
items before starting a campaign is to go through the rules and remove
those things which don't fit the group's needs.

Of course no one is perfect, and things will be missed. In my case,
will remove things on the fly in the middle of the game. I find this,
while a bad option itself, to cause less damage than allowing it entry
into the world history.

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman posts, in part:

The original HERO approach was to laugh at it and
leave it up to the GM to control in his games.... The current
approach in 5th edition has in large measure turned its
back upon that original concept and has attempted to
remove such abuses mechanically....

Personally I'm a big fan of the older method and think it should be
applied to every rpg bought off the shelves. Those are intended for a
wider market than any individual buyer and thus cover styles and
methods not suitable for that individual. IMO, one of the 'must do'
items before starting a campaign is to go through the rules and
remove
those things which don't fit the group's needs.

Of course no one is perfect, and things will be missed. In my case,
will remove things on the fly in the middle of the game. I find this,
while a bad option itself, to cause less damage than allowing it
entry
into the world history.

I think there's room for both approaches. I can't imagine using a
published system unless I was much too short on time to comb through
the rules and remove problematic issues, so I think it's reasonable to
expect some rule systems, at least, to have already removed those
issues. Likewise, I strongly prefer not to change things on the fly,
so I'd like the rules to have avoided unbalancing problems in the first
place. I think that ought to be more possible with rule sets with much
larger numbers of players reporting bugs, at least in editions after
the first.

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
I think there's room for both approaches. I can't imagine using a
published system unless I was much too short on time to comb through
the rules and remove problematic issues, so I think it's reasonable to
expect some rule systems, at least, to have already removed those
issues. Likewise, I strongly prefer not to change things on the fly,
so I'd like the rules to have avoided unbalancing problems in the first
place. I think that ought to be more possible with rule sets with much
larger numbers of players reporting bugs, at least in editions after
the first.

The thing here, some groups and styles wouldn't consider them bugs. Eye of
the beholder thing and all.

[Del Rio]

Post by gleichman
Personally I'm a big fan of the older method and think it should be
applied to every rpg bought off the shelves. Those are intended for a
wider market than any individual buyer and thus cover styles and
methods not suitable for that individual. IMO, one of the 'must do'
items before starting a campaign is to go through the rules and remove
those things which don't fit the group's needs.
Of course no one is perfect, and things will be missed. In my case,
will remove things on the fly in the middle of the game. I find this,
while a bad option itself, to cause less damage than allowing it entry
into the world history.

That's an approach I've taken, too. At one point many years
ago, I had a whole campaign that suddenly was about to get
turned inside out by a method of instantaneous communication
that I had somehow failed to note (I think when I read the
spell list, that one hadn't occured to me because it had a
misleading title or some such). A PC was about to cast it, and
I banned it on the spot. It caused a bit of a ruckus, but the
problem was that everything else in the campaign was proceding
along lines that presumed that instantaneous long-distance
communications were not possible. So if that spell existed,
all of a sudden, large portions of the campaign story would
have become totally nonsensical. The players relented on it,
which was good, because otherwise I pretty much would have had
to cancel the campaign, as it suddenly no longer made
internally-consistent sense, and large parts of the socio-
political structure of the campaign would have been
invalidated.

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Will in New Haven
Wouldn't you feel within your rights giving him more EXP for them than
the rules provide? I might not _do_ it myself, as they had the Silence
"antidote" to the Grimlocks, but I used to do so in other situations.

If one has agreed to play "by the rules" it's hard to do this, though
in the end we did go back and give what we both considered to be the
correct (but non-book) EXP.

It's a situation-by-situation thing. On the average, going by the book
is probably better. Here, for instance, there was a strong argument
that the "official" EXP rating of these beings was fouled up.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
There are some strange decisions in the Monster Manual; I hoped they
would fix them all in v3.5 but they didn't. It's particularly a problem
since spells like Polymorph, plus the ability to take monster races as
PCs, mean that the players may directly stress any bad decisions in
the Monster Manual.
My first _City of the Spider Queen_ game was almost completely determined
by the mis-leveling of one of the angels (planetar? solar? I forget) which
allows the PCs to summon it with a modestly powerful spell, even though
it's much more powerful than that. (A 16th level cleric is CR16. I don't
know how something with the full spellcasting of a 16th level cleric,
plus a whole bunch more special powers, could be CR15. I guess some of
the AD&D game designers think of clerical casting as useless, but that
has not been my experience.)

That seems odd enough to be a misprint but I gather it isn't. I
remember clerics as being very useful characters.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Will in New Haven
I would probably have REALLY angered him because I would
probably give lots of EXP to the character that did the Silence and
less for the others.

You're right, that would really have angered him. Me, too. I'd take
the GM's unspoken message to be "I'm punishing you for using that tactic,
don't do it again" and I'd wonder why.

It isn't a punishment. It is a reward for being an effective character.
When one spell makes the fight a great deal easier, it seems pretty
clear that one _could_ justify this approach. If the group isn't used
to it and/or objects strongly, I can also see not doing it that way.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
What would you be trying to say or do with this? If one PC is
disproportionately powerful and effective, surely giving them more EXP
than the others is not really moving toward a solution.

I don't think powerful characters are a problem needing a solution.
However, this character doesn't seem more powerul. He just had a more
useful spell in this situation. Since that could easily even out, or
nearly so, over time, the equal EXP award is also reasonable.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Are you
trying to enlist the other players into forcing that player to tone
down his PC?

Not at all. First of all, only one of my players is competitive about
EXP. For the most part, they prefer that someone, anyone, reduce their
risks. If that happens, they are happy to see the character get the
points.

<story>Once a fairly large group of characters were eating in a tavern
in a big city. An odd NPC happened to know one of them from a previous
campaign. They fell into a conversation and the NPC, in his cups,
described Experience Points to them and how they are earned. They all
decided that they did not want any. They continued on the adventure
because they had other motivations.</>

(Wouldn't work in a one-player dynamic, of course.) Or

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
is it purely a realism consideration? Do you think the PC who cast
the Silence learned more than the PCs who took advantage of it? (The
PC who cast the Silence then hung back and did little or nothing all
fight.)

If the spell blinded the enemy, I would consider that the amount the
other characters learned in the fight was a good deal reduced. The
spell-caster, even though he hung back the rest of the time, is the
only one who could get the credit for the points that were not given to
the others.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I don't ever give differential EXP. I have found this to be a source of
bad feelings, even in single-player games and much more in multi-player
games, and not much else.

If that had happened, I would have switched to equal EXP. This is
especially true since everyone seems to get a turn to be the big EXP
gainer, when it isn't equal anyway, and it all evens out.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
But my own preference (in contrast to my
player's) is not to give EXP at all but to give levels when it seems
appropriate. The player won't accept this because it interferes with
use of AD&D's magic-item-creation system and he is interested in the
resource-management aspects of that system.
I rather like being able to say to the GM, "My PCs have finally taken
up the responsibility of being heroes, not just adventurers; I think
they should go up a level now." (That was 9th level in SCAP.) Or,
just as often, "Nothing has really changed, and they haven't settled
into the current level yet, so don't."

This is a very good system. My first GM, John Leyland (before anyone
around here had SEEN AD&D, using a mix of rules from several sources)
did this. I liked it a great deal.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Might be a bone of contention in multi-player, though. I haven't tried
it there.

It worked very well in John's multi-player campaign. Of course, he was
the first person to run games that any of us new and we didn't have
printed rules to tell us if he was doing wrong. But he was a graduate
student in mideaval studies at Yale, so we figured he had the setting
right and we were willing to play his rules. We didn't have EXP at all.
You just reached the next level of puissance when he and you agreed
that you had.

Will in New Haven

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Will in New Haven
If that had happened, I would have switched to equal EXP. This is
especially true since everyone seems to get a turn to be the big EXP
gainer, when it isn't equal anyway, and it all evens out.

Ah. I think there are some dynamics in (most) multi-player games which
push toward sharing the spotlight and thus the EXP awards more evenly.
These are less apparent in single-player, and I don't think I'd expect
the awards to even out at all.

One of the besetting problems in single-player, multiple-character games
is the vicious circle caused by lack of spotlight time on a particular
PC. The player has, say, six PCs in his head. One of them is not very
effective for some reason, so the others are "in the spotlight" more
often. They tend to develop stronger personalities and the player
tends to become more tactically proficient with their abilities. This
makes it likely that the ineffective PC will be ignored even more,
and become even more ineffective; for example, the player may fail to
think of a tactic that would use that PC's strengths, because he's just
not thinking of that PC at all.

After a few months you have a couple of well-developed PCs and one or
more pieces of cardboard.

We know this is a problem, so if one PC is lagging we tend to push for
opportunities to give them stuff. If I were going to give differential
EXP I'd tend to give it to the *least* effective PC, because maybe if
they go up a level and the others don't, they'll get more spotlight.
We don't do this, though: we look for ways to give them NPC contacts,
items, abilities, followers, and adventure hooks particularly suited to
their abilities. We also try to play out their actions, and abstract
actions of the most spotlighted PCs. And we look for any opportunity to
see the disadvantaged PC on his own, away from the others, so he can have
the player's full attention.

We had a live example of this in SCAP. The rogue, Tillie, was very
discouraging in the early scenarios because all of the lock target numbers
were much too hard for her. (Apparently a design decision, as it's nearly
impossible for a rogue of her level to be much better than she was.) She
was also fairly useless in combat: not strong enough to be a melee fighter,
and without the feats and weapon choice to be a good missile specialist.
And everything we were up against seemed to be better at Hide and Move
Silently than she was.

Tillie had an intrinsically strong personality and didn't disappear
completely, but she ended up being a voice in party strategic arguments
and not much else. By the time they were 5th level I had quit looking
for ways for Tillie to use her abilities, and she was (even though much
more capable now) not doing any more than she had at 2nd. The party
then got its butt kicked due to inadequate advance information: the GM
said, "Why didn't you scout?" and I replied immediately "We don't
have anyone who can." And stopped and thought about it, and went out and
bought Tillie a bunch of support stuff, switched her to a different missile
weapon, and picked up an archery feat for her. The GM kicked in a
powerful magic bow (taken off a dead enemy) and suddenly, rather than a
useless appendage in combat, Tillie was actually, in a fight that
suited her, frighteningly capable. And she could scout, and started to
do so, leading to some nice ambushes.

I had thought my characterization of her was okay--she had strong
opinions already--but it got a lot better when she wasn't sitting around
useless during every tactical scene.

If the GM had given differential EXP based on contribution, Tillie would
be 1-2 levels lower than the other PCs, I think, and even the steps we
took would probably not have helped. It would have been better to go the
other way, making her 1-2 levels *higher* than the other PCs.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Simon Smith]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Will in New Haven
If that had happened, I would have switched to equal EXP. This is
especially true since everyone seems to get a turn to be the big EXP
gainer, when it isn't equal anyway, and it all evens out.

Ah. I think there are some dynamics in (most) multi-player games which
push toward sharing the spotlight and thus the EXP awards more evenly.
These are less apparent in single-player, and I don't think I'd expect
the awards to even out at all.
One of the besetting problems in single-player, multiple-character games
is the vicious circle caused by lack of spotlight time on a particular
PC. The player has, say, six PCs in his head. One of them is not very
effective for some reason, so the others are "in the spotlight" more
often. They tend to develop stronger personalities and the player
tends to become more tactically proficient with their abilities. This
makes it likely that the ineffective PC will be ignored even more,
and become even more ineffective; for example, the player may fail to
think of a tactic that would use that PC's strengths, because he's just
not thinking of that PC at all.
After a few months you have a couple of well-developed PCs and one or
more pieces of cardboard.

<Snip>

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
If the GM had given differential EXP based on contribution, Tillie would
be 1-2 levels lower than the other PCs, I think, and even the steps we
took would probably not have helped. It would have been better to go the
other way, making her 1-2 levels *higher* than the other PCs.

EarthDawn handles differential XP reasonably well. Greatly simplified, the
cost of improving a skill rises in the following sequence - 100 200 300 500
800 1300 2100 3400 . . .

XP award for a scenario is based on the average level of the characters, and
follows a similar progression.

This means that an equal XP award is worth almost twice as much to a
character who is only one level lower than the average. This helps
lower-level characters catch up relatively quickly. Also, a party can be
given a noticeable boost by having a higher-level character tag along for a
while.

The system starts to break down at about ninth level because the XP awards
get out of sync with what the characters need to advance. I think you
get stuck at ninth for over a year of weekly play, if you follow the rule
guidelines exactly. That's obviously a bit of a long wait. Also, characters
become able to buy low level skills up to a reasonable level (say, up to 2/3
of their level) with 'spare change' XPs. That's got both good points and bad
points to it, in my view. The D&D progression is on the whole superior, I
think, because it seems to be smoother. But stealing some of the EarthDawn
advancement mechanic and importing it into D&D does have something to be
said for it, for some games.

[DougL]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
My first _City of the Spider Queen_ game was almost completely determined
by the mis-leveling of one of the angels (planetar? solar? I forget) which
allows the PCs to summon it with a modestly powerful spell, even though
it's much more powerful than that. (A 16th level cleric is CR16. I don't
know how something with the full spellcasting of a 16th level cleric,
plus a whole bunch more special powers, could be CR15. I guess some of
the AD&D game designers think of clerical casting as useless, but that
has not been my experience.)

I remember that one. 3.5 a Planetar casts as Cleric 17 and is CR16.
This is I believe the same as 3.0.

The presumption would have to be that lack of gear based special powers
and 3 fewer HD make it weaker than an actual level 16 Cleric. This is
perfectly reasonable if you note that it's gear doesn't include a Holy
Symbol, and thus that it can't cast 90%+ of those spells :). Otherwise
it's garbage. The CR is obviously off.

(IIRC when this came up on the D&D group someone did defend the CR as
reasonable, but then someone defended the CR of the 3.5 5-headed hydra
as CR 4 as reasonable too.)

DougL

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by DougL
I remember that one. 3.5 a Planetar casts as Cleric 17 and is CR16.
This is I believe the same as 3.0.
The presumption would have to be that lack of gear based special powers
and 3 fewer HD make it weaker than an actual level 16 Cleric. This is
perfectly reasonable if you note that it's gear doesn't include a Holy
Symbol, and thus that it can't cast 90%+ of those spells :). Otherwise
it's garbage. The CR is obviously off.

I think the creature Teleports. If an archangel shows up
at the High Temple and says "I need a holy symbol, quick" surely
someone will find it one! Anyway, the person who summoned it had
one....

That the spell summons a strong CR16 is already a bit disturbing.
In general being able to long-term summon something much more powerful
than yourself is hard on scenario balance. The rules seem to imply
that this will be kept in control by the creature's desire to be paid
for its services, which works okay with evil creatures--but an angel
really ought not to say "I know the enemy of my god is about to
destroy the world, but you're not paying me enough so I won't help you."

Post by DougL
(IIRC when this came up on the D&D group someone did defend the CR as
reasonable, but then someone defended the CR of the 3.5 5-headed hydra
as CR 4 as reasonable too.)

For any rule in the rulebook someone will defend it. I've read defenses
of the obvious typo in 1st edition that made ogre power so inordinately
cheap, for example.

The perception of clerics does differ wildly among groups. My husband
is running SCAP for two different gaming groups (me, and a four-player
group with two adults and two teens). The clerics are totally different
animals. Mine is known for settling otherwise nasty fights abruptly with
show-stoppers: either death touch (his domain ability), or spells like
Banishment, Dismissal, Silence, True Seeing, or occasionally Flame
Strike. He never casts healing spells above CLW, and uses that mainly to
take prisoners. Theirs is known for pumping hit points into the party fighter
during combat, and otherwise functions as a backup fighter. The party
has adopted a combat strategy which requires the continual hp infusion,
so he almost never gets to cast anything else, and comes across as
essential but not powerful. If the Planetar just follows you around
casting Cure Serious Wounds and swinging its sword, perhaps it's a CR16
after all. That's not what happened in _Spider Queen_ though. :-)

Come to think of it, the cleric in _Spider Queen_ was like neither of
those, but a third type: she cast a lot of buffing spells and consistently
out-fought the dedicated fighters, at least for a short time each day.
But this was a bit easier in v3.0 than it is in v3.5.

If the Planetar does *that*, it's damned impressive.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[tussock]

([...] but then someone defended the CR of the 3.5 5-headed hydra
as CR 4 as reasonable too.)

Hey now! That was me, as it happens. I see it may well be a play
style thing; Hydras are the easiest thing in the world to defeat, as
long as you don't have any compulsion to try and kill them with
unoptimised characters.

Plus, I got brassed off that those arguing it was too deadly were
adding +2 EL or more with encounter assumptions, making it the
equivilent of a CR 6. Begging the question and all that.


The Planetar? It's just plain bad monster design. If it wants 17th
level casting it's got to be CR 17+ and have the HD and stats to support
that. Plus, summons can't possibly be balanced using CR or HD.

[DougL]

Post by tussock

([...] but then someone defended the CR of the 3.5 5-headed hydra
as CR 4 as reasonable too.)

Hey now! That was me, as it happens. I see it may well be a play
style thing; Hydras are the easiest thing in the world to defeat, as
long as you don't have any compulsion to try and kill them with
unoptimised characters.

Someguy was maintaining they could actually kill it without serious
risk and posted far more to the thread than you did. You simply claimed
it was easily avoidable and that avoiding it could count as a win. The
thing works fine as a "you have to avoid this" style encounter at level
4, but IMAO that makes it higher than CR4. "I defeat" and "I run away"
aren't always synonymous and when they are that's a negative EL
adjustment IMAO.

I note that I was one of the few people agreeing with you that evading
an encounter still gave XP. But in general that XP is likely to be
ad-hocced down (whether or not they kill it if the fight is avoidable
IMC), and the PCs should be able to KILL a monster of equal CR if for
instance once every year or so it sneaks out of it's bog and kills a
herdsman or two so the village needs it to be killed. And they should
be able to kill it in its natural habitat. Fat chance with the Hydra.

Post by tussock
Plus, I got brassed off that those arguing it was too deadly were
adding +2 EL or more with encounter assumptions, making it the
equivilent of a CR 6. Begging the question and all that.
The Planetar? It's just plain bad monster design. If it wants 17th
level casting it's got to be CR 17+ and have the HD and stats to support
that. Plus, summons can't possibly be balanced using CR or HD.

HD are hopeless. They simply don't correspond to actual power in any
meaningful way. Pity that's the one the authors chose for planar ally
and planar binding. Requires that those spells be nerfed for a
reasonable world.

ECL is the only way to go with the present rules, which disallows
summoning of anything without a listed LA. Yet another reason for my
claim that 4.0 should give EVERYTHING an LA even if it can't possibly
be a PC.

DougL

[Del Rio]

Post by tussock
The Planetar? It's just plain bad monster design. If it wants 17th
level casting it's got to be CR 17+ and have the HD and stats to support
that. Plus, summons can't possibly be balanced using CR or HD.

Well, not *necesarily*, though... I haven't reviewed it, but
it might be bad design or it might be the fact that a 17th
level "caster" isn't necessarily equivalent to an actual 17th
level adventurer with all his magical equipment.

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

Post by Del Rio
Well, not *necesarily*, though... I haven't reviewed it, but
it might be bad design or it might be the fact that a 17th
level "caster" isn't necessarily equivalent to an actual 17th
level adventurer with all his magical equipment.

That's what I wondered, but when I looked at, its stats and special
abilities give it effective better equipment than a PC cleric of
equivalent level.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by Del Rio
Well, not *necesarily*, though... I haven't reviewed it, but
it might be bad design or it might be the fact that a 17th
level "caster" isn't necessarily equivalent to an actual 17th
level adventurer with all his magical equipment.

That's what I wondered, but when I looked at, its stats and special
abilities give it effective better equipment than a PC cleric of
equivalent level.

That was certainly our conclusion when we saw it in action in
v3.0 (City of the Spider Queen). The PCs summoned two of them
and they were considerably more powerful than the PC cleric. Much
of a PC's equipment is meant to cover vulnerabilities which the
angels cover in other ways (SR, DR, immunities). They thrashed
balors with ease. The player (who is usually more tolerant of
one-spell-solutions than I am) recommended that we not allow this
in the future.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Gary Johnson]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by Del Rio
Well, not *necesarily*, though... I haven't reviewed it, but
it might be bad design or it might be the fact that a 17th
level "caster" isn't necessarily equivalent to an actual 17th
level adventurer with all his magical equipment.

That's what I wondered, but when I looked at, its stats and special
abilities give it effective better equipment than a PC cleric of
equivalent level.

That was certainly our conclusion when we saw it in action in
v3.0 (City of the Spider Queen). The PCs summoned two of them
and they were considerably more powerful than the PC cleric. Much
of a PC's equipment is meant to cover vulnerabilities which the
angels cover in other ways (SR, DR, immunities). They thrashed
balors with ease. The player (who is usually more tolerant of
one-spell-solutions than I am) recommended that we not allow this
in the future.

IIRC, one of the reasons it's supposed to be "okay" to have such powerful
summoned creatures is that a summoned creature can be sent away with
spells like dismissal and dispel magic, may be unable to attack opponents
using protection from good and unholy aura (1), and so on. For example,
Balors have greater dispel magic and unholy aura at will, CL 20 - if the
angels were summoned (and not called), the balor could have tried
dispelling the summoning spell.

Cheers,

Gary Johnson

(1) If reasonably sure unholy aura has a "send good-aligned outsiders
away" effect - sorry, can't access the SRD to check.

[Justin Fang]

Post by Gary Johnson

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
That was certainly our conclusion when we saw it in action in
v3.0 (City of the Spider Queen). The PCs summoned two of them
and they were considerably more powerful than the PC cleric. Much
of a PC's equipment is meant to cover vulnerabilities which the
angels cover in other ways (SR, DR, immunities). They thrashed
balors with ease. The player (who is usually more tolerant of
one-spell-solutions than I am) recommended that we not allow this
in the future.

IIRC, one of the reasons it's supposed to be "okay" to have such powerful
summoned creatures is that a summoned creature can be sent away with
spells like dismissal and dispel magic, may be unable to attack opponents
using protection from good and unholy aura (1), and so on. For example,
Balors have greater dispel magic and unholy aura at will, CL 20 - if the
angels were summoned (and not called), the balor could have tried
dispelling the summoning spell.

Except that the angels in question were from a Greater Planar Ally spell,
which calls, not summons, creatures.

[Gary Johnson]

Post by Justin Fang

Post by Gary Johnson
IIRC, one of the reasons it's supposed to be "okay" to have such
powerful summoned creatures is that a summoned creature can be sent
away with spells like dismissal and dispel magic <snip>

Except that the angels in question were from a Greater Planar Ally
spell, which calls, not summons, creatures.

Fair enough - I'm surprised the Balors didn't have any luck with blasphemy
(they have a 55% chance of overcoming the Planetar's spell resistance, and
if they do the Planetar is paralysed, weakened and dazed), but I guess
that's just how the dice fall.

We're facing a similar decision in the last part of SCAP - we're about to
go face off against the last set of big bads, and we're trying to decide
whether or not to gate in a Solar. We figure we'll get back the GP
"donated to a church of the Solar's choice" from the treasure of the first
big bad we defeat, and then the rest is gravy. :-)

Cheers,

Gary Johnson

[Justin Fang]

Post by Gary Johnson

Post by Justin Fang

Post by Gary Johnson
IIRC, one of the reasons it's supposed to be "okay" to have such
powerful summoned creatures is that a summoned creature can be sent
away with spells like dismissal and dispel magic <snip>

Except that the angels in question were from a Greater Planar Ally
spell, which calls, not summons, creatures.

Fair enough - I'm surprised the Balors didn't have any luck with blasphemy
(they have a 55% chance of overcoming the Planetar's spell resistance, and
if they do the Planetar is paralysed, weakened and dazed), but I guess
that's just how the dice fall.

If this was being run under 3.0, Blasphemy wouldn't do anything more than
daze a Planetar for 1 round. For that matter, under 3.0, you don't even need
the 8th-level Greater Planar Ally to call a Planetar; the 6th-level Planar
Ally will do it. There isn't even an XP cost. Cast a 6th level spell to
call something that can cast 9th level spells; I'd forgotten how unbalanced
that was.

Post by Gary Johnson
We're facing a similar decision in the last part of SCAP - we're about to
go face off against the last set of big bads, and we're trying to decide
whether or not to gate in a Solar. We figure we'll get back the GP
"donated to a church of the Solar's choice" from the treasure of the first
big bad we defeat, and then the rest is gravy. :-)

Ah, that brings up another potential hole in the system: the "gate cascade",
where the first Solar casts Gate to call in another Solar, who Gates in
another...

[David Alex Lamb]

Post by DougL
The presumption would have to be that lack of gear based special powers
and 3 fewer HD make it weaker than an actual level 16 Cleric. This is
perfectly reasonable if you note that it's gear doesn't include a Holy
Symbol, and thus that it can't cast 90%+ of those spells :).

I'd be inclined to rule that a planetar serves as its own holy symbol.

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Chances are suprisingly good that DougL was not wearing pants when he or

Post by DougL
(IIRC when this came up on the D&D group someone did defend the CR as
reasonable, but then someone defended the CR of the 3.5 5-headed hydra
as CR 4 as reasonable too.)

EEK. I was about to defend it too but then I looked at the new
description. They made ALL hydras grow back heads in 3.5! And the amount
of Fast Healing they gave them is nuts. That's got to be a 3.0 CR they
forgot to change, because in 3.0 that was pretty reasonable.

[DougL]

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Chances are suprisingly good that DougL was not wearing pants when he or

Post by DougL
(IIRC when this came up on the D&D group someone did defend the CR as
reasonable, but then someone defended the CR of the 3.5 5-headed hydra
as CR 4 as reasonable too.)

EEK. I was about to defend it too but then I looked at the new
description. They made ALL hydras grow back heads in 3.5! And the amount
of Fast Healing they gave them is nuts. That's got to be a 3.0 CR they
forgot to change, because in 3.0 that was pretty reasonable.

Same CR 4 as 3.0 for a normal 5-headed. Fast healing 15 and regrowing
heads are minor advantages that don't need to be represented by CR.

DougL