ruemere said:
Re: swimming / another trait
Still, all one needs is a simple free rank or two in a skill to avoid adding to default character model.
Perhaps, though I'd have it work differently than a normal skill. I know it'd be slightly more confusing to have yet another mechanic, but the current skill system to me seems like someone took the old Thief skills, tidied them up, and then said "hey, let's see how much else we can stuff into this same model", with some results working better than others.
Re: when rolls disagree with character's concept
No quarrel here. I prefer character creation with lower degree of randomness. It allows, among other thing, for planning social aspect of party adventuring. For example, some campaigns I run rely on characters being members of a team of similar individuals, only later developing into more unique personalities. There was also one short adventure based on a concept of characters being very similar, slowly evolving and becoming unique, and finally, at the end of the story, realizing that they are merely parts of one split personality travelling through dream realm, and that in order to survive and wake they have to sacrifice their individuality.
That's a brilliant adventure concept...sometime, I might just have to borrow that one.
The trick with any such thing is to get the players to buy in up front; for a long-term campaign it's tough to convince everyone to start out as a Dwarf, or as part of the same militia unit, or whatever. For one-offs, it's much easier.
Re: Treasure and components
I don't. My real gaming started with WFRP, where treasure is scarce to nonexistent. I like the idea of simple sacrifice system. It's just that in a system where you can easily access items worth thousands of gold pieces (or rely on monster-of-the-week type of opposition to avoid handing out too many magic weapons), it's not as easy.
You can easily access lots o' loot only if the DM puts (or leaves) it there to be accessed. Perhaps the 4e DMG could include an option section on low-to-no-wealth campaigns, and suggest the corollary adjustments; I suspect many would find that useful.
Re: Abuse of transportation spells
Umm, we're talking about 4th edition core rules, right? And how should they differ from 3rd.
Rest assured that I have designed some home-made prevention systems, still, as per core rules, defense mechanism for one castle would drain up resources of medium size kingdom.
I don't like tweaking starndards too much, though, as it sometimes breaks up adventures and adds too many little exceptions over the course of campaigning.
As far as I'm concerned, everything is there to be tweaked.
Temple defenses are the easiest; all you need is a high-level "Ceremony" spell that gets cast once and renewed each year, granting the temple all kinds of divine defenses. A variant on said spell could exist for palaces.
Also, SH&T problem is a little more complex thing than simple transportation issue. It's all about spells being superior to mundane means of solving problems while, IMHO, they should offer only equally viable alternative.
I hear you. Unfortunately, in a magic-based world such as most D+D realms, spells become the superior method of problem-solving. There's been threads in here recently, for example, about how magic would impact day-to-day medieval life with relative mundanities like continual-light streetlights...hardly the stuff of heroism, but that's logically what'd happen; it's probably something the core books should at least touch on. As for adventuring spell abuse...that's what spells are for, ain't it?
Re: Resurrection failure chance
There were sessions where I failed my own resurrection roll more than once. It hurt, especially when you played tough warrior with 16 Constitution.
I've failed my share too...but that doesn't mean I want the failure chance not to exist; I'd like to see it brought back in 4e.
Re: scaling damage and too much damage at a time:
*sigh* Does not work with spellcasters on the opposing side.
If you let the enemy casters last long enough to get away several area-effect blast spells you've got problems the rules can't solve in any edition.
Re: disruptive, or temporary disabling vs temporary killing
I prefer dying to be a rather important in game event instead of save/load pause.
I prefer it to be somewhere in between. 3e as written had it much more save-reboot than I liked; from what I gather 3.5 fixed this somewhat, but this is one area where 1e actually worked well. If a death or two is that disruptive to your game, that's probably something specific to your particular table rather than the design. I'll be very disappointed (though, sadly, not surprised) if 4e nerfs death or makes it much harder to die.
Re: character similarity in mechanics:
True. However, I'm talking about steretyping caused by the system, not how the players are supposed to circumvent it. Also, about how rock-paper-scissor type of system leads to unbalancing encounters (and to certain predictability).
You can pour the same foundation for 10 houses, but each house will end up very different once built and lived in. I think we might have to agree to disagree on this one...
Re: 100-level scaling
There are games which handle this type of scaling while maintaining high attractiveness. The curve of power increase does not need to be steep provided you avoid giving out binary powers[1] and allow for character growth unrelated to combat effectiveness.
True. But every time you increase or augment a power of any kind, the player has to do the requisite bookkeeping, and at my table that's just asking for headaches. I mean, as a player I try to keep half-decent records, and even then I screw up on a regular basis (usually with 3e combat modifiers); if I was level-bumping every session instead of every several months, the mistakes would only multiply. In the 1e games I run, bumping happens rarely enough that they (usually) can stay on top of the bookkeeping...but tracking treasury items and possessions (i.e., things that change often) is a nightmare! So, from a design perspective, the fewer things that change on a regular basis, the better; an example is base stats. When a base stat changes it changes lots of other things as well, every one of which can then be screwed up; and 3e has stats changing on a whim from items, buff spells, poison, etc.
[1] Binary power:
Power which yields definitive result (usually success or failure), irrespectively of circumstances.
Examples: Detect Evil spell. Detect Magic spells.
I've no problem with things like this as castable spells, if only because they last a short time and then Go Away. They get broken when made into permanent abilities via Permanence spell (this is one spell that needs to be made *much* higher level, much harder to cast, or reworked so it's not just an ability provider).
Lanefan
