The Gaming Den

K wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

K wrote:For uncreative types who don't want to have a create an excuse each time, we can even have a Gygaxian chart to inject random story reasons into the overall story arc.

Hell yeah! That could be a lot of fun.

I'll admit a fondness for Gygaxian charts. Wands of Wonder are super fun.

My group cannot resist the lure of the Deck of Many Things, despite our near-certainty of horrible party-death from it.

virgileso wrote:My sister and I loved the wands of wonder. So much so we obtained an even larger random magical effect chart, ten thousand different results. Much to my sister's annoyance, I later created a set of three charts where the effects don't deviate too much in power; because the 10k chart has effects that include "nearest star goes supernova" or "nearest castle turns into chocolate".

Do you have a link to that 10,000-entry Wand of Wonder table? My DM has a 600-entry wild surge table I printed out years ago, but 10,000 entries seems irresistible. Or even your less-deviant edited table, if possible?

Look for The Net Libram of Random Magical Effects v1.20 [Orrex]

http://gnba.netdemons.com/books/olik/Spells_Magic.html

ckafrica wrote:Well one problem with just telling everybody that they are finishing at level 10 is that players like a sense of progress and they are always looking forward to what's ahead. I know there will be people jonesing for the higher teared abilities that they have in the book. People will want to finish up their PrC and all that jazz. If you slow down level progression to allow for a longer story than they are gonna feel like their characters are stagnating. I honestly like having a new thing after every chapter to draw on. Something that makes me feel my character is better; cooler. With levels its all or nothing so the longer you want to drag out 10 levels the less the characters feel like they're moving.

This is called "having a spine". If the vision you have goes only to 10, then it goes only to 10. And if your players' visions go beyond that, then what you'll have to deal about's the opinion difference, not the presence of late levels somehow forcing you to use them.

ckafrica wrote:But that is probably why I've always preferred the idea of no levels no classes (heck no attributes) Just a list of abilities that you can from after every game so you always feel like you got something from the adventure more than loot.

Explain why you aren't playing GURPS.

The Deck of Many Things is your DM telling you that the campaign is over and he wants it to go out with the sounds a whoopy cushion makes.

-Username17

That's about the only real problem with the Libram, is that results as campaign destroying as the Deck of Many Things exist within it, although the chances are fairly small in comparison to stuff like "your body will sing and dance for a minute after death"; and yes, this means there are a number of effects which have no visible effect until sometime later when they're properly triggered.

Deck of Many Things (shudders).

That says all I think of it.


One of my old dms was a monte haller and the deck didn't help. I was already tired of the campaign and had a death wish by then kept pulling from the deck and just kept getting lucky.

I think in the end, I and another character just pooled all the wealth and good fortune we got from the wealth and colonized the known world so that there would be safehouses every X miles down the road and forts to protect each X-radius mile area.

A_Cynic wrote:Deck of Many Things (shudders).

That says all I think of it.

Agreed. If you have to use stupidity to end the campaign, just have a Katamari roll the whole world up.

I think in the end, I and another character just pooled all the wealth and good fortune we got from the wealth and colonized the known world so that there would be safehouses every X miles down the road and forts to protect each X-radius mile area.

What you should have done is unite the world under one common language and currency... oh wait. Never mind.

Bigode wrote:

ckafrica wrote:But that is probably why I've always preferred the idea of no levels no classes (heck no attributes) Just a list of abilities that you can from after every game so you always feel like you got something from the adventure more than loot.

Explain why you aren't playing GURPS.

I must warn you; attempts to make a d20 classless and leveless game will only lead to madness.
D&D d20, as it is in any form of 3e or 4e, can not work without a complete gutting.

Go for GURPS, or TriStat for a close second.
Or, make your own non-WOTC-derivative.
That's why I'm starting over.


The Deck is a death sentence every time. Players might think "oh the risk of being 'stuck in a void' is so slim, I'll never get it" but the chance is there, and closer with every card drawn.

Koumei wrote:
What you should have done is unite the world under one common language and currency... oh wait. Never mind.

Next step. Don't you know, it's all part of the grand plan. ^_~

The problem with skills in 3.5E was that you constantly had to sink points into them, or they would fall off of the RNG really quickly.

I really think the rank system just requires too much attention. The skill system should be more like Shadowrun's, IMO, where missing out on one or two dice won't leave you incompetent at the task.

The 13 Wise Buttlords wrote:The problem with skills in 3.5E was that you constantly had to sink points into them, or they would fall off of the RNG really quickly.

I really think the rank system just requires too much attention. The skill system should be more like Shadowrun's, IMO, where missing out on one or two dice won't leave you incompetent at the task.

I tried to address this problem but the reaction here has been mixed to put it mildly.

The Deck of Many Things is a wonderful idea for a magic item...it's just that the effects are so damn powerful. Any item that can auto-kill you is bad. Now, an item that can inconveniance you could be amusing.

F'rinstance, instead of being imprisoned by some Slaad lord or whatever, maybe the Donjon would make you owe a favor to said outsider. Plot hook!

They made another Deck at one point, just to make use of the retraining rules. It was awful. It had things like "retrain points from one ability score into another", "retrain your race into Dwarf. If you had levels in a class that a dwarf cannot take, such as ElfDancer, retrain them."

Ditto for classes, skills, alignments etc.

It was more or less impossible to actually get a good result. Drawing a card almost certainly meant shooting yourself in the foot. The best way to use it would be to deliver it as a gift to the BBEG. Or to destroy it in a ritual to the god of your choice.

Koumei wrote:They made another Deck at one point, just to make use of the retraining rules. It was awful. It had things like "retrain points from one ability score into another", "retrain your race into Dwarf. If you had levels in a class that a dwarf cannot take, such as ElfDancer, retrain them."

Ditto for classes, skills, alignments etc.

It was more or less impossible to actually get a good result. Drawing a card almost certainly meant shooting yourself in the foot. The best way to use it would be to deliver it as a gift to the BBEG. Or to destroy it in a ritual to the god of your choice.

This is why it is good to be an artificer. They get a class ability to destroy artifacts.

Koumei wrote:They made another Deck at one point, just to make use of the retraining rules. It was awful. It had things like "retrain points from one ability score into another", "retrain your race into Dwarf. If you had levels in a class that a dwarf cannot take, such as ElfDancer, retrain them."

Ditto for classes, skills, alignments etc.

It was more or less impossible to actually get a good result. Drawing a card almost certainly meant shooting yourself in the foot. The best way to use it would be to deliver it as a gift to the BBEG. Or to destroy it in a ritual to the god of your choice.

You know, the Deck of many things and this Deck make me reconsider the whole Tome Honor system. Fvck the honor system. I'm just going to go around destroy magic items from now on.

Not just artifacts, not just those two items. ALL magic items. I just have RAGEEEE! -- It seems to be the case that I probably must have picked a card from the second deck that Koumei quoted and now I am one of those stupid Forsaker characters.

I hate that fvcking deck. It always seems to break stuff, and never in the cool plot hook ways that less random artifacts do.

Last time I saw one, a DM in a game I was playing was trying to resurrect interest in his game, instead of letting it die honorably. Since the party wouldn't listen to me and toss it in the river so it could randomly ruin someone else's life, they all drew and got good stuff. Stuff that put them well above my already level behind Bard (it was early 3.0, and I didn't realize what a poor choice that was at the time). Being super useless now, I sucked it up and drew 3...

Alignment changed to LE.
Gained 2 levels, which weren't in bard due to alignment change.
Imprisoned at center of the earth.

At which point I left the game happy and contented, cause even if he couldn't end it on an awesome note I got to leave it on a memorably jacked one.

Bigode wrote:

ckafrica wrote:But that is probably why I've always preferred the idea of no levels no classes (heck no attributes) Just a list of abilities that you can from after every game so you always feel like you got something from the adventure more than loot.

Explain why you aren't playing GURPS.

Been there. it was not bad but it certainly suffered from the problem of not a lot of interesting things you could do, unless you were a wizard, other than hit things. (Well I do recall some extra stuff in martial arts that improved that) Also it was a tad too slushy and ranged attacks went into too much math. Also DR was all or nothing so weak guys had to be damn good to get past their armored spots.

In general 3e gurps (i've never looked at the newer ed.) was a bit too complex. Has the lastest one been simplified?

I switched completely over to WoD for most of college and didn't touch any other RPGs in a meaningful way until 3e came out and that's all anyone was playing. It took until 3.5 to come out that I realized that it didn't do what I wanted it to do.

sigma999 wrote: I must warn you; attempts to make a d20 classless and leveless game will only lead to madness.
D&D d20, as it is in any form of 3e or 4e, can not work without a complete gutting.

I did notice this as well. I've largely given up on doing anything more than a few tweaks, though I was considering making all spellcasters cast at the bard's progression to tone them down a bit.

Now that everyone's hatred of 4th Edition has sunk in, what are everyone's updated feelings on the Dumbass Melee Fighter?

Because guys who liked the Dumbass Melee Fighter--4th Edition was CUSTOM MADE for you! 4th Edition was custom made for the people who think that Gimli with an axe should be viable for 30 levels of play!

Are you enjoying your edition? You fucknuts better be, I have to put up with four to seven fucking years of this bullshit.

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Are you enjoying your edition? You fucknuts better be, I have to put up with four to seven fucking years of this bullshit.

Awesome. Just awesome.

Anyone ever read Gotrek & Felix? Gotrek is a dwarf with a magic axe. The axe has buffed the shit out of him and his basically +X against big bad evil things. Now the thing is about that magic axe is that it WASN'T enchanted by wizards. Dwarves in the setting don't do magic, not regular magic. They do Runes. Physical symbols that caused magical effects, basically.

Remember Bruenor Battlehammer from the Drizzt Do'urden series? He managed to create Aegis Fang, a freaky magic hammer but I can say for sure he was no magic caster. It involved an extensive ritual though.

That's what I tried to do once, give non-magic casters a way to enchant their gear without the aid of a magic caster. It would take a feat and likely an entire system all on its own, some ranks in Skills like Knowledge Arcana, Religion or Planes depending on the exact nature of the enchantment and craft. Some wierd rules about the difference between putting the runes in during the forging and post-forge rune work and all the stuff that makes 3.5 wierdly difficult and wierdly fun.

I dunno, that dwarven rune magic counts close enough to 'regular magic' to me, at least when it comes to enchanting weapons and armor (keep in mind the version of Warhammer Dwarf rune magic probably isn't the same as yours, they've changed it around half dozen times or so).

But, yeah, DnD4.0 is pretty much the fighter's edition...make fighters the same as wizards, and make magic missile the same as shooting a crossbow, like a fighter.

Which is why I don't like 4e. I refuse to rag on 4e because some people like 4e for what it's done and ra-ra, more power to them.

For me, the difference between rune magic and regular magic (Other then dwarves and elves), is how it's implemented and the general feel. Like, you could believe a guy carved magic runes into a blade and still not be called a wizard. Also, Rune Forging, if it were an actual feat, should totally be a Bonus Fighter feat (And also have it's own list of enchantments and their levels corresponding to your Craft and every knew supplement would have new Rune Forges and suddenly, Bleach).

MGuy, 'magical' is a word that's prone to equivocation so I'm going to have to ask you to settle on a definition.

Do you mean 'magical' as in:

Supernatural stuff? This includes Superman's eyebeams, Ranma's ability to jump 60 feet in the air, runes on axes, and magic missiles.

Or magical as in a label like spellcasting?