Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 6:15 pm

Check out Expedition to Undermountain. It's one of the hardbound modules WotC put out towards the end of 3.5's run, so it's a good length. It's designed to go from level 1 to 9 or 10.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 2:55 am

So what are the different Exalted types? I don't mean Zenith Caste vs Dawn Caste vs Noon Caste or whatever. But Lunar, Solar, Abyssal, Floptysmal etc.

The ones I can name are:
Solar: the core group, the ones the game assumes players are. They're humans who suddenly became awesome, and are empowered by ??? and charged with the duty of ???. Also they're jerks. They're probably supposed to cover things like "Any character played by Jackie Chan", "Any major general from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and probably some flavour of anime - possibly WW were thinking Dragonball but didn't actually give them the mechanics to match that power level.

Lunar: werewolves? This is literally all I know. "Probably werewolves".

Sidereal: this is the name for one of the groups. That's all I know.

Abyssal and Infernal: one of these is for undead Solars, the other for demonic traitor Solars? Or ones that didn't turn traitor, they were empowered by the forces of badness or something? "The baddies".

Alchemical: golems and crap, they can be created by people sort of maybe, but were first made by ??? and are probably there to maintain reality or something, like the McCafree of the Universe. This is for playing a Ghost in the Shell character, or Nano from Nichijou.

I'm aware that I'm better off not knowing about the clusterfuck of shit that makes up the setting, call it scholarly curiosity or something. It's better than reading the books to find out, or playing it.

Antariuk · Post by **Antariuk** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 3:07 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Annoying question: Has there been any decent 3e/Pathfinder dungeon crawls written for low levels? I'm talking a HUGE dungeon crawl (but smaller than The World's Largest Dungeon).

I got the idea of running a campaign based loosely on the story of Lord Robilar and the Tomb of Horrors, except with the PCs as the expendable followers (with the assumption they'll say "fuck this guy" and stab him in the face at some point).

If you're into 3rd party materials, Rappan Athuk is considered to be one of the better dungeon crawls out there. Its huge, and you can get an older d20 version cheap (also, they had a Kickstarter for a Pathfinder version recently, IIRC).

Prak_Anima wrote:Check out Expedition to Undermountain. It's one of the hardbound modules WotC put out towards the end of 3.5's run, so it's a good length. It's designed to go from level 1 to 9 or 10.

I haven't read it, but you can find a lot of mixed/negative reviews about EtU. I always used the Return to Undermountain series from the Wizard's Archives and filled it with pieces from other modules.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 3:19 pm

Koumei wrote:So what are the different Exalted types? I don't mean Zenith Caste vs Dawn Caste vs Noon Caste or whatever. But Lunar, Solar, Abyssal, Floptysmal etc.


Type	Chosen of...	Has the power of...
Solar	The sun ("perfection")	doing stuff best
Lunar	The moon ("change")	shapeshifting
Sidereal	The fates	doing things differently
Dragonblooded	The poles ("elements")	elemental powers
Alchemical	Prometheus (kinda)	built-in gadgets
Abyssal	Oblivion ("Death")	Killing stuff and acting like an undead
Infernal	The titans (various stuff)	doing stuff the titans can do

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 7:12 pm

Abyssals are Solars who are both corrupted and sad. They are vampires, but usually forget. It's a WW game, so they are even better and special we than anyone, but are miserable anyway.

There are also Not-Technically-Exalted that you care about anyway:
Raksha - they are fairies. Insane, outside the world, eat-your-dreams style faeries. Heavy on the Borgstromancy.
Lizard kings - ancient, sentient bioengineering dinosaurs. The books all write like there are detailed rules for them. I have never found those rules.
Spirits/Gods/Demons/elementals - an unordered grab-bag of stuff. They all grab from the same bag though.
Ghosts - Now with surprisingly detailed rules.
Humans in giant robot suits - they have the power of support staff.

flare22 · Post by **flare22** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:56 pm

invisibility gets dispelled if you attack someone you perceive as a threat does that include unintentional harm?

for instance if your trying to sneak through a room invisibly and step on a bug that's part of a swarm you perceived the swarm as a threat but you did not intend to hurt the swarm does this count and an attack for the purpose of ending your invisibility?

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 12:08 am

Your example is not an attack, nor does it cause appreciable harm.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 12:45 am

Thanks Phoenix. Which one had the Sailor Moon teamAstrological symbols? I'm hoping it's the Dragon-blooded so you can have Mars Fire, Mercury Ice (being nearest to the Sun makes you cold!), Jupiter Lightning, Venus Lasers and Earth... $undefined

fectin: what's borgstromancy?

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 1:22 am

Technically, Venus is love or high energy plasma. Or whips.
Earth is clearly cheerleading/insincere speeches. With roses.
Jupiter is lightning and wood.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 1:36 am

Answering for phoenix, it's Sidereals. On the plus side, their patrons are implied lesbians and have probably just been trolling them for the past 6000 years.

Borgstromancy is the art of deciphering the writings of Rebecca Sean Borgstrom (now Jenna Moran). She wrote Nobilis and Weapons of the Gods, and a lot of the first edition Exalted stuff. The most broken parts of Exalted 2E are mostly things she wrote in 1E that were ported badly by other people (e.g. dropped keywords, etc.). They might have been questionable before, but they were bad after. The trick is to take everything absolutely literally, and don't make any assumptions.

flare22 · Post by **flare22** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 1:40 am

so the key is appreciable harm so if i was using invisibility to sneak past a bearded devil but i have a bad move silently i can totally use a fire ball to create enough noise to cover my passage because said devil is immune fire and it wont cause appreciable harm and my intent was distraction not attack

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 1:42 am

If you make an attack roll, or cast a spell that either targets an enemy, or includes them in the area of effect, then Invisibility should break:

The spell ends if the subject attacks any creature. For purposes of this spell, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe. (Exactly who is a foe depends on the invisible character’s perceptions.) Actions directed at unattended objects do not break the spell. Causing harm indirectly is not an attack. Thus, an invisible being can open doors, talk, eat, climb stairs, summon monsters and have them attack, cut the ropes holding a rope bridge while enemies are on the bridge, remotely trigger traps, open a portcullis to release attack dogs, and so forth. If the subject attacks directly, however, it immediately becomes visible along with all its gear. Spells such as bless that specifically affect allies but not foes are not attacks for this purpose, even when they include foes in their area.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 1:59 am

Right.
Swarms are a little weird, because they're made up of constituent parts though. Stepping on the bug is kind of like coup-de-gracing it, which would normally be an attack. I would say in that case though, that the swarm is the only creature, because the individual critters in a swarm can't be attacked individually (otherwise fireballs would destroy swarms). That means individual bugs are not creatures, and the fact that crushing them does not harm the swarm means you probably should not construe an attack on one as an attack on the swarm.

flare22 · Post by **flare22** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 3:38 am

right so fireball was a bad example lets say i used and alchemist fire instead could i through it near the demon and sneak past using the sound to cover my moment?

and if the swarm is the deciding factor what if i just covered the floor with Beatles of something would stepping on one remove my invisibility if they were not a swarm?

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 3:52 pm

So, BRP has this chart for opposed rolls for d100, and I know D&D had something similar. Are these copyright or something, or are they Just Math, and therefore free to rip off?

Post by **fbmf** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 7:45 pm

I seem to remember, in 3.x, there being a way for a zombie to move and attack if it Charged as per the rule, but Charging is a full round action and zombies only get a standard.

Did I make the zombie/charge attack thing up? I would have sworn I read it somewhere. Was that a 3.0 thing before Andy "fixed" the charging rules?

Game On,
fbmf

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 7:52 pm

fbmf wrote:I seem to remember, in 3.x, there being a way for a zombie to move and attack if it Charged as per the rule, but Charging is a full round action and zombies only get a standard.

Did I make the zombie/charge attack thing up? I would have sworn I read it somewhere. Was that a 3.0 thing before Andy "fixed" the charging rules?

Game On,
fbmf

If you for some reason are only allowed one action per-turn (and only under such circumstances) you are allowed to make a "partial charge" where you move your speed and make an attack as a standard action. This generally applies to zombies and people who have been Slowed (but not to people who have been nauseated)

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 7:53 pm

I think it was called a "partial charge". You could only charge one move action's worth of distance.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 8:10 pm

Meikle641 wrote:So, BRP has this chart for opposed rolls for d100, and I know D&D had something similar. Are these copyright or something, or are they Just Math, and therefore free to rip off?

You're free to rip that off because you can't copyright tables that invert number lines. However, this is the 21st century and if you are seriously considering making look up tables to speed up the process of comparing two roll-under rolls, you're first going to need to finish baking your clay tablets proclaiming that those kids should get off your lawn.

Seriously man: don't fucking do that. It's terrible. Instead of asking people to compare margins of success for roll under rolls, just add the skill to the natural roll, set the base target number to 100, and have the higher total win. For fuck's sake, THAC0 style math is so twentieth century.

-Username17

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 8:27 pm

[url=http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm wrote:Charge description[/url]]If you are able to take only a standard action or a move action on your turn, you can still charge, but you are only allowed to move up to your speed (instead of up to double your speed). You can’t use this option unless you are restricted to taking only a standard action or move action on your turn.

Post by **fbmf** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 8:36 pm

I drink a lot, but, even so, I have no idea how I missed that. Thanks for the responses.

Game On,
fbmf

SlyJohnny · Post by **SlyJohnny** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 4:29 am

fbmf wrote:I seem to remember, in 3.x, there being a way for a zombie to move and attack if it Charged as per the rule, but Charging is a full round action and zombies only get a standard.

Did I make the zombie/charge attack thing up? I would have sworn I read it somewhere. Was that a 3.0 thing before Andy "fixed" the charging rules?

Game On,
fbmf

The entry on zombies also says "A zombie can move up to its speed and attack in the same round, but only if it attempts a charge".

This is more of a probability question, but I wasn't sure where else to post it. When a hero is taken out of action in Mordheim, you roll two d6 and compare the results to a table (with results from 11-66). So that's a 1 in 36 chance for any individual value to come up, right? However, a result of 16 or 21 (so a 2 in 36 chance) means "multiple injuries", where you have to roll 1d6 more times on the table, ignoring and rerolling on eight specific values (including the two "multiple injuries" results, so you never get two sets of multiple injuries and only ever have to roll 1d6 more times).

With this in mind:

What is the percentage chance of rolling "multiple injuries"?

What is the percentage chance of rolling any individual value (one that that isn't covered in the eight exceptions to "multiple injuries" additional rolls) at least once, once you take into account the initial 2 in 36 chance of having 1d6 additional injuries?

What is the percentage chance of initially rolling any one of the six values that isn't "multiple injuries" and are specifically excluded from being one of multiple injuries?

What is the percentage chance of rolling a 31 at least twice?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 6:42 am

SlyJohnny wrote: What is the percentage chance of rolling "multiple injuries"?

Multiple injuries comes up on 2 rolls, and not on repeat rolls, so it's 2/36 or 5.6%.

What is the percentage chance of rolling any individual value (one that that isn't covered in the eight exceptions to "multiple injuries" additional rolls) at least once, once you take into account the initial 2 in 36 chance of having 1d6 additional injuries?

Well, it's approximately 1/36 + (3.5/28*2/36). Or 3.5%. Actually, it's a little less, because that's really the average number of rolled single results, and the average is tweaked very slightly by the chance of rolling multiple injuries and then rolling a 2 or more and then rolling the same result.

What is the percentage chance of initially rolling any one of the six values that isn't "multiple injuries" and are specifically excluded from being one of multiple injuries?

One in six.

What is the percentage chance of rolling a 31 at least twice?

Now we get into he bullshit. First of all, you have to roll multiple injuries. So that's 17/18 we can discard. Then you have to roll 2 or more on the multiple injuries. Each roll on the multiple injuries is 1/28. So you would have to total up all the chances for each of the five rolls of multiple injuries that you could get:

So that's a 1 in 84672 chance of you rolling multiple injuries, then rolling a 2, then rolling two 31s. Plus an 82 in 2379816 chance of you rolling multiple injuries and then rolling a 3, and then rolling at least two 31s. And so on all the way to six. It's a small number, by the way.

-Username17

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Apr 13, 2013 8:35 am

What beings in D&D would be reasonably considered "beastment"? I've got:

Gnolls
Lizardfolk
Grippli
Minotaurs
Loxo
Yakfolk
Aaarakocra

Trying to write a reasonably coherent "nation" of beings that are bestial and chaotic and trying to gather up the beast races (note that I don't want to use the Savage Species Furcigarrette Anthro template unless there hasn't been a printed goat person, then I'll use it).

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 9:02 am

For Beastmen, you got a lot of options:

Amphibians
Fire Newts
Bullywugs
Grippli
Neraph

Reptiles
Lizardfolk
Khaasta
Sarkrith
Ophidians
Yuan-ti
Troglodytes

Mammals - Carnivorous
Catfolk
Desmodu
Jackal Lords
Gnolls

Mammals - Herbivorous
Goatfolk
Giff
Loxo
Yakfolk
Minotaurs
Vanara

Birds
Aarakocra
Raptorans

Bugs
Crauds
Scorpionfolk
Thri-Kreen
Abeils

I'm missing a few, I'm sure of it. But I'll leave you with a Craud:

It's probably based on the Shrimp Soldiers that fight for the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea in Chinese mythology.

-Username17