The Gaming Den

FrankTrollman wrote:There is no spell that Harry Potter knows or can learn that will cause a fiery explosion that clears a room full of orcs. That is simply not on Harry's spell list.

You make a good point, but you picked a really shitty example.

Kaelik wrote:That is not "travelling backward through time."

Fuck do all you harry potter nerds who remember an obscure item from book 3 and the one time Harry ever used it not know who Merlin is?

Like, the "Meetings are sorrowful but Partings are joyous." Merlin.

The guy who literally lives in a backwards direction such that he begins his life as an old man and ends it as a baby? It is pretty fucking unique, and I'm willing to bet not duplicated by Harry Potter or Lina Inverse.

I haven't seen the curious case of merlin button. But, you implied that time travel was impossible to potter. In that universe backwards travel is definitely possible.

AndreiChekov wrote:I haven't seen the curious case of merlin button. But, you implied that time travel was impossible to potter. In that universe backwards travel is definitely possible.

No I fucking didn't you fucking idiot. Your stupidity and ignorance does not magically transform what I actually said into what you thought I said. I still said what I actually said, and you are still an idiot and wrong.

You make a good point, but you picked a really shitty example.

Not really, no. People in Harry Potterverse can make things explode, but they make like the sidecar of a motorcycle explode. They are small things. An Expulso spell is basically a single target attack that does some damage on a miss. They can also create fire. But it's actually slow and shitty fire. Incendio requires several castings and several minutes to get a good enough fire going to burn down a hut. It's basically offensively useless. Fiendfyre is powerful enough to kill a dude, but it actually summons a creature made out of fire that while tough enough to kill a dude is also slow enough for a child to get away from on foot.

When you compare it to Lina's "Fireball," which is an instantaneous area attack that takes twenty dudes if they aren't serious badasses, there's no comparison at all. There are no offensive spells that are in the same league as that on the spell list of anyone Harry Potter has ever met. And that's a spell that Lina uses when she's conserving mana.

Tussock wrote:To be blunt though, you still needs a Cleric class, for the Chosen of Cuthbert.

You genuinely don't. Priests of St. Cuthbert can and should just be Paladins. There is absolutely no thematic difference from the heavy armor wearing, weapon focused, healing and protection casting, undead hating, servants of righteousness that are Priests of St. Cuthbert and generic Paladins.

Maybe you want Paladins who can glow colors other than white and be non-righteous and maybe you don't. But either way, you are going to have Paladins who show up with heavy armor, a melee weapon, and some healing and protection powers for great justice - and that is totally thematically indistinguishable from a Priest of St. Cuthbert.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote: Merlin specializes in divination and healing, while Lina and Harry have almost no talent in that area. Indeed, in Lina's universe those things are specifically called out as Astral Magic and White Magic respectively, and Lina Inverse is a Black Sorceress. Those spells specifically exist in Lina Inverse's universe, and they are specifically not on her fucking spell list.

Lina Inverse specializes in throwing around giant arrows and spheres of fire and ice. Those spells do not exist in Merlin's or Harry's idiom. At all. There is no spell that Harry Potter knows or can learn that will cause a fiery explosion that clears a room full of orcs. That is simply not on Harry's spell list.

As shown above, The harry potter universe does have explosions of fire. So you're wrong about that.

About magic types, yes, I'm aware that the source material treats them as different magic systems, because they're from all different sources and weren't designed as characters in an RPG system, they're individuals designed in entirely different magic systems. But we're designing an RPG to simulate a variety of those characters, who will inevitably come from different backgrounds.

When you use a class system, you are taking a lot of different character concepts and trying to put them in classes. I'm aware that Lina casts different spells from Gandalf, but that's also true of two separate 6th level sorcerers who both may not share any spells in common as well. One sorcerer can have a bunch of divinations and summons, and another sorcerer can be a blaster. It's good game design to allow some versatility within the class so that you can have characters that specialize in different areas.

There's lots of spellcasters out there in fantasy and it's not a good idea to have a separate class for every single one. You want to let people who want to make a Harry Potter clone use your wizard class framework to design a character that's pretty similar to Potter. He takes a bunch of spells that are similar to what Potter casts. Maybe he takes some wand specialization feat so he carries a wand around. Hopefully, the rules allow you to get a character that looks pretty close to Harry Potter. Obviously it won't be exact, but that's okay, because this a generic fantasy RPG and not the Harry Potter RPG, so you don't have to simulate anyone perfectly, just close enough so that they can be represented.

But if everytime you run into a new fantasy character you need a new class for it, then you're really missing the point of a class system. If everyone is a unique snowflake, you're better off just using a character point system like Mutants and Masterminds or GURPS.

Cyberzombie wrote:When you use a class system, you are taking a lot of different character concepts and trying to put them in classes. I'm aware that Lina casts different spells from Gandalf, but that's also true of two separate 6th level sorcerers who both may not share any spells in common as well.

God damn you're an idiot. Look, Gandalf doesn't cast a lot of spells. But spells that he does cast mostly do have equivalents in the Slayers universe. And you know what? They are generally Astral spells. They are, in universe not on Lina's fucking list. There are spells equivalent to the Light of Anor the Lina knows about in-character, and she can't fucking cast them because in-universe there are multiple spell lists and she doesn't have access to the spell list those spells are on.

Lina Inverse comes from a universe where there are, explicitly, multiple classes of spellcaster. So we know, for a fact, that Lina Inverse would not be able to cast the spells that Gandalf casts. And by extension we know that Gandalf would not be able to cast the spells that Lina casts, even if their settings were merged.

-Username17

Also, Gandalf isn't a fucking spellcaster. Sure, he's a "Wizard" in his universe, but all of his magic comes from basically being a celestial. Gandalf is seriously better represented by writing up a race, or using Tome of Fiends.

the more i think of him i wouldn't even call Gandalf an entity but rather a part of "God" that he separated to do some specific tasks. dont recall much about his race except that the 5 were sent to Middle Earth to do some things to promote the wanted path for the world. I would consider them all: Gandalf, Radaghast, Sarumon, the two blues, as avatars of Ao or something similar in D&D terms. "Wizard" is jsut the name the people gave to him.

or you could view them as Zeus, Posiden, and Hades were to Cronos...

Kaelik wrote:Fuck do all you harry potter nerds who remember an obscure item from book 3 and the one time Harry ever used it not know who Merlin is?

No Harry and Lina are not Benjamin Buttons. your wording is throwing people off, as Merlin is not "traveling backwards through time", but growing backwards like Mork from Ork.

Merlin is traveling forwards through time in everyone else's perspective, though he is LIVING backwards temporally from his own, thus why he knows future events. Which still means he is traveling forwards through time, just his forward is in the opposite direction of everyone else.

could harry have done this? probably with the DHs and the philosopher's stone

shadzar wrote:the more i think of him i wouldn't even call Gandalf an entity but rather a part of "God" that he separated to do some specific tasks. dont recall much about his race except that the 5 were sent to Middle Earth to do some things to promote the wanted path for the world. I would consider them all: Gandalf, Radaghast, Sarumon, the two blues, as avatars of Ao or something similar in D&D terms. "Wizard" is jsut the name the people gave to him.

or you could view them as Zeus, Posiden, and Hades were to Cronos..

Gandalf and the other wizards are Maiar. So are balrogs and Sauron for that matter. In D&D terms they're a bit like demigods, while Valar are deities and Eru is the overdeity. However, each of these has their own will, goals, and desires - the Maiar are as much a part of Eru as your children are a part of you. In both cases they are related and may share goals, but are not the same entity.

Prak_Anima wrote:Also, Gandalf isn't a fucking spellcaster. Sure, he's a "Wizard" in his universe, but all of his magic comes from basically being a celestial. Gandalf is seriously better represented by writing up a race, or using Tome of Fiends.

Since Slayers! is being mentioned on this thread all the time, the correct being you want to compare Gandalf to is Xellos. Both are high HD outsiders that pretend to be low level helpful guys because the DM in their campaigns is an asshole like that.

FrankTrollman wrote: Lina Inverse comes from a universe where there are, explicitly, multiple classes of spellcaster. So we know, for a fact, that Lina Inverse would not be able to cast the spells that Gandalf casts. And by extension we know that Gandalf would not be able to cast the spells that Lina casts, even if their settings were merged.

I'm not so sure about that actually. Lina's world has shamanism, black magic and white magic. But there's a lot of crossover between those. Let me remind you that Sylphiel, a white mage with no offensive abilities, managed to cast a dragon slave. This seems to suggest that the Slayers types of magic would be schools of magic in D&D terms as opposed to separate class spell lists.

Cyberzombie wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote: Lina Inverse comes from a universe where there are, explicitly, multiple classes of spellcaster. So we know, for a fact, that Lina Inverse would not be able to cast the spells that Gandalf casts. And by extension we know that Gandalf would not be able to cast the spells that Lina casts, even if their settings were merged.

I'm not so sure about that actually. Lina's world has shamanism, black magic and white magic. But there's a lot of crossover between those. Let me remind you that Sylphiel, a white mage with no offensive abilities, managed to cast a dragon slave. This seems to suggest that the Slayers types of magic would be schools of magic in D&D terms as opposed to separate class spell lists.

Sylphiel is specifically unable to use Black Magic except for Dragon Slave. There's a whole piece in-character about how she can't cast spells off the Black Magic list, but that she underwent special training to be able to cast one spell off the Black Magic List even though it's out-of-class for her. And that she chose to do Dragon Slave because it's obviously better than other Black Magic spells and her player is a min/maxxer.

Seriously. There is a literal in-character description of how Syphiel's character class doesn't get Black Magic spells on their spell list, but that she spent a feat on being able to Cross-Class Dragon Slave. Sylphiel is absolutely, completely, and totally not evidence of there being a master spell list. Quite the opposite. She is living perfect proof that she comes from a game where there are at least 3 magic spell lists and that characters don't get access to all of them.

Slayers is extremely specific about how the game system they are playing in works. And it would be a fucking nightmare to play table top. The deal killer for me is all the fucking mana accounting. You have a rate of mana recharge and a maximum mana storage and a rate you can spend mana and you can cast spells and use items that trade these numbers back and forth. And oh my fucking goodness that would be an accounting nightmare. But it would be kind of elegant to do as a computer game. Casting times on high level spells drop automatically as your mana investment rate goes up, and so on.

Anyway: the TL;DR version is that Sylphiel explicitly states that there are different spell lists and different characters get access to different spell lists and that taking an individual spell off another spell list is a thing you have to spend a feat on.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote: Sylphiel is specifically unable to use Black Magic except for Dragon Slave. There's a whole piece in-character about how she can't cast spells off the Black Magic list, but that she underwent special training to be able to cast one spell off the Black Magic List even though it's out-of-class for her. And that she chose to do Dragon Slave because it's obviously better than other Black Magic spells and her player is a min/maxxer.

Only later she actually does learn other black magic spells too. Sylphiel is pretty much the sorcerer who took all white magic stuff, or the wizard who has only white magic stuff in her spellbook, and then at 17th level decides to pick up meteor swarm. It's certainly not a white mage 16 / black mage 1.

Seriously. There is a literal in-character description of how Syphiel's character class doesn't get Black Magic spells on their spell list, but that she spent a feat on being able to Cross-Class Dragon Slave.

Dipping between spell lists isn't some fringe special ability that only Sylphiel has. Everyone does. Amelia, a white mage, casts the Ra Tilt (a shamanist spell). Lina also has spells from the other schools as well. And you could maybe attribute that to multiclassing, only the cross-list spells aren't minor ones, but are rather the Ra Tilt and the Dragon slave, the most powerful spells of their particular schools.

What you're looking at there is a high level sorcerer/wizard choosing to pick up spells from alternate schools of magic. Only instead of the eight schools of magic in D&D, you've got 3 schools in slayers.

FrankTrollman wrote: But it would be kind of elegant to do as a computer game. Casting times on high level spells drop automatically as your mana investment rate goes up, and so on.

There actually was a Slayers RPG for the SNES. It didn't get a release in English-speaking countries, and IIRC it was basically "standard jRPG engine" - you just get spells on level-up with each character having their own known spells list, it's simple "This costs X Mana out of your total of Y which recharges via items or resting". And each character has a Limit Break. Stupidly, Gourry's Sword of Light limit break auto-kills everything except boss monsters (which receive zero damage). As opposed to the anime, where he basically only uses it on boss monsters (and Ghost Type PokemonIncorporeal Outsiders/Undead).

I would be okay with them making a PC game that had mechanics that matched the setting more closely.

FrankTrollman wrote:Slayers is extremely specific about how the game system they are playing in works. And it would be a fucking nightmare to play table top. The deal killer for me is all the fucking mana accounting. You have a rate of mana recharge and a maximum mana storage and a rate you can spend mana and you can cast spells and use items that trade these numbers back and forth. And oh my fucking goodness that would be an accounting nightmare. But it would be kind of elegant to do as a computer game. Casting times on high level spells drop automatically as your mana investment rate goes up, and so on.

The official d20 version is kind of weird. It has Fortitude-based Drain and skill-based casting. I'm not sure that's any better than spell points. There are four types of magic (one being 'Common' spells that even Fighting Mens can learn). All of the game's casting PrCs, which seem to be the 'actual' spellcasting classes of the game, get access to all spells, but focus on one school, taking an extra spell slot to learn off-class spells. The game was written by Guardians of Order, but I have no idea how much of any of it is inspired by BESM.

e: There are also no spell levels, so apparently you can pick up Dragon Slave as early as 6th level as long as you can handle the DC 50/4d6 drain. Spellcasting classes add class level to checks for their specialty school, so this may even be possible.

FrankTrollman wrote:Slayers is extremely specific about how the game system they are playing in works. And it would be a fucking nightmare to play table top. The deal killer for me is all the fucking mana accounting. You have a rate of mana recharge and a maximum mana storage and a rate you can spend mana and you can cast spells and use items that trade these numbers back and forth. And oh my fucking goodness that would be an accounting nightmare. But it would be kind of elegant to do as a computer game. Casting times on high level spells drop automatically as your mana investment rate goes up, and so on.

So 3.x psionic power points in effect?

So I'm being asked to take over as GM for an ongoing group. I know the people in it and they're not much for building powerful characters, although they don't sandbag deliberately.

The group has three members:
- a Ranger 1/Cleric 7. Self-buffer, not healer, but not a full-on cleric Archer either
- a Transmuter 8 who has realized conjurations and spells that flat-out kill people are the way to win at wizarding, but thinks they're boring and prefers to buff the party in combat and contribute noncombat utility.
- a Warlock, house-ruled for less weaksauce by the previous DM, but not Spherelock-grade by any means. The Warlock just died, and now the player has asked to play a Warlock/Paladin gestalt. Expecting this to be a hard sell he volunteered to give up the warlock buffs and use the class straight from Complete Arcane.

1. How bad of an idea is it to have a Gestalt character in a non-gestalt game? Given the classes he wants it doesn't look like a big deal.
2. Unless I'm overlooking something that makes this just a bad idea in general, I'm certainly not going to make him struggle through the high levels with classes that don't do anything, even if he has two of them. How many power-ups would a paladin-warlock need to hang with those other two?

So far I'm thinking Smite x times per round instead of per day, full character level to turning and caster level, addition of a few more spells to the Paladin list so he can eventually do things like remove conditions and Raise Dead, more Invocations and a combat-worthy (1d6/level) eldritch blast. I'll make a feat for him to synergize Smite and Eldritch Blast if he wants it, which I expect he'll jump on. Does that sound at all adequate?

Making EB an attack action is usually a good idea. You could give him PF paladin smite instead.

I don't think a warlock/paladin gestalt would be all that bad. The two usual Warlock problems still exist--std act EB and too few invocations, but those are easy to solve, and the latter is really more of "warlocks should just start with two more invocations," so an eighth level game already kind of fixes that.

Honestly, there's already a feat that synergizes EB and Smite--Ranged Smite Evil from the BoED.

On boosting the EB, make sure you're not making him more powerful than the other guys are comfortable with. d6/lv is a common thing here, but pretty much every person I know irl considers that too much (and are only ok with spellcasters doing it because it caps out and they have limited uses of it)

Prak_Anima wrote:Also, Gandalf isn't a fucking spellcaster. Sure, he's a "Wizard" in his universe, but all of his magic comes from basically being a celestial. Gandalf is seriously better represented by writing up a race, or using Tome of Fiends.

Well, he does cast spells. That makes him a spellcaster. He's an outsider spellcaster who has pimp gear. Incidentally the Balrog is also a spellcasting outsider.

Fellowship of the Ring wrote: What happened away up there at the door? he asked. Did you meet the beater of the drums?

I do not know, answered Gandalf. But I found myself suddenly faced by something that I have not met before. I could think of nothing to do but to try and put a shutting-spell on the door. I know many; but to do things of that kind rightly requires time, and even then the door can be broken by strength. As I stood there I could hear orc-voices on the other side: at any moment I thought they would burst it open. I could not hear what was said; they seemed to be talking in their own hideous language. All I caught was ghash; that is fire". Then something came into the chamber. I felt it through the door, and the orcs themselves were afraid and fell silent. It laid hold of the iron ring, and then it perceived me and my spell. What it was I cannot guess, but I have never felt such a challenge. The counter-spell was terrible. It nearly broke me. For an instant the door left my control and began to open! I had to speak a word of Command. That proved too great a strain. The door burst in pieces.

Gandalf and the Balrog have a kind of Unbarring Ways duel that ends with them blowing up the heavy doors.

I liked the spell list system in MERP, it was spheres and many of them were open for any one to take potentially. Unbarring Ways is a sphere that mostly deals with locking and opening doors.

Eh, fair, but what I mean is that he doesn't have levels of wizard, he has Outsider HD that let him cast specific spells. He's seriously more akin to a conduit of the (upper) planes than a wizard.

---

Also, not a question, but a realization:

The biggest reason that monks shouldn't have "Alignment: Lawful" is because then we can't have Slaad Battletoads:

Battletoads laid important groundwork: about two thirds of all frog-looking pokemon are part Fighting type (and then one evolution chain that isn't is Water/Dark and explicitly called out as being a ninja).

How are tabletop RPGs marketed these days? I always found D&D through bookstores and my FLGS, and there was always the Dungeon and Dragon magazines.

Near as I can tell, games are advertised by word of mouth, store displays, and maybe via distributors. Are there any good general interest gaming mags to advertise with? Web ads are an option too, I know.

I realized, going through my old things a couple years back, that way back when I was a kid, D&D 2nd Edition was advertised in Disney Adventures.

Seriously. When I saw that I could not understand how the hell I didn't start playing younger.

DA isn't a thing anymore so far as I know, but there's always advertising in magazines targeted at your primary demographic.

Meikle641 wrote:How are tabletop RPGs marketed these days?

Social Media and smartphone apps with targeted advertising.

like Amazon's "People who bought this also bought...."