The Gaming Den

So, after much lurking and some cajoling from the other guys on the wiki I finally decided to post on TGD. This first post will be detailing the campaign setting I've been (very) slowly working on hammering out. The setting itself is rather grimdark, taking inspiration from a number of sources including STALKER, Fallout, Dark Sun, Midnight, Dune, Bioshock, Claymore, and a bunch of other places. No need to point out the obvious, yes, I know that a lot of material is "stolen" (though there's not much that's new out there these days as far as archetypes and tropes go.

You can find the basic writeup at the start of this page, with the majority of the work finished concentrating on the races and organizations in SH.

As far as the rules themselves go, the last game I ran came to a halt when the flavor and system conflicted--while I was going for a dark, grim, "life is cheap" feel, but had a very balanced encounter system which led the characters not to be wowed by the version of Cthulu that I had in the game, and instead went gung-ho in attempting to punch him in the face.

This time I took on a different tack; combining the E6 and GnG systems together on top of D&D and removed many of the wizard-level classes completely to create a system where characters could feel just how close they are to death, and where even level 2-3 warriors with swords can be a threat to PCs who reach even level 6ish. However, since damage is toned down and combined with armor-as-DR, the illusion of death being close is maintained while the system itself is quite stable as long as enemies don't roll high on attack rolls multiple times. (Example: 1d8+3 damage vs. DR 5, +bonus damage from high rolls when a character has 16 HP or so.)

Play Dark Heresy instead. It has all the exact same flaws (namely, YOU SUCK AND SHOULD SUCK DM COCK AND AVOID COMBAT). Here's something your system can't handle:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogre.htm

That's a CR 3 creature.

A CR 3 good defense, good hp guy with good armor has these stats:
Defense of 11+1+3+2 = 17
HP: Maybe 20
DR: Let's say 8.

I'm assuming said melee duude has full plate and 12 dex with 20 con (pretty standard for a guy expecting to get into melee).

The Ogre has +8 to hit, so hits him about 60% of the time dealing between 2d8-1 damage and 2d8+10 damage (aggregate total of 8.7 damage a round). So, he three rounds your guy on average.

Let's see what your guy can do against the ogre.

Since you've banned everything except for the absolute shittiest classes, we'll assume PHB fighter is still allowed.

Since we have a shield, he's using a long sword and has weapon focus.

His attack roll is at about +8. He deals about 1d8+3 damage. The Ogre has 29 HP and you hit on an 8, so 65% of the time. Your damage ranges from 1d8+3 to 1d8+15 (average 13.5 times .65 for 9 points of damage a round). You can kill the Ogre in a bit over three rounds.

So, on average you barely lose to an Ogre.

BUT.

Your rules fuck over main characters. They add FUCK TONS of extra swingyness (your damage roll for the monster ranges from 0 after DR to 18 damage after DR, which is more than your fighter guy's entire hit points). On top of that they make people FUCKING RIDICULOUSLY dependent on armor to survive AT ALL. Basically, you're forcing FUCKING EVERYONE to run around in full plate to have a chance at surviving (seriously, if I run the numbers with the fighter dude only wearing a chain shirt he just gets fucking squished).

Oh, and that's only at level 3. After you get full plate, your survivability upgrades STOP FULLSTOP.

So, E3?

Or fuck it. If you wanted every swing in combat to have a chance at one shotting the heaviest armored biggest hit point dude in the party (as my numbers show) you should play a game designed for that, like Dark Heresy.

So yeah, your rules suck. Mostly the Grim and Gritty part. Also, the banning of the classes that can actually compete at their CR part. E6 is boring, but it's no different than just saying "Guys, we're going to start a new campaign after you hit level 6" so I don't even give a shit.

*smacks ubernoob in the head*

I'll take a look at the whole system in a bit. No promises on when I can give feedback, as I'd prefer to spend more than just one and a half hours skimming over the material just to post a snarky reply about it.

Your problem is you want to do things that aren't supported by D&D, in D&D.

The only reason a level 3 party survives an ogre fight with no casualties is because a Wizard casts Color Spray.

If you want combat focused around fighting stuff with swords, and want it to appear grim dark without being TPKerific, you want another system.

D&D does not do that. Also, saying "I combined some of this stuff, plus some of this other stuff" isn't helpful. Tell us what your final system looks like.

Zinegata wrote:*smacks ubernoob in the head*

I'll take a look at the whole system in a bit. No promises on when I can give feedback, as I'd prefer to spend more than just one and a half hours skimming over the material just to post a snarky reply about it.

Yo dawg, I know you're mentally challenged, but one of us gave numbers and statistics for the best case scenario and why that's a bad thing. The other one of us said "You came to that conclusion too fast!"

Which one of us is smart, and which one of us is retarded (as usual)?

Note: You are retarded.

Please read above. You do not usually fight ogres in this setting. You fight mostly humanoid creatures, to be specific warriors and commoners. Sometimes you fight small creatures such as abberations, tiny demons that have gotten free, wild elven cannibals, people from the the various houses, gang members, psychic shock troopers from the government, and the like. You do NOT fight ogres, basilisks, gorgons, bulettes, or tarrasques as common encounters.

This isn't really D&D anymore. People do not add their str to damage with one-handed weapons, and only add 1/2 with two-handed weapons. You add 1/2 the amount by which you beat the enemy's AC to damage. And more. This is a paradigm shift from D&D, as I tried to imply (apparently unsuccessfully) in my first post. An ogre isn't some random wandering monster you pwn and move along. Large creatures are a big deal in this setting, and are something you generally want to ambush and kill, or run away from. If you don't, you will be dead fast. Which is what I want. Not, "Hey, there's Cthulu--let's punch him in the face!" like I had with the game that failed. Again, this isn't D&D--it's a heavy variant that incorporates some D&D-esque things, but overall it's a system revision like it says on the cover.

Kaelik wrote:D&D does not do that. Also, saying "I combined some of this stuff, plus some of this other stuff" isn't helpful. Tell us what your final system looks like.

How detailed would you like a summary to be? E6 is easy to figure out (stop leveling at level 6), so GnG is the only thing that one actually needs to figure out. And if you want a specific enough accounting for it to make sense, just read the actual pages

Ghostwheel wrote:Please read above. You do not usually fight ogres in this setting. You fight mostly humanoid creatures, to be specific warriors and commoners. Sometimes you fight small creatures such as abberations, tiny demons that have gotten free, wild elven cannibals, people from the the various houses, gang members, psychic shock troopers from the government, and the like. You do NOT fight ogres, basilisks, gorgons, bulettes, or tarrasques as common encounters.

This isn't really D&D anymore. People do not add their str to damage with one-handed weapons, and only add 1/2 with two-handed weapons. You add 1/2 the amount by which you beat the enemy's AC to damage. And more. This is a paradigm shift from D&D, as I tried to imply (apparently unsuccessfully) in my first post. An ogre isn't some random wandering monster you pwn and move along. Large creatures are a big deal in this setting, and are something you generally want to ambush and kill, or run away from. If you don't, you will be dead fast. Which is what I want. Not, "Hey, there's Cthulu--let's punch him in the face!" like I had with the game that failed. Again, this isn't D&D--it's a heavy variant that incorporates some D&D-esque things, but overall it's a system revision like it says on the cover.

So, you're rewriting the entire fucking monster manual as well? Fuck you. Either supply some ACTUAL challenges that PCs are expected to face, or fuck off. If you're getting rid of the entire monster manual, then there is literally no reason to use D&D as your base at all.

But importantly: Your damage will fluctuate by up to 20 points a hit. People only get Con mod + level hit points max. This means that at pretty much every fucking level a longsword is rocket tag. Fuck that. D&D is a terrible game to make that random. Pick a game where character creation doesn't take an hour.

Fuck. Make a god damn board game. Like heroquest. Seriously, just make some houserules for heroquest. Heroquest is over twenty years old and does everything your system does, but better (including not being as random lolcritdead).

ubernoob wrote:So, you're rewriting the entire fucking monster manual as well? Fuck you. Either supply some ACTUAL challenges that PCs are expected to face, or fuck off. If you're getting rid of the entire monster manual, then there is literally no reason to use D&D as your base at all.

Actually, I don't need to. I can use most of the smaller monsters, a few of the Large ones, most humanoids, and create a bunch of warriors and the like without too many changes beyond feats. I've already given some examples. And I've given a number of examples. Humanoids with class levels. Often warriors. I'm not sure how much more explicit or simple I can be.

ubernoob wrote:But importantly: Your damage will fluctuate by up to 20 points a hit. People only get Con mod + level hit points max. This means that at pretty much every fucking level a longsword is rocket tag. Fuck that. D&D is a terrible game to make that random. Pick a game where character creation doesn't take an hour.

Actually, a more realistic number is by five, since you're adding 1/2 the number by which you beat AC to damage if attack roll is approximately equal to AC. You're going as high as 10 if your attack roll by itself is equal to AC--which shouldn't happen anyway, seeing as there's little to no magic, armor doesn't add to AC, and there aren't too many ways to add bonuses to AC. So against a character using a breastplate (5 protection), a warrior with 14 str and a two-handed longsword would deal 1d8+1 damage, with up to +6 damage (+1 on a 19-20), reduced by 5 from protection to anywhere from 1d8-4 to 1d8+1--that's not going to kill anyone, even with a Constitution score of 10. Sure, it's going to hurt like hell, but it's not an auto-kill from full HP.

ubernoob wrote:Fuck. Make a god damn board game. Like heroquest. Seriously, just make some houserules for heroquest. Heroquest is over twenty years old and does everything your system does, but better (including not being as random lolcritdead).

Unfortunately, like many people, I'm quite resistant to change and I'm only really familiar with D&D 3.5 (though I've played some PF, 4e, BESM, and WoD). Since I'm comfortable with 3.5, I'll stick with that and change it to fit what I'm going for.

Actually, I had a better idea. Use 4E as your base. That's MUCH closer to "Everyone fight with a longsword in fullplate, final destination" than 3E. Should take you about ten minutes to mod it (get rid of the interesting powers, double damage of everything, make dailies encounters, encounters at wills, and fuck at wills unless they're twin strike).

ubernoob wrote:Yo dawg, I know you're mentally challenged,

Ubernoob, you're a bully who attacks newbies for no good reason. And you're doing it here again.

And you know that I'm smacking you in the head for that reason, not because I'm mentally challenged.

So stop lying.

From now on, I'm just gonna report your ass from the get-go.

but one of us gave numbers and statistics for the best case scenario and why that's a bad thing.

No you didn't. You were engaging in a prolonged strawman argument just so you have an excuse to wail on a newbie. Giving numbers and statistics does not make you right when said numbers and statistics are totally unrelated to the system.

First of all, picking an Ogre out as your "proof" that the system does not work is dumb. Because:

a) Well all know CR does not work. Some monsters at the same CR level are far more powerful than others. The Ogre is one such monster that punches way above its CR.

b) A quick scan of the background material would quickly tell you that the bad guys in the setting are psions (not Ogres).

So if you were truly interested in pointing out the problems of the system, you'd have at least picked something that conforms to this theme instead of just picking out one of the most overpowered creatures for that CR level in the MM.

----

Moreover, like Kaelik pointed out (and why I'm not complaining about his post at all) - the biggest problem with this "system" is that it doesn't seem exactly a coherent whole yet and it has some pretty big gaps.

Now, I'm trying to give the system a fairer shake by trying to read it carefully (maybe I'm just missing the parts that ties it all together).

But when 90% of your post revolves around Ogres and 10% of it boils down to sizeing on any excuse to use the word "cock", that's not even remotely trying to give the system a fair shake. That's just being an ass.

Fact: Ogres are going to appear in almost every game no matter how low powered.
Fact: PCs should have a good chance at NOT getting one shot by Ogres.
Fact: Psions (and everything else with spells) are banned in the setting. The enemies are 100% guys with swords.
Fact: You are still retarded. This has nothing to do with being a newby.

Ghostwheel wrote:Actually, I don't need to. I can use most of the smaller monsters, a few of the Large ones, most humanoids, and create a bunch of warriors and the like without too many changes beyond feats. I've already given some examples. And I've given a number of examples. Humanoids with class levels. Often warriors. I'm not sure how much more explicit or simple I can be.

This sounds terribly boring. With no real interesting enemies or PCs you will basically only ever see, maybe, 5 different PC builds. Without substantial shake ups, that will throw your desired balance curve out the window, you will struggle to keep your players interested in combat.

ubernoob wrote:Fact: Ogres are going to appear in almost every game no matter how low powered.

Irrelevant.

This does not refute the fact that CR is broken, and Ogres are among the most overpowered monsters for their CR level.

Moreover, the OP did, in fact, say later that there generally aren't Ogres in the game.

Fact: PCs should have a good chance at NOT getting one shot by Ogres.

That's unclear. Because the OP is saying the setting should be gritty and dark. The chance of a one-shot is very much within the confines of "gritty".

Fact: Psions (and everything else with spells) are banned in the setting. The enemies are 100% guys with swords.

And here is where I prove that you in fact did not bother to read.

The fifth paragraph of the write up says Psions are the big bad:

"Psions rule the city, the whole urban landscape bent to the will of those who would wield the power of the mind to subdue and torture all those who would resist their rule."

Fact: You are still retarded. This has nothing to do with being a newby.

Fact: Every single fact you mentioned turned out to be irrelevant. One even turned out to be an outright lie.

So again, stop playing your strawman games. You are again just citing completely irrelevant facts.

ubernoob wrote:Actually, I had a better idea. Use 4E as your base.

No. I dislike the chassis that 4e brings.

ubernoob wrote:Fact: Ogres are going to appear in almost every game no matter how low powered.
Fact: PCs should have a good chance at NOT getting one shot by Ogres.
Fact: Psions (and everything else with spells) are banned in the setting. The enemies are 100% guys with swords.

*In almost every game? Maybe. In my custom campaign that I'm building from scratch and where I can define anything and everything I want? Not really. Looking over the CR 3 list, you could say that allips and shadows appear in every campaign, and PCs should be able to deal with them one-on-one at level 3 as well, though I doubt that they'll appear in my campaign either.
*Why? Ogres are GIANT creatures (compared to most PCs) who have thousands of newtons of force behind every swing and who could probably lift a car and smush you with it. I'm not saying that realism has much of a place in any gaming system that I play in, but this is what a grim world looks like. You are not invicible. You do not have hundreds, or even dozens of HP. You are not very special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake who dances through the story with only the most minor of bruises singing happily the whole way with daffodils in your hair and a saccharine smile on your face. You are made of the same decaying organic as everything else, and a dagger in the sternum will hurt you as much as the next guy. It might not kill you, but it'll hurt like hell. Because you're not damn hero. You're just a protagonist.
*Psions rule the place. Psychic warriors are the primary shock troopers of the secret police. It says in the "rules" section for the campaign that characters may play lurks and psychic warriors.

Akula wrote:This sounds terribly boring. With no real interesting enemies or PCs you will basically only ever see, maybe, 5 different PC builds. Without substantial shake ups, that will throw your desired balance curve out the window, you will struggle to keep your players interested in combat.

Actually, there's a giant number of possible builds; remember that one class in that one book that you would never use for a PC, but that seemed interesting, if weak? Poof. How about you find a cool ability that seems interesting and fun? (And by interesting and fun, I don't mean mass beholder eye rays.) Stick that onto an NPC or build a smaller version of the monster with it. Beyond that, enemies don't have to be meleers--you'll notice that a number of the organizations have NPCs that are casters, often driven mad by the forces of the world. Just because PCs can't be casters doesn't mean that NPCs can't. Furthermore, if you find a cool monster you can always scale them down to medium or small size and take it from there--not that hard just to jigger the numbers right. Anything can appear out of the arcane-corrupted wastes, and there are any number of templates that you can add to creatures, even one I emulated from a series specifically for the campaign.

Now, if by interesting you mean, "let's go one-shot people unless they make their saves, play gods, scry-and-die enemies, decide encounters on the very first round depending on who goes first always and have powers that completely bypass the plot", then it will probably be very dull for you. However, that's not the kind of game I'm going for.

As for the ogre, just for the lulz I decided to see what the fight between a fighter and an ogre actually looks like under GnG. To say the least, your numbers were a little off.

First off, we add 1 to the CR of the ogre for being Large, so the fighter is actually level 4, and the ogre's HP is doubled due to size. Average attack rolls will be assumed to be 10.

Ogre stats:
HP: 15 (Con) + 3 (HD for Giants) + 3 (Toughness) = 21 x2 = 42 (Unsure, Toughness might be added after doubling)
Defense = 11 (Base) - 1 (Size) - 1 (Dex) + 3 (Giant HD) = 12
Protection = 5 (Natural armor) + 3 (Hide) = 8
Attack +8 (2d8+2)

Fighter (race unspecificed) stats:
HP: 16 (16 Con) + 4 (Fighter) = 20
Defense = 11 (Base) + 1 (Dex) + 4 (Class) = 16
Protection = 8 (Full Plate)
Attack: 4 (BAB) + 5 (Strength) + 1 (Masterwork Greatsword) + 1 (Weapon Focus) = +11 (2d6+5 + 2 (Weapon Spec))
Feats: Power Attack (Full Str to damage, rather than half under GnG), Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Ability Training (Strength), Ability Advancement (Strength)
Strength: 17 (Base) + 1 (Level) + 2 (Ability Advancement) = 20

Fighter will be taking -6 for a called shot to negate protection from the armor for a total of +5, which will get him an attack roll of 15 on average. (Total damage 2d6+7+1 RD - 5 Protection, or 10 on average, with the ogre's +0 Ref save to negate the called shot (DC 13) failing most of the time.)

Ogre will be just attacking, hitting an 18 on average for total damage of 2d8+2+1 (RD) - 8 Protection for a total on average of 12 - 8 = 4.

So the ogre kills the fighter after ~5 rounds, while the fighter downs the ogre after approximately ~5.
Neither is going to one-shot the other off the bat (note the change to crits).

So against a rather powerful CR 3 (now 4) creature, an optimized PHB-only (with E6 feats) fighter wins around 50% of the time--hey! That's actually about where he's supposed to be! Wonder of wonders...

EDIT: Now if this were a dwarven fighter with +4 to defense vs. giants, he'd completely hose the ogre

If you raise the lethality of individual weapon attacks to the point where they are "very lethal" then everyone will just use basic attacks. Like, all the time.

So you are suggesting a game in which players will not be playing spellcasters, and the warriors will all do exactly the same thing every single action: declare a basic attack with their weapon of choice (which I would suspect is going to be Glaive, Longsword, or Longbow in most instances). And that's it. That's the entire game as far as I can tell.

That seems incredibly boring. Normally when people get rid of magic options or reign in level increases it's because they want to see people use all the special combat options like Grappling and Tripping and Disarming and shit. But by making the "attack for damage" option much more devastating, you've done wholly the opposite. The players seriously might as well be 4e characters who only have at-wills for all the difference it makes.

Now I personally think the prospect of having characters juiced left and right in a game where chargen takes more than a couple minutes is insulting. But that's beside the point. I genuinely don't see what the purpose of the entire game you have outlined actually is. If your only meaningful combat option is to "press the attack button" how is the result going to be as interesting as Gauntlet or Diablo?

-Username17

I agree that it's boring--in fact, that's what 3.5 sword-based combat usually devolves to.

Which is why there are A. called shots, and B. hybrid classes that don't suck (psywar, martial adepts, and so on).

While damage might be devestating, you might be better off dazing, blinding, or stunning a powerful enemy for a round so that your allies can attack it with impunity. Against multiple enemies something like Steel Wind (Iron Heart maneuver) could be great, while combining Flashing Sun and Burning Blade could give you two attacks that each add to damage.

Yes. The game can be interesting without casters. No, it's not interesting if you simply have the fighter do an attack that does nothing beyond damage every round. But when you have varied characters who have different options it can get interesting, especially when you allow classes that have the ability to have some sort of resource management like psywars or martial adepts--along with a few classes I made, which I'll unveil if people are interested in knowing more (though you can find them without too much trouble on your own).

And called shots under the system can add tons of versatility to a character. Sure, you're not going to one-shot an encounter, making enemies completely meaningless and turning the game into, "let's see who fails a save first" along with making combat into a cakewalk or an exercise in logistics. But you can add a considerable amount of risk-vs-reward play with called shots that make the combat itself more interesting with changing round-to-round actions depending on the situation. (Rather than an I-Win button that is pressed every single encounter, like a sculpted glitterdust.)

EDIT: And as I've shown above, characters are not "juiced" right and left. Enemies can be dangerous, but are far from auto-kills when you have decent armor.

Ghostwheel, you say all Wizard level classes are removed. You also say that the big bads are Wizard level.

You say that it's all about grim n gritty stabbination, but you reserve the right as the DM to auto TPK your entire level 3 party with a level 3 Psion using Energy Missile to do 6d6 damage to everyone.

That's dumb. Don't do that. Your rules are 90% about making it impossible for PCs to ever succeed at beating anything that isn't a shitty Warrior.

Therefore, all fights are shitty Warrior vs shitty Warrior, and everyone goes home and cries. Occasionaly, you break up the monotony with their immediate and unpreventable death by throwing in a Monster or Psion. No one cares.

Why are you posting this here? If you want to play "Fuck you PCs" you can do that with freeform on your own and not tell us about it, instead of inventing a bunch of stupid rules that all suck, and throwing them around.

Also, size modifier multiple HP is literally the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. PCs have access to Large size too even non magically. So now you either have to ban every method of getting to large size, or throw out large size enemies who then kill the entire party that isn't large.

ubernoob wrote:Use 4E as your base.

(get rid of the interesting powers,

Did I miss something?

Koumei wrote:Did I miss something?

Wizard Dailies.

Oh right. But what you're really saying is Sleep. So every power that doesn't make enemies fall asleep makes players fall asleep.

Anyway, damn whoever it was for mentioning HeroQuest, I felt all nostalgic and looked it up for a memory refresher, and discovered there were more than just the three expansions I had (Kellar's Keep, Ogre Hordes and Return of the Witch Lord), and an Advanced version.

Which as near as I can tell is a faster, more streamlined, 10-20 year earlier version of 4E.

What I don't understand is why you insist on using a scarcely recognizable D&D hack at all. You seem to want:

• All Players to be Rat Catchers and Farmers and shit.
• Characters who aren't covered in plate mail to periodically explode into strawberry jam.
• An orc with a spear to remain a credible threat at all levels of the game.
• NPCs with actual magical abilities to lord it over the players so hard that their nuts will eclipse the sun.

Seriously, why aren't you just playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay? It already fucking does all that without modifying anything at all. Instead of trying to remake the wheel, just use the system that was already made by people who apparently think exactly like you do.

-Username17

Kaelik wrote:Ghostwheel, you say all Wizard level classes are removed. You also say that the big bads are Wizard level.

You don't fight BBEGs every single fight, do you? And furthermore, even if you fought someone with psion or wizard levels it wouldn't mean that they autowin unless they took exactly the right spells.
(Note: As the DM, I decide what spells they have, and I know which ones are not suitable for the game.)

Kaelik wrote:You say that it's all about grim n gritty stabbination, but you reserve the right as the DM to auto TPK your entire level 3 party with a level 3 Psion using Energy Missile to do 6d6 damage to everyone.

Ummm... I reserve the right to do whatever I want whenever I want however I want to my players in order to make the game fun. Saying that I'll TPK them though is a complete strawman, seeing as I wouldn't do that. And as I've said before, most of the enemies are primarily attackers.

Kaelik wrote:That's dumb. Don't do that. Your rules are 90% about making it impossible for PCs to ever succeed at beating anything that isn't a shitty Warrior.

Therefore, all fights are shitty Warrior vs shitty Warrior, and everyone goes home and cries. Occasionaly, you break up the monotony with their immediate and unpreventable death by throwing in a Monster or Psion. No one cares.

99.999% of the world consists of "shitty warriors", many of whom are not so shitty. It doesn't sound like I've explained myself well enough; please let me try again. This is not D&D. It uses similar mechanics, but it isn't D&D. Every time you try to compare it to your experience of D&D your argument descends into a strawman. Let go of your preconceptions. Again; this is not D&D, but something closer to Song of Ice & Fire (with more magic as far as the baddies go) or the Royal Assassin series mixed with the post-apocalyptic world of STALKER and the "it sucks to live here as a commoner" of Claymore. Oh, and as I showed above, the game doesn't actually break down to autodeaths regardless of how many times people say it. I thought people used math here?

Kaelik wrote:Why are you posting this here? If you want to play "Fuck you PCs" you can do that with freeform on your own and not tell us about it, instead of inventing a bunch of stupid rules that all suck, and throwing them around.

...Because having a set of basic rules that govern what happens in a game is better than doing everything by DM fiat? Now you might have been refering to two things, and I"m not sure which one you were. Did you mean the flavor of the crapsack world where players have it tough, or the mechanics? If it was the mechanics, were you refering to how "swingy and easy it is for people to die" or the fact that PCs can't play wizard-level classes? If it's the first then you're making a straw man again. If it's the second, then you might wanna momentarily let go of the preconception that casters always make everything better. I know, it's a big step, and I've gotten considerable flak for the idea, but it works well to my chagrin and surprise. I recommend at least running the math and seeing that the game doesn't completely and irrevocably break down if PCs don't have the ability to end encounters with a single action.

Kaelik wrote:Also, size modifier multiple HP is literally the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. PCs have access to Large size too even non magically. So now you either have to ban every method of getting to large size, or throw out large size enemies who then kill the entire party that isn't large.

Not really, just make it so that magical changes to size don't change the HP of PCs, the same way that Polymorph doesn't. Poof, easy fix. Being large is still good enough that PCs will use it, via Expansion for example. That and I didn't allow Large characters from the start (not that anyone asked for one), so it wasn't much of a problem, and the PsyWar in the group and I discussed it before he went with the class. Also, straw man again--see the above example with actual stats. Neither side auto-died and it's a pretty close fight.

FrankTrollman wrote:What I don't understand is why you insist on using a scarcely recognizable D&D hack at all. You seem to want:

• All Players to be Rat Catchers and Farmers and shit.
• Characters who aren't covered in plate mail to periodically explode into strawberry jam.
• An orc with a spear to remain a credible threat at all levels of the game.
• NPCs with actual magical abilities to lord it over the players so hard that their nuts will eclipse the sun.

Seriously, why aren't you just playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay? It already fucking does all that without modifying anything at all. Instead of trying to remake the wheel, just use the system that was already made by people who apparently think exactly like you do.

-Username17

[*] All characters are less special, sure. That doesn't mean that they're rat catchers, regardless of how debasing the terminology you use is. The feel of the game mixes Sin City and darker fantasy, and characters are rarely very special in either of those settings/genres.
[*] Really? Have you run the math? With actual characters? ...I didn't think so. Want me to do that for you?
[*] Yes. Exactly. This is exactly what I want. This is the essence of a darker setting. PCs might win without a problem most fight at the higher end, but if they're dumb and decide to run into an orcish complex on their own "because they're 6th level" they're going to die. As they should. See my spiel before on what characters are in a darker setting.
[*] NPCs with actual magical abilities are as rare as snow in the middle of a volcano. (Well, that's an exaggeration, but you get what I mean.) The most magical NPC that the players are likely to meet are maybe the psychic warrior troops from the government. Most people go their whole lives without ever seeing anything magical. There are no magical faeries here ready to lead people to another world where they can eat and drink forever. Magic that can provide the whole world with food is similarly extinct. This is not a happy fun-fun-happy place to live. But it's a garden in which you can grow interesting stories that can make sense--sure, a garden filled with gnarled thorns and dirty weeds, where the players have to struggle and fight and claw their way towards what little happiness they can find, but still a place where interesting stories can be told.

As for why I didn't use Warhammer... it's because I like D&D, know it, am familiar with the math behind it, and don't feel like learning a new system. And you're making a vast overgeneralization there, seeing as this isn't the kind of system that's my ideal one--simply the one that fits this setting well enough to tell the stories in the way I want to.

I know that this is outside the scope of what is usually shown to people who aren't shouted down on TGD, but the math doesn't show that the game automatically breaks down so rather than making straw mans and hyperboles why not actually give it a chance despite the fact that it may fall outside of your comfort zone and all similar ideas in the past may have sucked?

I know that this is outside the scope of what is usually shown to people who aren't shouted down on TGD, but the math doesn't show that the game automatically breaks down so rather than making straw mans and hyperboles why not actually give it a chance despite the fact that it may fall outside of your comfort zone and all similar ideas in the past may have sucked?

Answer the fucking question. WHY are you making a D&D hack instead of playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay? That's not fucking hyperbole, that is a serious fucking question. Why are you taking a heroic fantasy game in which blasting a Titan out of the universe can be an "easy challenge" and hacking it down, when it is so much easier to start with a mud shoveling game and build up?

I'm not even getting into the specifics about how all the special combat maneuvers don't mean dick when the opportunity cost has been raised so much by the relative lethality increase of just stabbing people. Because none of that shit matters until you can coherently explain why you are doing this at all. Which so far you have not done.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has huge problems. But it is already as grimdark and lethal as you appear to demand without any modification at all. So why are you rewriting hundreds of pages of D&D code when you could apparently run WHFRP right out of the book? What are you getting out of this?

-Username17