Isn't that why we all started?I bet he started playing D&D to meet hot chicks.
Even worked out for some I know
![lol :lol: :lol:](/forums/smiles/icon_lol.gif)
Isn't that why we all started?I bet he started playing D&D to meet hot chicks.
Jason Liang
Interestingly enough, Star Wars: Saga Edition is pretty much everything you say you wanted in that post. There's only 5 class or, in some campaigns, only 4. Everyone is a spontaneous caster if they're a caster. The skill list is further consolidated from the video game consolidations, skills are trained or untrained for a character, and bonuses are either +5, the option to reroll or (for damage) an extra die of damage. Feats are better balanced too. Prestige classes are very specialized roles ("Ace Pilot" is pretty terrible at anything but piloting) or smaller facets that don't justify a full class. Hit points are present, but they're augmented by a threshold system so powerful attacks cause penalties but smaller attacks can still wear you down (this is roughly similar to how DSA/Blackguards works)
Only thing it might not fix is multiclassing, but you give no information on why you dislike it. No class has abilities gain at fixed level except their proficiencies, of which you only get one of if you multiclass into the class (Armor OR Rifle proficiency), and class skills, so if you hate it encouraging players to go through 4+ classes to pick up early abilities (Barbarian 1 for fast movement, fighter 2 for some bonus feats) it fixes it. There's natural reasons to multiclass, like a soldier with abilities that debuff enemies they attack grabbing 3 levels in Noble (which is the class for random officers and just poorly named) to spend the two talents they pick up on buffing abilities. On the same token though there's no benefit to staying in a class for higher levels other than to keep picking its talents/bonus feats and being able to get things prerequisite locked (of which the highest in almost all cases is 2 other talents required, requiring a max level of 5 to get). In general characters higher level characters gain more varried and more versatile abilities than gaining expotentially stronger ones (Same with loot. Money is more options on tricky gadgets instead of +2 to hit).
Isn't that why we all started?I bet he started playing D&D to meet hot chicks.
Even worked out for some I know![]()
Sounds pretty realistic and good to me. The one who gets hit first has the disadvantage. But the disadvantage is usually very small (if the character didn't receive an almost fatal blow).The crux of a wounding system is that they apply penalties to someone wounded. (The word "penalty" is the important part of that sentence.) So, as in real life, in a fight between equals, the first person to get wounded is very likely going to die. Even a -1 penalty on a d20 sharply reduces the window of opportunity for an opponent to succeed, as they might have had a 25% to succeed in an attack, now they have a 20%, which (speaking in averages) means their opponent now gets an extra round to wail on them before they will successfully hit back. And on top of that, the penalty also makes it 5% more likely that they will fail a subsequent Wound Resistance roll and gain a second wound. Thus, the first wound starts a mechanical death spiral that is difficult to pull out of. (Now, most people immediately argue that their PCs have succeeded many times after being wounded, but rpg combats are not between equals. The first wound to a PC just makes the fight closer to actually being between equals, while if the enemy gets wounded first, they start death spiraling super fast.)
To put it into modern Build terms, an opponent built to have a high movement rate and To Hit but low toughness, with the intention of running up and getting a few hits gets in, that creature has its effectiveness broken by the first wound, and is much less likely to get a couple more good hits in before it dies. That, while an opponent built to have lots of stamina and toughness but low attack skill, that creature is rendered ineffectual by the first wound it receives, since it now has a terrible chance of landing any hits before it eventually dies. You can, of course, counter the above effects by building everyone with wound resistances and combat defenses, but then why even have wounding in the first place? - So PCs can lord it even more powerfully over weak creatures that have a low number of feats, and thus can't have those wound resistances?
Again, you played some shitty systems there, roll bloat is indeed horrible.Secondarily, wounds typically involve wound tables, and thus roll bloat. Every attack has multiple rolls to define what it is, with multiple tiered results based on those results. And that greatly slows the game down. As bad as 3e fights can drag, imagine doing 3x the work for each roll.
And to top it all off, since this whole concept is all about realism (or rather a common lack of ability of people to be able to think in the abstract), those who decide to implement it tend to want to have different types of wounding effects, instead of just wounded being a singular -1 penalty universally applied. And multiple types of wounds means a table where different effects have a different chance of occurring, that relative chance depending on the type of wound's considered rarity. And that not only means even more roll bloat, it results from someone not understanding ratios, and the fact that any one result, however rare it is made, can happen on the first roll. For instance, the RuneQuest critical hit table, which in an early form involved making a singular roll on a critical table, with a varying chance of different wound results, but also a chance on that table of a result indicating to roll on the devastating critical table, with a chance there of having to roll multiple times and keep both results. Long story short, in the first attack roll I ever made in RuneQuest, I critical failed, and in one swing lopped of my friend's head and cut off my own arm. And since there isn't much chance of healing in the early game, my friend was permanently dead and I was permanently maimed.
Pros: You can make some really silly builds with Multiclassing.
Cons: You can make some really silly builds with Multiclassing.
My point is that Luke Skywalker isn't a Pilot who multi-classed into Jedi Apprentice and then Prestiged into Jedi Master. He was *always* a Jedi, it's just he also had piloting skills (and droid repair). A class is a character's past, present and future. If Skywalker's destiny Jedi was, Jedi then he is.
Han Solo is an even better example. Just because he pilots the Millennium Falcon doesn't make him pilot class. When he lead the Rebels on Endor, he didn't become a General class or Leader class. When he marries Leia he doesn't become a Diplomat class. He was, is, and dies a rogue (scoundrel).
My point is that Luke Skywalker isn't a Pilot who multi-classed into Jedi Apprentice and then Prestiged into Jedi Master. He was *always* a Jedi, it's just he also had piloting skills (and droid repair). A class is a character's past, present and future. If Skywalker's destiny Jedi was, Jedi then he is.
My point is that Luke Skywalker isn't a Pilot who multi-classed into Jedi Apprentice and then Prestiged into Jedi Master. He was *always* a Jedi, it's just he also had piloting skills (and droid repair). A class is a character's past, present and future. If Skywalker's destiny Jedi was, Jedi then he is.
What the hell was Luke doing for almost 20 years if he was *always* a Jedi?
That thing you only learned (and not all that well, Luke barely understands Jedi stuff as late as the Thrawn trilogy, when he's almost 30) when you were 20? Always been you. Those races through Begger's Canyon? Hunting Womp Rats? Climbing caverns? You were always a Jedi.
So losing your parents, being taught special abilities you never knew existed, joining a criminal organization and killing a third of a million people isn't a "dramatic, traumatic shift" in "life and destiny"?
1. HPs is an abstract system that is the standard for many, many games. The whole idea of HP is not that you are getting hit. It is you dodging, suffering minor wounds, etc. It is the blow that knocks you down below 0 that is the one that truly lands. That was explained by Gygax himself back 20-30 years ago.1. HP. HPs do nothing other than track a progress bar of how long the enemy can last. The reduction in HP does nothing else to the enemy. Suggested fix: Replace with a wounds system, where the would deteriorate your stats somehow.
2. HP bloat: Leveling leads to increase in HP that only makes the above problem worse. Suggested Solution: See above.
3. Attack bonus / Skills / Saves like HP bloat without producing a noticeable effect after a while. Once you have the skill level of 15, the challenge level of the roll has to artificially increase to justify higher skill level. Suggested solution: make skill system point buy and make it incrementally costly to improve. Make saves static and add modifiers based on feats/attributes. Make attack bonus a skill associated with a weapon. So instead of weapon proficiency implying a perfect understanding of a weapon, make weapon categories (bladed, blunt, ranged etc) and invest skill points there.
4. AC: Armor class is one of the worst systems in D&D. It does have granulation but that granulation adds up to the same number. Why not instead have a separate dodge skill and a parry skill while armour is DR? I am curious to hear your opinions on this.
Please add your own criticisms to bloat this list.
cons:
- HP bloat
- spells never got adjusted to HP bloat, e.g. fireball still does 10d6 max like in AD&D but mobs might have hundreds of HP now, this makes "blaster" casters crappy
I'll take that one up, but this is a question that has been answered many times on the Codex, so you can search out as many other accounts as you feel like.If you don't mind my asking, why do you hate wounds as a system? Just for some personal insight, I haven't ever really messed with a system that used them or used them particularly well.
I'm curious cause I'm working on a thing.
*
Unfortunately, the reasoning against wounds (and, it should be noted, Dodge rolls and DR fall under the same argument) are manifold and subtle, which means most people take one look at the argument, and just ignore it in order to keep believing in their faith in some system that can finally mimic reality. But to sum it all up: the pursuit of reality in an rpg is much like the pursuit of reality in a modern fps, where the devs spend months and millions of dollars making sure the dust flies around just right when the helicopter lands on the pad, and so end up spending less and less time and money ensuring that shooting the guns is, you know, fun.
The crux of a wounding system is that they apply penalties to someone wounded. (The word "penalty" is the important part of that sentence.) So, as in real life, in a fight between equals, the first person to get wounded is very likely going to die. Even a -1 penalty on a d20 sharply reduces the window of opportunity for an opponent to succeed, as they might have had a 25% to succeed in an attack, now they have a 20%, which (speaking in averages) means their opponent now gets an extra round to wail on them before they will successfully hit back. And on top of that, the penalty also makes it 5% more likely that they will fail a subsequent Wound Resistance roll and gain a second wound. Thus, the first wound starts a mechanical death spiral that is difficult to pull out of. (Now, most people immediately argue that their PCs have succeeded many times after being wounded, but rpg combats are not between equals. The first wound to a PC just makes the fight closer to actually being between equals, while if the enemy gets wounded first, they start death spiraling super fast.)
To put it into modern Build terms, an opponent built to have a high movement rate and To Hit but low toughness, with the intention of running up and getting a few hits gets in, that creature has its effectiveness broken by the first wound, and is much less likely to get a couple more good hits in before it dies. That, while an opponent built to have lots of stamina and toughness but low attack skill, that creature is rendered ineffectual by the first wound it receives, since it now has a terrible chance of landing any hits before it eventually dies. You can, of course, counter the above effects by building everyone with wound resistances and combat defenses, but then why even have wounding in the first place? - So PCs can lord it even more powerfully over weak creatures that have a low number of feats, and thus can't have those wound resistances?
Secondarily, wounds typically involve wound tables, and thus roll bloat. Every attack has multiple rolls to define what it is, with multiple tiered results based on those results. And that greatly slows the game down. As bad as 3e fights can drag, imagine doing 3x the work for each roll.
And to top it all off, since this whole concept is all about realism (or rather a common lack of ability of people to be able to think in the abstract), those who decide to implement it tend to want to have different types of wounding effects, instead of just wounded being a singular -1 penalty universally applied. And multiple types of wounds means a table where different effects have a different chance of occurring, that relative chance depending on the type of wound's considered rarity. And that not only means even more roll bloat, it results from someone not understanding ratios, and the fact that any one result, however rare it is made, can happen on the first roll. For instance, the RuneQuest critical hit table, which in an early form involved making a singular roll on a critical table, with a varying chance of different wound results, but also a chance on that table of a result indicating to roll on the devastating critical table, with a chance there of having to roll multiple times and keep both results. Long story short, in the first attack roll I ever made in RuneQuest, I critical failed, and in one swing lopped of my friend's head and cut off my own arm. And since there isn't much chance of healing in the early game, my friend was permanently dead and I was permanently maimed.
It's a funny end, to be sure, but remember to think of it as a game. We all set aside a bunch of time, spent a lot more time getting prepared, and the game ended on the first roll made by anyone. Thus, the game itself was a game that forget that the first rule of a game is to be a game, and not an obsessive's list of stacked tables, finicky rules, and slot-machine style luck that can end in immediate defeat.
Are you 15 years old BTW? These are the same criticisms every teen seems to level against D&D after playing for a few years. Then they delve into alternative systems or extensive houseruling before coming back to straight D&D in their 20s when they realize there's actually a reason for why the rules are the way they are, and that they work really in practice even if they may not make all that much sense on first glance.Why is this thread on gRPG forums? It is to point out problems in D&D on which so many cRPGs are based or inspired from. By understanding where D&D (in my opinion; you can state your opinion below) fails we can understand why many cRPGs fail to be great games.
What is this thread not about? How badly balanced D&D is. Sure, we all know it. Balancing, however, is a separate issue because how extensive it is.
Also, NB. I *love* D&D 3.5 despite all its faults. It's a great system to kickstart a game for those who have played RPGs before. It can be used cleverly to create low to mid-level adventures that feel epic without hitting epic levels.
To get to the point at hand without much ado:
The good of D&D 3.5 is the spell variety. You get a lot of some amazingly well-written stuff that despite being broken badly comes with a lot of flavours. Most spells are combat focused and thus boring. But the out of combat spells is where the strength of the spell system lies. They are *also* broken but with proper resource enforcement and clever DM management, they shine a lot to produce fantastic RP opportunities. These include divination and summoning spells as well as the enchantment and the illusion school spells.
The second major strength of D&D is the monsters and their templates that allow you to construct a wide menagerie of beasties to threaten players.
The weaknesses sadly are many.
1. HP. HPs do nothing other than track a progress bar of how long the enemy can last. The reduction in HP does nothing else to the enemy. Suggested fix: Replace with a wounds system, where the would deteriorate your stats somehow.
2. HP bloat: Leveling leads to increase in HP that only makes the above problem worse. Suggested Solution: See above.
3. Attack bonus / Skills / Saves like HP bloat without producing a noticeable effect after a while. Once you have the skill level of 15, the challenge level of the roll has to artificially increase to justify higher skill level. Suggested solution: make skill system point buy and make it incrementally costly to improve. Make saves static and add modifiers based on feats/attributes. Make attack bonus a skill associated with a weapon. So instead of weapon proficiency implying a perfect understanding of a weapon, make weapon categories (bladed, blunt, ranged etc) and invest skill points there.
4. AC: Armor class is one of the worst systems in D&D. It does have granulation but that granulation adds up to the same number. Why not instead have a separate dodge skill and a parry skill while armour is DR? I am curious to hear your opinions on this.
Please add your own criticisms to bloat this list.
Try fighting without the chumps on your side and see what happens. God-style wizards control the battlefield. They can't win it by themselves due to limited spell slots. They NEED the chumps to complete the kills.cons:
- HP bloat
- spells never got adjusted to HP bloat, e.g. fireball still does 10d6 max like in AD&D but mobs might have hundreds of HP now, this makes "blaster" casters crappy
Even worse: After a while, doing HP damage to win is for chumps. What you really need is the fail or fail spells, like assuming control of the minds or just paralysing wave that allows the chumps to finish the villain off at their leisure.
Compared to the previous editions of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, I would list the following as bad:
"Darkvision"
All characters use the same experience level table
Removal of THAC0
Ascending armour class
Only three categories of saving throws
Compared to the previous editions of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, I would list the following as bad:
"Darkvision"
All characters use the same experience level table
Removal of THAC0
Ascending armour class
Only three categories of saving throws