On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 21:14:09 +0000 (UTC),
mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
>In article <tl0t039e4fd28gt0vpe08m0id4mb3805a8@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>Erol K. Bayburt <ErolB1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>(That has to be my #1 complaint about D&D: "The spells are too
>>powerful." If the spells were weaker, they wouldn't need to be
>>rationed so tightly, they wouldn't be the unbalanced and over-balanced
>>encounter-enders and campaign-busters that they are, and
>>non-spellcasters wouldn't need sacks of magic items and comicbook
>>superhero type special abilities at high levels to keep parity with
>>the spellcasters.)
>
>We are seriously thinking about trying the "each level of primary
>spellcaster must alternate with a level of something else" variant.
>I imagine it's going to break system assumptions right and left, but
>it does seem as though it would fix a lot of problems.
I expect that it would make modules unusable unless you wanted to
spend a lot of time tinkering. It would also do strange things to
magic item availability.
But I've toyed with something like that myself; the spell progression
would be a lot saner if level 5 spells were only available to
characters at the high teen levels, and level 6+ spells were "epic"
ones available only to those characters of levels 21-33. One worry I
have, though, is that spellcasters wouldn't have enough spells under
such a system, even if I allowed something equivalent to alternating
wizard & sorcerer levels (or more generally alternate levels in two
different primary spellcaster classes).
D&D is at or beyond my preferred upper end for spell power anyway.
What I really like is a situation approaching that of Runequest, where
spell use is common as grass and appropriately weak to match.
(Runequest has problems for me, but I think it's nifty that one can
run it as a super-common magic "every child above the age of six knows
Healing-2" game.)
>Tillie insisted on getting her Cloack of Arachnidia back last night,
>and nearly died through lack of the "boring" +3 protection she had to
>give up to get it. Slurped into the embrace of a vampiric ooze,
>yuchh. The encounters are all balanced against the assumption you
>have around +3 to +5 saves and +6 to +8 armor class over what
non-equipped
>characters would naturally have.
This sort of thing reminds me that I really need to find and read over
a copy of Iron Heroes. From what I've heard of it, it is a solution to
the problem of assuming that characters have bonuses from items, even
if it's an extreme one that assumes/requires that *no* items even
exist.
I wonder how it would work if medium-to-high level characters were
given a "heroic" bonus to saves, AC, etc, that didn't stack with
bonuses from magic.
>I have severe worries about the survival of my Worms game at this
>point. There's an implicit contract between player(s) and GM when
>playing D&D, it seems to me, that the GM will do something appropriate
>for non-minimaxed PCs and the player will not minimax to a game-
>busting degree. Episode #4 of _Worms_ broke the GM side of that
>contract *badly*. It is hard to tell the player "don't minimax"
>after throwing a CR16 at level 8 PCs. But once you've started down
>that road, is there really a stopping point short of "every fight is
>determined before it starts" outcomes?
1. ouch ouch ouch
2. My working theory is that the module designers really haven't
internalized the concept of "+2 levels = x2 power" Which to be fair is
a concept that makes encounter design (and the game as a whole)
terribly brittle and hard to do at mid to high level. There just isn't
enough "room" between a Standard Encounter and the strongest "tough"
encounter you can use without being an abusive GM.
>
>Episode #5 really never posed any serious danger to the PCs; the
>gladiatorial fights in particular were a joke. (The crowd didn't
>like the PCs as much as the module thought they should, because
>yes, the PCs won, but it was *boring.* Madtooth the great monster
>never got to act at all; it just turned into a frog on the first
>action of the first PC. Admittedly that was a bad die roll, but
>still.)
I'm reminded of a piece of advice I once read for Champions, that the
villains should be over-armored and under-gunned. The idea being that
the losing side of a fight should last at least a few turns unless
mookishly weak. That way, if the NPC is on the short end, the fight
will still be somewhat interesting, and if the PCs are on the short
end, they have a chance to "change the rules" (run away, surrender,
call for divine intervention...) before they go down.
>
>But it's hard to tell the player "Back down a bit on the minimax"
>when there might be another Episode #4 coming at any moment.
>(And in fact, I think he *has* backed down some. The line between
>enough minimax to survive and too much to be fun is very thin and
>hard to spot. I'm not sure that for me there *is* such a line
>past about level 12.)
If it exists, it's razor thin. I blame the official "+2 levels = x2
power" power curve. IMO teen-level characters need to have room for
having a couple of levels of variability in their actual power level
vs their nominal level without this breaking the game - but they
don't.
(And to get back to my original complaint, the reason for the "+2
levels = x2 power" power curve, the reason why it's so hard to
house-rule that steep power curve away, is that primary spellcasters
keep getting spells that are more and more powerful. That power
exponential curve is needed to cram those 9th level spells into the
reach of 17th level casters.)
--
Erol K. Bayburt
ErolB1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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