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1 year ago ::
Mar 18, 2012 - 10:40AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Sep 11, 2007
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I've started a series of blog posts about using a spell point system similar to Dragonlance 5th Age as an optional module for D&D Next. I'd love to see constructive comments and suggestions from game mechanic gurus. The discussion starts here: community.wizards.com/vb_baysider/blog/2...community.wizards.com/vb_baysider/blog/2...Please add you ideas here or in the comments!
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1 year ago ::
Mar 18, 2012 - 11:00AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2012
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The problem is the edge score. It's too low for most and then too high and too random. You end up with point ranges between 17 and 43+ on the same character. Fun system, but not a stable system.
The ritual magic rules implemented as full time Spell research & cast in the Unearthed Arcana 3e might be a bit better way to go. If you aren't careful though, the Mages turn into Psionicists.
Options are Liberating
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1 year ago ::
Mar 18, 2012 - 12:20PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Sep 11, 2007
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I'm not certain to what you are referring to with the "edge score". Are you speaking of the min-max spell point range for spells or for starting characters?
I'm not proposing to use it as written in DL5A. In my last paragraph, I proposed using something like 5 + stat bonus at first level and then (2* level) + stat bonus added each level as a point progression.
So the spell point per level progression comes out something like this:
+ 1 stat bonus
1st: 6
2nd: 11
3rd: 18
4th: 27
5th: 38
6th: 51
etc...
+4 stat bonus
1st: 9
2nd: 17
3rd: 27
4th: 39
5th: 53
6th: 69
etc...
So, yes, the power difference can become a little more pronounced at higher levels between someone with +4 to their stat versus someone with +1. I am still considering the options for point progression. However, it doesn't appear to too bad until after someone leaves the Heroic tier.
Can you show me how you can up with 17 to 43? Are you squaring the bonus stat?
[soapbox]
As for Psionics... Well, I personally hate the idea of Psionics in a fantasy setting. It does not fit the flavor of the genre at all and should be relegated to an optional module, not a core book (Are you listening WotC?). However, I love the idea of a magic user channeling more mana for a larger spell effect and I think meta-magic feats are a poor mechanic to accomplish that. A spell point system has the advantage of making meta-magic feats obsolete, and creating the feel of magic you read about in fantasy novels such as the Wheel of Time, Sword of Truth, Myth Adventures or [insert schlocky fantasy novels here].
[/soapbox]
PS - I'm not knocking schlock fantasy. I love schlock fantasy.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 18, 2012 - 12:47PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Aug 28, 2005
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Aren't we not supposed to advertise our blogs on these forums? I think that if you want to start a discussion about this on the forums, you should actually start a thread about it on the forums so that the discussion is easier to keep up with, rather than just link over to a blog that somebody would have to go out of their way to find again and that would be a much less suitable place for an actual discussion.
Why, yes, as a matter of fact I am the Unfailing Arbiter of All That Is Good Design (Even More So Than The Actual Developers) TMSpeaking of things that were badly designed, please check out this thread for my Minotaur fix. What have the critics said, you ask? "If any of my players ask to play a Minotaur, I'm definitely offering this as an alternative to the official version." - EmpactWB "If I ever feel like playing a Minotaur I'll know where to look!" - Undrave "WoTC if you are reading this - please take this guy's advice." - Ferol_Debtor_of_Torm "Really full of win. A minotaur that is actually attractive for more than just melee classes." - Cpt_Micha Also, check out my recent GENASI variant! If you've ever wished that your Fire Genasi could actually set stuff on fire, your Water Genasi could actually swim, or your Wind Genasi could at least glide, then look no further. Finally, check out my OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE article, an effort to give unique support to the races that WotC keeps forgetting about. Includes new racial feature options for the Changeling, Deva, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Orc, Kalashtar, Minotaur, Shadar-Kai, Thri-Kreen, Warforged and more!
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1 year ago ::
Mar 18, 2012 - 2:53PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Sep 11, 2007
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Thank you for the warm welcome.
I did not see anywhere in the FAQs or forum guidelines where this is stated... and seriously, is it that big a deal to link to a wizards.com blog? What if the article had been off-site on my personal blog, Weem's site, Obsidian Portal or somewhere similar? What is the difference between linking to a blog article there to solicit discussion versus on my blog here? Would I also not be able to reference another off-site link?
Besides, blog posts offer advantages that forum posts do not - which is why I chose that medium first:
1) I plan on posting an article each week on current and past editions of D&D. Users who wish to follow my blog posts can do so in one place. This is not possible with forum posts.
2) Blog posts can be topic/keyword tagged for users searching the site or on search engines. Forum posts can not.
I wished to gather ideas from users who may not normally surf the community blogs, so I posted my article links here to solicit feedback on the ideas.
I'm sorry you find it overly onerous to open a new browser window or tab. Now, you could have easily PM'd me with some friendly advice, but instead you chose to derail the thread with a public flogging even though it was not at all your place to do so. So, next time you might try a friendlier approach, otherwise, you should reconsider your post.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 18, 2012 - 5:44PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2012
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I'm not certain to what you are referring to with the "edge score". Are you speaking of the min-max spell point range for spells or for starting characters?
This is what I was talking about:
www.amazon.com/Dragonlance-Fifth-Age-SAG...
As to Fantasy and Psionics, here's my soap box response: I was into Science and Science fiction since the age of 4. I got over my ninja phase when as a 3 year old, I watched a ninja movie, attacked Grandma's Carnations with my wooden "ninja sword" and was beaten within an inch of my life. Years later, my uncle introduced me to Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince, because I liked Stephen King's Firestarter and Frank Herbert's Dune. Rawn's protagonist was a female pyrokineticist with telepathy and astral projection, yet she conveniently renamed all three under a "religion/sorcery" rubric called 'Sunrunners', who could also communicate telepathically magically with Dragons. That was the book that got me into fantasy - a book about psionics thinly veiled as magic.
Over the decades to come, I would see two different TV series about Merlin the "wizard", both displaying a heft amount of speechless, motionless, componentless, thought controlled Telekinesis and Pyrokinesis, also dubbed "Magic". I don't think Psionics are a problem, I think the rules governing them are the problem. If you took what actually resembles psionics out of the "magic" you love so much, your fantasy stories would be missing millions of pages.
Options are Liberating
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1 year ago ::
Mar 18, 2012 - 7:35PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Sep 11, 2007
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I'm still not following... I read all the details in the amazon link but found no refernce to "edge score". Could you elaborate? As for psionics, I prefer to keep pisonics in science fiction and magic in fantasy. You see magic as psioncs in a fantasy setting. Perhaps I see psioncs as magic in a science fiction settion. Why does there need to be a rules system for both in a fantasy setting if they are, as you say, essentially the same thing? I don't want to derail the original intent of the thread (which is to gather feedback on the spell point mechanic), but I actually view psionics as different than magic in that psionics should still obey the laws of thermodynamics (energy and/or matter isn't actually created or destroyed... just moved around some) whereas magic can actually break the laws of physics. If a SF author is actually wiriting up psionics such that the laws of physics are breakable, then they are not writing about psionics -- they are writing about magic. Perhaps that makes me a genre snob.  If If you want to chat some more about the distinctions and how our views may differ, feel free to PM me. Po-tay-to, Po-tat-o. Either way, a genre really only needs one set of game rules for the "fantastical"... I would just like spell points to be one of those options for my campaign, even if it is only an optional module for 5e.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 18, 2012 - 7:56PM
#8
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I'm still not following...
Either way, a genre really only needs one set of game rules for the "fantastical"... I would just like spell points to be one of those options for my campaign, even if it is only an optional module for 5e.
That's rather clear. A game system only needs one set of rules for the fantastical? So no rituals then? And isn't the optional module you are talking about to replace vancian (which is something I also want to see) another set of rules? What you're talking about isn't rules, it's flavor. And flavor should be left up to individual campagins. You don't think psionics belongs in fantasy? That's fine for your games. But tell all the people who play Dark Sun that they shouldn't have psionics just because you don't want to use it.
Why Mechanics-Alignment Integration is Bad
Show
so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin."
NPC: "Really?"
Fighter: "Yes."
NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?"
Fighter: "I do."
NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?"
Fighter: "What?"
NPC: "I don't know what it means either."
Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do."
NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics."
Fighter: "These what?"
NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
D20 Modern Toon PC Race.
Mecha Pilot's Skill Challenge Emporium.
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