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11 months ago ::
Jul 08, 2012 - 12:22PM
#41
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Equipment eaters were basically a way for the DM to say oops I gave you something too powerful... a hokey admittance of a failure in the guidelines for distributing treasure.
Sometime I'd like to know what sadistic DM you played under so I can have my friends hunt him down and slap him with a large trout or something, because every time you say something like this it just leaves me dumbfounded for a moment. In 31 years of D&D, I've seen 'equipment eaters' actually -succeed- in eating equipment a handful of times. And I've used them/seen them a lot more than that, as they are pretty common underground encounters (the slime/mold/ooze variety, but not to imply that we are typically underground).
The worst equipment stealer to ever exist (as far as how many times it stole weaponry) was, thankfully, temporary -- the standard Baaz draconian from Dragonlance. Those lil buggers would steal about 90% of the killing weapons lol. Hoopaks to the rescue!
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11 months ago ::
Jul 08, 2012 - 12:42PM
#42
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It seems to me that it would be fine to just take averages (round down) on everything thats not a d20 roll.
Sounds good to me.
Many players like rolling dice, and no problem, while those who prefer to use damage averages (rounding up from point .5) have a reliable alternative.
Variable healing in combat, where that variation is part of the excitement is fine. Variable healing between combats just complicates bookkeeping and resource management for no gain. If you've ever sat through someone actually declaring and rolling all the charges from his CLW wand, you know what I'm talking about...
I think these quotes basically sum up my feelings on random healing. Personally, I do think random healing usually needs to have a higher "floor" than random damage does. As an example, instead of 1d8+1 healing, I'd rather see 1d6+3 or 1d4+5.
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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11 months ago ::
Jul 11, 2012 - 1:48AM
#43
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2001
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Equipment eaters were basically a way for the DM to say oops I gave you something too powerful... a hokey admittance of a failure in the guidelines for distributing treasure.
Sometime I'd like to know what sadistic DM you played under so I can have my friends hunt him down and slap him with a large trout or something, because every time you say something like this it just leaves me dumbfounded for a moment.
There's no sadism involved. It's not even incompetence. There are DMs who, through talent or experience, can manage never to give out a game-breaking magic item in AD&D (a version of the game crawling with game-breaking magic-items). For everyone else, there are Rust Monsters and Disenchanters and so forth. Ugly kludges you use to fix your mistakes. Players hate them, but, really, they're not the problem.
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? Join the Old Guard of 4e"You want The Tooth? You can't handle The Tooth!" - Dahlver-Nar. "If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly" - E. Gary Gygax
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11 months ago ::
Jul 11, 2012 - 2:48AM
#44
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There's no sadism involved. It's not even incompetence. There are DMs who, through talent or experience, can manage never to give out a game-breaking magic item in AD&D (a version of the game crawling with game-breaking magic-items). For everyone else, there are Rust Monsters and Disenchanters and so forth. Ugly kludges you use to fix your mistakes. Players hate them, but, really, they're not the problem.
He was not saying no DM handed out wrong equipment, he was saying that equipment monsters are not a particular effective way to remove equipment since they rarely succeeded in his experience. Players often knew what monsters destroyed what type of equipment, and simply switched to lesser stuff. It is also a highly unpredictable method. So, yeah, if you use these monsters specifically to remove specific items to rebalance the game, you are somewhat of a sadistic DM 
As for level draining on death, bad idea, especially in the newer editions. Not only do you punish the PC for death, you make it more likely the PC will die again and again. Anything that causes a disruption in the balance of power between PCs has a big inherent risk of destroying the game. The loss of permanent level drain in 4e is a good thing IMO.
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11 months ago ::
Jul 11, 2012 - 5:27AM
#45
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Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2008
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Variable healing in combat, where that variation is part of the excitement is fine. Variable healing between combats just complicates bookkeeping and resource management for no gain.
This is what my friend and I decided too. We think it would be nice if (assuming that they keep the Hit Die mechanic) you got back max hp from spending a Hit Die during a short rest. And then you can add in ways to use Hit Dice during combat. My 2 ideas are:
1) Second Wind. If you are not adjacent to any enemies, you can use your action to catch your breath. Spend a hit die.
2) Combat Medic. You can use a healer's kit to apply some quick and dirty field dressings to an ally. Both you and the ally must not have any enemies adjacent. The ally can spend a hit die.
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11 months ago ::
Jul 19, 2012 - 10:41AM
#46
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Date Joined:
Feb 13, 2012
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Variable healing in combat, where that variation is part of the excitement is fine. Variable healing between combats just complicates bookkeeping and resource management for no gain.
This is what my friend and I decided too. We think it would be nice if (assuming that they keep the Hit Die mechanic) you got back max hp from spending a Hit Die during a short rest. And then you can add in ways to use Hit Dice during combat.
I hadn't thought of it that way, but it rings true. Dice are for the exciting or action or suspense portions of the game.
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