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4 months ago ::
Jan 21, 2013 - 5:21PM
#11
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2013
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its important to convey the idea of flexibility in the game to newbs. That gets their minds spinning and thinking differently about the game. I need to game to be tough or its not going to be entertaining to play. That's just me. Knowing that Energy Drain can suck levels away is a great way to help people out... what?
Ha Ha Ha! I'm eating your souls away with every touch!
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4 months ago ::
Jan 21, 2013 - 5:41PM
#12
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2008
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nexons,
I was just going over the wight. What struck me was that its energy drain wasn't as cool as it used to be. I know its a contentous issue, energry drain. Some like it to do level drain others don't like it to do anything at all. What I think the game should do is offer difficulty levels for some of these powers like energry drain. If your playing Dndnext on Hard, then it drains level. If its on Easy then it does like 5 hp of damage.
What do you think of this crazy idea? This way the DM can say to the players that the game is on the Hard setting and they have some idea as to what things will be like.
blanger!
Greetings visitor from the Far Realm!
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4 months ago ::
Jan 21, 2013 - 5:55PM
#13
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Drain as HP can be designed in such a way so it's FAR worse than level drain.
So why would you use insulting terms like "easy mode".
I'd prefer you used "dont' want terrible design mode" but you could just stick with something neutral like "optional drain".
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4 months ago ::
Jan 21, 2013 - 6:00PM
#14
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2013
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well, its not designed that way.... its easy.  bring back the lifestealer sword in the magic sectin to. I can't find it.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 21, 2013 - 6:10PM
#15
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My first and only 2e experience was playing with a dm who wanted to "test the difficulty of his module". Our first fight was against wights, which decimated me (the barbarian) and hurt the paladin. After that fight, I had the option of playing as a 1st level barbarian or rerolling. When we talked about it later, he pointed out that he expected successful parties to have the magic users kill the wights, while the melee fighters would stand around not getting into danger.
Now, admittedly, one story doesn't lead to data. But, once bitten twice shy - I'm not interested in playing a game where you can be penalized into uselessness for some bad rolls.
I realize that many Of the people asking for hard mode had potions or rituals that would have healed my character. The fact that I didn't know about them doesn't make me more likely to enjoy level drain.
So, if its popular, I have no problem with putting into the dmg. But for me, any energy drain will be temporary and easy to administer.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 21, 2013 - 6:52PM
#16
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2013
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you think this is crazy? The Witcher 2 apparently has a mode where if you die in the game the whole flippin thing is over with! I've had to save and restart many times with that game. Apparently there are people who can do it without my feeble playing skills.
The cooler monsters in the Witcher were the ones that made me think about how to fight them. There's one that explodes in an acid burst apparently. Sometimes I just avoided them. Others became more mook like over time and I started to avoid those as well.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 21, 2013 - 7:24PM
#17
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Saving and reloading works better in a single player game. A mode where when you die you're out really only works if the game party is supposed to be 10 minutes long.
Still, many people like level drain, so I'm okay with easy mechanics, for those who want them.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 21, 2013 - 7:26PM
#18
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Date Joined:
May 18, 2002
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A mode where when you die you're out really only works if the game party is supposed to be 10 minutes long.
And even then, developers realized pretty early on that players are more likely to cough up another quarter if a "continue" option exists.
I can't even specifically remember any videogames where "death" means "roll another guy", but I seem recall the handful that did were hilariously exploitable - or largely ignored until savestates became possible.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 21, 2013 - 11:36PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Dec 13, 2006
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Having your character get hit with an attack that has complicated rules behind it - re: level drain in 2e/3e - and then having to modify a bunch of different rules, stat blocks, temporary modifications, additional rules for how to get it back, etc etc: Not much fun. As was said before, it's a logistical nightmare. Unpleasant.
Having your character hit with an attack that puts you behind the rest of the party for a significant period of time is basically like getting hit with a "I'll just suck compared to the rest of the party" status effect. Also, not much fun.
For some people, having an attack that puts a grave status effect, something that really scares the player and makes them go "oh no! I should do everything in my power to not get hit by that again" can make for interesting gameplay, and make some very scary monsters, well, scary, and not basically additional sacks of hit points to smash for xp rewards.
Some players don't like that kind of thing, and some players like having it even worse - something that can easily kill your character. This is a taste thing! Do your players want a very real possibility of character depth around every corner, with 3 back-up characters pre-rolled before every gaming session? Or do your characters like the storylines possible when all-or-most of the party is put in grave danger often, mostly gets through it, perhaps losing (in proper dramatic fashion) a few friends along the way?
Both of these are appropriate, but these kinds of difficulty tweaks should be handled at the campaign level. There should be an easy way to modify character creation or overall combat rules so that when a monster hits and does (a certain status effect), then for some campaigns that's bad, and for other campaigns that's really bad. You shouldn't have to change the monster; you should be able to change the players or perhaps even some of the overall combat rules.
A good analogy for 4e is having a campaign where the total number of surges a character can have is halved (or even reduced further). This makes losing a single surge (to an energy drain attack, for example) very terrifying - more scary than the already frightening loss to a player with twice as many total surges.
Want the tl;dr of my posts? Read the bold text; I put it there to highlight the main points for ease of skimming.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 22, 2013 - 12:31AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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I personally liked 3E's negative level mechanic for energy drain. it was something you could apply relatively quick, while still being something people definiteyl didn't like to get hit with.
I liked 3e's solution as well. I quite like the OP's idea of ramping up abilities on the basis of how gritty you want your campaign. In the broader philosophical sense, getting hit for damage has the potential to "put your character behind the rest of the party for a significant period of time," depending on what kind of healing rules are in play. All things that happen to characters can and should have the potential to do this, or we don't actually care what happens to us. Attacks have to be significant and special abilities have to be even more so or it's not worth rolling dice for and I can simply narrate a fight without any player interaction or random elements. A series of difficulty modules in the monster manual, right after conditions and special monster qualities are explained, would be an excellent way to empower groups to decide what kind of campaign they want to play.
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