So here's the deal. I have a prewritten scenario. One person (Old One Eye, unless he taps out) will make the party and attempt to complete it successfully.

Here are the rules:

Party of 4.
Level 7, 32 PB.
PCs and enemies are restricted to the following classes: Adept, Aristocrat, Barbarian, CA Ninja, Commoner, CW Samurai, Expert, Fighter (dungeoncrasher or not), Healer, Hexblade, Knight, Marshal, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Scout, Soulknife, Spellthief, Swashbuckler, Warlock, Warmage, Warrior.
Sources are restricted to 3.5 books that are non campaign specific and non weather based.

The party you construct will run through a scenario designed to model a standard adventuring day. This means a number of things.

1: If the entire party dies, you automatically lose.
2: If it takes more than one day (defined as either 16 hours game time or resting to recover resources), you automatically lose.
3: If at least half the party dies but you beat all encounters, you automatically lose (as losing half the party every single day is clearly not sustainable).
4: If one person in the party dies but the rest then go on to win, you might get a judgment loss. If that person died in some consistent or reliable fashion, that's a loss as consistently having a death a day isn't sustainable either. If it was just bad luck, I won't hold it against them and therefore that would be a win.
5: Large amounts of struggling might result in a judgment loss. This is meant to be a standard adventuring day, something you get through without breaking a sweat. If you're having to go all out to deal with routine stuff, you stand no chance against the actually hard stuff. And sometimes you do deal with that even in standard play.
6: If the party beats everything without losing anyone, they win. Good luck with that though.

Let me know if there's anything I missed.

Quote from: Mr. GC;589733Let me know if there's anything I missed.

what's the setting? World background? where are the characters from? What's the "hook" of the scenario(i.e. what motivation do the adventurer's have for completing the quest?)

Quote from: Mr. GC;5897331: If the entire party dies, you automatically lose.
2: If it takes more than one day (defined as either 16 hours game time or resting to recover resources), you automatically lose.
3: If at least half the party dies but you beat all encounters, you automatically lose (as losing half the party every single day is clearly not sustainable).
4: If one person in the party dies but the rest then go on to win, you might get a judgment loss. If that person died in some consistent or reliable fashion, that's a loss as consistently having a death a day isn't sustainable either. If it was just bad luck, I won't hold it against them and therefore that would be a win.
5: Large amounts of struggling might result in a judgment loss. This is meant to be a standard adventuring day, something you get through without breaking a sweat. If you're having to go all out to deal with routine stuff, you stand no chance against the actually hard stuff. And sometimes you do deal with that even in standard play.
6: If the party beats everything without losing anyone, they win. Good luck with that though.

Why should anyone agree to those restrictions, as they have nothing to do with the original challenge and are just stacking things in your favour? Especially as they're exceptionally arbitrary? what happens (in the gameworld) in a day that means thee character's "lose"? Lose what exactly?

What criteria do you have for determining what's a "weak" monster?

I also missed "the point" of this thread. I thought the argument was about whether playing "gimped" characters was legitimately roleplaying.

Quote from: TristramEvans;589740what's the setting? World background? where are the characters from? What's the "hook" of the scenario(i.e. what motivation do the adventurer's have for completing the quest?)

Generic campaign world. You're reading far too much into this.

QuoteWhy should anyone agree to those restrictions, as they have nothing to do with the original challenge and are just stacking things in your favour? Especially as they're exceptionally arbitrary? what happens (in the gameworld) in a day that means thee character's "lose"? Lose what exactly?

What criteria do you have for determining what's a "weak" monster?

The original remark was that weak classes/characters/parties cannot play D&D. I chose the absolute lowest standard possible for what that means.

If you cannot deal with a standard adventuring day, you lose. That includes taking more than a day to do a single day. That's what all of those mean, and it's so I don't have people saying hah, one guy has 1 HP left, we won!

Quote from: Mr. GC;589745The original remark was that weak classes/characters/parties cannot play D&D. I chose the absolute lowest standard possible for what that means.

I'll save you some time. You can play D&D with a weak party (especially if we're going by your extremely broad definition of weak). People have been doing such a thing for years. You can technically play D&D and not even know all or even most of the rules.

Quote from: Mr. GC;589745Generic campaign world.

No such thing.

QuoteThe original remark was that weak classes/characters/parties cannot play D&D. I chose the absolute lowest standard possible for what that means.

Um, no, you added a bunch of rules that don't exist in D&D . That's hardly the "lowest standards possible".

QuoteIf you cannot deal with a standard adventuring day, you lose. That includes taking more than a day to do a single day.

I have no idea what that means. How is time determined? What is the goal of the day? I mean, is there a schedule?

 

QuoteThat's what all of those mean, and it's so I don't have people saying hah, one guy has 1 HP left, we won!

I think there's a big gap from that to what your rules define, though.

Quote from: Mr. GC;589733Sources are restricted to 3.5 books that are non campaign specific and non weather based.

Non-weather based?  What the fuck does that even mean?

QuoteThe party you construct will run through a scenario designed to model a standard adventuring day. This means a number of things.

1: If the entire party dies, you automatically lose.
2: If it takes more than one day (defined as either 16 hours game time or resting to recover resources), you automatically lose.
3: If at least half the party dies but you beat all encounters, you automatically lose (as losing half the party every single day is clearly not sustainable).
4: If one person in the party dies but the rest then go on to win, you might get a judgment loss. If that person died in some consistent or reliable fashion, that's a loss as consistently having a death a day isn't sustainable either. If it was just bad luck, I won't hold it against them and therefore that would be a win.
5: Large amounts of struggling might result in a judgment loss. This is meant to be a standard adventuring day, something you get through without breaking a sweat. If you're having to go all out to deal with routine stuff, you stand no chance against the actually hard stuff. And sometimes you do deal with that even in standard play.
6: If the party beats everything without losing anyone, they win. Good luck with that though.

Let me know if there's anything I missed.

Yeah, your scenario doesn't model a 'standard adventuring day'.  Primarily because there is no 'standard' for adventuring days.  Plus, you have five conditions for loss and only one condition for victory, which you already admit you have stacked against the party with your bizarre conditions.  You haven't defined 'weak' in regards to the characters, the party, or the opposition.  And I have grave doubts that you would consider an encounter successfully passed if the party was able to garner the loot or whatever without killing the opposition, which is a primary survival technique in older versions.

To summarize:  You want a low-ish hit point party to run a WoW type raid on the desktop, where the resource they need the most is the one that can't be marshaled because you are pushing them into no-way-out combats of attrition.

Really, all you are admitting here is that the DM decides whether or not the party survives, even with your HARDCORE RAW BY THE NUMBERS style of play.  So, congratulations...?  You have conclusively proven that you play Mother may I.

Quote from: StormBringer;589752Non-weather based?  What the fuck does that even mean?

Believe it or not, there were actually sourcebooks that concentrated on certain conditions - desert, arctic etc. Not exactly weather based, but environment based.

Quote from: One Horse Town;589755Believe it or not, there were actually sourcebooks that concentrated on certain conditions - desert, arctic etc. Not exactly weather based, but environment based.

Ok.  I don't find that hard to believe, and if done well, I think it is probably a fairly good idea.  Tundra Ranger won't survive more than a few days in Desert Ranger's territory, and vice versa.  I can't say if each type of environment needs a separate book or not, but that would depend on the content.

That said, negating relatively obscure types of sourcebooks means the argument is pretty feeble to begin with.  I am surprised one of the conditions wasn't 'no ability score over 4, and minimum hit points at all levels'.

"I can beat you in a coin flipping contest.  You don't get to see the coin toss, I flip the coin and tell you the result; you can only call 'nachos' or 'bongos' and neither of them ever means 'heads' or 'tails'; I don't have to tell you what I called; and I will use a coin of my choosing to perform the flips."

:rolleyes:

Quote from: StormBringer;589758Ok.  I don't find that hard to believe, and if done well, I think it is probably a fairly good idea.  Tundra Ranger won't survive more than a few days in Desert Ranger's territory, and vice versa.  I can't say if each type of environment needs a separate book or not, but that would depend on the content.

That said, negating relatively obscure types of sourcebooks means the argument is pretty feeble to begin with.  I am surprised one of the conditions wasn't 'no ability score over 4, and minimum hit points at all levels'.

"I can beat you in a coin flipping contest.  You don't get to see the coin toss, I flip the coin and tell you the result; you can only call 'nachos' or 'bongos' and neither of them ever means 'heads' or 'tails'; I don't have to tell you what I called; and I will use a coin of my choosing to perform the flips."

:rolleyes:

*shrug*

Take him up on it, or not.

Shit, i'd like more people to visit this sub-forum.

Quote from: One Horse Town;589759*shrug*

Take him up on it, or not.

Shit, i'd like more people to visit this sub-forum.

I've already stated why I won't be participating, just pointing out the blatant flaws in the conditions.

And this thread is a prime example of why Pundit doesn't want theoretical stuff in this forum.  That, and the Forgite design crap will almost certainly get dragged in at one point.  We really need a cohesive language for RPG design.

I'm surprised that you all are continuing to engage in this nonsense.

Oh well, more post count for the site, I guess?

Quote from: Mr. GC;589733Party of 4.
Level 7, 32 PB.
PCs and enemies are restricted to the following classes: Adept, Aristocrat, Barbarian, CA Ninja, Commoner, CW Samurai, Expert, Fighter (dungeoncrasher or not), Healer, Hexblade, Knight, Marshal, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Scout, Soulknife, Spellthief, Swashbuckler, Warlock, Warmage, Warrior.

Alrighty, NPCs from the 3.5 DMG, clearly a non-optimized party:

Jugs the Barbarian 7th lvl mostly wants to drink and hit things.
Swordmeister the Fighter 7th lvl really, really likes his sword.
Goodguy the Paladin 7th lvl wants to get Jugs off the sauce and on to the straight and narrow.
Filthy Peeks the Rogue 7th lvl wants to make enough seed money to start a brothel.

The funny part is these conditions would have made the bone party an auto-lose...and probably the other one, too.

I guess the player could just win by refusing to post, or by breaking actions down to the nearest 1/10th of a round, challenging every ruling.

Quote from: Doom;589774The funny part is these conditions would have made the bone party an auto-lose...and probably the other one, too.

I guess the player could just win by refusing to post, or by breaking actions down to the nearest 1/10th of a round, challenging every ruling.

Actually, the Bone Devil party would not necessarily have to lose, given these conditions.  If the point of the mission was 'kill this particular enemy', they would have had to complete the mission in a single day without losing anyone, but they shouldn't have lost anyone to a creature of their CR.  They should have expected to expend around 20-25% of their daily resources to win.