Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;380626I second the motion that Jibba-Jibba start a new thread.
This would double the flamewar opportunities

I'm all for some game design.  Someone point me to the new thread when it gets posted.

Quote from: Benoist;379533Your remark that "at least now everyone has cool stuff to do, instead of waiting for the mage to resolve their spells so you can continue sucking or running away" clearly wasn't about game design. It was about actual play. That means that somehow you need the rules to spell out what cool things you can do in the game.

Quote from: Peregrin;379547Would you let fighters do half of the things they could through powers in 4e, and would those be as mechanically interesting as spells?

Quote from: Benoist;379563Options don't have to be mechanical to be interesting, or to exist. Choices don't have to be hardcoded into rules. The point of the game isn't the rules, to me. It's the make-believe. The question, the way you're asking it, is nonsensical to me.

What he's asking is this:

In 4E, say you have a Fighter exploit that allows you to parry an attack made against an adjacent comrade as an interrupt action.

Or you have an exploit that allows you cleave through three opponents with a single attack.

Or you have an attack that allows you to swat an enemy back 15ft.

How do you rule these things in a system that doesn't have guidelines for them?

Are these even options in Basic or AD&D?

I'm curious to read your answer on this as well.

Quote from: Shazbot79;380671What he's asking is this:

In 4E, say you have a Fighter exploit that allows you to parry an attack made against an adjacent comrade as an interrupt action.

Or you have an exploit that allows you cleave through three opponents with a single attack.

Or you have an attack that allows you to swat an enemy back 15ft.

How do you rule these things in a system that doesn't have guidelines for them?

Are these even options in Basic or AD&D?

I'm curious to read your answer on this as well.

You can run all these things in any D&D version with DM flexibility and skill. I seem to remember a little example paragraph could have been in the AD&D DMG could have been in Holmes, it describes how you can use a to hit to cover anything so the PCs need to catch a scroll case as it speeds past in a river and the DM makes them make a roll to hit AC4.

So basically since the whole system is based on hitting a target number of a d20 you can express any action was a target number on a d20.

We made a parry system years ago that you needed to hit a higher ac than your opponent to parry their blow (this would be easier with today's rules with an attack bonus +a d20. ) So you could parry a blow aimed at an adjacent opponent by misisng an attack and rolling 5 ACs higher than the sucessful roll to hit (or 5 more than their adjusted roll to hit in a 4e sense).

You can make a cleave attack by making a called shot -4 to hit. Then any damage in excess of your first targets remaining hit points passes onto the next target provided that your adjusted to hit roll allowed you to hit them (so you can't hit through the goblin to do damage to the gold dragon if your total to hit wouldn't be high enough to do damage in the first place. )

To push an ememy back you call the action forgoing 1/2 damage (as you are pushing you opponent back you are not transfering all of the energy in your blow to penetrative damage as they absorb some by moving backwards) you roll to hit. The ammount you exceed the roll to hit by acts as effect number pushing your opponent back that many feet (you could apply a multiplier for target size or if you wanted to get technical introduce a safe versus pertification with the effect number as a modifier).

With a good DM the players trust all this stuff is in the system from the outset.

I will be posting a stunt system which I started writing last night and will have up tonight which works on the same basic principles as these examples.

Quote from: Shazbot79;380671What he's asking is this:

In 4E, say you have a Fighter exploit that allows you to parry an attack made against an adjacent comrade as an interrupt action.

Or you have an exploit that allows you cleave through three opponents with a single attack.

Or you have an attack that allows you to swat an enemy back 15ft.

How do you rule these things in a system that doesn't have guidelines for them?

Are these even options in Basic or AD&D?

I'm curious to read your answer on this as well.

Yes, a few of these options exist in AD&D, in the form of pummeling and these sort of combat maneuvers. Instances of such actions on a character's part may be resolved by on-the-spot adjudication, according to circumstances, common sense, etc.

If, as a DM, you find these instances repeat themselves regularly, and thus, that this area of combat is lacking in terms of rules, you expand on what exists and create new alternate combat maneuvers (see Rob Conley's shield uses in the Majestic Wilderlands as an example). See jibba's examples for variants (good post, by the way, JJ).

My point is that the default assumption of a game system, to me, shouldn't be to describe all the options in all cases right off the bat, and that the make-believe, the actual game itself, trumps its mechanical elements. It's not because you don't have a rule for it that you can't do it. Rules are guidelines, a springboard. What matters is the logic underlying the rules and the ability of a Good GM to extrapolate on this basis.

Describing all options all the time turns a game system into a "nuh-huh!" manual. Don't have the Cleave feat? "Nuh-huh" answers the rule book. You can't cleave then. It's just an instance of a game system imagining for you, putting training wheels on your ability to come up with inventive solutions to problems, taking the gist of the game away from the imaginative, immersive part of the game to make it rest squarely on the act of gaming the mechanics for various advantages in the game. Not that the latter can't be fun too, but it's not role playing, to me - it's solving metagame mechanical puzzles that actually have nothing to do with what's going on in the game world.

Quote from: Shazbot79;378879Yeah...hate to break this to you...but D&D Essentials isn't edition 4.5.

This has already been well proven by now I'm sure.

But straight from Bill Slavisek's Ampersand column:

"These 10 products won't be added to or taken away from. They're designed to be the starting point and baseline for all Dungeons & Dragons games moving forward."

If this were a reboot of the game, like 3.5 was, then they would continue to support it rather than limiting the line to a mere 10 products.

Well, this is an interesting turn of events.

I was going to post this very same point on another board, but when I checked the link I had posted, the verbiage had been changed.

What I quoted was copy-pasted directly from the text of the column but now all mention of the D&D Essentials line never being added to has been removed.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Alas, that llink doesn't seem to show what you're trying to say.

At least I have reason for optimism that they're telling the truth about something, since we now have two opposing possibilities asserted.

Quote from: Doom;384238Alas, that llink doesn't seem to show what you're trying to say.

At least I have reason for optimism that they're telling the truth about something, since we now have two opposing possibilities asserted.

I don't think I'd mind a 4.5, actually.

4E is getting a little bloated and if they decide to include bards, barbarians and shamans in the Essentials line I just might switch over completely.

Quote from: Shazbot79;384236Well, this is an interesting turn of events.

I was going to post this very same point on another board, but when I checked the link I had posted, the verbiage had been changed.

What I quoted was copy-pasted directly from the text of the column but now all mention of the D&D Essentials line never being added to has been removed.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Interesting.  WotC rewriting their own history.

They removed the "10 products" line?

Perhaps this partially explains the Deluxe DM screen, scheduled for release in Feb 2011.

http://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-Dungeon-Masters-Screen-Accessory/dp/0786957433

I don't know if anything can explain that...if they intended to still make 4e stuff, it seems like DMG3 would a primary goal (they promised it would have advice for Epic campaigns, my players might well be there by Feb).

And if they don't intend any more 4e stuff, seems like "The Essentials DM Screen" would make more sense to produce.

I certainly don't have a problem with 4.5...4e has problems, fix 'em already!

Another title scheduled for release also in Feb 2011, is the Nentir Vale Gazetteer.

http://www.amazon.com/Gazeteer-Nentir-Vale-4th-Supplement/dp/0786957662

At first it seems like an odd choice for an official release.

Indeed. I'm inclined to believe this is all residue before a retcon.

September releases are debateable as to what they imply, but February of next year? I can't even speculate, there's a solid probability it's a zombieback.

Quote from: Shazbot79;3842414E is getting a little bloated and if they decide to include bards, barbarians and shamans in the Essentials line I just might switch over completely.

These classes would be prime content for a third or fourth "Player's Essentials" book.

WOTC should just release a new edition. We know it's all about profits anyway so why keep pretending? An edition now have a 2 year lifespan. Unless WOTC switch to a different model like settings and adventures to support the rules instead of producing more rules, the 2 year lifespan holds.

Quote from: areola;384289WOTC should just release a new edition. We know it's all about profits anyway so why keep pretending? An edition now have a 2 year lifespan. Unless WOTC switch to a different model like settings and adventures to support the rules instead of producing more rules, the 2 year lifespan holds.

Isn't Mutants & Masterminds on it's 3rd edition in less than 10 years?

Just saying.