Quote from: Mr. GC;586320Nope. I'm not changing my stance because I haven't been given any reason to change it. An example reason would be being presented with a better alternative.

Hold this in mind for a second.

Quote from: Mr. GC;586320Right. And the characters are looking out at this swamp, that used to be a city before it got flooded and they aren't seeing any fucking trees for at least a half mile in all directions. So if we base it on what the characters can see, "not fucking likely" changes to "most definitely not".

What city has zero trees in it?

This is what I mean.  If you weren't some pretentious asshole, you'd simply say, "okay, you're right, there could be a tree."  But you don't.  Instead you invent details out of whole cloth, and even then those details don't make logical sense.

What would be the point of continuing under conditions like that?

You're just trolling, are you not?

Quote from: Benoist;586384and that third the possibility of dying from the spell actually makes it not an autowin button where you'd haste characters in every single fight "because", but actually would reserve this spell for situations where it would make a difference between life or TPK.

This seems to ignore the opportunity cost of preparing haste in place of a different spell.  There are other spells that are useful and may help prevent a TPK if they're prepared that don't risk killing your companion.  

Unless haste is clearly better than every third level spell available to the caster, or every second level spell, assuming you allow a  caster to prepare a lower-level spell in a higher-level spell slot, preparing it without knowing it is an I WIN button is a mistake.  It's better to prepare the spell that could help that doesn't also risk killing a party member.  

Haste, if used extensively (even if rarely) is likely to result in a companion dying eventually.  

Unless you use different rules, which is fine.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;586398This seems to ignore the opportunity cost of preparing haste in place of a different spell.  There are other spells that are useful and may help prevent a TPK if they're prepared that don't risk killing your companion.  

You guys are thinking both so one-dimensionally and selectively. So on one hand you will tell me that "MUs are all powerful by virtue of not only of having spellslots, but charged items and scrolls also," and on the other hand you will actually completely ignore these considerations to tell me the spell is worthless in-the-whole-game-forever-whatever-the-circumstances because a MU in his right mind wouldn't memorize it?

Make up your fucking mind, will you?

You can have so many scenarios in the game where this would be useful, including finding scrolls with it, magical items, or dungeon features that involve haste effects, not to mention you might face an opponent that is really tough and you just need that extra push to get rid of it, want to take the risk, retreat and camp outside for the night to then memorize Haste, come back, set up an ambush, and cast the spell to make that difference.

I mean really. I really don't understand how you guys can be so braindead as far as your imagination and the consideration of possible actual play scenarios are concerned. That just flabberghasts me. Every single time.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;586393Combat can be swingy and deadly at 1st level.  Surviving to higher levels can rely on a fair amount of luck if the game is played 'as written' - ie, without 'DM Pity'.  I prefer a game that isn't quite so lethal but the DM doesn't have to pull punches.

Play 3.5, Start at 3rd level or more, and don't make gimp characters. Problem solved. Like I said gimps in 3e still die but the option of not being a gimp exists. pre-3e doesn't give you that option

Quote from: deadDMwalking;586393But in a discussion that includes the rules, understanding the 'baseline' can be important.  Sometimes if you ignore a particular rule, the consequences can be pretty extreme.  

This is the original quote:

Quote from: Mr. GC;585763Yup. I only stuck with it because I was too young to realize that suicide shuffling was bad design.

Counter question:

You are playing 1st or 2nd edition. Is casting Haste:

A: A good idea.
B: A great idea.
C: An amazing idea.
D: A pants on head retarded idea.

Edit: Not the point. The point is stuff like Sleep was even better then, whereas Magic Missile was actually a bit worse (sure enemies had less HP, but also came in much larger groups, making single target damage worthless).

In what way is this an honest discussion of the rules where multiple interpretations are allowed?

Quote from: Benoist;586370Hm. I just checked Haste in the 1st ed PH. It doesn't mention the System Shock roll but does mention the use of the spell "ages the recipient due to speeded metabolic processes." When you look at the System Shock Survival (under the Constitution description), it clearly states that "[SSS] states the percentage chance the character has of surviving the following forms of magical attacks (or simple application of the magic): aging, petrification (including flesh to stone spell), ..."

I'd say that, strictly by RAW, you are supposed to make people roll System Shock when they are targeted by Haste, since not only forms of attack, but the mere applications of magical effects that create these conditions, trigger it.

Now I must also precise that it would make sense to Haste individuals that would have the highest Constitution score in the party... which likely will be the fighter. (cough, cough). Let's also not that past 14 in Constitution you have 90+% chance of Survival, as well.

Odds of 15+ Con on the standard stat generation: About 9%.

9% chance you only have a 9% chance of dying... when your ally tries to help you...

Um yeah.

Quote from: StormBringer;586361"  My imaginary person died!  How can I go on with even one meaningless failure on my record!  I AM RUINED!"
Jesus, what are you, Blackleaf or something?

Are you? You're claiming you should just suicide shuffle since characters don't matter then argue with the same.

QuoteYou should take a tranquilizer or something.  This doesn't even make sense.

I know, rules break your small mind. Here, let me help you.

See, there was this rule called Find/Remove Traps. And it determines the chances you will Find and then Remove Traps. This is two separate steps, so naturally you must succeed at both. Otherwise you either do not find the trap (the easy way) or set it off on yourself.

And what'd happen is you'd have this low success rate, like 40%. And because you had to pass twice it was actually 16%. And you'd slowly raise that, but then more and more traps and all of the ones that matter would be magical, and magical traps half your success rate which knocks you right back down to 20ish% chance odds.

Let me guess: You ignore this rule as well?

Quote from: Bill;586364It's not 35% unless the dm is bad, and you automatically fall in the pit.
I would generally have a dex roll or a save involved.

Irrelevant.

"1st level Fighter falls into a 10 foot pit."

The very statement means that he is indeed falling into a pit. Not that he has a chance of falling in or any other such nonsense, any other random fiat houserules because oh shit, having a 35% chance a weak trap just kills the toughest character instantly means Mr. GC is right.

Perhaps you have even extrapolated and realized that that means if you don't treat everyone, including non thinking entities such as a trap as if they should always target the Fighter someone else can fall in and the results are even more lethal.

QuoteBesides, I use the rule in the dm's guide for death at -10  (or houserule it to -CON)

An optional rule in 2nd edition that was made a standard game feature in 3rd.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;586368Why do you make this assumption? Quite a fallacy you have there. Someone can accept loss and continue playing and having a good time THEREFORE it is impossible to care about the game. I don't think that I would have spent as much of my free time on gaming for the past 32 years if I didn't care about it.

Changing characters every five minutes = not taking game seriously. If you don't see why you are brain dead.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;586369StormBringer makes me laugh.  He continues to be the most entertaining attraction to this website.  

I know right? I only don't have him on ignore because of his amusing dance antics.

Quote from: Bill;586371I have dm'd Against the Giants at least five times, usually with the decend into the depths/shrine, and vault of the drow/demonweb pits as well.

Epic campaigns of awesome!

The clever players were able to win with good strategy. The players that were idiots did sometimes get themselves killed.

Also, I don't use challenge ratings, or useless rules like that.

The number of frost giants you fight will be set by me, based on setting integrity and what will make a challenge for the characters.

Works for me.

Does it, or does it not involve ignoring rules that prove inconvenient such as "People die when they are killed" when combined with a system in which everything is trying to kill them?

If the answer is that yes, you ignored rules constantly your post is duly noted and disregarded.

If they actually played by the rules and didn't die why the fuck are these people not winning the lottery instead of playing elf games?

Oh and hey, Sacro can actually work out math correctly after it is already spelled out for him! Progress! We might make a worthy person of him yet!

Quote from: deadDMwalking;586374I think this is a lot of his point.  The game as written tends to be unplayable for a lot of groups.  

My point is more that:

Low levels are unplayable in all editions.
In older editions, the low level problem persists over all levels.

And yes that renders the game unplayable, as to have a playable game you need more meaningful decision making methods than coin flipping.

QuoteIn my experience most groups make changes to the 'printed rules' to make the game more fun.  

Death a -CON, maximum hit points at 1st level, certain guaranteed 'minimum' stats for a playable character - these are all things that make the game less swingy and/or random.  If the game is too random, it can be hard for a lot of people to be attached to their character and/or stick with the game.  

The game has done more and more of these by default. Max HP at 1st is standard in 3.x, stat generation has gotten better...

I use max HP at all levels and you die at -10 + 25% of your max HP, rounded down. The second part of this was a new addition because several people noticed that people would just go straight from fine positives to -10 dead and completely skip the unconscious phase. I still occasionally see a random death but it's an order of magnitude or two rarer. Max HP prevents most of the one round deaths.

None of this matters in a discussion that isn't specifically about my games though.

Quote from: MGuy;586377I'm going to say that I also don't agree with the assessment of 3.5. There are a lot of ways you can die in 3.5 as you go higher in level if you're not really careful and at lower level (as I mentioned before) you are seriously one or two hits away from death all the time. Intelligent class and ability selection along with a  decent amount of team work is integral to surviving 3rd and I wouldn't expect (as proven in experience) most casual players to understand how the game works. This is important for 3rd because being a mundane guy,for most people, is a cool thing and the rules do tell you that the mundane people should be just as good as the magic people.

While I like 3rd bestest we shouldn't ignore the many many problems it has as one of my biggest issues with it is Rocket Launcher Tag. I understand that it may be more fun to downplay the issues with 3rd so there can be an edition war or because you might feel that since they are ignoring their favored game's failures then we might as well do it ourselves. I say, let's not do that.

I'm not downplaying 3.x's flaws. It has plenty, and while I've fixed many that doesn't mean they don't exist.

What I am saying is that once you get past the low levels you will have means of preventing the quick deaths that'd otherwise occur, and because you can do something about it a high lethality environment is not inherently bad.

Quote from: MGuy;586388I am generically against random death from buffs. I'm also against random death from using your class abilities in general. I know that there are people who get off on it but I can't understand the appeal. I feel pretty much the same for rolled stats but at least those don't force you to write up a new character just for using your own abilities.

Older editions = random death editions. They're just getting what they signed up for.

What they are also missing is due to the extremely high lethality of old edition D&D you don't know the entire party is about to die until most of it already has. Because you're either fighting something and it's no big deal, you easily kill it or you're fighting something and its first action is to make 2-3 of your guys hit the ground.

By the time you realize there's a problem, if you're using Haste as a get out of hard encounter card it's too late.

Quote from: mcbobbo;586397Hold this in mind for a second.


What city has zero trees in it?

This is what I mean.  If you weren't some pretentious asshole, you'd simply say, "okay, you're right, there could be a tree."  But you don't.  Instead you invent details out of whole cloth, and even then those details don't make logical sense.

What would be the point of continuing under conditions like that?

You're just trolling, are you not?

One that has been flooded for thousands of years. Obviously, they died and rotted away and there are currently no trees.

See, if I weren't looking at the actual situation, where it's a fucking swamp and a fucking lake that is a flooded former city and it's described as open, with very few things over the water level it might be referring to buildings but a tree is also a thing that'd poke over the water level you might have a point. But because you're talking about some generic swamp and I'm talking about the actual place in which all of this is going down, I am right and you are wrong.

But even if we assume the impossible best case scenario, what then?

The Druid is actually a Dryad: You go from fighting a Druid to fighting a Druid that cannot move very far, is easier to kill, and has a very obvious weak point. If you're assuming "a Druid" and get "a handicapped Druid", the fight is easier than you predict, weak point or no.
The Druid is actually a Treant: And is shut down by the anti melee measures the group was going to take anyways to deal with an actual threat. Assuming a Druid, and getting a free kill works out to another win for Team PC.

The only way this could backfire is if you were expecting a Druid and get something worse than a Druid that requires different measures than any of the things you were doing anyways. Which means you'd have to first find something that kicks more ass than CoDzilla, then make sure that thing is not stopped by generic buffs, flight, damage novas, reactive defenses, isn't mind affecting based...

While such a thing might very well exist I highly doubt you have the requisite system mastery to construct it.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;586398This seems to ignore the opportunity cost of preparing haste in place of a different spell.

This cost is obviated by sleep.  So it is understandable to overlook it.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;586382Frankly its just TSR/WOTC employees taking the piss and laughing at idiots like you who can't make their own decisions about how to play an elf.

I don't think is the case.  Ask the Sage under Skip Williams was an absurdly Rules As Written column to the point where Skip was defending typos as being binding rules because that's what was printed in the books, and other semantically correct but obviously unintended rules instead of actually telling anyone why a rule was the way it was, what the intention of the rule was and so forth.

Andy Collins ruled heavily in favor of what he thought would be cool or just didn't answer questions and instead used the column as a blog by going on non sequiturs.

Quote from: Mr. GC;586404One that has been flooded for thousands of years. Obviously, they died and rotted away and there are currently no trees.

See, if I weren't looking at the actual situation, where it's a fucking swamp and a fucking lake that is a flooded former city and it's described as open, with very few things over the water level it might be referring to buildings but a tree is also a thing that'd poke over the water level you might have a point. But because you're talking about some generic swamp and I'm talking about the actual place in which all of this is going down, I am right and you are wrong.

Where is this place defined?  Link, please.

Quote from: Mr. GC;586404Odds of 15+ Con on the standard stat generation: About 9%.

9% chance you only have a 9% chance of dying... when your ally tries to help you...

Um yeah.

Um yeah indeed. Please don't tell me that showcases your grand mastery of mathematics and probabilities because ... that doesn't quite cut it. You are generating 6 ability scores rolling 4d6 drop lowest per DMG Method I of stat generation. You know. The actual default of the rules which you still haven't acknowledged is the actual, factual default stat gen of the game?

Then you assign scores wherever and however you want.

Now assume the spell's targeted at the fighting-types in the group, which also screws with the probability of getting a moderately high CON score. I'm sorry, but I don't think the fighter's dump stat will CON.

Then you actually have to know that 10 Constitution score means a 70% of Survival, and a 15+ means 90+% chance of survival.

So when you're saying stuff like this... honestly. Wake up. You're being really dumb here.

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;586406I don't think is the case.  Ask the Sage under Skip Williams was an absurdly Rules As Written column to the point where Skip was defending typos as being binding rules because that's what was printed in the books, and other semantically correct but obviously unintended rules instead of actually telling anyone why a rule was the way it was, what the intention of the rule was and so forth.

Andy Collins ruled heavily in favor of what he thought would be cool or just didn't answer questions and instead used the column as a blog by going on non sequiturs.

That link is just an archive, a compendium. They're just stating the facts, not making judgment calls.

Quote from: mcbobbo;586408Where is this place defined?  Link, please.

Well if you click my username you can see my posts...

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;586406I don't think is the case.  Ask the Sage under Skip Williams was an absurdly Rules As Written column to the point where Skip was defending typos as being binding rules because that's what was printed in the books, and other semantically correct but obviously unintended rules instead of actually telling anyone why a rule was the way it was, what the intention of the rule was and so forth.

Andy Collins ruled heavily in favor of what he thought would be cool or just didn't answer questions and instead used the column as a blog by going on non sequiturs.

And that I believe, verifies rather than invalidates my point.

35% to die instantly

Quote from: Benoist;586395Yeah I can see how you could interpret it that way. And yes. A spell that would age the target would in fact be extremely powerful, maybe TOO powerful (since for instance aging effects could allow you to relearn spells you failed to understand by changing your age category to Middle Aged or Venerable and therefore modifying your Intelligence score - so aging yourself artificially to allow yourself to relearn and reroll spells not understood before having made it through the whole spell level list could definitely be a "thing", there). I wouldn't create that if I were you, assuming you use those rules of course.

Hmm... maybe if it kicked the target up a random number of age bands (And enough years to make that work), rather than just years. Abusable, but solidly on the risk / reward scale. Would need work.

SWN doesn't have aging rules, but trading years of your life for instant system shock recovery sounds reasonable. Would be very high-level biopsionics, though.

Quote from: Mr. GC;585534Most of the Den doesn't actually give a fuck.

Interesting side note, but if you're foreign to the Den, how do you know?