Quote from: Caesar Slaad;415629By no cooincidence, that's the exact book I had in my head when I said I wouldn't agree he's done nothing good.

I don't like 4e (but blame heinosoo more) and was not wowed by Iron Heroes. But i's still pulling stuff from P&P years later.

I love planar stuff (except for Planescape, oddly enough). I have all the Manuals of the Planes, as well as Beyond Countless Doorways. Is it worthwhile for me to get Portals & Planes?

Quote from: Cole;415648If thespanism is acting, this spins the question about a mile off the RPG planet into the frigid hell-world of peformance theory. This could be its own thread, but I would suspect it would be a contentions and ball-injurious one.

Well it sure seems to mean acting in the language I speak...

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Thespian

... although I suppose what could be the focus is not the acting part but the drama part, although I'd still contend that the acting part is not separable from the drama part while still being true to the word. In that case it would make loads more sense to just say "drama".

Quote from: jgants;415650Your whole "balance" argument came after that, when you used it as a strawman to attack Frank, me, and anyone else who disagreed with you - basically saying all we cared about was "balance uber alles" despite none of us ever having said anything close to that.

"I get really, really tired of the whole "those game rules aren't bad because I played them and had fun" bullshit meme - it seriously needs to die."

Sounds awfully close to me. But whatever. You guys don't want me to talk about it?
I won't talk about it on this thread anymore. Have fun worshipping Za Rules.

Quote from: Sigmund;415661Well it sure seems to mean acting in the language I speak...

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Thespian

... although I suppose what could be the focus is not the acting part but the drama part, although I'd still contend that the acting part is not separable from the drama part while still being true to the word. In that case it would make loads more sense to just say "drama".

Actually, I do mean "acting", and while in English acting can be described as "playing a role", I don't consider "acting" and "role-playing" to be the same thing, even if they might overlap sometimes.

I agree that this would probably be best discussed in another thread.

Quote from: 1of3;415652Could you elaborate a bit on that. I enjoyed that class immensely. (Like all classes from PHB2.) For reference, here it is.

The code certainly makes sense to me. It even explains what it's all about beforehand. I would have explicitely included poison, but other than that, I see nothing wrong with it.

As for class abilities that do not synergize, which one are you talking about? Armor mastery (medium) probably wouldn't come into play that much, but then again, one might find a mithril armor early on. Not that many classes have good synergy in their abilities.

Finally, the challenge seems rather clear as well. "Take on someone your size!" What's not to get? It even ends when an ally interferes.

Where to start. Let's start at the code about attacking enemies. It's basically just a list of common ways to get sneak attack and an admonishment not to do them. Exactly the sort of thing that you might come up with if someone asked you to make a rule about "fighting honorably" in five minutes. But obviously it comes with problems. Problems that were not thought out at all.

For example: you're not allowed to attack people who are flat footed. On a first pass, that might seem fine, because it goes to some sort of hubris shit where the knight never attacks first because he's noble or likes to give his enemies a sporting chance or something. But did you know that you're flat footed "while balancing" (3.5 PHB, page 67). So the Knight can't attack an enemy who is standing in a grease effect, but if they fail their roll and fall down (giving the Knight an even larger bonus in most instances), they are under no such restriction? Obviously neither did the Knight's author. Or how about the fact that you are considered to be balancing when you are standing on a surface that is "difficult" and the Knight's own class features transform the ground next to them into "difficult terrain". Gosh, that sounds like an interaction that should probably have some fucking explanatory text, doesn't it?

But of course it doesn't, because the author plainly never did a keyword check to see if maybe "difficult" was a word used ambiguously in the core rules or if "flat footed" was a condition that was handed out in situations where being barred from attacking people who had it would be stupid. And he never did any of that due diligence research because it is exactly the kind of thing you'd come up with off the top of your head.

Or how about the fact that what the flanking bonus represents seriously isn't something that makes any sense at all to be giving up. Because it has 100% to do with your target having divided attention and 0% to do with you striking when their back is turned or in any way doing anything special. You don't need any combat training or even to be aware of the creature you are flanking with to get the bonus - the target does. If there is a guy who is invisible and your target sees invisible and you don't, you still get the flanking bonus. In character, you might not even know you got it.

And finally, this is Dungeons & Fucking Dragons. There are Trolls. Dealing lethal damage to trolls when they are helpless is how you defeat trolls. If you don't do that, they will regenerate and attack you again, because they are fucking trolls. You knock them out with swords, then you immerse them in water or set them on fire. That's how it works in D&D land. Every other creature with regeneration, and fair number of others like Vampires work like that too.

And that's it. That's the three bullet points in their code of stabbing people. And none of them were really thought out in terms of D&D's actual rules and actual setting. Strike one, strike two, strike three. For a table rule came up with on the fly it's OK, but given extensive thought and comparisons to the actual core rules, every part of it would have to be rewritten. And that's why it was horse shit, and I knew Mearls was up to no good. Because he passed off something that was "good enough" for an on-the-fly gaming session off as something that was ready for print in a core rulebook, even though it obviously was not.

-Frank

Quote from: Sigmund;415661Well it sure seems to mean acting in the language I speak...

I just mean to say that it is arguable whether or not acting intrinsically assumes identification of POV with a character

Quote from: Sigmund;415661... although I suppose what could be the focus is not the acting part but the drama part, although I'd still contend that the acting part is not separable from the drama part while still being true to the word. In that case it would make loads more sense to just say "drama".

I agree.

Quote from: Cole;415645True, but not, in my opinion, preventing it from being irritating

I'm just wondering if it were a plausible influence on IH's approach to traits. One of my annoyances with IH (and many games) is far less its pursuit of "balance," but the playability clusterfuck generated in clumsily pursuing it.

I understand what you're saying here, and I share your frustration with games that seem to offer mechanics as a solution, only to hand-wave away the problems they create.

As for publication dates:

BW Classic: 2002
IH1: 2005
BW Revised: 2005
IH2: 2007

(Sources: index.rpg.net, pen-paper.net, rpggeek.com, John Kim's encyclopedia of games.)

Not sure what exactly got changed from BW Classic to Revised, but I think that Traits were already in there. In short, it's conceivable that BW Classic somehow influenced IH, or that discussion around the development of BWR did.

Quote from: Cole;415672I just mean to say that it is arguable whether or not acting intrinsically assumes identification of POV with a character

I'm not sure I know of any other way of acting, at least in the sense that thespians do it.

I wouldn't mind at all continuing this discussion, but if we do it here, it's going to get tangled in Iron Heroes discussion. I'll try to introduce a new thread.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;415606I don't have TFM to read. I was just reading Frank's critique of IH, thought it was interesting, would have happily read cogent counterarguments, but Benoist stumbled in and started arguing about balance for some reason.

You don't understand that if are you told to pick two things from a list, and no more than two things, than TWO is your budget?

I think that's a misuse of the term "budget". The trait selections are non-fungible with other choices or decisions. While trait choices are a scarce resource, they don't impose an opportunity cost on other choices. Budgets are about the allocation of resources that possess those two characteristics, not just any choice whatsoever.

I think calling it a "budget" implies that trait selection does possess those characteristics, however tenuously, and I think implying this is meant to support Frank's position.

If all choices are "budgeted" in your opinion, then I still don't see how this supports Frank's position. The various choices are a set of mechanical tweaks, with various in-character colouring. They are meant to support or reinforce various kinds of abilities, and their value depends mainly on what kind of character build one wants. Changing the fluff is not problematic, since the fluff is secondary to the mechanical aspect.

QuoteSuppose the list of Traits is (1) Mustache (2) Major NPC Enemy (3) "Big" physique +2 HP/level and +2 damage when you hit. You get to pick one (i.e. your "budget" is 1 Trait), then what's the point if you can still have a mustache without choosing it as a Trait? Or conversely, suppose we try to make sense of this by saying you must choose the Mustache trait in order to have a mustache. Then nobody will have a mustache. No matter how you answer the question, you're worse off than free-forming it.

Your list is an inaccurate representation of what occurs in IH because it contains some things without mechanical backing and some things with. All trait choices in IH are mechanical tweaks that affect the character. It's a question of which mechanical tweaks you want. If you want something but don't care about receiving a specific mechanical benefit from it, nothing prevents you from simply declaring it with DM approval. For example, if you want to be tall but didn't take "Tall", then you can be tall, you simply haven't learnt to exploit it in combat like someone with the trait has.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;415655I love planar stuff (except for Planescape, oddly enough). I have all the Manuals of the Planes, as well as Beyond Countless Doorways. Is it worthwhile for me to get Portals & Planes?

I don't know what exactly appeals to or is useful to you, but I certainly use all 3, plus Mongoose's Classic Play: Book of the Planes.

Beyond Countless Doorway is mostly travelogue style, going into great detail with many planes, but little toolkit (mainly the alternate worlds stuff). I love it especially for some planes, most of which I understand Wolfgang Bauer wrote (the Ten Hells, Ouno, Palpatur, the Lizard Kingdoms, and Dendri.)

Manual of the Planes is travelogue of more planes in less detail, cosmology, and a little toolkit, but still very useful (talking 3e here, but I got some good use out of the 1e one as well). I got tons of mileage out of the Plane of Shadow when the 3e MotP came out.

Portals & Planes is less a travelogue book, and more a toolkit books. There's a little section on player option style crunch, with a few prestige classes, spells, and items. But the bigger chapters are on Portals, Planes, and Inhabitants. The portals chapter is where the best stuff is because it has the richest ideas are, thought the other chapters are fully functional as well. The portals chapter includes planar pathways, interesting ideas for how to link worlds; one of these (the River of Worlds) has been a major basis point for my campaigning over the last 5 years. The chapter also talks about different portal types such as minglings and malignancies, which are loaded with campaign implications.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;415671Where to start. Let's start at the code about attacking enemies. It's basically just a list of common ways to get sneak attack and an admonishment not to do them. Exactly the sort of thing that you might come up with if someone asked you to make a rule about "fighting honorably" in five minutes. But obviously it comes with problems. Problems that were not thought out at all.

For example: you're not allowed to attack people who are flat footed. On a first pass, that might seem fine, because it goes to some sort of hubris shit where the knight never attacks first because he's noble or likes to give his enemies a sporting chance or something. But did you know that you're flat footed "while balancing" (3.5 PHB, page 67). So the Knight can't attack an enemy who is standing in a grease effect, but if they fail their roll and fall down (giving the Knight an even larger bonus in most instances), they are under no such restriction? Obviously neither did the Knight's author. Or how about the fact that you are considered to be balancing when you are standing on a surface that is "difficult" and the Knight's own class features transform the ground next to them into "difficult terrain". Gosh, that sounds like an interaction that should probably have some fucking explanatory text, doesn't it?

But of course it doesn't, because the author plainly never did a keyword check to see if maybe "difficult" was a word used ambiguously in the core rules or if "flat footed" was a condition that was handed out in situations where being barred from attacking people who had it would be stupid. And he never did any of that due diligence research because it is exactly the kind of thing you'd come up with off the top of your head.

Or how about the fact that what the flanking bonus represents seriously isn't something that makes any sense at all to be giving up. Because it has 100% to do with your target having divided attention and 0% to do with you striking when their back is turned or in any way doing anything special. You don't need any combat training or even to be aware of the creature you are flanking with to get the bonus - the target does. If there is a guy who is invisible and your target sees invisible and you don't, you still get the flanking bonus. In character, you might not even know you got it.

And finally, this is Dungeons & Fucking Dragons. There are Trolls. Dealing lethal damage to trolls when they are helpless is how you defeat trolls. If you don't do that, they will regenerate and attack you again, because they are fucking trolls. You knock them out with swords, then you immerse them in water or set them on fire. That's how it works in D&D land. Every other creature with regeneration, and fair number of others like Vampires work like that too.

And that's it. That's the three bullet points in their code of stabbing people. And none of them were really thought out in terms of D&D's actual rules and actual setting. Strike one, strike two, strike three. For a table rule came up with on the fly it's OK, but given extensive thought and comparisons to the actual core rules, every part of it would have to be rewritten. And that's why it was horse shit, and I knew Mearls was up to no good. Because he passed off something that was "good enough" for an on-the-fly gaming session off as something that was ready for print in a core rulebook, even though it obviously was not.

-Frank

Aha. You see, I'm totally with you. Effects that you describe for the Armiger are bad design. This one seems to be a real problem from what I can tell and the people who do IH 2nd edition seem to be aware of that. (I have played IH one short session with premade characters.)

I also strongly dislike putting fluff traits and useful ones in the same category. It's just unnecessary to do so. Again, I can't really tell for myself whether this is the case in IH.

But with the knight you lost me. Obviously it is quite clear what the author was trying to say. (I never knew who it was, before you told me here.) That's good enough for me.

On the other hand, I have frankly no idead how Protection from Evil's second effect is supposed to work. Now, that's bad. Anyway I do not think making such a fuss about it, is necessary.

1of3 is a Forger/Ex-WW baitfish, Frank, just so that you know.

Quote from: Settembrini;4158661of3 is a Forger/Ex-WW baitfish, Frank, just so that you know.

And that's necessary to mention when he is extremely on topic?

QuoteBut with the knight you lost me. Obviously it is quite clear what the author was trying to say. (I never knew who it was, before you told me here.) That's good enough for me.

Knew what he meant? How? Are you fucking psychic? Can you guaranty that you can fix in exactly the same way as everyone else? For that mater, can you explain a mechanism by which you can attack someone without getting a bonus for flanking them?

Seriously, you could voluntarily not provide a flanking bonus for an ally. That shit is easy. If you simply decline to threaten your foe during your ally's turn, they don't get a flanking bonus. But you can't not get a flanking bonus based on your own volition, because again and still the flanking bonus has 100% to do with what someone else is doing and 0% to do with your own actions or opinions on the matter. You don't need to be aware of your enemy's additional enemy in order for the bonus to happen. It just happens. Your code of conduct could as easily be "other people don't wear blue" or something, it's completely out of your control. Both in terms of game mechanics and in terms of in-game fiction. There is absolutely no excuse possible for giving up your flanking bonus. You might as well be giving up your enemy suffering a penalty against you for being shaken or giving up a bonus for your enemy being stunned.

You can't just pass this off as "you know what he meant". Seriously, what the fuck did he mean? The most generous possible reading is that Mike Mearls didn't know what a flanking bonus was, but that still doesn't explain what the hell that code section is supposed to mean and do.

QuoteOn the other hand, I have frankly no idead how Protection from Evil's second effect is supposed to work.

Seriously? While you are under the effect of protection from evil, any [charm], [compulsion], or [possession] effects do affect you, and you can act normally. The durations on any effect you were already under continue to count down during your protection, and if they last longer than PoE then you go back under control when the protection ends. Furthermore, you are not an illegal target for those things, so people can layer those effects on you while the PoE continues - but of course those effects won't actually change how you act unless and until the PoE ends before they do.

What's not to understand? It fits very snugly into the rest of the game mechanics and assumed world of Dungeons & Dragons.

-Frank