Basic Four

cavalier973 · Feb 17, 2018

pemerton said:
You'll want to find a way to integrate Diplomacy skill into the reaction table, and Intimidate skill into morale rolls.

Diplomacy/Intimidate checks would be made three times during an encounter: once at the beginning, once when the first participant fell to 0 hit points (no matter which side), and once if/when the monsters lost half their number.

If the monsters are stronger than the PCs, then the Diplomacy/Intimidate checks are made against the highest Will defense of the monsters. If the players are stronger, then the checks are against the lowest Will defense. In all cases, the DM could override, if it makes more sense (say, the monsters are being compelled to fight by a stronger enemy).

cavalier973 · Feb 17, 2018

I am thinking that group initiative every round might be rather swingy.

That could be good, or bad.

cavalier973 · Feb 17, 2018

But I think alignment languages are terrible. You could change your alignment, and then forget how to speak Lawful?

They are magical languages. Also, they are probably very jargon-y, and possibly the same words/acronyms/whatever mean different things to people of different alignments.

An anecdote: I once worked for a certain company, and now work for a different company in a related industry that uses similar tools, etc. I still call the electronic device I use a "powerpad" instead of a "handheld". It isn't a big thing, but my fellow employees look briefly confused when I use the wrong term. People outside the industry call it a phone. In my head, I still use the jargon of the former employer, but am purposefully replacing it--mentally--with the terminology of my new employer.

(Psi)SeveredHead · Feb 17, 2018

cavalier973 said:
I am thinking that group initiative every round might be rather swingy.

That could be good, or bad.

It was pretty swingy, and I liked 3e's cyclical initiative better. But I know there's fans of round-by-round initiative; the system did have a few benefits.

I think it existed to help balance magic vs non-magic. Powerful spells often took a long time to cast (relative to the speed of a weapon) ... but still allowed the spell to be cast within a round. Some spells (eg Power Word X) used casting time as a balancing technique; they were faster than other insta-cripple/death spells, hence the higher level as an additional balancing technique.

However non-combat actions didn't have "weapon/casting" speeds, and I don't feel like looking up the speed of an unarmed strike again. (That latter part speaks more of 2e's poorly-organized corebooks, perhaps, than a case against weapon speed by itself.)

cavalier973 said:
They are magical languages.

"Granting" magic where it's unwarranted is a bit of a battleground.

In this case, magical alignment language become a shibboleth. You could guess someone's alignment by asking them a question in your alignment language, and if they don't answer fast enough... Poor chaotic but good-hearted fellow, being told to swear an oath in court. In Lawful. You could decide if you think someone is trustworthy by asking them a single question. If they refuse or clearly don't understand your question, then they're not trustworthy.

People have used techniques like this in real life in massacres and warfare. I think it's too easy to tell someone's alignment in D&D already, now anyone could do it.

Garthanos · Feb 17, 2018

The act of alignment change might be itself magical... excommunication is a ritual ie it doesnt need to be the language that is magical

Garthanos · Feb 17, 2018

(Psi)SeveredHead said:
Powerful spells often took a long time to cast (relative to the speed of a weapon) ... but still allowed the spell to be cast within a round.

that seems rather a cosmetic difference(it pretends it is more important than it is)

Now if you really want to implement casting/performance speed having an impact on effect power you can justify a 2 round action or 1 round action where the caster is mostly disabled in the second or one with a round of prep and a round of cool down being the basis of making more potent effects. kind of like 1 round = at-will, 2 round = encounter, 3 round = daily.

cavalier973 · Feb 17, 2018

You make valid arguments.

My interest in including alignment languages is that they are, indeed, a weird element of the original rules that probably no one used, but that were yet part of the rules.

Matt Colville, in one of his "Making a Fighter in Every Edition of D&D" videos, observes that Gygax viewed alignment as sort of a religion. Gygax compared alignment languages to Latin and Hebrew.

Garthanos · Feb 17, 2018

Just remembered Spell interruption *atleast in ADnD ... this is what made initiative more significant.

Now that is swingy...

pemerton · Feb 18, 2018

(Psi)SeveredHead said:
magical alignment language become a shibboleth. You could guess someone's alignment by asking them a question in your alignment language, and if they don't answer fast enough... Poor chaotic but good-hearted fellow, being told to swear an oath in court. In Lawful. You could decide if you think someone is trustworthy by asking them a single question. If they refuse or clearly don't understand your question, then they're not trustworthy.

I don't think alignment was necessarily meant to be secret, at least as originally conceived.

Tinker · Feb 18, 2018

I've just been looking at the Dominion rules in Companion set and yeah, they're stand-alone. You can drop them into whatever system you like. Maybe name level corresponds to paragon tier. Personally I'd be more open to more diverse classes being lords. If I ever use the Dominion rules I'll make a few other tweaks, such as to population growth, and to the rules for qualifying for higher titles.

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