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1E at Heart 3rd Edition Mind Set
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5684753" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>terrya:</p><p></p><p>I run 3e in what I believe is a 1st edition style. I won't go into my various tweaks and house rules, because that would take to long and would probably cause you to miss the point. The point is that you can play 3e in a way that is simply an interpretation of RAW and still be in a 1st edition style.</p><p></p><p>Let me address some specific points:</p><p></p><p>1) Social Skills: 1st edition had social rolls as well for determining henchmen loyalty, reaction results in random encounters and elsewhere, and so forth. So it is a mistake to think that you can't have social skills inform 1e style play. The trick, in my opinion, is to require a roleplaying proposition before the character is eligible to make a social skill check (at least in every case but determining the initial reaction, as in 1e). Just as you'd never allow someone to climb a wall without proposing something like, "I go over to the north wall where the handholds are and climb it.", you shouldn't allow someone to roll diplomacy without first providing enough proposition for you to adjudicate the outcome. Propositions like, "I persuade the king to send troops to Dunwater." should be rejected on the grounds that they contain no content. The character must say something like, "Your majesty, permit me to take a regiment of troops to Dunwater, for if we do nothing then we shall surely loose the town and the enemy will be able to cross the Sarn river there in strength and thus bypass our other defenses." After that, it doesn't matter if the player stuttered, stumbled, and squeeked as he said it, his character has now earned a skill check commiserate with his ability as a diplomat. The player isn't punished for lack of charisma provided he makes an effort to play. The character is still punished if charisma was treated like a dump stat. It's win/win.</p><p></p><p>2) Circumstance Modifiers: I believe that the key to using skill challenges successfully is to generously use circumstance modifiers that reward the player for creative and intelligent play. In the case of our previous example, if the player's RP proposition contains a very logical argument, or an argument that appeals strongly to the character of the king, or if the player has previously ingratiated himself to the king, then the diplomacy check should be made with an appropiate circumstance bonus: maybe +3, +5 or even higher. Conversely, if the argument contains very poor logic, is offensive to the king, and the player has previously offended the king, then a strong penalty should apply. The charisma of the character still obviously heavily influences the outcome (as may luck), but the player is still motivated to act intelligently. Similarly, a rusted lock may have a DC which makes even taking 20 on the lock unsuccessful for all but the most specialized character, but if the character has the foresight and resources to oil the rusty lock the DC may be adjusted downward allowing taking 20 to work. Another approach would be to rule that the lock is jammed, and that a pick improperly used (failure by more than 5) may break in the lock, which effectively prevents taking 20 since you may not take 20 whenever there is a risk associated with failure. </p><p></p><p>3) Disabling Traps: Likewise, I don't see how removing find/remove traps plays in a more 1e style. If anything, that's more OD&D in nature. Nonetheless, if you've played 1e you ought to know that find/remove traps skill checks are a back up plan, to be undertaken only after physical investigation fails to discover a trap or find a solution. This is because the chance of failure is so high and the risk so great. If a player proposes something which has the consequence of evading or disabling the trap, he doesn't need to make a skill check to do it. A player probing ahead by leaning his weight onto a 10' pole automatically evades an effect that he triggers that has less than a 6-7' radius. A player that triggers a scything blade trap evades it if he triggers it by crawling over the ground if the blade is designed to sweep 4' above the ground. If a player stands to the side of a chest while opening it, he evades darts that are designed to fire forward. And so forth; none of these things require a roll. The ability to detect traps represent in effect a saving throw, whereby the rogue/thief character can detect things which would be otherwise undetectable. And of course, some traps have always resisted disarming them with mere dice rolls. A thief may force a pit trap's cover to remain open with a successful roll, but he can't actually fill the pit and render it harmless by rolling a dice. Conversely, if a thief finds a pressure plate, he can effectively evade the trap simply by taking out a peice of chalk, drawing a circle around the plate and saying, "I don't know what this does, but don't step here." Rolling to disable the device is thus not always necessary.</p><p></p><p>4) Poison and Disease: If you want more lethal poison, I would suggest adopting the following convention - neither poison nor disease is recovered from until the player makes two successful saving throws in a row. Until that time, they continue to effect the character. Thus, even a mere 1d3 CON poison damage can accumulate to death on a series of bad rolls (or if the DC of the poison is high enough). Likewise, in my game STR or DEX losses can go to negative numbers, and if they go low enough they can effectively mean death because the character loses the ability to breathe and eventually suffers cardiac failure.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5684753, member: 4937"] terrya: I run 3e in what I believe is a 1st edition style. I won't go into my various tweaks and house rules, because that would take to long and would probably cause you to miss the point. The point is that you can play 3e in a way that is simply an interpretation of RAW and still be in a 1st edition style. Let me address some specific points: 1) Social Skills: 1st edition had social rolls as well for determining henchmen loyalty, reaction results in random encounters and elsewhere, and so forth. So it is a mistake to think that you can't have social skills inform 1e style play. The trick, in my opinion, is to require a roleplaying proposition before the character is eligible to make a social skill check (at least in every case but determining the initial reaction, as in 1e). Just as you'd never allow someone to climb a wall without proposing something like, "I go over to the north wall where the handholds are and climb it.", you shouldn't allow someone to roll diplomacy without first providing enough proposition for you to adjudicate the outcome. Propositions like, "I persuade the king to send troops to Dunwater." should be rejected on the grounds that they contain no content. The character must say something like, "Your majesty, permit me to take a regiment of troops to Dunwater, for if we do nothing then we shall surely loose the town and the enemy will be able to cross the Sarn river there in strength and thus bypass our other defenses." After that, it doesn't matter if the player stuttered, stumbled, and squeeked as he said it, his character has now earned a skill check commiserate with his ability as a diplomat. The player isn't punished for lack of charisma provided he makes an effort to play. The character is still punished if charisma was treated like a dump stat. It's win/win. 2) Circumstance Modifiers: I believe that the key to using skill challenges successfully is to generously use circumstance modifiers that reward the player for creative and intelligent play. In the case of our previous example, if the player's RP proposition contains a very logical argument, or an argument that appeals strongly to the character of the king, or if the player has previously ingratiated himself to the king, then the diplomacy check should be made with an appropiate circumstance bonus: maybe +3, +5 or even higher. Conversely, if the argument contains very poor logic, is offensive to the king, and the player has previously offended the king, then a strong penalty should apply. The charisma of the character still obviously heavily influences the outcome (as may luck), but the player is still motivated to act intelligently. Similarly, a rusted lock may have a DC which makes even taking 20 on the lock unsuccessful for all but the most specialized character, but if the character has the foresight and resources to oil the rusty lock the DC may be adjusted downward allowing taking 20 to work. Another approach would be to rule that the lock is jammed, and that a pick improperly used (failure by more than 5) may break in the lock, which effectively prevents taking 20 since you may not take 20 whenever there is a risk associated with failure. 3) Disabling Traps: Likewise, I don't see how removing find/remove traps plays in a more 1e style. If anything, that's more OD&D in nature. Nonetheless, if you've played 1e you ought to know that find/remove traps skill checks are a back up plan, to be undertaken only after physical investigation fails to discover a trap or find a solution. This is because the chance of failure is so high and the risk so great. If a player proposes something which has the consequence of evading or disabling the trap, he doesn't need to make a skill check to do it. A player probing ahead by leaning his weight onto a 10' pole automatically evades an effect that he triggers that has less than a 6-7' radius. A player that triggers a scything blade trap evades it if he triggers it by crawling over the ground if the blade is designed to sweep 4' above the ground. If a player stands to the side of a chest while opening it, he evades darts that are designed to fire forward. And so forth; none of these things require a roll. The ability to detect traps represent in effect a saving throw, whereby the rogue/thief character can detect things which would be otherwise undetectable. And of course, some traps have always resisted disarming them with mere dice rolls. A thief may force a pit trap's cover to remain open with a successful roll, but he can't actually fill the pit and render it harmless by rolling a dice. Conversely, if a thief finds a pressure plate, he can effectively evade the trap simply by taking out a peice of chalk, drawing a circle around the plate and saying, "I don't know what this does, but don't step here." Rolling to disable the device is thus not always necessary. 4) Poison and Disease: If you want more lethal poison, I would suggest adopting the following convention - neither poison nor disease is recovered from until the player makes two successful saving throws in a row. Until that time, they continue to effect the character. Thus, even a mere 1d3 CON poison damage can accumulate to death on a series of bad rolls (or if the DC of the poison is high enough). Likewise, in my game STR or DEX losses can go to negative numbers, and if they go low enough they can effectively mean death because the character loses the ability to breathe and eventually suffers cardiac failure. [/QUOTE]
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