Thieves' World d20

[thalmin]

Sorry to be the cause of arguments here. Maybe I should have waited until I had a chance to finish carefully reading the book. I guess my enthusiasm got the best of me.

 

[Zenodotus of Ephesus]

Can't put a parachute on a cliff diver.

 

[Felon]

Sorry to be the cause of arguments here. Maybe I should have waited until I had a chance to finish carefully reading the book. I guess my enthusiasm got the best of me.

No, you're cool. I want to hear more. I am just surprised at what I'm not hearing. Is there at least a level-based defense bonus?

 

[thalmin]

I have seen no defense bonus.

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

That sounds good, but what does that actually mean?

It means the challenges presented and challenges accapted might not be identical to the ones applied in a gam,e where insta-healing was available.

A party of four 10th level DND guys loaded with magic items and loaded with quick and powerful healing magics will be "challenged" combat-wise by a different set of foes than a set of four 10th level TW guys who have slow, after-fight healing and potentially fewer magic items.

After you hand out Darwin awards to the hack-n'-slashers, how do the brainy characters stay alive the first time someone fails a skill roll to sneak past a couple of guards, or the first that brainy character fails a Listen check for the guy creeping up on him? That stuff will happen all the time, even to smart characters.

Ok, first you start before the die rolls are failed... you start before it even gets to the characters when the GM chooses the challenges appropriate for the adventurers. Is the pair of guards going to be comprised of characters as good as the PCs or are they basic lackeys? In DND, hey, the answer might be "close to the level but not as well equipped" while in TW maybe the formula changes and they are several levels lower but still pose a threat, but not the slaughter you seem to be expecting.

The only real foolproof smart move is to not engage in any internecine activities. Are characters playing the sort of adventurers who will opt to stay home and play bridge instead of engaging in almost-certainly-fatal skullduggery?

No, but they might be playing characters who don't as readily accept a "fair fight" toe-to-toe slugfest as quickly as magic laden insta-cured DND guys do.

More to the point, when attacks get more dangerous, the advantage of surprise attacks gets even stronger and the smart parties do all they can to get that advantage in. in DND, surprise rounds don't matter a whole lot since it will take multiple rounds to drop people.

Your post is dripping with blithe dismissal of some pretty significant issues. I suspect even if they opt to pick their fights wisely, sometimes the fight will be brought to them, no? How many times in a night do you think a DM can just shrug at the player of a freshly-dead character and tell him "hey, such is life in Sanctuary" before he earns a pop in the mouth? When a character dies, it doesn't just punish the character. It slows the game down big-time, and makes it pretty tough for a DM to create a cohesive campaign.

I have run a number of games where there wasn't insta-heal available, and it doesn't necessarily translate into PC body count as you seem to be believing it will. PC body count is more an element of the challenges chosen byb the Gm and choices made by the players.

Note that, IIRC, Black company also has no insta-heal and uses similar "cure spells convert hit points to non-lethal" and i know from experience with it that PCs bodies are not stacking up like cordwood.

It certainly CAN be the case that this COULD happen in a game, one where the GM threw challenges at the party that overwhelmed them, but that same thing CAN happen in DND even with the curing.

lets put it this way, if the GM sets up TW games to run like DND games, with similar combat oriented, face-to-face chellenges and similar one-after-another combats and the players approach it with the same DND hack-em-all-down frontal assault mindset... in TW... then there will likely be a PC attrition rate thats noticeably higher.

Then again, if they run TW style encounters, TW style challenges, and use TW style approaches to problems... nah, not so much.

Could say the same thing about BC.

So, in summary, really, its true, the sky is not falling.

 

[Crothian]

That sounds good, but what does that actually mean? After you hand out Darwin awards to the hack-n'-slashers, how do the brainy characters stay alive the first time someone fails a skill roll to sneak past a couple of guards, or the first that brainy character fails a Listen check for the guy creeping up on him? That stuff will happen all the time, even to smart characters.

The only real foolproof smart move is to not engage in any internecine activities. Are characters playing the sort of adventurers who will opt to stay home and play bridge instead of engaging in almost-certainly-fatal skullduggery?

Don't fight to the death, you are abnle to run away. I did that and was able to survive in the Demo. I was the only character out of 4 to do so, though the last battle I won and didn't run from.

 

[johnsemlak]

Are there plans for a PDF release of the PM?

 

[sword-dancer]

IMO there's nothing to disagree with here--we're talking pretty straightforward principles. Even Paranoia has a "send in the clones" rule, and WarHammer has fate points. People don't want to make up new characters after every little dust'em-up.
.

TROS said exactly this, if you go in a fight, have`n back up plan, for your next PC.
Rolemaster Harnmaster Cyberpunk are very deadly systems, but that`s part of the fun of it, the deadliness.
Another example of TROS which fits TW perfectly, fair fights?
Ambush, Numbers, there are no rules in combat exept rule 1, the winner is who survives.

 

[Serendipity]

Awesome! The old Chaosium multisystem Thieves' World boxed set literally fell apart from over use c. 1981 - 1983; when I heard that a full d20 version was in the works I decided I had to go there again.
does the sourcebook specify a particular era of the books? I would presume it is attempting to remain more or less even with the new serries but I can't seem to find a yea or nay on this.....

 

[thalmin]

The Thieves' World Player's Manual is written in the current era of the anthologies, but has enough wriggle room (sorry) to represent the original series.