Revisionism

[Raven Crowking]

Mustrum_Ridcully: Some very interesting ideas. Once more I find myself wishing that you were on the 4e design team! (Perhaps 5e..... ).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Mustrum_Ridcully: Some very interesting ideas. Once more I find myself wishing that you were on the 4e design team! (Perhaps 5e..... ).

Danke für die Blumen.

I am just stealing or representing mechanics from existing games. Okay, maybe that's all that others designers do, too, but I think there is a little more to it, like the determination to see it through to the end and really do all the fine-tuning I just hinted at. I don't know whether its just the fact that I am not getting payed for this (but for something else entirely), or something else that stops me from doing this.
I am not really entertaining the thought of a career in the world of role-playing games, as cool as it might be...

It might be interesting to note that at least one WotC official - Bill Slavicsek - also was part of the original West End Games team for Torg (In the Core Rulebooks, he is credited for Adventure Book Design, World Book Development and Editing).
I wonder how much this influenced the design - the skill challenges for example - they exist in Torg, too. The implementation is very different, but the basic idea of "complex skill checks" and using skills for resolving encounters/scenes is there, too...

 

[Spatula]

Of course, the corrolary assumption here is that leveling is somehow faster in 3e than it was previously. This has been proven fairly false by Quasqueton's evaluations of various classic modules.

Where is this evaluation? Faster levelling was one of the stated goals of 3e, which is perhaps why people think it to be the case. But it also jives with my lifetime of playing the game.

In my younger days we played for years and my illusionist / thief went from 1st to 12th / 13?th in that time. I've never legitimately (i.e. starting from 1st level) seen past those levels in 1e or 2e, because campaigns would always fall apart before then. Usually long before.

In about 18 months of playing 1/week (with some weeks off) I ran a 3e campaign that went from 1st to 19th level, using by-the-book XP.

 

[Raven Crowking]

What are healing surges if they aren't a pool of hit points that separates encounter HPs from daily HPs?

-O

They suffer from having the determination of whether or not something is a "true" wound occur, not at the time of the wounding, but at the (potentially much later) time that the PC surges. This prevents, for example, what appears to be a hideous wound at the time it is taken from being narratively described as a hideous wound, because it might suddenly not be a hideous wound later.

I prefer that things are described, rules-wise, on the basis of what happens at the time it happens. Which means, IMHO, it is better to seperate out "real" wounds at the time they occur than maybe later and maybe not.

Just my opinion, though, and it is perfectly all right for yours to vary! It is, however, an opinion that informs my design goals.

RC

 

[Obryn]

Where is this evaluation? Faster levelling was one of the stated goals of 3e, which is perhaps why people think it to be the case. But it also jives with my lifetime of playing the game.

In my younger days we played for years and my illusionist / thief went from 1st to 12th / 13?th in that time. I've never legitimately (i.e. starting from 1st level) seen past those levels in 1e or 2e, because campaigns would always fall apart before then. Usually long before.

In about 18 months of playing 1/week (with some weeks off) I ran a 3e campaign that went from 1st to 19th level, using by-the-book XP.

Was this 1e or 2e?

IIRC, the big slow-down happened when DMs stopped giving XP for treasure. Many - perhaps most - 1e DMs (my much younger self included) did so under 1e, and it was formally removed from the system in 2e.

In 1e, if you give XP for GP on a 1-for-1 basis and award XP for magic items, you get a much more rapid rate of advancement in 1e.

-O

 

[AllisterH]

Where is this evaluation? Faster levelling was one of the stated goals of 3e, which is perhaps why people think it to be the case. But it also jives with my lifetime of playing the game.

In my younger days we played for years and my illusionist / thief went from 1st to 12th / 13?th in that time. I've never legitimately (i.e. starting from 1st level) seen past those levels in 1e or 2e, because campaigns would always fall apart before then. Usually long before.

In about 18 months of playing 1/week (with some weeks off) I ran a 3e campaign that went from 1st to 19th level, using by-the-book XP.

Here you go...
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=167628

Like many things from our youth, the memory is different than the reality

 

[Obryn]

I prefer that things are described, rules-wise, on the basis of what happens at the time it happens. Which means, IMHO, it is better to seperate out "real" wounds at the time they occur than maybe later and maybe not.

Then perhaps consider Earthdawn's system.

This is based on foggy memory - I haven't played any ED since 3.0 came out.

Your characters all have their hit points - I think called Health Points. You also have a Wound Threshold.

Whenever you take damage, it reduces your HPs. If you take damage equal to or exceeding your wound threshold in a single hit, you suffer a Wound.

When you suffer a Wound, you have a chance of Knockdown and need to make some kind of save, IIRC. Wounds also stick around and adversely affect your healing, possibly even making you take damage instead of recovering it. You can't get rid of a Wound until you (1) heal up to full, and (2) spend some serious time doing so.

Of course, healing in Earthdawn basically uses a Healing Surge-style mechanic - except that it's written as a magical effect, much like every other character ability. (Yes, including Warriors and the like - they draw upon the magic of the world to power their fighting.) Still, it may work for you.

-O

 

[Obryn]

Oops.

 

[Remathilis]

(3) WP/VP: I am no fan of the idea of healing surges and vancian fighters. What other options have people used to decouple encounter hp from daily hp?

Not quite the same but...

Star Wars Saga replaced V/WP with Threshold. PCs have HP as normal (which govern how much total damage until they die) but also had a tracker for seeing how "combat worthy" you were. Threshold (which was typically your Fort Defense + odd bonuses) was the amount of damage you could withstand in one hit. Each hit over threshold penalized your attack and defenses. (0, -1, -2, -5, -10, Out of Fight). You could recover one step on the track as a full-round action (technically, three swifts and they need not be in the same round) but every attack that beat threshold made it harder to keep in the fight.

It creates a bit of a death-spiral; each wound made it harder to resist or counter attack. This meant it was not preferable to slug it out in melee against swarms of foes; the condition track quickly brought you to the point you were unconscious (if you had hp) or dying (if your hp ran out as well). You could recover your threshold quickly out of combat (unless you were out cold) but hp gauged your overall ability to continue (and how much overall punishment you could take before you died).

It had some quirks, but generally had the same feel as V/WP without the "auto-kill" feature V/WP had.

 

[Spatula]

Was this 1e or 2e?

1e. I'm going to guess that my brother (the DM) wasn't giving us XP for treasure, which as you note was removed in 2e anyway (aside from individual thief XP awards).

EDIT: And, having looked at the thread, I see that 3e levelling is, indeed, faster overall.