S
Sunseeker
Guest
I try to avoid "gotcha" stuff in my games. Makes me look like a jerk and my players feel stupid. How does that help the gaming experience?
We enforce the RAW, though I personally think it's quite lame, and all clerics should be able to selectively target when channeling.
How does that help the gaming experience?
That's what a burst does. All in the area are affected. You want to be able to leave people out? There's a feat for that, but its an added ability. Guess what? When the Wizard launches a Fireball, friendlies in the area get burned too. You want to select your target? Cure Wounds. Want to get multiple targets? Cure Wounds, Mass. Cure everyone in a large area? Channel Energy.
What about a feat that allows you to Channel Energy very narrowly - you get to hit one target per CHA modifier (rather than leave the same number out as Selective Channeling)?
I try to avoid "gotcha" stuff in my games. Makes me look like a jerk and my players feel stupid. How does that help the gaming experience?
I try to avoid "gotcha" stuff in my games. Makes me look like a jerk and my players feel stupid. How does that help the gaming experience?
See, I've always run AOE healing to affect only allies, unless the caster says otherwise, which yes, I realize is the opposite of the rules, but I also let players choose to deal "non-lethal damage" without a feat because frankly, I find it silly. It saves me a lot of trouble tracking, and it saves my players headaches. I'll grant you it gives a consistency to the RULES, but not the game-world, since game-worlds are by nature, non-consistent.Personally, I like it for two reasons: consistency within the game-world.
To me, it feels only more challenging to bookkeeping and tracking. Otherwise when it comes to challenge I concern myself less with "friendly fire" issues and more with creating challenging events for my players to overcome.and it makes the game more challenging in its own way.
This is a red herring at best. Not dealing with AOE healing healing the badguys doesn't necessarily make a game more challenging, it makes it more complicated, and increased complication does not in and of itsself generate better gameplay. Simple things can be challenging, complex things can be challenging, complicated things can be dull and grindy, while simple things can be drab and uninteresting. IMO, there are a lot of ways to approach creating a challenge, increased complication is one of them, but not always the best one, and one that when I DM, I try to avoid.I have always felt that, while it may not be as pleasant while going through it, the experiences which are more difficult, more deadly, and able to be survived by the skin of the teeth are more likely to leave an impression and remain those experiences fondly remembered afterward. The challenges where the party wipes the floor with the opposition, while being more immediately gratifying, are less likely on the whole, to bring the players back to the table again and again.
Yes, and no. I change things up for different games, depending on players. Generally speaking, if an ability could be directed(harm only baddies/heal only allies) then I assume it was. If a spell can't be, then well, it can't. As far as I know, Fireball cannot be directed outside of special features. Plus honestly, in most groups I've run people expect close-range fireball to harm them so I indulge them.1: Do you have them not get hurt by a friendly fireball either? That isn't fun for them, but I'm guessing they don't do it too often or they do in desperate circumstances, just as they would use the channeling (in combat).
I'm honestly not real decided on what side of that fence I fall on. I establish "game fiction" in each individual game, so I decide if everything will help or hurt, or selectively help and selectively hurt at the offset based on how some initial discussions with my players before the game.2: Combat as war (vs. combat as sport). It's a whole conversation. I'm in favour, some others aren't. I like when effects hurt everyone they should hurt (or help) instead of just hurting enemies. It bothers me, it breaks in game fiction. But yeah, mostly the combat as war thing.
As above, I attempt to establish this at the outset of the game. If people have forgotten, I may remind them, but honestly it's not my responsibility as DM to track player effects. That may sound selfish, but honestly I can only track so much.It doesn't. My answer is that you don't go "HA! You have healed the Ogre too, and he rises to his feet", but "You know that the Ogre will also be in your burst, and will be healed as well, right?" The latter provides the player with the info his character would have, so he can make the decision how to proceed, fully informed. Perhaps he will Channel anyway, knowing the risk. Maybe he will choose a different action. Perhaps he will move to try to get the Ogre out of the area.
It's a gamist issue for me. Being able to choose who your magic healing 'splosion affects and who it doesn't is no more or less "realistic" than not being able to choose, so I can't base my preference on that. But most DMs I know don't want to bother tracking which downed enemies are dead, bleeding out, or have stabilized. They also don't want to leave their tipped-over miniatures on the combat grid for the rest of the encounter. And if all PC clerics can automatically exclude such enemies when they channel energy, those DMs probably don't have to. But if they can't exclude downed enemies, then their exact positions and hit point status become critically important, obligating the DM to keep track of those details in case a cleric decides to channel energy.Why?
Is this feeling a matter of verisimilitude with you or more reflective of a gamist perspective, where you feel like the effect is undesirable for the game experience?
Yes, and no. I change things up for different games, depending on players. Generally speaking, if an ability could be directed(harm only baddies/heal only allies) then I assume it was. If a spell can't be, then well, it can't. As far as I know, Fireball cannot be directed outside of special features. Plus honestly, in most groups I've run people expect close-range fireball to harm them so I indulge them.
I'm honestly not real decided on what side of that fence I fall on. I establish "game fiction" in each individual game, so I decide if everything will help or hurt, or selectively help and selectively hurt at the offset based on how some initial discussions with my players before the game.
As above, I attempt to establish this at the outset of the game. If people have forgotten, I may remind them, but honestly it's not my responsibility as DM to track player effects. That may sound selfish, but honestly I can only track so much.
It's a gamist issue for me. Being able to choose who your magic healing 'splosion affects and who it doesn't is no more or less "realistic" than not being able to choose, so I can't base my preference on that. But most DMs I know don't want to bother tracking which downed enemies are dead, bleeding out, or have stabilized. They also don't want to leave their tipped-over miniatures on the combat grid for the rest of the encounter. And if all PC clerics can automatically exclude such enemies when they channel energy, those DMs probably don't have to. But if they can't exclude downed enemies, then their exact positions and hit point status become critically important, obligating the DM to keep track of those details in case a cleric decides to channel energy.