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    Skill Tricks; good or bad?

    It adds bookkeeping. "Wait, shouldn't I have 4 more skill points? Oh yeah, right, that." So in particular it makes NPC generation that much slower, if you're giving skill tricks to NPCs. Adding skill uses, or using stunts or skill challenges to make skills cooler, doesn't pile on the...
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    Skill Tricks; good or bad?

    I've been rolling some of 'em into standard skill uses, with various prereqs, and ignoring others. Frankly, I've been on sub-system overload ever since I let pact magic and (eventually, someday, once I work it out) affiliations through the gate. I just look at things like Bo9S and go, "huh...
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    What if your player wanted to make a bet?

    Sounds like fun to me! I'm curious, how are you handling the armies? Line after line of first-level...
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    Destruction on a ludicrous scale

    Planar rifts... how about pouring the Negative, Positive, and four Elemental planes into the Heart of the Plane (whatever that is) at once? (ooh I see Rabelais beat me to the matter/antimatter idea) Or suppose there are multiple vital places in the world, maybe tied to terrains (the tallest...
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    Guardians of the Green and other eco-nuts.

    Yeah, given the balance of power in older-era settings, it usually makes more sense to have druids and the like currying the vast power of the wilderness for boons, rather than striving to protect it against overwhelming industrial forces that... aren't there. I'd probably have...
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    Sandbox style: How to handle challenge levels

    Absolutely. But every now and then it also makes sense to have them jumping at shadows. Oh no, he's playing this out, gotta be something scary here... what about that orc in the black spiked armor? BUFF BUFF SPIRITED CHARGE Whoops that was quick. I've never seen an orc head fly quite that...
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    Your First Character and their impact

    I think my very first character was a thief. I do play a lot of thief types, but this guy lost two of his fingers poking around in holes in a dungeon, thus limiting his future appeal – I don't even remember his name. Then I played fighters and elves for a while ("Lightning"! "Whiplash"! "Joe...
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    Sandbox style: How to handle challenge levels

    A sense of not making the story about the boring parts should serve you well. Though changing it up can be good. Not always, but sometimes, it helps in a keep-your-cards-to-your-chest sense if you play out the first few rounds of a goblin-trouncing, until it becomes apparent the fight is a...
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    Why do levels one and two suck so bad?

    Traps? How? Assuming it is of adult age, I can't see what tools it has to ensure a TPK of any low-level party that stumbles upon its unattended lair. First-level sorcerer spells and not particularly impressive manual dexterity? On the other hand, such a dragon's lair is probably on a steep...
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    Are CRPGs really role-playing games?

    It's a continuum, of allowed choices, basically ranked: Wizardry/ Bard's Tale/ early CRPGs Diablo Icewind Dale, or a completely railroad D&D campaign Baldur's Gate Wasteland/ Ultima IV* Knights of the Old Republic** a pre-written Adventure Path campaign with a few improvisations/ some of the...
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    Why do levels one and two suck so bad?

    I like the lower levels too, but as Pants said, they're something any RPG player has done a lot, so the threats, the powers, the adventure feel becomes routine pretty easily. I think that's the main problem. I think it's always a good idea to break up the big long arc with the occasional...
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    Keeping low level commoners competitive in athletics

    Athletes? Crank their physical stats! Like, 16 or even 18 Dex. No reason every NPC's gotta fit in the normal or even elite array. Consider giving them movement-based feats that PCs hardly ever take. Dash, Run, Leap of the Heavens, etc.
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    Understanding EL

    It sounds to me like, for your big fight, you should play to the party's strengths since a 3-man group is going to be lopsided one way or the other. (Me, I think this is what makes them interesting, but I digress) Once you know how they handle their strengths you can begin probing lightly at...
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    Houseruling Raise Dead spells

    Mostly I've made the spell even costlier, but I'm currently considering revoking that and instead making it so the spell has to be cast within (10 minutes? an hour?) of the character's demise, and of course (as already in the rules) you need all the vital pieces in a hurry, so if the enemy's run...
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    Would it be cannibalism to eat a polymorphed chicken?

    But does the person polymorphed into a chicken taste like chicken? Mmmm. Chicken!
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    Wild Empathy: won't animals get to attack you for 10 rounds free?

    Yeah, that's pretty silly, and also (if we're playing extrapolate-the-entire-world-from-the-game-mechanics) the predator sorta leaves itself open to getting dinged out by the next deer it tries to eat, and it's gotta eat while it's healing. If it's relying on the meat from its big kill, it's...
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    Your favorite unusual spells

    1e? I always wanted to try out duo-dimension. The field may be narrower but the spells, they get freakier. Maybe you can convert some of the psionic powers into regular spells?
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    Small businesses in magic items

    I do not like super-convenient magic-marts in my setting, at least as far as permanent equipment goes, and don't care to argue the point. So to answer the question: The way I handle it is, I make sure to introduce the party to someone who either would buy magical loot or knows someone who...
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    What do you think is the hardest AD&D or D&D video game fight?

    No he's not. This one is in Chapter 4, after you're done fighting your way past the mages and invulnerable war-golems, and before Aribeth.
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    How does your DR work?

    It completely depends on the creature. Iron golem, option 1. An elemental or a treant or something, option 2. A lycanthrope, demon, or fey, option 3 usually. ...Now that I've read over the thread again, (Psi)SeveredHead's rule of thumb states how I tend to handle things very clearly.
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