3.5e Planescape - Cold Black Mask OOC Thread

[Cage-Rattler]

The Vitality / Wound Points variant ruleset does make combat more dangerous for PCs by allowing random chance to have greater influnce; I won't argue that.

At the same time, I feel that it adds dramatic tension to combat; rather than the somewhat dry back-and-forth of "I hit you for x damage. You hit me for y damage. I hit you for x damage again", it can be really exciting to slip past a tough "bad guy's" defenses completely and really hurt him with a strong blow.

I'll see if I can ease your other concerns point-by-point.

It basically makes heal useless for stabilization since you've only got one round to do it before the character has to save or die.

A dying character is unconscious and near death. Each round on his turn, a dying character must make a Fortitude save (DC 10, +1 per turn after the first) to become stable. . .
If the character succeeds on the save by less than 5, he does not die but does not improve. He is still dying and must continue to make Fortitude saves every round.

If anything, I would argue that the Healing Skill becomes more critical with these rules. While it's true that a Dying character will become Dead by failing a single save, there's the chance that even if that character DOES make the save, they'll still be considered "Dying". A successful Heal check will guarantee that the character becomes Stable. Having a party member with ranks in "Heal" will also be a lot of use if the Stable character regresses to a "Dying" state again (since again, a successfull "Heal" check will stablize the character).

Also, it does nothing to allay my concerns about the pointlessness of my chosen classes main offensive spells.

Maybe you could give an example of why you think your spells are useless? Dealing non-lethal damage to an opponent with 24 VP, 11 WP should be no harder than dealing non-lethal damage to an opponent with 35 HP, so far as I can see. In fact, it would be even easier to make practical use of non-lethal damage by using the VP/WP system, since a Critical Hit (involving an attack roll with a non-lethal attack) would do non-lethal damage straight to the opponent's Wound Points.

 

[Dire Lemming]

First aid has not become any more important, just significantly harder. With this system if a character dropped below zero hit points they have a random chance of dying that round, no matter what. That means the only sure way to save them is to reach them, use first aid, and make a succesful roll, that round. You can't save the people in the worst condition first because everyone has a random chance of either dying or living each round. Coup De Grace is also nearly useless now as well since most characters will simply fail their save in the first few rolls unless they're rediculously lucky.

I didn't say that my spells are useless. I said that my offensive spells are pointless. With this system they don't deal non-lethal damage, they're just generic damage spells. It's not really fun to be doing the same things everyone else is, only not as well. It also ruins the ideas I had for the way my character deals with hostile situations.

 

[Ambrus]

Cage-Rattler, I was wondering if it were too late to swap out a few of István's items. Specifically, switching his gloves of dexterity +2, travel cloak, chronocharm of the horizon walker and masterwork short sword for a masterwork deep crystal rapier (Expanded Psionics Handbook, p.182), a ring of sustenance and gloves of agile striking (Magic Item Compendium. p.105).

The latter is one of only two items I've found specifically tailored for the scout class. It's alright if not, though I figured it wouldn't matter much since we haven't yet used any specific equipment in combat.

Since I have an extra language slot open, I was wondering about Forgotten Realm specific languages and whether the FR characters should bother taking them. As a native of Shou, Cang should probably know Shou, while as a natives of Thay, Sindr' and István would speak Mulhorandi. It's unlikely that we'll ever use these languages except perhaps with each other, but I don't know if you'd like to hand-wave them away, have us pay skill ranks for them, or simply give them to us as bonus languages.

Oh, and FYI, it's "István" not "Istavan". It's the Hungarian form of Stephen if you're curious. I'm trying to model whisper-gnomes somewhat after real-world Romani.

 

[Cage-Rattler]

Hey all; I'm enetertaining some friends and family for the weekend, so i may not be able to get an in-game post until late tonight or sometime tomorrow. Hope those of you in the U.S. have a good holiday. Let me see if i can address some outstanding concerns, first:

Dire Lemming: I know the rules-as-written may not make allow you to play your character the way you want, but I'm hoping that you'll trust the DM-as-a-human-being to prioritize "fun for with players" over "rules as written". Tell you what: if, after we go through two or three combat encounters, you still detest the VP /WP variant rules, we'll put it to a vote and see if we want to drop that optional rule.

Ambrus: i have problem with you swapping out some items, as we haven't had a chance to use them yet (but we will soon, so if ayone else wants to chang things, now's the time!).

I won't make you spent slots for native Forgotten Realms languages.

 

[Dire Lemming]

Couldn't we have some sort of house ruled system that includes VP/WP as well as non-lethal damage? Like maybe having non-lethal damage still happen and when it exceeds current VP/WP the character goes unconcious as in the normal system. That's what Zurai did in his game. It would be extremely easy to put the old -10 dead/dying system back in if you wanted to as well.

Just trying to throw out some suggestions

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

I'd be very worried about the -10 dead/dying system, because it means that once people start dealing more than 20-30 points of damage a hit, crits are instant death. I think the point of the fort save system is that as people get more powerful, they're less likely to die randomly rather than more. As it stands, once you've got a few levels under you and maybe a cloak of resistance you're a little more likely to live through a bad knock.

 

[Dire Lemming]

Yeah, you've got a point I guess, but It just seems like this system kind of screws over spellcasters with low HP/Fort saves.

What about the Non-Lethal damage though?

 

[Dire Lemming]

Hey, I just realized something about Anthony's background that I didn't intend to do. By having an aasimon help him out in Elysium I've gotten him into the debt of a good deity.

 

[Dire Lemming]

So Cage-Rattler. Do you have anything to say about my suggestion?

 

[Cage-Rattler]

So Cage-Rattler. Do you have anything to say about my suggestion?

Yes! I intended to keep track of "non-lethal" damage seperately from "regular" damage.

- A character that suffers enough non-lethal damage to bring them to zero Wound Points falls Unconscious, but is in no danger of Dying (unless they subsequently take lethal damage). Every round after the first, the character may attempt a Fortitude Save at DC 15; failure means the character remains Unconscious.

Success means that the character is Conscious but Staggered. They can only take a single move or standard action each turn (but not both, nor can she take full-round actions), and they moves at half speed. Taking Move Actions doesn’t risk further injury, but performing any Standard Action (or any other action the GM deems strenuous, including some free actions such as casting a quickened spell) cause the character to lapse back into unconsciousness (unless it involved healing).

Sound kosher to everyone?

Hey, I just realized something about Anthony's background that I didn't intend to do. By having an aasimon help him out in Elysium I've gotten him into the debt of a good deity.

That's assuming that the aasimon was in the service of a deity, and that deity was stuffy enough to say, "Ha, ha, mortal! I didn't trap you in paradise, so now you owe me big-time!"