Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5966428" data-attributes="member: 54877">I think this objection is easy to handle, with a little discipline by the authors. All you need is some evocative keywords, sometimes mixed with some numbers for scaling. This is, in my opinion, how early D&amp;D poison types were intended to work. They just got side-tracked.&nbsp;So you don't say that a monster with a paralytic poision does 3 points of Str damage or whatever. Rather, you list it as &quot;Paralytic Poison V&quot; or similar. &nbsp; Then you have modules like this, with an entry for each type and level. Paralytic Poison V might work out to this:<ul>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">Simple Narrative - does 3d6 poison damage. If character reduced to zero hit points, becomes paralyzed.</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">Simple Grit - character is paralyzed right now.</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ability damage - character loses 3 points of Str (with Str 0 or less being effectively paralyzed).</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sim Grit - detailed, semi-realistic/fantastical nerve poison mechanic.</li>
</ul>I'm assuming above that the saving throws would be outside the listing and put into the monster stats, as these would be common across listings, but if I'm wrong, they could be embedded into the listings, too. &nbsp;That might sound like a lot of work, but this isn't like looking up spell listings for an NPC high-level wizard. You don't care about all of those options. If you are doing &quot;Simple Grit&quot;, then you only care about those options. You care about the difference between Paralytic Poison V versus the VI version. And you care about the distinctions between Paralytic Poisons and other types of poisons. The whole thing probably fits on a single sheet, and after a few adventures, you've got it mainly memorized.&nbsp; Not every indirection into a module is complicated in practice.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5966428, member: 54877"] I think this objection is easy to handle, with a little discipline by the authors. All you need is some evocative keywords, sometimes mixed with some numbers for scaling. This is, in my opinion, how early D&D poison types were intended to work. They just got side-tracked. So you don't say that a monster with a paralytic poision does 3 points of Str damage or whatever. Rather, you list it as "Paralytic Poison V" or similar. Then you have modules like this, with an entry for each type and level. Paralytic Poison V might work out to this: [LIST] [*]Simple Narrative - does 3d6 poison damage. If character reduced to zero hit points, becomes paralyzed. [*]Simple Grit - character is paralyzed right now. [*]Ability damage - character loses 3 points of Str (with Str 0 or less being effectively paralyzed). [*]Sim Grit - detailed, semi-realistic/fantastical nerve poison mechanic. [/LIST]I'm assuming above that the saving throws would be outside the listing and put into the monster stats, as these would be common across listings, but if I'm wrong, they could be embedded into the listings, too. That might sound like a lot of work, but this isn't like looking up spell listings for an NPC high-level wizard. You don't care about all of those options. If you are doing "Simple Grit", then you only care about those options. You care about the difference between Paralytic Poison V versus the VI version. And you care about the distinctions between Paralytic Poisons and other types of poisons. The whole thing probably fits on a single sheet, and after a few adventures, you've got it mainly memorized. Not every indirection into a module is complicated in practice. [/QUOTE]

Verification