Armour Dilemma: Am I Wrong Here?

[NPC]

This will never end . . .

I realize Fus saw the underlying difference and posted a poll to talk about it, but it didn't click with me until I heard how how Tsyr and mmu1 would have handled the situation.

I'm not making a value judgment here, just summarizing.

Tsyr and mmu1 have basically admitted that they would fudge the rules for the betterment of the game, so that everyone has fun.

Fus follows the rules very closely, for better or for worse.

These two DMing philosophies will never meet. Both philosphies are valid and can make for a great game.

So the point-counter point could probably go on forever. So I'll throw a question out there.

What general statement about the encounter would all parties be willing to agree to? We see so much disagreement on the boards, I'd be interested to see if any common ground can be found.

 

[Numion]

A question to Tsyr and others: assuming that you were stuck with running the combat I designed (though I grant that most of your quarrel is with design rather than execution), what would you have done differently? Would you have waived the armour donning rules? Would you have refused to let the duke come to aid the characters?

My solution: Have the Dukes coming to his senses take the same time as the donning of the armours. At the same time the explosion happened to damage the entrances to the tower so that the victims could be loaded as quick inside.

PCs arrive about the same time at the scene.

If there were a couple of the PCs tackling the vamps before the others got there, they'd get whats coming. I'm all for punishing PCs, not players

I'm also surprised that no one has ever expressed displeasure to you about your inconsistent application of the rules. Have you ever had players become concerned about the shifting goal posts in your campaigns and their inability to anticipate which rules will be in effect?

My players tend to trust me. I have hard time imagining the situation, though. I have a feeling they wouldnt've stayed to don their armors, but rushed to the scene without splitting up.

 

[fusangite]

Re: This will never end . . .

What general statement about the encounter would all parties be willing to agree to? We see so much disagreement on the boards, I'd be interested to see if any common ground can be found.

I think Tsyr sums it up well:

I run the type of games my players want me to run. If they wanted a game that constantly kept them on their toes, putting them in unfavorable situations, that is what they would get. Remember what I said earlier: It's about having fun. If that's how they have fun, fine. That's what they will get. If they aren't enjoying it, I'll try to make is so they *do* enjoy it. The game is all about having fun.

It's really all about pleasing your players -- not about objective standards. This problem arose because, in large part, of the diverse emphases of my particular group of players. While I try to come up with games that please all of them, sometimes it's not possible to please all of the players all of the time.

 

[D'karr]

Re: This will never end . . .

...
What general statement about the encounter would all parties be willing to agree to? We see so much disagreement on the boards, I'd be interested to see if any common ground can be found.

Common ground??? Bah. Why find common ground when we can do something much more fun - argue...

This thread still going? Wow.

 

[Scarbonac]

The ducal palace is not separately walled from the city. You enter the building directly from the street. Just like Robert Mugabe's house.

Uh-huh. So, someone can just fly down out of the sky, in the middle of the night, walk into an unlocked, unguarded ducal palace completely unchallanged, get to the Duke's bedroom, rouse him from his rest and immediately get him to zip off into the late-night sky so that Super-Duke can save the day?


Some scruffy little urchin hasn't wandered in off the street, CdG'd the Duke with a fire-hardened carrot while he's in reverie, and made off with a frilly lace-trimmed pillow-case or two of the ducal lewt?

And how do you know so much about Mugabe?

Please tell me, complete with page reference, which rules I violated by allowing the duke to get to the combat. I don't want a vague statement about "reality" -- I want a specific citation of a rule about how long things take.

Okalie-Dokalie, then, I'll need a complete break-down of all actions taken, transcripts of the discussions with times taken down for each, several scale maps of the area (showing where the vampires' tower is in relation to the PCs' house and the ducal palace, and indicating heights of buildings, particularly those between flying characters and their destinations, conditions of streets and lighting for same), a complete list of all spells cast and level(s) of caster(s), magic items used, modes of movement and exact rates of speed for each mode and character.


In triplicate.

Well, if you were expecting your city to be attacked by magic-using vampires and a loud evocation went off in the middle of the night, I guess you'd... turn over and go back to sleep.

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.


You misunderstand (not that I'm surprised at that); what exploded? What purpose did it serve other than to alert the characters that something was going down? From your descriptions, there were no spells cast that would make a ''horrible explosion''. Wall spells and enchantments don't go ''ka-boom''. So what went ''ka-boom''? Had one of the guards eaten a bad triple-bean chili burrito for lunch and then got too close to one of the walls of fire?



BTW, fire-wielding vampires seems just plain wrong to me (like a Tenctonese using water-balloons filled with seawater).

Thanks for bringing this up. Actually, the darkness god's clergy had offered to provide said contingent. It didn't seem to occur to anyone that the Neutral Evil God of the Undead might betray the troops and side with the vampires... This was another sign the players perhaps could have seen this coming. So, the dozen clerics manning the walls just left, unmolested, as soon as the vampires started the attack.

Due clever manipulations of the city's politics (exploiting alliances, debts, corruption, the byzantine civic political system), the cult was able to manoevre its members into this role. I reminded the characters of this fact every episode for the previous three episodes but I guess they just didn't take in the significance of the information.

In fact, the remaining vampires are hiding in this god's temple right now. But this possibility hasn't occurred to the players yet.

So, did this come up at the big meeting? Super-Duke was down with this plan of using the clerics of the NE Gawd of Undead? Or did he even know about it? How smart was he, anyway,a nd how did he manage to get to be the Duke? Did he deserve to be Duke, or would the average 6-year-old be a decent replacement?


The guy who yelled at you was being a jerk (and now I begin to wonder just how big an explosion that actually was), but it starts to sound like the rest of them are on the low side of Epsilon Semi-Moron. I think that I'd dump them all at this point and take up writing bad poetry and masochistically-posting it at Portal Of Evil as a hobby instead.



Oh, and this caught my eye (from Page 4 -- I think):

Time to fly to the ducal palace while hasted: 2 rounds (it was 120 yards away)

Haste helps with the speed of fly spells? Where does it say that? Is it in the errata and I just missed it?



Haste
Transmutation
Level: Brd 3, Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)
The transmuted creature moves and acts more quickly than normal. This extra speed has several effects.
On its turn, the subject may take an extra partial action, either before or after its regular action.
The subject gains a +4 haste bonus to AC. The subject loses this bonus whenever it would lose a dodge bonus.
The subject can jump one and a half times as far as normal. This increase counts as an enhancement bonus.
Haste dispels and counters slow.

 

[D'karr]

Haste helps with the speed of fly spells? Where does it say that? Is it in the errata and I just missed it?



Haste
Transmutation
Level: Brd 3, Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)
The transmuted creature moves and acts more quickly than normal. This extra speed has several effects.
On its turn, the subject may take an extra partial action, either before or after its regular action.
The subject gains a +4 haste bonus to AC. The subject loses this bonus whenever it would lose a dodge bonus.
The subject can jump one and a half times as far as normal. This increase counts as an enhancement bonus.
Haste dispels and counters slow.

Well, even though I completely disagree with the timeline Fusangite has this right. While acting on BULLET TIME a character can do the equivalent of 3 Move-Equivalent actions.

120 yds=360 feet.

90' move for Fly. With haste that is a move rate of 270' a round. So yes, he can pretty much travel the 120yds in two rounds.

 

[Wayside]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ?

Oh, it was a lesson, not a roleplaying game. I here thought he was trying to run an enjoyable game. Silly me.

I suppose you expect to win every game you play? Do you whine at the banker in Monopoly for not giving you free cash? At your best friend who just bluffed you out of a winning hand?

You're right that the point of games is enjoyment. You're wrong though, when you assume enjoyment is the equivalent of always getting your way. If you spend 20 rounds putting on armor (and putting out friends) rather than rushing out to battle half naked like a madman (screw backup armor), and miss your chance for a great death scene, you should be playing Heroquest or Dragonstrike or something.

And look how Fusangite's game turned out: far more cinematic than it would have otherwise.

 

[Marshall]

Three points of AC can make a huge difference when it comes to an optimized AC, especially at higher levels. More than once, the difference between needing a 20 to hit my PC and needing an 18 to hit him as saved him from taking large amounts of damage. It prevents being Rended, and makes it nearly impossible to confirm a crit even if he does get hit.

Of course with your restricted move, youre taking more attacks. And are almost forced into a stand-and-deliver strategy because youre not fast enough to run away.

As for mithril, its in the game as being commonly available. Even if you play it isnt, a simple chain shirt gives half your armor value for none of the cost.

For a 10-14 DEX character youre still better off going with lite armor and gettting DEX bonus items. Especially at the high end of that category where even Mithril Full Plate will lose you up to two points of AC from DEX bonus.

And yours amazes me.

If you actually think I was being verbally abusive, then you have led a very sheltered life.

You misunderstand, I wasn't accusing you of being verbally abusive. I was commenting on you accusing me of supporting verbal abuse.

 

[Numion]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ?

I suppose you expect to win every game you play? Do you whine at the banker in Monopoly for not giving you free cash? At your best friend who just bluffed you out of a winning hand?

No, no and no. Thank you for missing the point. Once again let me re-iterate: I'm all for PCs getting the consequences. However having players bored because their PCs miss the action is just wasting everyones time.

You're right that the point of games is enjoyment. You're wrong though, when you assume enjoyment is the equivalent of always getting your way. If you spend 20 rounds putting on armor (and putting out friends) rather than rushing out to battle half naked like a madman (screw backup armor), and miss your chance for a great death scene, you should be playing Heroquest or Dragonstrike or something.

I don't assume anything other than that the players and the DM would've wanted all the PCs to be part of the climatic scene. This I assume from the fact that they all showed up to play the game.

Now I've offered solutions towards that end, but all I've heard in return is something about "this was a lesson!", "the players should pay the consequences!" and "fusangite was right". All fine opinions, off course, but I just find it more intresting to seek a solution instead off the guilty one.

And where did you get the idea I was trying to make the encounter easier? I was just trying to get all the PCs to the encounter, I said nothing about difficulty.

EDIT: I'm even a little confused that fusangite was content that a large part of his gaming group missed an encounter he'd prepared so meticulously and with time. Like "They missed the encounter; that'll teach them, suckas!". Sorry, I play to enjoy the game, not to "learn lessons". As a DM I'm not happy when a player misses a session - and neither am I when one misses the climatic encounter. Thats just wasted work and time.

 

[Scarbonac]

Well, even though I completely disagree with the timeline Fusangite has this right. While acting on BULLET TIME a character can do the equivalent of 3 Move-Equivalent actions.

120 yds=360 feet.

90' move for Fly. With haste that is a move rate of 270' a round. So yes, he can pretty much travel the 120yds in two rounds.

''BULLET TIME''? Q'est-ce que c'est ''BULLET TIME''?


Wait wait wait -- izzat s'posed to be a Matrix ref? Izzit actually part of the 3e rules? Still .


[Edit: Oh. I think that I get it. Jesus, my head hurts; need sleep. Need sleep bad.]