Design & Development: Dislikes

[philreed]

Antimagic Field: I'm not sure I understand the problem. The description states:

An invisible barrier surrounds you and moves with you. The space within this barrier is impervious to most magical effects, including spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. Likewise, it prevents the functioning of any magic items or spells within its confines.

To me this simply says that spells -- and ranged magic item effects -- fired into the field have no effect and the same things used/attempted inside the field have no effect.

Has anyone else had a problem with antimagic field?

 

[MerricB]

I'd just as soon get rid of randomness altogether in hp (ability scores are another matter). I'd give characters the average for their HD every level, rounded up:

d12 = 7
d10 = 6
d8 = 5
d6 = 4
d4 = 3

Incidentally, that's what the RPGA does with Living Greyhawk. However, it was felt that it helped Wizards too much and Barbarians too little; in Mark of Heroes it became:

d12 = 8; d4=2. (The others as you list.)

Cheers!

 

[tonym]

...d12 becomes d4+8
d10 becomes d4+6
d8 becomes d4+4
d6 becomes d4+2
d4 becomes d2+2

Slick!
No more, "Aw! I rolled a ONE! Can I get a re-roll?"

Tony M

 

[AFGNCAAP]

I'm just starting a new FR campaign, & I'm really reconsidering how I'm going to rule on HP; some of the PCs in an Eberron game I play in have low HP totals, & that really effects how the game goes (it's also reinforced my generally negative opinion on races w/ a Level Adjustment, but that's another post for another time).

I really like the d4 + a #, idea, though I might not go with that just yet. What I am considering is allowing the players to roll for HP as normal, & if they have a really bad roll, then I'll allow them to take the default average HP for that level (ala the fixed HP progression from the DMG, p. 198). If the player really wants to (which is rare, but I've had it happen), they can keep their low roll. However, I think it'll be popular enough that it'll be widely accepted (much like point-buy has for my group recently).

 

[LostSoul]

Mike Mearls - less randomness on hp - Interesting. Can you give us the full list, Mike?

Cool, I had done something similar back in 2e and my first 3e game. Although I used odd die sizes. d10 = 1d6+4, d8 = 1d5+3, d6 = 1d4+2, d4 = 1d3+1. (Never saw a d12 hit die used.)

 

[Vocenoctum]

I'd just as soon get rid of randomness altogether in hp (ability scores are another matter). I'd give characters the average for their HD every level, rounded up:

d12 = 7
d10 = 6
d8 = 5
d6 = 4
d4 = 3

We use that ("high average") in most of our games, but me and another DM also add the extra. "If you get full BAB (fighter, ranger, barbarian, paladin) you get 3/4"
D8=6
d10= 7 on odd class levels, 8 on even class levels.
d12= 9

Otherwise, it becomes worth it for barbarians to roll, which has almost always gone bad.

In my last game you had the option to roll hp with the sliding scale like LostSoul mentioned. But, people just took the static, it's just easier.

 

[Bullgrit]

I remember how much fun it was to flip through the Monster Manual together, laughing at all the possibilities. Figuring out how powerful it was to turn into a troll, an annis hag and a grig was great. But really, your wild ways are too much for me -- I mean the firbolg was bad enough, but then we met the war troll together and it really just seemed like too much. With you, it only takes one monster in a book of 200+ to ruin the experience.

...

How long did John flip through the Monster Manual during his turn while we all just sat there?

I'm surprised. One, that a caster can just polymorph into anything in any book; don't you have to have at least seen the creature to polymorph into it? Two, that a DM would let a Player flip through a MM during combat to decide on a form. Three, that this complaint comes from a designer -- surely, of all DMs, an experienced designer would not let Players completely metagame like that.

Do that many DMs really let casters/Players flip through the books and choose what to polymorph into? I mean, really?

Bullgrit

 

[Seravin]

I'm surprised. One, that a caster can just polymorph into anything in any book; don't you have to have at least seen the creature to polymorph into it? Two, that a DM would let a Player flip through a MM during combat to decide on a form. Three, that this complaint comes from a designer -- surely, of all DMs, an experienced designer would not let Players completely metagame like that.

Do that many DMs really let casters/Players flip through the books and choose what to polymorph into? I mean, really?

Bullgrit

I was supposing that the author was taking on the perspective of the complaints that they have seen on the boards.
However,
One: Many DM's seem to run 'knowledge of the form poly'd into' differently.
Two: See one.
Three: An experienced designer doesn't mean a great DM (though it can't hurt ). Actually I'd expect a designer to be the best (or worse) meta-gamer and the most likely to pick out different forms just 'to test things out'.

I wouldn't normally allow a player to flip through the books and hold up play. I'd give him or her a few seconds at best and then default their action to 'delay'.
One of my players who was running a Shaper of Many Forms was very nice and pre-statted her most common shape-shifts, but she also kept a meticulous sheet on everything that they met in combat.

 

[Seravin]

In fact, there's an article in Dragon Magazine that takes this approach - you gain the many of the abilities of the specific creature - issue #320, "Forms of Legend" by (surprise, surprise) Jesse Decker!

<snip>

Cheers!

I saw that list of forms and It looked very much like a Summon Monster list to me. I wonder how hard it would be to create a limited polymorph list for different levels based on that.

 

[Beckett]

I'm yoinking Andy Collins' death rule. I'd been docking character 500xp per level, rough but not as bad as losing a full level when you were 100xp from the next. This seems much nicer, though.

I've been thinking about using Mike Mearl's HP rule since seeing it in Iron Heroes. Probably going to switch to that instead of my current minimum HP=half the die.