Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4468266" data-attributes="member: 710">Okay, from the origin thread, here was my comment on this approach:To expand a little on it on my "typical state" vs "base-line" state.One thing I noticed comparing 4E and 3E was the way buff works. 3E has a lot of long-term buffs affecting primary statistics like attack, damage and AC/Saves. 4E only has nearly only short-term (one-round) effects.With "long-term" buffs, I primarily associate spells with duration of 10 minutes/level or higher, as they last over multiple combats. But 3E also includes a lot of short-term buffs that still work as "standard modifier" over a single encounter.Your base-line state is supposedly the state of the character before taking into account any non-permanent (timed, dispellable) effects. So it might include magical weapons (you're rarely disarmed), magical items, and in other games it might be cyberware, gene therapy or what-you-have. Other effects create a "heightened" state of your character. They can end (dispelling, energy runs out, duration ends), but they affect you most of the time. But they are on a large enough amount of time that you'd probably write them down on your character sheet or an index card, similar to the base statistics.Then there are "encounter" effects - the Bards Inspire Courage, a Mass Endurance spell and similar effects.And then there are even shorter effects (they barely exist in 3E), spells like True Strike. So, what this system alludes to is that you have a baseline state of your character, that is the character at full hit points. Then you have a "heightened" state (which is actually a weakened state <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ) where you have only the max hit points you can get by "shaking it off". This is assuming there are no Cure Light Wound Wands around to bring characters to full hit points again (at which point you probably don't need the entire subsystem, as the Wands take care of your hit points anyway after each encounter)---I don't like this "heightened" state. It looks to me as if I am forced to jump through some hoops to calculate my "real" baseline state. Why not cut the chase and make these "heightened" state the baseline in the first place, with no temporary state in-between? Well, this was probably a little to elaborate for a small subsystem, and might go beyond the scope of this topic, but well, you asked. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />---Other objections I might have is that this system does not remove the dependency from magical healing (as you can't get to your top level). That wasn't your goal, but in the context of the discussion this was spawned from, it seems relevant. Aside from these complaints, it should work fine in the context of 3E (and even better in a system like d20 Modern without access to a lot of healing).</blockquote>

Verification