I Really Like Keywords

[Kwalish Kid]

Eh. I dislike them for the moment because their just so bloody random so far. Energy/damage types need to be be a lot more symmetrical for me to really be happy, for instance. I really hope we don't see a Fire / Cold / Electricity vs. Acid vs. Sonic vs. Force hierarchy again...

I really don't understand what you mean by symmetry. Could you explain?

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Tell this to the scores of scientists and the symbol heavy mathematics/biology/physics they use. Symbols are certainly not a sop to the semi-literate. There are millennia of tradition around the use of symbols as simple representations of a semi-complex concepts.

Some colleagues and I were joking last night that the next time we teach symbolic logic we should change the name of all the logical operators and other symbols used to random things like "tree", "tablecloth", and "banana".

 

[Counterspin]

They're smaller Lizard. They're concepts they represent are repeated over and over again, and the symbols are smaller than the words. Not the dice, admittedly, but certainly the symbols for Basic, Ranged, and Burst are all half the size of the words.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Also, by having symbols you can more easily in my eyes... Would that be a pun? Identify key things, such as; type of attack, and recharge number. It makes it easier to glance over it quickly and gather more information.

 

[malraux]

The recharge being a die always struck me as silly, as numbers are already a really compact method of passing info. But the attack symbols seem to convey useful info in compact for. The basic attack is easy to find for an OA, the more complicated melee attack is labeled rather than having to read the whole sheet, and its easy to see if an attack is melee or ranged without having to read through it.

 

[Sojorn]

The recharge numbers being symbols is so they don't drown in the stat block text when you roll a 5 on the recharge.
[sblock]War Devil (Malebranche) Level 22 Brute (Leader)
Large immortal humanoid (devil) XP 4,150
Initiative +17 Senses Perception +15; darkvision
HP 255; Bloodied 127
AC 35; Fortitude 34, Reflex 32, Will 30
Resist 30 fire
Speed 8, fly 8 (clumsy)

Melee Claw (standard; at-will)
+26 vs. AC; 1d6 + 8 damage.

Melee Trident (standard; recharge 4 5 6) Weapon
Reach 2; +26 vs. AC; 4d4 + 8 damage and ongoing 5 damage (save ends), and the target slides into any square adjacent to the war devil and is knocked prone.

Ranged Besieged Foe (minor; at-will)
Ranged sight; automatic hit; the target is marked, and allies of the war devil gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls made against the target until the encounter ends or the war devil marks a new target.

Ranged Devilish Transposition (move; at-will) Teleportation
Ranged 20; the war devil and an allied devil within range swap positions.

Ranged Fiendish Tactics (minor; recharge 5 6)
Ranged 10; affects up to 2 allied devils of the war devil’s level or lower; each target can take a move action or make a basic attack.

Alignment Evil Languages Supernal
Skills Intimidate +20
Str 27 (+19) Dex 23 (+17) Wis 19 (+15)
Con 25 (+18) Int 15 (+13) Cha 18 (+15)

Equipment trident[/sblock][sblock]War Devil (Malebranche) Level 22 Brute (Leader)
Large immortal humanoid (devil) XP 4,150
Initiative +17 Senses Perception +15; darkvision
HP 255; Bloodied 127
AC 35; Fortitude 34, Reflex 32, Will 30
Resist 30 fire
Speed 8, fly 8 (clumsy)

Claw (standard; at-will)
+26 vs. AC; 1d6 + 8 damage.

Trident (standard; recharge ) Weapon
Reach 2; +26 vs. AC; 4d4 + 8 damage and ongoing 5 damage (save ends), and the target slides into any square adjacent to the war devil and is knocked prone.

Besieged Foe (minor; at-will)
Ranged sight; automatic hit; the target is marked, and allies of the war devil gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls made against the target until the encounter ends or the war devil marks a new target.

Devilish Transposition (move; at-will) Teleportation
Ranged 20; the war devil and an allied devil within range swap positions.

Fiendish Tactics (minor; recharge )
Ranged 10; affects up to 2 allied devils of the war devil’s level or lower; each target can take a move action or make a basic attack.

Alignment Evil Languages Supernal
Skills Intimidate +20
Str 27 (+19) Dex 23 (+17) Wis 19 (+15)
Con 25 (+18) Int 15 (+13) Cha 18 (+15)

Equipment trident[/sblock]So, using just the first block, how fast do you figure out what has recharged? The second? It might be easy with this one block everyone is familiar with, but what if you had 4 or 5 of these blocks?

They're there to highlight recharging powers as well as convey what numbers those powers recharge on.

 

[Lizard]

So, using just the first block, how fast do you figure out what has recharged? The second? It might be easy with this one block everyone is familiar with, but what if you had 4 or 5 of these blocks?

They're there to highlight recharging powers as well as convey what numbers those powers recharge on.

The first is easier. It's more mental "work" for me to decipher than 5.

It's like a rebus. Maybe some people can parse pictures faster than words, but I can't.

I can see the argument for quickly calling out basic attack, but that could also be done via other means -- bold or italic, for instance. If a symbol takes less space than a word, a typeface changes take even less. Bolding basic attacks in a stat block would call them out quite quickly.

 

[WhatGravitas]

The recharge being a die always struck me as silly, as numbers are already a really compact method of passing info. But the attack symbols seem to convey useful info in compact for. The basic attack is easy to find for an OA, the more complicated melee attack is labeled rather than having to read the whole sheet, and its easy to see if an attack is melee or ranged without having to read through it.

Same here - I cannot really parse the dice. In fact, I prefer numbered d6s as well!

But the attack symbols are distinguished and help with skimming. You cannot confuse them with each other and their position also marks the header of an attack - so you get a basic information of the attack AND it breaks up the wall of text, similar to bullet points. I really like that.

But the pip-dice are still unnecessary... for D&D, these should have been numbered dice!

Cheers, LT.

 

[drjones]

Second is easier to use. especially if you are only rolling once for the mob per round (which I think is the rule although I rolled for each power separately to make it less swingy) you roll the die and at a glance you know what powers recharged on what you got.

 

[Andor]

The direction of the rules in general in both 3.x and 4E reminds me very much of Object-Oriented Programming.

I've been noticing lately how much a lot of the gamer thought on this board seems to be influenced by programming thought. The snippets we've seen so far make 4e in particular seem to read like an adequately commented bit of code.

But beyond that the whole 3e obsession with the RAW and the sometimes painfully perverse obssesion some people seem to have with whether or not it's possible to even attempt something not explicitly covered by the rules.

EG: I've seen posts where people say "The rules describe exactly what this power/weapon/spell does. That's all it can do. Period." It's as thought they wouldn't allow a druid to light a cigarette with a produce flame, or a fighter to carve scrimshaw with his dagger, because those options aren't covered under the rules for daggers and the spell.

On the one hand using programing models for game mechanics can result in cleanly written and easily understandable rules. On the other I'm starting to worry that imagination is being replaced by a machine like adherance to the rules, and a terror of straying beyond them.

In particular the more rabid anti-simulationist posts like the "NPCs don't exist off stage" ones leave me wondering why these people are bothering to play a role-playing game since they seem to be insisting on a world so alien and limited that they cannot possibly empathise with their characters. The game they are playing seems to have little to do with RPGs as I know and love them. :\