Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

That sort of example is based on an assumption that you're assigning no-name rank-and-file schlubs with character classes, which pretty much runs counter to d20 design philosophy. When I say Howard and Leiber's heroes didn't plow casually into hordes of opponents, I didn't mean hordes of equally heroic opponents. Didn't think I needed to clarify that, but there you have it.

By way of example, in "God in the Bowl", Conan has a run-in with a bunch of palace guards. These guys are just schmucks, but they do hold him at bay quite successfully. Conan is particularly wary of the young pup leveling the crossbow at his chest, not so much because of the young pup being some badass archer but rather because of the crossbow's ability to puncture any number of internal organs.

hmm, the clarification is sort of helpful, actually. Though I would again point out the d20 design philosophy bit may be a poor attitude to take in this debate. I mean are you assuming there are mooks or aren't you? The assumption makes a big difference in your story or game. You seem to be assuming post-clarification that there are mooks, or schmucks, but that they should be able to hold people at bay effectively. It's a bit of weird trick you seem to want a game to pull off here for a character to have both rules dictated respect and disdain for a given class of extra, but we don't yet know if or how IL deals with the issue, A, and, B, I don't know how well you can argue that there has to be a consistent response. It may very well be that there are any number of ways in which one guy sees himself at a disadvantage against numbers with the drop on him. I'm not certain that all of them will apply all the time to every situation. It's certainly not all that consistent within the genre(s) in question. It's also certainly true that we have yet to see from Mike or the playtesters any indication that there are really superhero levels of concern over the ease of overcoming mooks. Were they there I would expect to see the lack of threat from mooks touted as a feature as a frequent complaint of super-hero games is that they give mooks too much power.

Second off, I doubt any heroic fantasy character does much casually, unless they are very serious about being casual. There is both genre variety and disconnect at work here. The Musketeers are certainly part of the Heroic Adventure/Fantasy genre and they certainly delight in fighting hordes of opponents, but they also sneak about in palaces. Even where you willingly hold small fortresses with six men against a regiment you still sneak about in palaces.

It will be interesting to see how IL deals with issues like overwhelming numbers, homefield advantage or disadvantage, and opponents having 'the drop.' Personally I'd prefer to see a set of system level rules that can be added or dropped rather than anything inherent in the characters. Conan and BCCS had interesting approaches to this, in their multiple opponents and advantage rules respectively, but neither of them had much of a take on the 'homefield' advantage commonly given to mooks in their stronghold. The mention of rules for Zones in the last playtest indicates at least some sort of approach to it in IL, so I won't be surprised if there are other solutions offered to numbers and 'the drop' as well.

If not those are certainly the level of rules that are easiest to drop in from other systems.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Then perbhaps should comparissiosn should be left out entirely? No more X will let you emulate Y because we don't want to get sticky or anything now no?

Sticky's not so bad. I do recognize a real problem in the reference to outside media in most GnG related issues, but it does provide some perspective, gives GnG as close to an aesthetic/critical quality as its going to get, and is fun.

It's a decent basis for argumentation as long as you're willing to recognize the argument is going to go both ways.

I would say that I think cinema is a better source for comparison. RPGs are inherently cinematic or theatrical in a number of ways and given the few number of movies in the genre compared to short stories there's a higher liklihood we'll all know what people are talking about.

But l'm game for literature as well.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

But at 20th level, those 'replacments' for magic items and other standards, is going to continue to rise no? Replacements to overcome damage reduction and other core elements, such as teleportation, dimension door, bulls strength and other buff spells, will have to be built into it, or it won't be compatible with either Arcana Evolved or D&D as both have lots of magic built into 'em, even if you just use the spellcasters and toss the magic items.

No, I don't really think so. AE would have to have those elements, IL is trying for a different approach since there isn't really an illusion of total compatibility.

That is AE was simply trying to different things within the overall rules framework and slightly modify the basic magic system.

IL looks like its going to replace or elaborate on a lot of the basic framework. So that rather than being AE characters fighting a DnD dragon in a DnD context you will in fact be IL characters fighting a DnD dragon in an IL/DnD context.

So in the case of buff spells, for instance, I think most of their functionality is going to be subsumed into the basic structure of the classes and feats. Higher initial attribute scores and more control over how they can be raised will probably remove a lot of the need for that. And the rest will probably go away with the various buffs to damage and defense you can get from more tactical thinking, stunts, and the token system. All of which are both grittier ways of accomplishing this, as they involve instanced effort and chances of failure, and more cinematic/heroic.

Teleportation and dimension door strike me as such narrative level spells that doing away with them is highly unlikely to be problematic. The difference between, 'I teleport there,' and, 'I travel there over the course of weeks,' is really only one of flavor, words, and timing. Since IL appears to be doing away with most of the relevant non-narrative time limits I don't see much of a problem. Were I designing the game I would include some sort of mechanic for narrative level magic, so we might see that, but that's still far enough removed from the 'popping wizard' and far closer to the, 'Hey Fafhrd appears to be on a UFO/Olympian chariot now,' phenomena.

You may have to do some redesign on dungeons, but when hasn't that been a possibility?

Doing away with the silos seems to me to be the biggest step in this direction. Not even BCCS or Conan were totally willing to do that.

 

[Mac Callum]

That sort of example is based on an assumption that you're assigning no-name rank-and-file schlubs with character classes, which pretty much runs counter to d20 design philosophy. When I say Howard and Leiber's heroes didn't plow casually into hordes of opponents, I didn't mean hordes of equally heroic opponents. Didn't think I needed to clarify that, but there you have it.

Then there was a mis-step in communication. I'm also indifferent to d20 design philosophy, and instead work with the rules presented + my common sense. IMC the random city guardman is usually a War1 or 2, and the King's Guard are Fighter / Warmain 2-5.

That being said, without healing magic, a critical hit from a crossbow is still gonna hurt. In life-or-death situations you may ignore that risk and charge in, but why do that on a normal basis? I would expect that most PC's under 7th level would at least pause before taking on a dozen crossbow bolts.

Reminds me of a D&D campaign I ran back in 2nd Ed. days. The PCs had reached 10th - 12th level and were pretty cocky. Trying to get them to turn west I put an army of about 2,000 mook Zhentarim in the only mountain pass south (They couldn't Teleport, and not all of them could fly). They charge in anyway, saying "Hey, it's only mooks." Well, 500 crossbow bolts later they weren't so sure about that. Even if the mooks needed a 20 to hit, that's 25 guaranteed hits every round. They killed about 200 of the mooks, but that's only because they had access to wide-area-effect spells like Fireball. The charge of heavy cavalry took care of the Wizard, and it all went down-hill from there. IL PC's won't even have the big-bang magic going for them.

Yup, it's part of my design philosophy that well trained troops, acting in concert, can put a world of hurt on PC's. No need to change any rules. Just assume that in a world swimming with high-level characters many armies and guard-forces will be trained to handle them. After all, dying just means you get to hob-nob with Pelor. What's so bad about that?

 

[JoeGKushner]

So in the case of buff spells, for instance, I think most of their functionality is going to be subsumed into the basic structure of the classes and feats. Higher initial attribute scores and more control over how they can be raised will probably remove a lot of the need for that. And the rest will probably go away with the various buffs to damage and defense you can get from more tactical thinking, stunts, and the token system. All of which are both grittier ways of accomplishing this, as they involve instanced effort and chances of failure, and more cinematic/heroic..

You write "grittier" and then follow up with "cinematic/heroic." To me, the two are vastly different. Like describing a lake an an ocean. They both have water but...

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I honestly don't think it does. You might be able to clarify but as far as I can tell magic is the ultimate point of calling a spade a spade. You can't claim magic is in a game unless someone puts it there.

That the Archer's BAB accelerates faster than the PHB fighter's BAB at exactly the point when you are assumed to have gotten a magic weapon with a higher magical bonus. In other words, it is designed to match BAB to BAB with a magic weapon wielding fighter.
Wulf's point that it isn't just the crutch of omnipresent magic, but rather of omnipresent items (weapons are items, magic weapons are magic items). A bonus is a bonus, whether it comes from magic items or whether is it is just built into the advancement chart from the beginning. Wulf's point is that D&D hides it in magic items.

His "churlish" post stands, Mac Callum made his point that you criticized him for.

I mean really, appending a single word is rude and vulger? And I thought an economy of words was desirable. I was always a fan of Twain's alleged statement of apology that he couldn't write a shorter letter because didn't have enough time. Who knew padding posts with extra twaddle was being considerate and kind. My editor wife will be surprised to hear this.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

That the Archer's BAB accelerates faster than the PHB fighter's BAB at exactly the point when you are assumed to have gotten a magic weapon with a higher magical bonus. In other words, it is designed to match BAB to BAB with a magic weapon wielding fighter.
Wulf's point that it isn't just the crutch of omnipresent magic, but rather of omnipresent items (weapons are items, magic weapons are magic items). A bonus is a bonus, whether it comes from magic items or whether is it is just built into the advancement chart from the beginning. Wulf's point is that D&D hides it in magic items.

His "churlish" post stands, Mac Callum made his point that you criticized him for.

I mean really, appending a single word is rude and vulger? And I thought an economy of words was desirable. I was always a fan of Twain's alleged statement of apology that he couldn't write a shorter letter because didn't have enough time. Who knew padding posts with extra twaddle was being considerate and kind. My editor wife will be surprised to hear this.

There's something innately ridiculous about using Twain to defend against an accusation of snark let alone rudeness and vulgarity. (tempted to put an emote here but decided against it)

Right, look, maybe I'm missing something. Here's what I understand the point to have been:

Azgulor expressed his reservations with IL as its presented. The 'crutch' of his argument being that IL is not GnG, which he wanted it to be, because it lets you perform at the level of DnD only without magic.

Wulf amended this argument by adding the term 'items' in italics for whatever value italics might carry. And following it up with an agreement that you are not a part of IL's audience if you like GnG.

Then some posts later Wulf states that a BAB system that gives you a high enough bonus with a bow that you can compete with a magic bow wielding bow man without wielding a magic bow is complementary to his churlish point.

Now from what I can tell from the little that we have here, this point must be of one of two natures:

1.) That the original addition of the word italicized word items was meant to imply that even though IL gets rid of magic items it is still an inherently 'magical' game given the power levels involved.

-if this is the point then I disagree with it for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Namely that I don't think you can claim that a thing is magical based on its efficacy alone, particularly if, as seems to be the case with IL, the default level of efficacy is being moved around. Which is an important point since the only ways you can really distinguish magic items from non in DnD is through a specific flavor, which IL's character mechanic system lacks, and a difference in efficacy, which IL also lacks.

But this point isn't a bad point in its own right. I just disagree with what it means.

2.) That the 'churlish' point in question is simply that IL gets rid of magical items by changing the basic bones of the character system, among other potential changes. Which seems to be the point that you think he's making.

-if this is the point then I don't disagree as this is obvious.

But I do have other problems with it. I mean why bring this up in contrast to magic generally? Is there something that Wulf knows about the necessity of magic in play from other parts of the system? If so this would seem to contradict the idea Mike previously expressed about no class being essential for a party in play as long as they had a variety of classes within the party. Is this some kind of knock on IL's GnG 'cred'? If so I disagree with it for reasons related to above, and if not then why include it in the context of excluding people interested in GnG from the audience for IL? I have more general problems with such a statment, but that's the only way it's particular to the argument as its developed since then and how it relates to my pointing out that the way he communicated that was problematic. Or was he trying to emphasize the point positively? In which case the context seems all kinds of crazy for it and I'd be interested in hearing him elaborate on why getting rid of magic items is good, if a different kind of good from GnG which is also good but not this kind of good.

Again, I apologize if I've undervalued the term churlish, I only meant for it to convey something problematic in its association with snarkishness not something insulting. I might argue with Wulf but I don't have a problem with him asife from dismissing Mac Cullum's complaint with an 'If you say so.' He made up for that and I think everything's been dealt with pretty well since then, except for this apparent confusion over the direction of the argument. I've got no problems except wondering if I've apologized and explained enough to restore thread harmony. I certainly think Wulf has, though I do expect that the elements of this that are teasing will and should continue in a friendly vein. Cause you want to calm the snark not kill it.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

You write "grittier" and then follow up with "cinematic/heroic." To me, the two are vastly different. Like describing a lake an an ocean. They both have water but...

I suppose then that that depends on how you envision gritty. I've always encountered it in reference to heroic fantasy or action, which is itself also cinematic. That is that even where it is in a literary form there is a high level of attention paid to the specifics of action.

It would be in direct contrast to, say, many of the qualities of romantic or epic literature where you have a very spare idea of what a give character is actually doing or looks like and a much more elaborate conception of who the character is, who/what he relates to in the cosmology, and what he is thinking or feeling.

Cinematic has another level where people describing it mean fast or over the top and narrative styles of action. In terms of my understanding of GnG fast nearly always fits the style, unless you are talking about Napoleanic wargamers appreciating an appropriately high body count, and the over the top and narrative qualities of cinematic fit GnG at varying levels and not at all in some instances.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

More simply:

from my understanding you have to be cinematic/heroic in order to be gritty. Even though the reverse may not be true.

Gritty must be action oriented and sensually detailed (cinematic) and conflict oriented (heroic).

Otherwise how would you know that things are material and personal (gritty and cinematic) and threatening (gritty and heroic)?

 

[JoeGKushner]

More simply:

from my understanding you have to be cinematic/heroic in order to be gritty. Even though the reverse may not be true.

Gritty must be action oriented and sensually detailed (cinematic) and conflict oriented (heroic).

Otherwise how would you know that things are material (gritty and cinematic) and threatening (gritty and heroic)?

Same way people have for years.

The GM tells them so!