New Ruleset?

[monboesen]

I'll pipe in again.

Have you looked at True20?

It sounds to me like a lot of the things you want is found in that rulesset, and for what isn't, True20 it is very easy to customise.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Have you looked at True20?

Yes, I have. I actually had the pleasure of playtesting Dino Pirates.

 

[RFisher]

Monsters are going to want to take actions other than claw/claw/bite. You need to have something to ajudicate how well it climbs a wall, or jumps, or hides, or tracks, or the like.

I wrote a response, but upon re-reading it, it perhaps strayed to close to edition wars territory. (Though I might've rather called it style wars.)

And I suppose you can get rid of their feats, but then compared to the PCs, they are going to be tactically limited, and kind of boring to fight against - if the monsters never pull rabbits out of their hats, they aren't entertaining opponents, right?

I mostly agree with this. Whether you call them feats or special abilities, I think such things are important. We may differ on quantity.

(&...I'll try...not...to take issue...with your use...of the term..."tactically"... ^_^)

I don't see that taking monsters as given in the book is terribly rough. Just take the stat block as it stands, and you're done.

Certainly taking the pre-made stats out of the book isn't the issue.

 

[Raven Crowking]

My apologies for doing so, but I tossed up a poll (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=185103) so I could get some idea whether or not this is worth my time. Please vote, if only to select the third option.


RC

 

[Umbran]

(&...I'll try...not...to take issue...with your use...of the term..."tactically"... ^_^)

I'm looking at it, and I don't see what's wrong with my use of the term. I this case, I am focused on how their inclusion (or exclusion) would change how the thing works in short-term combat - that's on the tactical scale, rather than the strategic scale. Does it have feats so that it can use varied interesting tactics?

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Does it have feats so that it can use varied interesting tactics?

That assumes that feats are necessary for varied and interesting tactics. IMO, they're not.

 

[Umbran]

That assumes that feats are necessary for varied and interesting tactics. IMO, they're not.

Feats specifically are not. Something beyond "claw/claw/bite" is. For combat, feats are merely a pool of commonly used options. Certainly, making each creature a special case with special abilities listed explicitly would not simplify the writeups or use of the critters.

 

[RFisher]

I'm looking at it, and I don't see what's wrong with my use of the term. I this case, I am focused on how their inclusion (or exclusion) would change how the thing works in short-term combat - that's on the tactical scale, rather than the strategic scale. Does it have feats so that it can use varied interesting tactics?

(I could've probably worded it better than "use of the term".)

I can admit that special abilities can have an affect on tactics. I don't think they are essential to creating tactical interest, however. Tactical interest is can be affected more simply by having the monsters use interesting tactics. (^_^) Also, terrain can more often add tactical interest (IMHO) than special abilities.

Furthermore, for me, tactical interest is just one part of encounter interest. Special abilities often add more to encounter interest in general than specifically to tactical interest, which is why I said that I think they are important.

But that's all probably just picking nits. I think we may agree more than we disagree about feats/special abilities.