Psion's list of rules from 3.5 he will NOT be using...

[hong]

The paladin ability to summon a celestial mount is wonderful in my opinion. Traditionally, mounted feats are useless and the warhorse class ability seldom if ever gets used; you just can't bring a horse into houses and dungeons and caves, and when a fight breaks out you have no time to run to the stable and get it. So, as the rules are now, what's a bonded mount good for? Err... overland travel. The same thing a regular horse is good for.

See, it's amazing how many problems <s>banning</s> removing paladins from your campaign will solve.


(Up to 100 single-spaced pages for the thesis! W00t!)

 

[Zogg]

Giving the paladin a summonable magic mount so he can 'always fight from atop his steed' regardless of his location...

is like making giving every monster in the game the 'undead' tag so a cleric can always use his 'turn undead' ability.

It's bogus and it's lame.

 

[Psion]

Re: Re: Re: Psion's list of rules from 3.5 he will NOT be using...

Hmm. I actually like this ability. I think you might want to look further afield for examples from non-RPG sources. Watch Terry Gilliam's "Adventures of Baron Munchausen" for example.

You'll excuse me if I resist the thought of using as a point of reference a movie as tongue-in-cheek as Baron Munchausen.

 

[Psion]

Zogg wrote
Giving the paladin a summonable magic mount so he can 'always fight from atop his steed' regardless of his location...

is like making giving every monster in the game the 'undead' tag so a cleric can always use his 'turn undead' ability.

Darn astute analogy! It's okay for a class to have an ability that is not useful in all situations. Heck, in fact I think that is part of what the "team of specialists" approach of D&D is all about.

 

[Default Name Player]

Darn astute analogy! It's okay for a class to have an ability that is not useful in all situations. Heck, in fact I think that is part of what the "team of specialists" approach of D&D is all about.

Actually, that was a horrible analogy. If part of the analogy is that all of the monsters are made "undead" so that the cleric can turn them, then a similar analogy applied to the Paladin would be that all monsters can only be fought on horseback.

...and being able to summon/unsummon your mount is NOT useful in all situations, just like if all monsters are "undead" (ie. non-combat encounters).

Otherwise, the list seems like any other "jumping the gun" post before the books come out or the mechanics are used together.

 

[drnuncheon]

Re: Re: Psion's list of rules from 3.5 he will NOT be using...

Oh, I understand what it is trying to do. The problem is that it forgets what miniatures are trying to do in the first place -- represent creatures.

Why? Because the first purpose of minatures is to represent their shape.

No inconsistency exists because there is no hit location chart in 3e, so it really doesn't matter that the base shows a theoretical shape. It's like an abstract snapshot of where the creature is.

But...it's not an abstract snapshot of where the creature is. If anything, that's what the square facing rules are, since the creature is constantly moving.

I'm afraid I don't see what you're getting at. The miniature is still going to represent the shape of the creature - the way it does now - and the base is going to represent the area it 'controls'.

If a horse goes from this:

HH

to this:

H
H

Is that no movement? A 5' step? Something more? Why would it even be considered movement for a horse if it's not for a human? If it's not movement for a horse, then why not have square facing to represent all of the places the horse could be without 'moving' - just like the 1" square facing represents all the places a human could be without "moving"?

Alternately, why not make humans 1" x 1/2"? (sort of like they were in Car Wars?) I'm certainly not 5' front to back. Then again, I'm not 5' side to side either.

Why is that level of abstraction acceptable in humans but not in horses?

J

 

[mmu1]

Square Facings - Depends on how they handle it, if they reduce the "face" for some monsters I think it'll be ok, but if they just make monsters take up a square with sides equal to their longest horizonatal dimension (like in the horse example) you'll end up with some of the longer enemies controlling absurdly huge areas and a rather cluttered and confined battlefield.

Pokemon Paladins - I still don't think a mount is going to be much use in a dungeon or a house even if you can summon it in. It just messes up the flavor of the class and the ability for no practical beneft. If they're going to mess around with it and give the Paladin a summoned creature, forget about the sacred cows and give the Paladin some sort of non-animal celestial companion...

Deflect Arrows - Silly, boring, unnecessary, and a mechanic that's already covered by Armor Class. I'd have less of a problem with it if you didn't also get the benefit of clairvoyance and had to decide whether you'll use your deflect attempt before you knew whether the arrow was going to hit or not. If you have 20 AC, by the time you'll know whether the other guy rolled a 20 or a 19 to hit, it's much too late to deflect anything...

Nerfed Spell Focus - Don't have a problem with it as such, but the more I think about it, the more I feel they should have just gotten rid of Greater Spell Focus and left Spell Focus as is.

 

[KDLadage]

But let me touch on a few:

Please do... that would be the point. I consider your opinion as a valuable one, and so discussing your thoughts is doubly valuable to me.

So... Psion's listing:
Square facings -- this rule actually makes sense to me. It took me a long time to warm up to it, to understand what it was trying to simulate.

Oh, I understand what it is trying to do. The problem is that it forgets what miniatures are trying to do in the first place -- represent creatures.

I don't agree. I think it is remembering that just fine. But it must also take into account the idea that the creature is not a static, "standing still" statue. it is constantly moving about in the area it has alloted for it. Thus, moving into any area where that creature would be "active" must be taken into account. In their estimation, it would appear, a square base makes the most sense.

When a typical fighter is standing in his 5 ft. by 5 ft. square, he has no "front" or "back" sides. He simply is. He occupies the whole of the square he is in. Nowhere are you going to find a man that is actually a 5 ft. by 5 ft. by 5 ft. cube... so you must assume that the fact that he has no facing is why he takes up his whole square -- he is moving about in his sphere of influence and ensuring that no atack is coming from any given direction.

So why then does a horse (or any other larger creature) have a defined front, a defined back and a space that tries to emulate his actual shape? Because it is an inconsitency in the rules -- that's why.

Why? Because the first purpose of minatures is to represent their shape.
No inconsistency exists because there is no hit location chart in 3e, so it really doesn't matter that the base shows a theoretical shape. It's like an abstract snapshot of where the creature is. If you are bent out of shape because you are seeing a snapshot of the creature's positional shape, then how do you feel about the fact that movement in the game is happening in discrete blocks? That should bother you too.

One of three things is happening here. Either (1) I am not fully understanding your argument, (2) I did not fully explain my possition, or (3) we simply disagree and there is nothing we can do about this.

Let me try again. The first purpose of the miniature, according to you, is to represent shape. I disagree -- its first (and primary) purpose is to represent its (abstract) location. Although I agree that the lack of a hit-location chart helps to eleviate the problems that representing a shape imposes, I disagree that it is the end of inconsitancy. Since I feel this way, the next segment of your argument ("it really doesn't matter that the base shows a theoretical shape") does not fly with me either. What the miniature should do (and in the case of man-sized/shaped objects: does) is give the players of the game a good idea as to the relative possition and sphere of influence of the creature in question. Note teh bold text, please. It is that sphere of influence segment there that is coming into play in the case of the square bases.

If we assume that the horse (for example) cannot change its relative facing during a given turn, then a rectagular shape for the horse makes sense. If we assume, on the other hand, that it can move about in a sphere of influence constantly, then a rectangular base is artificially restricting the range at which it can be effective, by artificially imposing a "this is the front, this is the back and the length is greater than the breadth" paradigm on the horse.

Consider that in a rectangular situation, you may end up with something like this:
+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| A | B | C | D | E | F |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| G | H | I | J | K | L |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| M | N | O | P | Q | R |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| S | T | U | V | W | X |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+

Assume the Horse, in the current 3.0 rules, is within squares I and O -- can it attack someone in square G or K? Can this Horse take advantage of AoO's in those areas? Under the current rules (unless I seriously missed something) no it cannot. Thus, the game assumes that it is not moving about in the area it is in. It is in the area respresented by its shape -- something of a restriction that the game does not place on people and other medium-sized creatures. It is a static, statue-like creature without any real sphere of influence. Now, one could assume that it could reach out like this and get to those people, but then AoO rules and many other things begin to break down -- quickly.

Now, assume the Horse, in the 3.5 rules, is within squares I, O, J and P. Now we know that the Horse can attack the assailent in square K, cannot attack the assailent in square G. The AoOs from K and G become evident, the Hose is not assumed to be standing statue-like in its assigned squares and the rest of the rules fit in nicely.

Lastly, no -- the idea of movement governed by descrete blocks is not a problem, and I am not sure why this should bother me. This statement alone is why I think maybe we are not communicating clearly.

The solution: either make all creatures take up a square of space, or give all creatures facing rules.

This "solution" is to a problem that doesn't exist, since 3e does not track specific hit locations.

Again, it is not the Hit Locations idea that makes me feel that the square bases is a good idea or a bad idea. It is the assumed psuedo-front and psuedo-back that is created by the irregular shapes, and how these shapes interact with rules such as AoO, movement and such that make me think that this is a good move in 3.5.

I hope that is more clear.

 

[mmu1]

Re: Re: Re: Psion's list of rules from 3.5 he will NOT be using...

Alternately, why not make humans 1" x 1/2"? (sort of like they were in Car Wars?) I'm certainly not 5' front to back. Then again, I'm not 5' side to side either.

Another example of a self-hating gamer in denial.

 

[Dave Turner]

Paladins are fighters who are given lots of magical boons from their patron deity. Why is it such a stretch that the deity would grant a magical (celestial?) mount to it's champion that can be summoned when need be? When you strip it down, this ability is nothing more than a built-in, specialized Summon Monster spell. What's the big deal?