Sean Reynolds' new company press release

[Ranger REG]

(The mention of Monte stems from him supposedly * being behind some of the alignment / undead / negative energy issues in the BoVD that have so many people hating the book despite the interesting ideas found elsewhere, and for the Str trumps all notion in racial mod balancing, which many many threads are devoted too arguing against. * I have no idea if any of this is true, due to having a life. If I'm wrong, I'll happily take it back. Either way, Monte is a brilliant designer, and TSR and WotC both owe most of my thousands of dollars in purchases to him and the PS crew.)

Yeah, I'm gonna need some sources on that.

I agree that the press release works on a shock-jock level. However, as many know, Howard Stern is on his way out...

Not really. As satellite radio is gaining popularity, so will people accessing his station. And we have Sirius to thank for that.

 

[James Heard]

The more bias you have, the less useful you'll be. Bias is only good for keeping the audience who already agrees with you. Being reasonable is what gets you 'converts'.

I disagree completely. Being opinionated, holding opinions, and expressing opinions is the only thing you have to fall back on as an artist of any sort. I disagree with Sean a good portion of the time too, but I would never tell him not to have an opinion because his viewpoint makes him less useful. On the contrary, without Sean's opinion he's dead to me.

Now, if you could somehow prove that Sean can't be SHAKEN from his opinion I'd think you'd have something. Since I've seen it happen though, I'd call that smoke without a fire too. Sean's got a big mouth, but people who shut up often don't have anything to say.

 

[Felonius]

Uh-huh, and in a lot of genres Zombies can only be killed by having their brains destroyed. There's two undead with a "vulnerable" spot.

But a D&D zombie is not harmed more by a bullet to brain than in torso so it's pretty much irrelevant how movie-zombies die. If you want zombies to be vulnerable to brain-mushing attacks you need to write a new creature called Romero-Zombie or something.

Also, many undead are vulnerable to certain materials and weapons made out of that material. Sneak attack could be tied to such materials, allowing a properly equipped character to treat an undead as a living opponent.

Yes, these are properties like holy and undead bane, or DR-piercing materials. Sneak attack is different.

In short, there are justifications for such an ability that make sense, and using doesn't mean you don't understand the intricacies of the d20 system.

And liking it doesn't mean you need SKR to save you either

I'm not saying you couldn't create a justification for sneak attack working on undead. I'm saying that in order to achieve this, you need to change or add to the definition of why undead are immune to sneak attack. Like previously mentioned negative enegry links. Otherwise you're opening a door for already mentiond concepts like fire so hot it harms fire (elementals).

If a thing in d20 is immune to something, then it's *immune*. Otherwise it should have a resistance.

- F

 

[Incenjucar]

You have access to the WotC boards as much as I do, REG. I've always found the notion that anyone who worked on Planescape is that mud-headed as being illogical, so I'm not going to insist it's true. Just what I keep hearing.

Maybe just post something like "Why does everyone blame BoVD and Str>Everything on Monte?"

--

On opinion: Opinion is useful in some things. If you want to emulate someone, their opinion is great. If you want to 'play better', however, you need to know that they're just saying to play like them.

What sounds more useful to you?

"Cold damage to cold-immune creatures is stupid"

or

"The idea of cold damage to cold creatures is more likely to work in game type X, Y, and Z, and less likely to work in game type A, B, or C. I prefer game type B, myself, and reccomend it."

Opinions are like the otyugh's favorite part of human anatomy. Sean's just got a better toned one that he's wagging around in front of us.

Me, I'm getting the Glade.

 

[Gez]

The prospect of playing a super-intelligent ham sandwich outweighs the poor rules used to model the world of super-intelligent ham sandwiches. [...] In some cases, the fun of being an intelligent ham sandwich is enough to make you put up with poorly designed rules.

Is that a jab at Steve Miller?

 

[Frostmarrow]

Over at Games Workshop they described bad game design like this: When hit by attacks you get to roll a save. This save is a d6 roll against a number. Power armour (space marines) has a save of 3+. There is also flak armour (Imperial guard) and that has a save of 6+. In between we find eldar aspect armour 5+. Now it stands to reason to introduce a save of 4+. However, the designers at GW thought that a save of 4+ would be extremely bad game design.

I can sort of sense the badness of such design. I can't put my finger on it - but it's there. Perhaps a 4+ save simply is too obvious?

(Yes, I know that there now are armor in 40K that have a save of 4+ -but the designers hate it.)

Monte Cook* said that it would be bad game design to have AC increase at the same speed as BAB. It would be simple - but all too obvious. This I agree with. The thing is: you can stil make a game with 4+ saves where AC improves alongside BAB and it would still be enjoyable. BUT, as an artist or designer it just isn't the best one can do. So bad design might be sloppy or lazy design. If you put your mind and effort to it you could make better rules than that.

In the case of sneak attacking undead it seems obvious enough to have a feat that allows it. However, a good designer would think thusly: "So rogues have a hard time when up against undead for their sneak attack won't work. What to do? I know, I'll introduce alchemist fire and holy water. Then rogues will like to be equiped with such weapons when hunting undead. That'll be cool!"

Take a look at armor in D&D for instance. If you have light armor you move 30'. If you have medium or heavy armor you move 20'. Why not rule that medium armor allows you to move 25'? It would be perfectly logical and it would even make medium armor more popular. The answer is it's too easy. As it stands now a player will have to make a choice between 30' and 20'. Offering the compromise choice of 25' would be too generous.

* I would love to provide a link but sadly I can't find it. MC was comparing D&D with Diablo. It's probably in the archive.

 

[rounser]

Over at Games Workshop they described bad game design like this: When hit by attacks you get to roll a save. This save is a d6 roll against a number. Power armour (space marines) has a save of 3+. There is also flak armour (Imperial guard) and that has a save of 6+. In between we find eldar aspect armour 5+. Now it stands to reason to introduce a save of 4+. However, the designers at GW thought that a save of 4+ would be extremely bad game design.

I can sort of sense the badness of such design. I can't put my finger on it - but it's there. Perhaps a 4+ save simply is too obvious?

The conspiracy theorists among GW gamers (back when I was in touch with that "scene") seemed to think that the dodgy design was a deliberate feature, in that if they designed a game well enough, people wouldn't buy the next edition.

They came very close with Blood Bowl (which plays quite well, but doesn't sell many miniatures and so is therefore probably suboptimal in GW's eyes) and Necromunda (which had dodgy rules, but made up for it with a compelling concept and setting...and also didn't sell many miniatures). As a result, both had limited shelf lives before returning focus to the "evergreens".

 

[Vigilance]

I'm not saying you couldn't create a justification for sneak attack working on undead. I'm saying that in order to achieve this, you need to change or add to the definition of why undead are immune to sneak attack. Like previously mentioned negative enegry links. Otherwise you're opening a door for already mentiond concepts like fire so hot it harms fire (elementals).

Well my impression of what you were saying is that allowing sneak attack to work on undead is an example of "bad design".

My point was, that no, its not.

If you can come up with a scenario where something works, then it's not "bad design".

In case you haven't noticed yet, I don't really believe you can come up with a list of things, like you did, in a vacuum and say "see this stuff here? this is bad design".

It's a personal decision based on products as a whole. Even within this thread some people have pointed to a product as "bad" only to have someone else step up and say "hey I really like that".

So obviously its personal taste not objectively "bad design" at play here.

Chuck

 

[Psion]

Monte Cook* said that it would be bad game design to have AC increase at the same speed as BAB. It would be simple - but all too obvious.

But the deal here is there would be consequences in how the game operates. Since HP increase with level too, combats would take forever.

In the case of sneak attacking undead, there are no universal consequences beyond the increased utility against undead. Special observance of some mechanics when feats clearly allow you to alter others is largely pointless if there is not a direct negative consequence. If it made SKR and Felonious feel better, we could rename it "supernatural attack" and define it as striking energy junctures (something that is totally in keeping with how class abilities are defined.) But much like renaming "turning outsiders" "censuring", you are just hanging off an existing mechanic, a mechanic being a method of using dice, applying numbers, and comparing qualities. We are better off, IMO, calling a duck a duck. The fluff part of the ability description is in our control. We can define energy junctures on the ability end of the description vice the monster end of the description. "We control the horizontal and the vertical."

To be frank, I am not so sure that I would have allowed the feat in my high level game. As for why: once the party rogue figured out what a great pair she made with the monk and started flanking, she was enough of a death dealer as it was. Undead was the chance for "Mr. Paladin with his charisma boosting armor" to blast things out of existence. It was nice role balance.

But if the campaign almost exclusively featured undead as villains, a mood-inducing campaign decision as any, then I would strongly consider allowing such a feat to improve the role balance.

That's why, as always, I feel such things should fall under the purview of the GM. In some games it will be appropriate, in some games it won't. If I feel in my D&D worldview that zombies are just bags of hitpoints that you have to slog your way though without trickery, then that's your call. If you want undead to have negative energy junctures, sort of a dark reflection of chakras, and justify sneak attacks that way, then that's cool too. But I feel that hanging the portability of such a mechanic on assuming that everyone's worldview is the same as yours on this level is inappropriate bossiness about other people's games. It's making the game serve the rules, not vice versa. Having a supernatural sneak attack is an OPTION, a rule that, if it is appropriate, can serve my game.

 

[Henry]

Folks, I had a really bad day today, capped off with a public altercation with a stranger that left me feeling very depressed.

Illegitimis non carborundum, Sean.


So, to answer my question, you will be doing "why and wherefore" type sidebars in your products, I take it?

And finally, what quarter can we expect the first product, and does it have a name and theme yet? (Past New Argonauts, that is?)