So we might mess up, so what? Forked Thread: Fudging the Numbers in 3ed

[Imaro]

I agree with you.
3E has some issues that could really use some correction. But instead the problem exceptions of 3E were turned into core rules in 4E.

Yep, this is what I was getting at (though I must haven't done a good job expressing it). IMO, a character affected by a web from a spider in 3e feels like he's been affected by a web, it has to hit himm then he struggles to break free w/ a higher strength or the skill to escape bonds helping him. In 4e, to me, it doesn't feel any different from if he'd been affected by anything else that immobilizes you. I think I just much prefer the way 3e handles this than I do 4e.

 

[nightwyrm]

I guess we'll just have to disagree then.

4e mechanics aren't tied down to their flavour text, so its easier to reskin that mechanic/monster/power/class to fit other fluff. What it loses in depth and simulationism, it gains in versatility.

 

[Imaro]

I guess we'll just have to disagree then.

4e mechanics aren't tied down to their flavour text, so its easier to reskin that mechanic/monster/power/class to fit other fluff. What it loses in depth and simulationism, it gains in versatility.

Is this true though, or is it that 3e allows for the reskinning on a more granular level. Why can't the "web" (actually entanglement) mechanics be used for anything that binds you and which you have a chance to break, for example... some type of mucus membrane power? It seems the categories have become less granular but again whether that's a good or bad thing is subjective.?

 

[Dragonblade]

Have you ever actually had players leave the table to go play nintendo?
I honestly have not. It just blows my mind.

Oh god yes. At one point we had 6 players in a group. And it took about 10 minutes to resolve one players turn with buffs constantly changing round by round due to new castings by allies, and dispels by enemies. Then you had iterative attacks, and so on.

So even without being hit by some save or lose effect, it could be 45 minutes to an hour before your next turn. So you had lots of off topic conversations and side chatter (which made things worse!), people pulling out novels, iphones, laptops etc.

And if you did get hit by some paralysis effect or fear effect that made you run away for X rounds, well your night of playing D&D effectively ended. So you went downstairs with the other players sitting out and fired up Guitar Hero or something.

It was awful and it was killing our game.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

You can fix it on the fly, but in 3.5 characters can have stats so widely divergent in the same group, with nothing but the core 3 books even, that a challenge for one party member is still certain death for all the others, making it hard to make a challenge that the whole group can share. You're going to have some difference between your wizards and your fighters, mind you, but you could have a seven to ten point gap between characters of even the same CLASS in 3e. It's one of the things that bugs me about 3.5 once play gets over 11th level or so.

The problem there isn't the saves, it's the fact that a character's survival hinges on one roll.

There's no difference between that scenario and, for example, a 3rd level Wizard getting swatted by an ogre.

Action points do a fine job of mitigating "unfortunate rolls" and they are a resource that the DM can drain as reliably as hit points.

Oh god yes. At one point we had 6 players in a group. And it took about 10 minutes to resolve one players turn with buffs constantly changing round by round due to new castings by allies, and dispels by enemies.

Dispel Magic is a bit trickier.

So even without being hit by some save or lose effect, it could be 45 minutes to an hour before your next turn. And if you did get hit by some paralysis effect or fear effect that made you run away for X rounds, well your night of playing D&D effectively ended.

Action points for re-rolls on subsequent rounds. (There's a theme here.)

It was awful and it was killing our game.

That's horrible. (<-- not meant to be read as sarcasm)

 

[ExploderWizard]

Oh god yes. At one point we had 6 players in a group. And it took about 10 minutes to resolve one players turn with buffs constantly changing round by round due to new castings by allies, and dispels by enemies. Then you had iterative attacks, and so on.

So even without being hit by some save or lose effect, it could be 45 minutes to an hour before your next turn. So you had lots of off topic conversations and side chatter (which made things worse!), people pulling out novels, iphones, laptops etc.

And if you did get hit by some paralysis effect or fear effect that made you run away for X rounds, well your night of playing D&D effectively ended. So you went downstairs with the other players sitting out and fired up Guitar Hero or something.

It was awful and it was killing our game.

Ouch. Never ran into problems that bad. Simpler game systems are the way to get rid of that. I don't remember any Basic D&D combats that took that long to resolve. Win or lose the combats were over pretty quick. If a player was taken out of a particular fight by any means then it didn't mean the whole session was a waste. Getting taken out for the duration of a fight is only a problem if the duration of the fight is way too long in real time to begin with.

 

[The Shaman]

It might also be that I am a flavor-first guy. . Flavor consistency is more important to me (MUCH MORE) than rule-consistency. . .

I like both. I like a rich world to explore, and I like to work the mechanics of the game we're playing, too. Call me a greedy bastidge, but I don't think that it's necessary to sacrifice one for the other.

I agree with your basic premise, el-remmen - mistakes happen, so learn to roll with them. However, if the eraser is wearing out before the graphite, then there may be a problem. Put another way, if you can't get through a gaming session without fudging, maybe it's time - past time, really - to figure out why that is and do something about it, instead of convincing yourself that it's okay to improv your way out of every failure to adequately plan or understand the mechanics.

The rules of the game are how the players and their characters interface with the game-world. If I'm playing OD&D, then the rules are broad and abstract and I expect my interface to be heavily dependent on the referee's judgement. If I'm playing something as crunch-spastic as 3.x, then I think it's reasonable to expect the referee to do the same and not run 3.x as fast and loose as OD&D.

 

[Cadfan]

I just think that we should differentiate between mistakes that teach us to be better DMs, and mistakes that teach us system mastery.

I'm cool with learning to be a better DM, but I only want to learn system mastery through trial and error if no better alternative exists. And a better alternative is a more user friendly system.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You know, I think you might be on to something here... something I noticed when running my 4e game last weekend...

The PC's were fighting spiders that had a web attack vs. Ref. Now once the web hit the PC's each had to make a save to not be imobile... I realized then that I don't like the save mechanic as it works in 4e. (Now maybe I shouldn't have been looking at the immobile condition as "the spiders web sticking characters to a certain spot and just viewed it as an imposed condition... but I need some type of narrative for my game.)

You see to me it seemed that a stronger character should be able to break free... but the 50% for everybody save mechanic doesn't take this into consideration. Even my players thought it was odd and grumbled about it a little. Now I know it's a flavor thing and opinions will vary... but I think there should be a difference here, and not some general bonus to saves feat or the like but a bonus because breaking the webs would be easier for a stronger character.

Well, if we were talking about "learning to fudge" in D&D 4:
- A Heal check allows an ally a new saving throw (a saving throw with a +2 bonus)
- Ruling could be: Make a Strength Check to gain a new save.

I just remember that this was one of the first rulings I made, too, in pre-4E with the PHB Lite in our first test session. I never repeated it, though, but I suppose that's normal for rulings. It was obviously before I learned of the DMG p.42.
It seems that if I know that the rules I have are incomplete, it's easier for me to make a ruling.

 

[Imaro]

Well, if we were talking about "learning to fudge" in D&D 4:
- A Heal check allows an ally a new saving throw (a saving throw with a +2 bonus)
- Ruling could be: Make a Strength Check to gain a new save.

I just remember that this was one of the first rulings I made, too, in pre-4E with the PHB Lite in our first test session.I never repeated it, though, but I suppose that's normal for rulings. It was obviously before I learned of the DMG p.42.
It seems that if I know that the rules I have are incomplete, it's easier for me to make a ruling.

I don't really like that ruling above...it's clunky feeling to me and adds an extra roll to get an extra roll... when I'd rather keep it simple. YMMV of course.

Page 42... it's always page 42... You know I don't know if you were part of a multi-page thread that got into th discussion of just how ambiguous page 42 is, but really Mearls or JW need to write a free article explaining exactly when it should be used. I don't think it fits in this situation for most people. There is a rule for escaping the web... I just don't like it, but by changing it to include strength as a bonus, first am I using a new DC as listed on table 42? Also am I now throwing more importance into an attribute than it should have ( there is also an argument for certain skills when going down this route as well.)? And finally which saves should now get bonuses from an attribute, which shouldn't and how does this affect ovrerall balance. Just things I'm pondering.

Emphasis mine on final point... Be honest though, would the "incompleteness" be a boon if you had never DM'd before? Are you often drawing from your knowledge of 3e/3.5 to make ad-hoc rulings and fill in those blank spaces? For me this again makes me wonder why I am paying to have an incomplete game, IMO in more ways than one, when I have a pretty complete one and know it well enough to tweak it to my desires. YMMV of course.