Subtle Brilliance...

[Cheiromancer]

That looks fantastic!

Your analysis is a good deal more clear than mine would have been. What do you think of listing the "X factors" for the SRD monsters, so DMs could use this as the reference for the power (and base xp) for monsters? Maybe with little pictures like the section in unearthed arcana (in the flat xp awards section).

Turn it into a pdf, bundle a spreadsheet with it (like the one you sent me) and put it on RPG Now. Or be less ambitious, but send free copies to all your favorite game designers, and make a lasting change in the industry. What would you like to do with it?

Bad Axe games is certainly welcome to all the revenue, if you'd like to develop it as a product.

[edit]My initial enthusiasm is cooling a bit. Partly because I discovered that I had judged Anubis a bit harshly. His proposal is actually quite a good adaptation of the 3.5 core rules. I had misunderstood the section in the DMG, and the changes from 3.0 just hadn't penetrated. It just makes this work seem a little more peripheral, that's all.

You are still welcome to do stuff with it, of course![/edit]

 

[Zoatebix]

Yay! Thanks - my question got answered by cheiromancer's 1st post after my last message, but this all was a good read.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Since this thread is so long...

Does Grim Tales come with it's own monsters, or must you take them from D20 Modern and DnD? Which one?

 

[Turanil]

Since this thread is so long...

Does Grim Tales come with it's own monsters, or must you take them from D20 Modern and DnD? Which one?

There is no monsters in Grim Tales (except for the few npcs given in the campaign examples in the appendix). Both d20 modern and D&D 3.5 monsters are usable. I will use the latter for my next GT campaign, but would use Menace Manual if I were to make a modern/sci-fi campaign with GT.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Since this thread is so long...

Does Grim Tales come with it's own monsters, or must you take them from D20 Modern and DnD? Which one?

You can use monsters from any d20 source.

 

[BryonD]

Hello, back from a week of work travel...

I like the document you posted above.
Just one question (and a fairly minor one at that)

Why did you include the wolf in the calculation of the party power?
The wolf is a class feature of the druid. Without that wolf, the druid would not be ECL5. Counting the wolf is the same thing as charging a fighter for his bonus feats. Just because the wolf is an individual combatant does not really change that.

Couple points: A) The wolf only changes the power from 102 to 106. So it is a small fraction. This will tend to be the case. Though a human's companion will have more effect than a lizard folk's. And a solo druid's companion would have more relative impact than a druid in a party. Extreme case is a Druid 1 (power 1) has a CR1 wolf (power 1) for a total power of 2. This may indicate that a L1 druid gets a slightly overpowered companion, which was already fairly obvious since the druid is CR1, no higher than the wolf.

B) Leadership is a different matter and is a function of how leadership itself works. Thus, I would charge for a cohort. He is worth a lot more than +0.2 CR AND he is "balanced" by his taking a share of XP and treasure.

 

[DonAdam]

A quick question about adding up EL's:

Suppose I have a 4th level character (assume standard equipment, so CR 4) vs another 4th level character and his 4 1st level flunkies.

The lone character is EL 9. The group is total CR 8, which means EL 13, -4 for 5 characters; also EL 9. That hardly seems right.

What (if anything) am I doing wrong?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

A quick question about adding up EL's:

Suppose I have a 4th level character (assume standard equipment, so CR 4) vs another 4th level character and his 4 1st level flunkies.

The lone character is EL 9. The group is total CR 8, which means EL 13, -4 for 5 characters; also EL 9. That hardly seems right.

What (if anything) am I doing wrong?

You're not really doing anything wrong, per se. It's an artifact caused by using the tables as opposed to using a straight mathematical function. The tables round off at a couple of steps, which makes things occasionally go wonky.

Check out the document I posted a couple of posts up that explains this in a bit more detail.

FYI, a lone CR4 character is EL9. Adding four 1st level flunkies brings the total to 9.64-- so you can see, even without rounding, it's still pretty close.


Wulf

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Why did you include the wolf in the calculation of the party power?

The wolf is a class feature of the druid. Without that wolf, the druid would not be ECL5. Counting the wolf is the same thing as charging a fighter for his bonus feats. Just because the wolf is an individual combatant does not really change that.

Ehh... Mainly cause I've never really bought that argument. At low levels the companion carries more than its fair share of weight, and at high levels they're not really that important (sort of how the numbers bear out).

Wulf

 

[BryonD]

So are you saying that the druid isn't really balanced as is, including animal companion?

I can accept that if you are, I'm just trying to be clear that this is the point you are making. Obviously, the Druid 1 with wolf companion is a point where this is mathematically true, even from a core PoV. A wolf is CR1 so a wolf plus the druid who has the wolf MUST be greater than 1.

However, the other point you have made is that you are trying to build a better system that is still true to core. So, by that standard, right or wrong, good or bad, the wolf IS part of the druid's value.

It can lead to other issues. If you say one class is <> 1CR per level because of components, then you open the door to other challenges. For example, it could be hard to prove that a Smart4 is a 50/50 against a Strong4. I don't have a problem with that. But I think the druid thing opens the door to "where do you draw the line?" questions. On that basis, an answer of stick to core basis, for better or worse, has some merits.

Anyway, I see both sides, just kinda being devil's advocate here.