Things other than rulebooks

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Hmm, no. The problem with the DMG rules is that they had to grandfather in approximately 8.37 zillion exceptions caused by the legacy list of magic items, and attempt to balance those with the new systematic way of doing things. If the designers could've gotten away with tossing out all the classic old items and creating everything with a new, consistent system, I'm quite sure the DMG's magic item section would be a whole lot easier to understand. Unfortunately, things don't always work out for the best.

The problem is more that you pretty much have to weight every spell effect, skill boost, etc., individually. Some things are just incredibly more useful than others of same level.

When they wrote the DMG, they could set the costs to whatever they wanted regardless of what the formula said. Accomodating the legacy items isn't what screws it up, its the way you can game the system to get items far more valuable than what they cost.

 

[Silveras]

You know what would be 1000 times more useful? A computer application that did this for you and let you print the result out on an index card.

Except that a computer program would always assign the same gear, stat boosts, etc.

EVERY time you wanted a 15th level Half-Orc Fighter, you'd get the same one, optimized according to the Programmer's ideas of what is "best".

That's actually why I did not try to write my own db as being so complete; it is a bit more work for me to have to select Feats and such, but I also have the freedom to make a 15th level Orc Fighter with a nautical flavor in his/her skills, feats, and gear OR a 15th level Orc Fighter with a mounted flavor in his/her skills, feats, and gear OR a 15th level Orc Fighter with a jungle flavor ...

Computers are very good at crunching numbers, but they are still NOT good at things that require creativity.

 

[Silveras]

I've deleted the actual 'guesses'. They're all quite correct, of course.

There are also two other factors that I think apply:
-- snip --

Yes, I agree. The analogy to adventure writing is a good illustration, as well.

 

[Particle_Man]

Except that a computer program would always assign the same gear, stat boosts, etc.

Couldn't you have some randomization? I know its not "true" randomness, but there are algorithms for "close enough" randomness.

Of course, that means that you might occasionally get an orc weilding a trident and tower shield, but them's the risks.

 

[mattcolville]

Except that a computer program would always assign the same gear, stat boosts, etc.

EVERY time you wanted a 15th level Half-Orc Fighter, you'd get the same one, optimized according to the Programmer's ideas of what is "best".

That's actually why I did not try to write my own db as being so complete; it is a bit more work for me to have to select Feats and such, but I also have the freedom to make a 15th level Orc Fighter with a nautical flavor in his/her skills, feats, and gear OR a 15th level Orc Fighter with a mounted flavor in his/her skills, feats, and gear OR a 15th level Orc Fighter with a jungle flavor ...

Computers are very good at crunching numbers, but they are still NOT good at things that require creativity.

Ah, so? Ryan's not proposing a product that contains a designer who will make sure you're fully statted out 8th level Orc Fighter is different from everyone else's who bought the book. He's proposing a completely static product. Nothing but a big book of NPCs.

And while you could make a program to create some randomness, so your fully statted out 8th level Orc Fighter actually IS different than mine, I'd be happy just combining races and classes and PrCs from a series of menus and printing the results out on a handy index card, randomness or no randomness.

Subtly, of course, my response was a dig at what I perceive as a critical failure of WotC to support the most complex RPG on the market, which also happens to be the most popular, with any official electronic support.

 

[Jolly Giant]

I'm not exactly sure from the ecommerce description but this looks like a book of stat blocks for the basic SRD mosters.

I'm talking about a book that has:

Orc
Orc/F1
Orc/F2
Orc/F3
Orc/F4...

Completely "kitted" with appropriate gear, spell lists, domains, etc.

Example: Somewhere in this book would be a complete stat block for a 15th level Pixie Ranger.

For extra credit, you could do common multiclass combos (1 level of Rogue, 1 level of Monk,1 level of Paladin, 1 level of Barbarian, etc.)

Any math-geeks want to calculate how many entries such a book would need? I'm guessing it would be an 8 or 9 digit figure. In other words, this wouldn't be just a book, but a series of books of about the same size as the Encyclopedia Britannica...

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Any math-geeks want to calculate how many entries such a book would need? I'm guessing it would be an 8 or 9 digit figure. In other words, this wouldn't be just a book, but a series of books of about the same size as the Encyclopedia Britannica...

If you used only the PHB races and classes, without multiclassing, the book would have 7 x 11 x 20 entries: 1540 stat blocks.

If we assume the low-level stat blocks could easily be crammed 3-6 to a page, you could probably do it in two volumes.

Adding Monster Manual races, multiclassing, Prestige Classes and the like would increase the size far beyond anyone's ability to produce.

 

[DaveMage]

Sounds like a good candidate for an online community project rather than a book.

 

[IronWolf]

Yes, there are plenty of stat blocks on the internet.

However, they are poorly indexed and not readily accessible. People place a high premium on organization and usability.

People are working on this to some extent. Take a look at the d20 NPC WiKi.

 

[Silveras]

Couldn't you have some randomization? I know its not "true" randomness, but there are algorithms for "close enough" randomness.

Of course, that means that you might occasionally get an orc weilding a trident and tower shield, but them's the risks.

Sure you could have some randomization .. but it would be randomization that reflects the developer's personal preferences, at least initially.

Sometimes it would be obvious: "Why in the heck does my Orc Fighter 10 with +4 Leather and Combat Expertise/Improved Disarm ... use a +2 Greatsword ?"

other times, it might be more subtle, something you only see after using it for a while: "Hmmm... I did not know Orcish Fighters liked Dwarven War Axe so much; 10 out of 100 of the ones I made have used it as their primary weapon."



Any randomization method would need some way to determine "these are the choices" and "this is how likely each choice is".

At the simplest, you give each weapon the same chances, at which point a Halfling Wizard is as likely to wind up with a Greatsword as a Half-Orc Barbarian is to wind up with a Gnomish Hooked Hammer.

Adding complexity, you can say "this class is x% likely to want that weapon", to create affinities, so that Barbarians tend to have bigger weapons, Fighters a broader range, and Wizards lighter ones. But now, the developer has weighted what *s/he* thinks the "best" weapons are by class.

Then there is the question of how to add new ones. With hard numbers, you would need to recalculate the whole list for every class every time you add a new weapon or weapons.

I can go on, but my point is that any randomization scheme that is sufficiently flexible and accommodates the addition of both new classes and new items requires a good deal of design and testing, and would likely require the gear and classe to have some extra descriptive information that helps the program tie them together (Class A is a "High Damage Low Armor Combat" class ... weapon X is "High Desirability" for "High Damage Low Armor Combat" classes while weapon Z if "Not Desirable" for "High Damage Low Armor Combat" classes).