Touch attacks: is it just me..?

[Saeviomagy]

Sorry, got a bit carried away, and was up past my bedtime. However, the point of my contention is that "broad range of 3E experience" is a contradiction in terms--just as "broad range of V:tM experience" or "broad range of Earthdawn experience" would be. IMHO, one game is, by definition, not a broad range. I could buy the claim of a broad range of D20 System experience--there might be enough variety in D20 System games to give a range of experiences. It was your (probably inadvertant, the first time) claim that my experience was somehow "narrow" because i'm not hyper-familiar with D&D3E, when it's precisely because i spend my time with lots of other games, broadening my experience, that i wouldn't have the time to get any more familiar with D&D3E if i wanted to, that hit my hot button. I stand by my statements, but not the way in which i made them. Sorry.

What is so difficult to understand about the relativity of terms? Extensive knowledge of one game is not a "broad range of roleplaying experience". However extensive knowledge of 3rd ed D&D has to be composed of "a broad range of 3e experience".

The problem is that you've experienced precisely one type of game - low to mid levels with a group who are not tactically minded. In terms of knowledge of D&D, that makes your own experience extremely limited. In the same way, if you'd only ever played vampire with angsty goths, and therefore missed most of the GOOD bits of the world of darkness, then you'd be (rightly) categorised as having a narrow experience in the WoD, which would taint your perceptions of the game as a whole.

Not quite. What i'm trying to say is that a difference in bonus of 6 when you're rolling a flat-distribution randomizer with a range of 20 is too easily lost in the noise. With a flat distribution, you need a difference in bonuses/scores that exceeds the median result of the randomizer, IMHO, before it is meaningful.

Any competent statistician on the planet would disagree with that.

 

[WizarDru]

I'm surprised to hear you say that about Castle Falkenstein--it's basically the same system as D&d3E (GM sets difficulty; player uses character stat + randomizer to try and exceed difficulty), except that the player gets to decide when to fail and when to succeed (loosely speaking). Unlike many other card-based RPGs (such as Everway), the GM really doesn't have any more input than in most diced games.

My experience with Castle Falkenstein was truly a mixed one. On the one hand, I loved the setting beyond words. The game inspired me to start a new campaign and sell my players on it. We loved it. But it soon became apparent that the core mechanic was, IMHO, flawed. I, as the GM, could determine when and where to call a contest, and cycled through my cards 4-6 times faster than the players. I almost ALWAYS had a card in hand to win a contest, and since I called when contests occured, I could always manipulate the situation to my choosing, if I so desired. This left me in the unenviable position of always having to choose whether or not a contest suceeded or failed and therefore robbing the players of any real potential to affect the game.

In essence, the mechanic pulled me out of the game and into the metagame, and I didn't like that. Will the villain succeed? Of course he will, since I'll hold that King of Hearts until I need it, knowing that the battle is coming. I'll let this NPC fail, because he's just a thug, and not a part of the greater story...hence, he was always destined to fail. Leading rats through a maze to gather cheese bothers me, as much as you. I consider the game to be a dynamic environment, and the randomness of the dice ensures that none of us, player or DM, are quite sure what the outcome will be. Everybody rolls a 1, sometime. In Falkenstein, I had to censor myself, or I'd always win...and my players can sense when I'm hedging. Nobody likes overcoming a challenge when they've figured out that you let them. It robs the experience of any sense of victory.

You could reasonably argue that random dice rolls can rob a player of a just victory, as well, and I wouldn't disagree. But for my group (and I'd wager, most players of the game) the randomization that dice provides allows us the level of uncertainty to ensure that the challenges are real, while at the same time still creating a certain degree of predictability.

 

[mmu1]

Sorry, got a bit carried away, and was up past my bedtime. However, the point of my contention is that "broad range of 3E experience" is a contradiction in terms--just as "broad range of V:tM experience" or "broad range of Earthdawn experience" would be. IMHO, one game is, by definition, not a broad range. I could buy the claim of a broad range of D20 System experience--there might be enough variety in D20 System games to give a range of experiences. It was your (probably inadvertant, the first time) claim that my experience was somehow "narrow" because i'm not hyper-familiar with D&D3E, when it's precisely because i spend my time with lots of other games, broadening my experience, that i wouldn't have the time to get any more familiar with D&D3E if i wanted to, that hit my hot button. I stand by my statements, but not the way in which i made them. Sorry.

Like Saeviomagy explained already - broad 3E experience, not broad RPG experience is what's being talked about here. Which is something you won't have unless you play in a large number of games, advance to higher levels, and actually play characters of various kinds yourself.

Not quite. What i'm trying to say is that a difference in bonus of 6 when you're rolling a flat-distribution randomizer with a range of 20 is too easily lost in the noise. With a flat distribution, you need a difference in bonuses/scores that exceeds the median result of the randomizer, IMHO, before it is meaningful.

Well, you're completely wrong about that, unfortunately. The guy with +7 initiative will have a high enough roll 30% of the time that the +1 guy won't possibly be able to beat it, and has a very good chance of winning the roll in the range in which the +1 guy still has some kind of chance - this is hardly something that'll "get lost in the noise".

In a fight between otherwise evenly matched opponents, the guy with the higher initiative wins because he gets to strike the first blow, and as a result still has some HP remaining when his oponent is dead - it's as simple as that.

 

[Voadam]

Voadam, not to be snarky,but did you read the whole thread?

Criminey.

I'm 'a just say two things one MORE time AGAIN:

1) In D&D, strength is muscular coordination and hand-eye IN ADDITION TO raw power -- it's "what you've got AND how well you can focus it", which is why we can have halflings who are effectively stronger than humans with a dagger, even though the halfling can only carry half as much. Dexterity is ranged ability and very-fine-motor-skills work. So if you're using a weapon and the accuracy is coming from your arms and wrists, it's STRENGTH, and if the accuracy is coming from your fingers, it's DEXTERITY. As you increase in skill (and your BAB goes up), it's both in larger degrees.

2) Fencers CAN get their accuracy from fingertips alone, but it's a heck of a lot easier to teach somebody how to use his shoulders and hips and arms and wrists to generate that striking accuracy and power -- which is, in D&D, strength. A high-dex fencer who does not have Weapon Finesse is dodging a lot, using a lot of foot-motion to avoid attacks, but is ultimately still using his arms, shoulders, hips, and wrists to generate power. The Weapon Finesse guy has learned how to use his fingers to generate a little more striking accuracy.

Please stop changing the rules in order to make them fit your incorrect flavor text.

Fine, here are the rules from the 3.5 srd

STRENGTH (STR)
Strength measures your character’s muscle and physical power. This ability is especially important for fighters, barbarians, paladins, rangers, and monks because it helps them prevail in combat. Strength also limits the amount of equipment your character can carry.
You apply your character’s Strength modifier to:
• Melee attack rolls.
• Damage rolls when using a melee weapon or a thrown weapon (including a sling). (Exceptions: Off-hand attacks receive only one-half the character’s Strength bonus, while two-handed attacks receive one and a half times the Strength bonus. A Strength penalty, but not a bonus, applies to attacks made with a bow that is not a composite bow.)
• Climb, Jump, and Swim checks. These are the skills that have Strength as their key ability.
• Strength checks (for breaking down doors and the like).

DEXTERITY (DEX)
Dexterity measures hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance. This ability is the most important one for rogues, but it’s also high on the list for characters who typically wear light or medium armor (rangers and barbarians) or no armor at all (monks, wizards, and sorcerers), and for anyone who wants to be a skilled archer.
You apply your character’s Dexterity modifier to:
• Ranged attack rolls, including those for attacks made with bows, crossbows, throwing axes, and other ranged weapons.
• Armor Class (AC), provided that the character can react to the attack.
• Reflex saving throws, for avoiding fireballs and other attacks that you can escape by moving quickly.
• Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Tumble, and Use Rope checks. These are the skills that have Dexterity as their key ability.


So Strength is muscle and physical power and Dex covers hand eye coordination, agility, and reflexes.

Which sounds like it covers HTH accuracy?

I read your above explanations for why you felt it is wrong to think of physical accuracy as Dexterity instead of Strength and I think it is a fine rationale for the mechanics of Strength but I also think it is unsupportable from the descriptions of the abilities.

A high strength baseball player hits more home runs because when he hits, it goes farther. Does a high home run percentage of hits correlate to higher batting average or do they strike out more often? I don't know, I'm not a baseball statistics fan.

I think the Str attack bonus is simply historical because that is how it has always been in D&D.

The issue for gameplay is how it would affect game balance to shift it to Dex.

High strength fighters would be a little less accurate and high dex characters would be a little more accurate. After low levels class BAB would outstrip ability bonuses for character to character comparisons so training would eventually win out over innate ability. At the margins of extreme play though, every point counts and you would be slightly weakening power attacking high strength brute fighters while powering up high dex characters more.

So it would be more swashbuckling oriented than tank oriented compared to the current rules.

I don't see it as necessarily bad, just a little different balance.

 

[woodelf]

Well, you're completely wrong about that, unfortunately. The guy with +7 initiative will have a high enough roll 30% of the time that the +1 guy won't possibly be able to beat it, and has a very good chance of winning the roll in the range in which the +1 guy still has some kind of chance - this is hardly something that'll "get lost in the noise".

Thus the "IMHO" and "meaningful". First, statistics are a fickle lot. There's often more than one way to look at the same situation, and psychology often comes into play when determining which way is the most "true". So part of it is a matter of how you look at the odds. Yes, someone with +6 on the roll will roll a number that the other guy simply can't match (much less exceed) 30% of the time. In fact, with a net +6 bonus, you'll win nearly 74% of the time (or roughly 78% of the time if ties are in your favor). That sounds like an awful lot. Until you consider that with even odds you win 47.5%, or 52.5% if ties are in your favor. So a +6 net bonus translates to a gain of less than 30 %age points--or not quite the nominal magnitude of the bonus. It looks more favorable as a change: your odds have increased by a bit more than 50%. At my proposed transition point (bonus ≈ median of die roll, i.e. +10), the numbers are ~86% win, or 11% loss.

And there's yet another way to look at this: Yes, a +6 net bonus means that 30% of the time you'll roll a number the other guy just can't touch. OTOH, 70% of the rolls of either party are within the range of the other party. IOW, despite that +6, 70% of the time i'm gonna get a result i could've gotten without it.

Which brings us to the second part: psychology. This is a game. Ultimately, what matters is a combination of the actual probabilities and how the players feel about the probabilities. You can't just look at some statistics in a vacuum and declare that the game feels a certain way. To me, increasing my odds by 50% is not a "significant" bonus, and ~75% chance of success is not that hot--especially when the baseline chance is ~50%. When we get in the realm of 1-in-10 chance of failure--*that's* good odds. [and, actually, now that i look at the calculated probabilities (instead of going on a gut feeling), it looks like +12 is where you get your chance of failure under 10%, unless ties are in your favor.] I'm not claiming that my preoccupation with the overlapping range applies to everyone, or should be the deciding factor in looking at probabilities. Just that, for me, it has a powerful psychological effect (perhaps stronger than the actual probabilities would dictate) when considering the power of a bonus.

Now, why do i look at the odds that way? A number of reasons. D&D3E gives us some baselines to work with. A +2 is your basic "it's enough of a circumstance to modify the die roll" modifier. That's gonna change your odds by less than 10 %age points (depending on what they were to begin with). Being prone, half cover, or suffering some other significant hindrance or benefit is generally a +/-4. Complete darkness or blindness is a 50% miss chance. So, a really major change in the odds (i'd say not being able to see at all qualifies) is roughly equivalent to a -10 on your roll (only roughly because a %age miss chance is gonna of course interact with your probabililites a bit differently than a linear shift in the result numbers). [aside: which is another point supporting the careful design of the rules: concealment and cover modifiers are pretty reasonable equivalents.] D&D3E makes a +/-4 out to be a pretty significant modifier--there's nothing on it's own that's worth +/-6, other than cover. Yet, IMHO, the actual odds don't support that. If i'm in a fight with a trained martial-artist, i'm just plain not gonna hit her--i don't even have 1-in-10 odds. The only way the game supports that is if she's got the advantage over me on the order af +16 or +20. Which, IMHO, doesn't mesh well with the larger-than-life heroicism of the genre. We're talking about a real person--real warriors should be easily representable within the mid levels of the game--leaving room for superheroic characters within the 20-level spread. And i think the game supports me. It certainly seems to be supporting the idea that a 10th level PC is at least as good as anything reality has to offer, and probably significantly better. But the broad range of dierolls means that you have to have an overwhelming advantage before you are clearly superior--and +6 isn't it. Looking at the odds, it's more like +10.

So, i suffer cognitive dissonance. The game is telling me "+2 is significant; +4 is a big deal", but when i play, it doesn't feel like a big deal. There're still too many ways for me to fail with a +4 on my roll (~30% of the time, assuming an even baseline), and most of my results will still be in the same range, and i'll only best someone without the bonus a fairly small bit more than without it.

Perhaps the problem is partly a matter of wordchoice--i probably should've said "significant" rather than "meaningful." To me, in this context, they're close (though not interchangeable). But significant is closer to what i meant, anyway--i just grabbed the wrong word at the time.

In a fight between otherwise evenly matched opponents, the guy with the higher initiative wins because he gets to strike the first blow, and as a result still has some HP remaining when his oponent is dead - it's as simple as that.

But not by as much as feels right to me. Nor, IMHO, by as much as she "should" for a bonus of that magnitude (relative to skill levels, etc.).

-----
Am i making my point clear, finally? You're not required to agree, but do my numbers at least make sense to you?

 

[Plane Sailing]

Interesting conversation!
< off at a tangent>
apropos of nothing in particular it reminded me of my thoughts for an OGL game (by definition this idea takes it out of strict d20 ballpark) where I redefined attributes

Basically I'd have

Siz (kinda merges Str and Con elements). Damage bonus, HP bonus, Fort Save bonus, carrying capacity

Dex (sorta the same as now, but includes all accuracy things). Attack bonus (ranged AND melee), dodge bonus, Ref save bonus.


Int (exactly the same as now)

Per Perception (renamed Wisdom). Initiative bonus, key spot and listen skill benefit etc.

Cha (basically like now, but has all strength of personality aspects). Will save bonus

====

I'd like to have a third physical stat, and I might go for Agility (Agl), in which case that would have the defensive Dex stuff such as dodge bonus and Ref save bonus. Existing Dex skills would be divided up between Dex and Agl. Dex could even be renamed "Aim".

< /tangent >

Cheers

 

[WizarDru]

Am i making my point clear, finally? You're not required to agree, but do my numbers at least make sense to you?

I'm curious...in your opinion, does speed trump everything else? That is to say, in most situations, do you see the swift, lightly armed fighter as winning more often than other concepts (and I'm talking conceptually, here, not based on an individual game's mechanics)? Or do you simply feel that the mechanics of D&D suffer from too much 'bonus inflation' for any mechanic, whether it be the specialized zwei-hander barbarian, 'turtled-up' melee tank or the deft, swift rapier battler?

 

[hong]

Thus the "IMHO" and "meaningful". First, statistics are a fickle lot. There's often more than one way to look at the same situation, and psychology often comes into play when determining which way is the most "true". So part of it is a matter of how you look at the odds. Yes, someone with +6 on the roll will roll a number that the other guy simply can't match (much less exceed) 30% of the time. In fact, with a net +6 bonus, you'll win nearly 74% of the time (or roughly 78% of the time if ties are in your favor). That sounds like an awful lot. Until you consider that with even odds you win 47.5%, or 52.5% if ties are in your favor. So a +6 net bonus translates to a gain of less than 30 %age points--or not quite the nominal magnitude of the bonus. It looks more favorable as a change: your odds have increased by a bit more than 50%. At my proposed transition point (bonus ≈ median of die roll, i.e. +10), the numbers are ~86% win, or 11% loss.

Woodelf, you're babbling. Stop it.

Hong, a statistician

 

[Jakathi]

alot of the rules are really technical and in the thick

of smacking around alot of creepy crawlies bent on doing serious harm to your party, do you really want to take away the fun of bashing said ugly in the the head or going ok. i have to role and this and this.
if you want, just go hi-low to speed things up. either u hit the critter or u didn't and then calculate damage with another dice roll.

 

[woodelf]

Interesting conversation!
< off at a tangent>
[snip]
I'd like to have a third physical stat, and I might go for Agility (Agl), in which case that would have the defensive Dex stuff such as dodge bonus and Ref save bonus. Existing Dex skills would be divided up between Dex and Agl. Dex could even be renamed "Aim".

< /tangent >

Cheers

Just for inspiration, here're the stat sets i'm tossing around for one D20 System-based homebrew:

Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma
Body, Agility, Intelligence, Perception, Aura, Wits
Body, Intelligence, Wisdom, Presence, Communication, Wits
Physique, Agility, Intelligence, Perception, Charisma, Spirit
Body, Agility, Intelligence, Perception, Aura, Charisma

You'll note i'm mostly looking at 2/2/2 or 2/3/1 physical/mental/social, rather than the D&D standard 3/2/1.