Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
What rules most need more official errata/clarification?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Tonester" data-source="post: 4353580" data-attributes="member: 71788"><p><strong>Opinions</strong></p><p></p><p>1) Skill Challenges: I think the Skill Challenges are fine. The issue is that DMs don't have a ton of experience running them, but more importantly, creating them. Designing Skill Challenges takes much more work, imo, than designing any other aspect of an adventure or campaign. The DM almost needs to think like a conditional software designer - looking at several branches of possibilities, finding ways to tie them all together somehow, and most importantly, finding a way to let people with very different skill sets participate. Often times, Skill Challenges break down into the Cha, Wis, and Int based skills (interaction with people) without allowing the more combat-oriented classes to participate. I'm in the process of writing a tutorial on designing skill challenges - I suggest using XML, Powerpoint, or some other Flowchart system for designing them. More on that later.</p><p></p><p>2) Keywords: I agree that the Keyword system is a bit confusing in the PHB. After reading it several times and after designing some back-end DB stuff for Character/Skill calculators, I feel I have a pretty good grasp on them. Again, I'm in the process of writing up some Power/Keyword stuff which includes examples, inheritence and more. For now, I'll say this:</p><p></p><p>Powers have tons of keywords. Usage Keyword, Source Keyword, Damage Keywords, Effect Keywords, and Accessory Keyword. The Usage Keyword tells us how often we can use a power. The Source Keyword has little value (imo). The Accessory Keyword merely specifies if a power requires a weapon or benefits from an implement. The important (and confusing apparently) keywords are the Damage and Effect keywords. These are also the ones which inherit from their Accessories (weapon or implement). The Damage/Effect keywords at the top of the power are kind of used as "tags" which quickly give someone an idea about the pool from which this power draws from (Poison, Fire, Teleport, Radiant, Reliable, etc). For Effect Keywords, these are used when interacting with other Powers or Effects (a power which blocks all Reliable powers for 1 turn would block the use of any power with the Reliable effect keyword for example). For Damage Keywords, this is where it gets a bit hairy. The fine print in the PHB basically states that the REAL keyword used for damage is always specified in the details of the power (below all the keyword stuff). I don't know why they did it this way, but they did. So, even though a power has the Fire keyword at the top, you need to actually read the hit/miss/effect section or whatever to determine if the power actually does Fire damage. This is getting into too much detail so I'll quit for now on the subject.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tonester, post: 4353580, member: 71788"] [b]Opinions[/b] 1) Skill Challenges: I think the Skill Challenges are fine. The issue is that DMs don't have a ton of experience running them, but more importantly, creating them. Designing Skill Challenges takes much more work, imo, than designing any other aspect of an adventure or campaign. The DM almost needs to think like a conditional software designer - looking at several branches of possibilities, finding ways to tie them all together somehow, and most importantly, finding a way to let people with very different skill sets participate. Often times, Skill Challenges break down into the Cha, Wis, and Int based skills (interaction with people) without allowing the more combat-oriented classes to participate. I'm in the process of writing a tutorial on designing skill challenges - I suggest using XML, Powerpoint, or some other Flowchart system for designing them. More on that later. 2) Keywords: I agree that the Keyword system is a bit confusing in the PHB. After reading it several times and after designing some back-end DB stuff for Character/Skill calculators, I feel I have a pretty good grasp on them. Again, I'm in the process of writing up some Power/Keyword stuff which includes examples, inheritence and more. For now, I'll say this: Powers have tons of keywords. Usage Keyword, Source Keyword, Damage Keywords, Effect Keywords, and Accessory Keyword. The Usage Keyword tells us how often we can use a power. The Source Keyword has little value (imo). The Accessory Keyword merely specifies if a power requires a weapon or benefits from an implement. The important (and confusing apparently) keywords are the Damage and Effect keywords. These are also the ones which inherit from their Accessories (weapon or implement). The Damage/Effect keywords at the top of the power are kind of used as "tags" which quickly give someone an idea about the pool from which this power draws from (Poison, Fire, Teleport, Radiant, Reliable, etc). For Effect Keywords, these are used when interacting with other Powers or Effects (a power which blocks all Reliable powers for 1 turn would block the use of any power with the Reliable effect keyword for example). For Damage Keywords, this is where it gets a bit hairy. The fine print in the PHB basically states that the REAL keyword used for damage is always specified in the details of the power (below all the keyword stuff). I don't know why they did it this way, but they did. So, even though a power has the Fire keyword at the top, you need to actually read the hit/miss/effect section or whatever to determine if the power actually does Fire damage. This is getting into too much detail so I'll quit for now on the subject. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
What rules most need more official errata/clarification?
Top