When Adventure Designers Cheat

[ShinHakkaider]

Since people here are on about "bad design" in terms of how the OP framed things anyone want to mention any paragons of "good design" that actually present a challenge for PC's?

Oh and here's the important part:
You actually had to have either played through it or DM'd it.

For me only actual play matters.

EDITED (For percived harshness in my post)

PS: For the record I have no problem with what a lot of you perceive as bad/lazy design.

Having played through a lot of 1st editon modules when I was a teenager I can't tell you how many situations we've come through that negated certain abilities. But the guys who I played with pretty much found at least one or two creative ways to get through damn near any obstacle.

 

[Psion]

Getting rid of all the absolutes is one thing that I hope they do in 4th edition.

I was thinking about doing something like that... like changing "Cold immunity" to "cold resistance 100" or whatever.

But I'm wary of that, considering how many problems it caused in HERO.

I do agree on the issue of skill checks being supplanted by low level spells, actually. Honestly, one low level spell I consider a bane is Comprehend Languages. Sweeps away a lot of mystery and plot hook possibilities. It's one pending house rules IMC.

 

[el-remmen]

For the record, my objection is not "negating abilities" - it is explanations that make no sense.

Even when my players cannot figure out what the hell is going on (and in some cases never do) they trust me to have had a reason and framework for how it worked (even if outside the normal rules) that would make sense if they did find it out.

Cold that harms cold-resistant/immune creatures? Must be divine magic of the godly sort (by way of making up a reason off the top of my head) - which makes sense if the party is in the cold layer of the Abyss or something - but not if they are wandering around Joe Evil-Wizard's tower saving the Princess.

Hmm, you know what. .? I take take it back. I don't think its bad or sloppy design. .. who said it was all about context? I agree with that person instead. ..

In fact, I will amend my opinion to be: It is fine to do depending on the context, execution and frequency.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I was thinking about doing something like that... like changing "Cold immunity" to "cold resistance 100" or whatever.

But I'm wary of that, considering how many problems it caused in HERO.

I do agree on the issue of skill checks being supplanted by low level spells, actually. Honestly, one low level spell I consider a bane is Comprehend Languages. Sweeps away a lot of mystery and plot hook possibilities. It's one pending house rules IMC.

What sort of problems are there with this sort of thing in HERO?

I imagine that resistance 100 (or some similarly high number) would be rather difficult to overcome. If you are doing that much damage in one go I think some of it deserves to get through. Of course doing 120 points cold damage to someone with cold resistance 100 means that they will still only take 20 points of damage. That probably isn't a big deal for someone powerful enough to have cold resistance 100 in the first place.

I also think it is silly that, as Sean points out in an example, a 3rd level Wizard can use the knock spell (a 2nd level spell) to get past a lock created by the god of locks himself. That sort of example just shows the absurdity of some of the "absolute" rules.

Olaf the Stout

 

[WhatGravitas]

In fact, I will amend my opinion to be: It is fine to do depending on the context, execution and frequency.

Which ironically leads us back to what is commonly called "Good Design". - as said above, it's good design if it is used to create interesting plot devices, it is sloppy design, if it is used to circumvent PC abilities.

 

[Dykstrav]

I don't think people mind specific counters to their abilities. Remeber Bastion of Broken Souls? The ban of the unborn made high-level divinations useless for getting the straight dope on what was going on straight from the diety's mouth. That was cool.

I think what people are objecting to is what I call the "Star Trek" syndrome. You know, where the episode starts and everything is going hunky-dory until about 10 minutes into the episode. Then people suddenly get into danger and all the technology absolutely fails! Suddenly all the transporters, phasers, and other advanced gear does them no good. They have to disreguard their technology and rely on their wits to get through the predicament. When it's all said and done we're supposed to come away a little wiser for realizing that we have these human traits right now. And for an extra kick in the pants, all the cool gadgets start to work again within 5 minutes of the credits rolling.

When you enter a cursed tower where fire spells don't work and you can't heal damage, that's the feeling that your players are going to get.

Absolute non-use of abilities either make players feel like they made suboptimal choices or you're deliberately blunting their most potent tools. Look at the difference in damage reduction between 3.0 and 3.5. It's a good thing to make things tougher for specific approaches, not impossible for specific approaches. In the campaigns I've seen, players don't start "thinking outside the box" when you take their abilities away, they start entering spectator mode and wait to see what they can do when the current challenge is bypassed. This is essentially an attempt to railroad your players into a specific play style through rules considerations.

I'm not saying to make every problem a nail when the players love hammers. But the game should be challenging without limiting options to either/or solutions.

 

[Psion]

What sort of problems are there with this sort of thing in HERO?

Well, when something really should be immune to something in HERO, it's rather difficult. You end up seeing things like "cold resistance and cold damage reduction that can reduce it to a couple of points with regeneration that only work against cold damage."

I also think it is silly that, as Sean points out in an example, a 3rd level Wizard can use the knock spell (a 2nd level spell) to get past a lock created by the god of locks himself. That sort of example just shows the absurdity of some of the "absolute" rules.

I think that's a different case. I would have no problem house ruling knock.

 

[Stalker0]

In the campaigns I've seen, players don't start "thinking outside the box" when you take their abilities away, they start entering spectator mode and wait to see what they can do when the current challenge is bypassed. This is essentially an attempt to railroad your players into a specific play style through rules considerations.

Agreed, in general I find limiting abilities is far better than taking them away.

For example, maybe in an very unholy area, divine spells suffer a -2 to caster level. They still work, except perhaps your highest level ones), but just not as well. That forces the cleric to get a little creative with his casting which is a lot better than saying, NO DIVINE SPELLS!!

The same can be done with divinations. Instead of taking them away, make them more vague.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I do agree on the issue of skill checks being supplanted by low level spells, actually. Honestly, one low level spell I consider a bane is Comprehend Languages. Sweeps away a lot of mystery and plot hook possibilities. It's one pending house rules IMC.

This just came up IMC. Remember that codes and ciphers aren't translated by it. Translating an encoded missive in a foreign language is still a monster of an issue. I'd argue that, since the spell can't translate codes, even if you allow it to translate the underlying language and leave it still encoded, there should be a big penalty on the Decipher Script check, since it may be using a cipher that only makes sense to a native speaker. (Like using a subsitution code based on a famous poem or bit of scripture.)

 

[Nyeshet]

It really depends on the nature of the change. If it has some type of internal consistency and at least a stab at psudeologic, then I tend to view it in a non-negative light - perhaps even a positive light if it creates an interesting challenge and new opportunities.

However, if it comes across as random decisions made to force the party along a railroad, I tend to dislike it. Also, I tend to dislike decisions that come across as either contradictory or mean. I recall a module a while back that had the party attacked a few times by a creature wearing some type of magical item that gave it a few spell-like abilities. The DM only text, however, specifically mentioned that if the creature was overcome, the party would only find a MW item without any magic - even if they had seen enough to deduce that the SLA were coming from the item. Characters defeat foes in part to gain new and interesting items. Thus, this decision of the module maker came across as somewhat mean to mine eyes. It would have been much much better if it had said that the item had charges and they were all used up. That, at least, is plausible (although I would likely have left a charge or two in it - just so the party could have the fun of playing with it a time or two).