New answers tagged dungeons-and-dragons
9
I think your premise is false: most systems change a lot between editions. To name a few:
White Wolf's old and new World of Darkness settings are very different. Their flagship, Vampire, had drastic changes.
Paranoia has had many large changes between editions.
The new FATE Core changes many things from previous versions of FATE.
To invert your ...
8
Cart Before The Horse
Because people read the stats part of every RPG book first, based on traditional game book organization that D&D originated, they often fall into the trap when they design their first game of thinking that they need to design the stats first and then the rest of the game in section order as they proceed. This is the opposite of ...
4
Stats are a model, an attempt to classify and digitize mental and physical attributes. If you're seriously rethinking your stat system, it might be worth starting from the ground up.
First, try ignoring the canonical stat breakdowns from your favorite games and list the lowest level (elemental, if you will) mental and physical features you want to work ...
3
Your problem doesn't appear to be how to utilize the status, but the definitions of the stats don't match your ideals of it
I suggest you rewrite your status like
Intelligence: It is raw mental power, like for logic and mathematics. Wizards intelligence.
Intrapersonal: This would deal with the will power of someone, self-control, and self-motivation, the ...
6
So, doing some light reading, I stumbled across an article written by Dave Anderson about this exact issue!
It's in Kights of the Dinner Table #150. Pages 103 and 104.
Here are some quotes:
My European tour finally pulled into London, England and I visited a game store near Trafalgar Square called The Tradition Stop (Note: All times, places and ...
20
It Depends on the Darklord
Not all Darklords are also the temporal rulers of their Domains (though some are), and not all of them reveal or flaunt their true natures. Indeed, some Darklords are deliberately denied political rulership of their domains (such as the Darklord Adam) as a way to isolate them and make them lonely. Of those who conceal their true ...
7
The villagers of Barovia definitely know what he is: if you look at the letter from the Burgomaster to the PCs, published in the House of Strahd adventure, it says:
"[my daughter] has been bitten by a creature calling its race "vampyr". For over 400 years, he has drained this land of the lifeblood of its people..."
They also recognise him as a threat ...
0
The Demiplane of Dread can reach any prime material zone. But in counting the "Karmic/septic separation" reasoning behind Ravenloft's existence, valid reasons are slim with regard to barring the one way diode funneling of PC action from anywhere and any dimension. The reason you do not see immortals routinely routing annoying enemies to the plane, is because ...
0
I'm assuming you're asking this because the books only really has humanoid creatures for level 1-3 encounters. Add a special feature about the group that makes the different and interesting.
Shared hp bar - use a handful of level 1 bandits but they all share the same hp bar, when one is attacked make sure you say they all flinch as if being hit by that ...
1
You've got a couple major options.
Zazz Them Up
Still use orcs, goblins, and hobgoblins - just make them interesting. 3/3.5e lets you level up humanoid opponents to add some rules diversity but that's not the main part of the challenge. Note what Paizo has done with goblins in their game world - they've created an alternate take on them that people find ...
-2
A fighter is a fighter, put too much side-tricks on him would make him a rogue.
What actually makes a fight shines is that he can be always be the focus in a battle.
Give him attack disruption ability would be great. Give him protection zone would be great. And that's all a fighter need. Try to give this in a way as simple as it can would be a great ...
1
Here are my thoughts, some of them are similar to some of the other suggestions already given. These are in no particular order though I think 2 is my favorite, but I like 3 a lot as well:
1) More Encounter Powers should be given to martial characters (fighters, knights, rouges, etc.). Instead of dailies give them 2 or more encounter powers to choose from ...
2
In 3.x/4e, fighters tend to deliver a more constant damage output than magic-users (who focus on 'spike damage', or short powerful bursts). To keep this flavour, you should probably try to offer abilities that give steady enhancements instead of short-term boosts.
To have meaningful tactical choices, you'd need to disallow all abilities being active at ...
11
I think your problem is not so much with his alignment as it is with his class- or specifically, his job.
Not all rogues are thieves. I've seen the class be built many different ways- from charming con men to light on their feet boxers. But lets be honest- 90% of the players playing a rogue want to steal stuff and stab people in the back, and most approach ...
15
The alignment system is not very good
It doesn’t make a lot of sense, there are numerous cases where the suggestions for what is in each alignment are contradictory, it relies on the poorly-explained idea that there are objective, cosmic Goods and Evils and Chaoses and Laws. It works well enough for simple adventure-fantasy where we are the Good guys, ...
2
The thing about alignments is they are often stretched to the extreme to fit whatever needs the player has. If you forbid evil alignments in your campaign or punish being evil, a player will take Chaotic Neutral and act like a jerk anyway.
With that being said, think about the consequences. If you steal to a fat rich prince who taxes his subjects so much ...
19
The D&D Cleric, apart from its Blackmoor origins as a vampire hunter (as noted here), is a mish-mash that has grown into a trope of its own.
The D&D cleric as a trope, encompasses:
undead hunter
healer
second rate combattant
priest of a pantheon (or faction within a pantheon)
non-direct-damage spellcaster
no edged weapons
The Cleric was one of ...
1
This is what I do during my encounters, and sorry if it sounds too obvious - I basically try to "invoke" a dialog with the players.
At the beginning of the battle, if I assume that the enemy is willing to "negotiate", I tell the players that, for example, the Goblin king looks at them and asks them:
"What are you doing here? I will not let some pesky ...
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