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Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-06, 01:38 PM
One of the biggest balance difficulties in D&D is gradual verses binary (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1533.0)defenses. Mundane attackers and damage-dealing spells affect hit points: a gradual defense. They get worn down, but the character continues to fight at full capacity. Meanwhile, magic tends to operate on a binary system: you either make your save, or you fail it. You're either unaffected, or crippled by blindness, mind control, or worse.

Borrowing heavily from Mutants and Masterminds' Affliction (http://www.d20herosrd.com/6-powers/effects/effect-descriptions/affliction-attack) power, we propose a "Condition Track" mechanic, where spells and abilities cannot inflict truly dire conditions without repeated castings and/or very poor rolls on saving throws.


Condition Tracks: Whenever a creature is affected by a spell or ability that inflicts a condition, he rolls a saving throw, as normal. If he makes the save, he is unaffected. If he fails, however, he is affected by the appropriate first degree condition. If he fails the save by 5 or more, he is instead affected by a second degree condition, and if he fails by 10 or more, he is affected by a third degree condition.

If a creature is already affected by a condition, and is affected by another ability inflicting the same condition, it takes a penalty to the saving throw: -2 if suffering from a first degree condition, and -5 if suffering from a second degree condition.

Spells and abilities are limited in how many degrees of conditions they may inflict. A 1st or 2nd level spell may only inflict first degree conditions, no matter how much the . A 3rd of 4th level spell may only inflict first or second degree conditions, and only a 5th or higher level spell may inflict a third degree condition. These guidelines hold true even when stacking conditions-- if a creature is already Shaken, it does not become Frightened if it fails a save against a scare spell (2nd level), no matter how badly it fails it saving throw.


{table=head]|First Degree|Second Degree|Third Degree
|Save failed|Save failed by 5 or more|Save failed by 10 or more.
|1-2 level spells|3-4 level spells|5+ level spells
Blinding|Dazzled: All foes have 10% concealment; -2 to Search, Spot, and AC.|Partially Blinded: All foes have 20% concealment; -5 to Search, Spot, and AC.|Blind: You cannot see-- all checks and activities that rely on vision automatically fail. All foes have total concealment; -5 AC, and no Dexterity bonus to AC.
Madness: |Unsteady: 10%: Attack caster, 70%: Act normally, 20%: Flee|Confused: 10%: Attack caster, 50%: Act normally, 20%: Flee, 20%: Attack nearest creature|Insane: 10%: Attack caster, 10%: Act normally, 30%: Babble incoherently, 20%: Flee, 30%: Attack nearest creature
Fatigue|Fatigued: -2 to Strength, Dexterity, Caster level, and spell save DCs|Exhausted: -5 to Strength, Dexterity, Caster level, and spell save DCs; speed halved, can't run or charge|Unconscious
Fear|Shaken: -2 to attack rolls, mental skill checks, and Will saves|Frightened: -5 to attack rolls, mental skill checks, and Will saves, attempt to retreat|Panicked: -5 to attack rolls, mental skill checks, and Will saves, cannot do anything but flee. If you can't flee, you cower and take no actions.
Impairing|Impaired: -2 to all rolls|Inhibited: -5 to all rolls|Disabled: Cannot take actions.
Mind Control|Trusting: Improve the target's attitude one step (as the 3.5 Diplomacy skill), to a maximum of Friendly.|Charmed: Improve the target's attitude two steps, to a maximum of Helpful|Dominated: Improve the target's attitude 3 steps, to a maximum of Fanatic.
Slowing|Hindered: Speed halved, can't run or charge, -2 attack and AC|Immobile: No movement, -5 to attack and AC, lose Dexterity bonus to AC|Paralyzed: Cannot take physical actions.
Stunning|Stymied: No swift or full-round actions.|Dazed: One standard action per turn.|Stunned: Cannot take actions.
Sudden Death|Weakened: -2 to all ability scores|Drained: -5 to all ability scores|[B]Dying: Reduced to -1 hit point, see below.
[/table]

Recovery
First-degree conditions can be cured with an hour's rest, or 15 minutes of rest and a successful Heal check (DC equal to that of the effect that inflicted the condition.

Second-degree conditions can be reduced to first degree with an hour's rest and a successful Heal check (DC equal to that of the effect that inflicted the condition.

Third-degree conditions cannot be cured or reduced without magic. You may only make one Heal check per character's condition track per day, although you may treat multiple subjects suffering from the same conditions.

Lesser restoration cures first degree conditions and improves second-degree conditions by one step. Restoration and Heal cure first and second-degree conditions,and improve third degree conditions to second degree. Greater restoration removes all conditions.

Conditions also might reverse themselves if the effect inflicting them has a limited duration which expires.

Condition-to-track conversion list
{table]Ability Damage|Normal
Ability Drain|Normal
Blind|Blinding Track
Confused|Madness Track
Cowering|Fear track
Dazed|Stunning track
Dazzled|Blinding Track
Deafened|Normal
Dead|Dying track
Disabled|Dying track
Dying|Dying track
Energy Drained|Normal
Entangled|Slowing track
Exhausted|Fatigue track
Fascinated|Normal
Fatigued|Fatigue track
Flat-footed|Normal
Frightened|Fear track
Grappling|normal
Helpless|Normal
Nauseated|Impairing track
Panicked|Fear track
Paralyzed|Slowing + Impairing tracks
Petrified|Slowing + Impairing tracks
Prone|normal
Shaken|Fear track
Sickened|Impairing track
Stunned|Stunning track
Unconscious|Fatigue or Stunning track[/table]

Things that follow a similar format

Damage
{table=head]Condition|Circumstance|Effect|Recovery
Bloodied|Two-thirds or less total health remaining.|-1 to all rolls.|Magical healing to raise your current hit points above two-thirds of the maximum, or a Heal check (DC equal to damage taken) to eliminate the penalty.
Injured|One-third or less total health remaining.|-2 to all rolls, and half speed.|Magical healing to raise your current hit points above one-third of the maximum, or a Heal check (DC equal to damage taken) to eliminate the penalty.
Maimed|Zero hit points, or negative hit points and stable.|You may only take a single standard or move action per turn, and doing so inflicts one damage (reducing you to Dying)|Magical healing to raise your current hit points above zero, or a successful Fortitude save or Heal check (DC 10 + the absolute value of your negative hit points)
Dying|-1 to –(level + Constitution) hit points.|You may not take any actions except make Fortitude saves to recover (a full-round action. Each turn, you take one damage.|Magical healing to raise your current hit points above zero. Alternately, a successful Fortitude save or Heal check (DC 10 + the absolute value of your negative hit points) will improve your condition to Maimed.
Dead|Less than –(level + Constitution) hit points.|Game over, man, game over! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE&t=2m15s)|Resurrection magic.[/table]


Wind
{table]Strong Winds|Severe Winds|Catastrophic Winds
Checked: Forward movement halted/prevented; flying creatures pushed back 1d6x5 feet|Knocked Down: Knocked prone; flying creatures pushed back 1d6x10 feet|Blown Away: Creatures on the ground are knocked prone and rolled 1d4×10 feet, taking 1d4 points of nonlethal damage per 10 feet. Flying creatures are blown back 2d6×10 feet and take 2d6 points of nonlethal damage due to battering and buffeting. [/table]

Djinn_in_Tonic
2012-10-06, 01:42 PM
The Dying track is WAY to potent. In a given fight, all of those are effectively the same thing (you're out of the fight), and death is the most binary of all the results given. It needs to be times down severely if you want it in line with other conditions.

Seerow
2012-10-06, 01:46 PM
The Dying track is WAY to potent. In a given fight, all of those are effectively the same thing (you're out of the fight), and death is the most binary of all the results given. It needs to be times down severely if you want it in line with other conditions.

The dying track only seems to come into play if you're already at or below 0 hp though, unless I'm misunderstanding.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-06, 01:54 PM
The dying track only seems to come into play if you're already at or below 0 hp though, unless I'm misunderstanding.

Pretty much, yeah. We'll probably be changing save-or-die spells some other way, too. (Also, the Dying track is the easiest to fix, as even a level 1 healing spell will put you back in the game, at least for a little while).

Djinn_in_Tonic
2012-10-06, 03:17 PM
The dying track only seems to come into play if you're already at or below 0 hp though, unless I'm misunderstanding.

Ah. See, I read it as an effect a spell could impart. And being reduced to 0hp instantly is only a BIT better than bein outright killed.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-06, 04:23 PM
I guess we could have an insta-death track?

2 negative levels, 5 negative levels, dying?

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-10, 02:08 PM
Made a few minor tweaks after some skype feedback from Eldan. The one that'll take the most work is giving names to each of the sub-conditions. Worth it?

(also, feedback besides "dying track is painfully bad?")

Oh, doy! Restoration! That probably needs some rules. hmm... back in a bit.

Eldan
2012-10-10, 02:15 PM
I'd suggest that normal rest removes the first conditions on the list, heal checks remove the second and only spells remove the third?

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-19, 10:43 AM
Added names for the sub-conditions, and notes on recovery. Better late than never, eh?

Dsurion
2012-10-20, 01:37 AM
Disabled is listed twice: Once under Dying and once under Impairing. Might want to change the name of one of them. Otherwise, I really like what I'm seeing.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-20, 08:09 AM
Disabled is listed twice: Once under Dying and once under Impairing. Might want to change the name of one of them. Otherwise, I really like what I'm seeing.

Whoops. Fixed.

Deepbluediver
2012-10-20, 04:54 PM
I really like this, but I have a few question.

First, I'm not certain that I understand the spell-level limits on "conditions caused" rule.
Two things I want to confirm: if a level 1 spell would cause a condition and you fail your save by 10 or more, you still only get the First Degree condition.
Next, if you are at a Second Degree condition, and you fail your save against a first level spell, you condition does not get worse.

If either of those are incorrect, please tell me how it is supposed to function.


Secondly, I'm not sold on The "Mind Control" track just yet. "Trusting" doesn't seem very powerful, even for a low level spell, and it's possible to get that as your result even with a high level spell if the character only fails their save by a small amount. What if instead the conditions where as follows:
Trusting: Improve the creatures attitude towards you (similar to the Diplomacy skill) by 1 step, to no more than Friendly.
Charmed: Improve the creatures attitude towards you by 2 steps, to no more than Helpful (if the target was already Trusting, this improves their attitude by 1 additional step).
Dominated: Will follow any order without question (though orders that would lead directly to the character's death grant an additional save).
[or something like that]


Also, for the "Slowing" track, Immobile has the same -2 penalty as Hindered, despite most other second level conditions dropping to -5. I thought more severe conditions replaced instead of stacking, but it also doesn't list halving you speed or preventing charging, so I'm a little confused. If this isn't just a typo, can you please explain the rationale to me?


In my magic fix, I stripped out a lot of the saves and balanced it other ways, but I might still try to work this in as well, somehow. Thanks for the ideas!


Edit: For Blown Away, what about something like- you are knocked prone and pushed backwards 1d10x5 feet in a straight line away from the Spell's caster.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-21, 05:16 PM
First, I'm not certain that I understand the spell-level limits on "conditions caused" rule.
Two things I want to confirm: if a level 1 spell would cause a condition and you fail your save by 10 or more, you still only get the First Degree condition.
Next, if you are at a Second Degree condition, and you fail your save against a first level spell, you condition does not get worse.

If either of those are incorrect, please tell me how it is supposed to function.
Nope, you're entirely correct.


Secondly, I'm not sold on The "Mind Control" track just yet. "Trusting" doesn't seem very powerful, even for a low level spell, and it's possible to get that as your result even with a high level spell if the character only fails their save by a small amount. What if instead the conditions where as follows:
Trusting: Improve the creatures attitude towards you (similar to the Diplomacy skill) by 1 step, to no more than Friendly.
Charmed: Improve the creatures attitude towards you by 2 steps, to no more than Helpful (if the target was already Trusting, this improves their attitude by 1 additional step).
Dominated: Will follow any order without question (though orders that would lead directly to the character's death grant an additional save).
[or something like that]
Ooh, that's much better, thanks. Dominated can be "improve by 3 steps, to a maximum of Fanatical."


Also, for the "Slowing" track, Immobile has the same -2 penalty as Hindered, despite most other second level conditions dropping to -5. I thought more severe conditions replaced instead of stacking, but it also doesn't list halving you speed or preventing charging, so I'm a little confused. If this isn't just a typo, can you please explain the rationale to me?
Whoops. My bad.


In my magic fix, I stripped out a lot of the saves and balanced it other ways, but I might still try to work this in as well, somehow. Thanks for the ideas!
Glad you like it-- use what you will with my blessings, and feel free to shoot me a PM if you've got more questions.


Edit: For Blown Away, what about something like- you are knocked prone and pushed backwards 1d10x5 feet in a straight line away from the Spell's caster.
The wind track is pretty standard, though I perhaps ought to change it to a general knockback track. I'll copy the details from the SRD.

Deepbluediver
2012-10-22, 09:08 AM
Nope, you're entirely correct
Hmm, ok then. My analysis is that this system might encourage players to use low-level spells first, and the order of the spells you cast can alter what conditions a target ends up with even when all other things are equal.

That's not a bad thing (some people might even appreciate it), but it is something that's different. If anyone complains, one way to alter it would be to say that a low level spell can't push you more than 1 step further down the track no matter how badly you fail. For example, a level 1 spell cause blindness, and you fail by 11; you're Dazzled. The same spells is cast again, and you fail, again, and you are Partially Blinded.

This isn't something I'm necessarily advocating, more just throwing it out there as an alternate option.



Ooh, that's much better, thanks. Dominated can be "improve by 3 steps, to a maximum of Fanatical."
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about epic skill uses.



Glad you like it-- use what you will with my blessings, and feel free to shoot me a PM if you've got more questions.
Will do.



The wind track is pretty standard, though I perhaps ought to change it to a general knockback track. I'll copy the details from the SRD.
I just saw the blank spot and was suggesting something to fill it in. The SRD version works fine, too.

Gnorman
2012-10-22, 11:42 AM
For consistency's sake, you should change the first step of Stunned to something other than Slowed, since you have a separate category for Slowing. It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Maybe something like Stymied or Distracted?

Also Blighted seems to be carry a bit more narrative weight than Impaired or Disabled and seems a little out of place. Blighted, to me, should belong in a separate category for Cursing, and should be replaced with something like Inhibited.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-22, 11:53 AM
For consistency's sake, you should change the first step of Stunned to something other than Slowed, since you have a separate category for Slowing. It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Maybe something like Stymied or Distracted?

Also Blighted seems to be carry a bit more narrative weight than Impaired or Disabled and seems a little out of place. Blighted, to me, should belong in a separate category for Cursing, and should be replaced with something like Inhibited.

Good thoughts. Thanks.

Just to Browse
2012-10-23, 02:10 AM
I have no idea if this was brought up before, or if this is set in stone and you're not changing it, but allowing degrees to stack encourages all members of the party to get a few conditions and just spam abilities that inflict them. It encourages homogeneity, which is bad.

Eldan
2012-10-23, 03:43 AM
That's something that will likely result, yes. However, I'd still rather have that than rocket tag where only the casters can contribute.
If the rogue deals 30 damage and hinders someone with a hit, and the wizard then brings them from hindered to paralyzed with a spell and the fighter uses a CdG, the rogue's attack wasn't totally pointless. If it goes "Rogue deals 60 damage, wizard paralyzes, fighter CdG", the rogue did effectively nothing.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-23, 10:19 AM
I have no idea if this was brought up before, or if this is set in stone and you're not changing it, but allowing degrees to stack encourages all members of the party to get a few conditions and just spam abilities that inflict them. It encourages homogeneity, which is bad.

Hmm... true... on the other hand, I don't see a way around that problem that doesn't make higher-leveled conditions impossible to reach or add inexcusable amounts of complexity.

Just to Browse
2012-10-23, 05:05 PM
That's something that will likely result, yes. However, I'd still rather have that than rocket tag where only the casters can contribute.
If the rogue deals 30 damage and hinders someone with a hit, and the wizard then brings them from hindered to paralyzed with a spell and the fighter uses a CdG, the rogue's attack wasn't totally pointless. If it goes "Rogue deals 60 damage, wizard paralyzes, fighter CdG", the rogue did effectively nothing.

I agree that rocket launcher tag is bad, but this "fix" doesn't solve that problem. Now you have "rogue impairs, necromancer shakens, ninja inhibits", and everyone looks at the necromancer with their sadface on because he could have helped knock the target out instead of poking it. Heck, you're encouraging all-wizard parties even more than before, because that way everyone will deal the same conditions with their attacks (you also encourage all-rogue parties, all-fighter parties, etc., but I don't think that's much of a plus.)


Hmm... true... on the other hand, I don't see a way around that problem that doesn't make higher-leveled conditions impossible to reach or add inexcusable amounts of complexity.

I feel you on this. The only solutions I can think of are limiting condition stacking (e.g. once per round, or only after taking X damage, etc.) and universal stacking (going from category I to II elevates all conditions). Both of those give kind of meh results, but I think you can take bits of all three and get a workable system. The bloodied mechanic seems like it could help encourage condition-blasters and damage-dealers.

Then again you can also straight up admit that you're encouraging same-type parties and be done with it. But I like that option the least.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-23, 05:31 PM
I agree that rocket launcher tag is bad, but this "fix" doesn't solve that problem. Now you have "rogue impairs, necromancer shakens, ninja inhibits", and everyone looks at the necromancer with their sadface on because he could have helped knock the target out instead of poking it. Heck, you're encouraging all-wizard parties even more than before, because that way everyone will deal the same conditions with their attacks (you also encourage all-rogue parties, all-fighter parties, etc., but I don't think that's much of a plus.)

I mean, it does at least mean that the entire party has to cooperate to land a crippling condition, instead of the wizard doing it with one spell, so it's still a significant improvement.


I feel you on this. The only solutions I can think of are limiting condition stacking (e.g. once per round, or only after taking X damage, etc.) and universal stacking (going from category I to II elevates all conditions). Both of those give kind of meh results, but I think you can take bits of all three and get a workable system. The bloodied mechanic seems like it could help encourage condition-blasters and damage-dealers.

Hmm... universal stacking doesn't seem good for anyone. 1/round slows things down, but doesn't eliminate the problem. We could eliminate stacking altogether, but that may weaken conditions too much. Then again, maybe not. Hmm...

Yitzi
2012-10-23, 05:48 PM
That's something that will likely result, yes. However, I'd still rather have that than rocket tag where only the casters can contribute.
If the rogue deals 30 damage and hinders someone with a hit, and the wizard then brings them from hindered to paralyzed with a spell and the fighter uses a CdG, the rogue's attack wasn't totally pointless. If it goes "Rogue deals 60 damage, wizard paralyzes, fighter CdG", the rogue did effectively nothing.

Rogues are a bad example, as if the rogue is just a sneak-attack-capable fighter, then there's not much point in the class.

But yes, rocket tag with only casters contributing is a Bad Thing. Conditions are one way to deal with that; others are to weaken casters to the point where they need to work with the team to accomplish anything, or to give everyone the ability to do one-hit mission-kills and let everyone get their share (I do not advise this last one.)

As for preventing homogeneity, though, I would advise making it harder to stack conditions than simply "fail the save 3 times and you're out". Perhaps someone affected by a condition gets a +2 or +3 bonus per existing level of the condition to avoid taking more of that condition; that way, going for the top levels sometimes isn't worth it and it's sometimes better just to pile on the low-level conditions until he's near worthless and can be finished off.

Another approach to preventing homogeneity might be to make different classes or builds capable of different condition tracks, with those classes/builds capable of all condition tracks being substantially weaker at it than any of the specialists. Throw in monsters which are immune to certain condition tracks, and you've got incentive not to homogenize.

Eldan
2012-10-23, 06:11 PM
You have to consider that some conditions also lower saves. So, giving someone several level 1 conditions makes applying the higher ones easier.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-23, 06:37 PM
As for preventing homogeneity, though, I would advise making it harder to stack conditions than simply "fail the save 3 times and you're out". Perhaps someone affected by a condition gets a +2 or +3 bonus per existing level of the condition to avoid taking more of that condition; that way, going for the top levels sometimes isn't worth it and it's sometimes better just to pile on the low-level conditions until he's near worthless and can be finished off.

Hmm. Not a bad thought.

Edit: Also nerfed the Fear track a bit.

Vadskye
2012-10-23, 08:34 PM
This looks solid mechanically. But you have 30 different conditions, many of which have extremely similar names. When you're in a game, you're going to have a very bad time keeping track of what exactly the effect of "Impaired" is, and whether it's better or worse than being "Inhibited" (Impaired sounds worse to me, but it gives a smaller penalty...). And keeping track of the three different tables in the Confusion condition tree sounds like it would be all but impossible unless you keep a copy of this table printed out and readily available at all times, or you and your players are extremely good at memorization.

Binary effects are used in spells because they are simple, and spells are already the game's most complex mechanic. This change could work fine in a computer game, when a lot of this stuff is tracked behind the scenes. But when the wizard casts confusion on a small group of enemies, and there are four possible effects that each enemy could suffer from that single spell (unaffected, plus any of the three conditions), and each enemy has to be randomly rolled separately... you're going to have a bad time.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-23, 08:58 PM
I'd have recommend that players keep a copy of the table and use markers to track conditions anyway, given how much easier that is to visualize. You're right to call out the confusion track, though: it is overly complicated, far more than any other. Not sure what to replace it with, though. Maybe just drop it.

Vadskye
2012-10-23, 09:13 PM
That works for players, though I think that making everyone keep a separate piece of paper just for this is just a band-aid solution to a fundamental complexity issue that still exists.

For the DM, however, it's still a whole lot of complexity to track. I know it's hard to test this when you don't have the full system built, but I can basically guarantee that any AOE debuffs using a -5/-10 save progression system will slow the game down a lot the instant they are cast. I mean, think about how much the game already slows down when something basic like a fireball or fear is cast on group of more than a couple creatures. That's a binary pass/fail effect, and rolling the saving throws for every monster and tracking the effects can still take time. Naturally, this depends on how much your playgroup uses debuffs, and how much patience you have, but I think this will make spells a fair bit more complex.

If you're trying to avoid binary effects (which is not a bad thing in principle), I'd recommend using only a "fail by 10" threshold instead of a "fail by 5" threshold; that way, it doesn't come up as much, which reduces how much complexity you have to track. Each spell would have a default condition that it would inflict on a failed save, and it would worsen if the "fail by 10" threshold was reached. In general, AOE spells would inflict conditions one step less severe than single-targeted spells of the same level.

With that revision, AOE spells would only have three possible outcomes (unaffected, affected, super-affected), instead of four. Still more complex than binary, but not in a painful way.

Kane0
2012-10-23, 09:29 PM
If this helps at all, 3.U uses the following tracks:

Senses: Dazzled, Impaired, Blinded/Deafened
Fear: Shaken, Frightened, Panicked
Stunning: Staggered, Dazed, Stunned
Fatigue: Fatigued, Exhausted, Unconscious
Paralysis: Slowed, Immobile, Paralysed
Mind-Control: Influenced, Charmed, Dominated
Illness: Repulsed, Sickened, Nauseated
Confusion: Fascinated/Intoxicated, Confused, Insane

Dazzled/Shaken/Fatigued/Repulsed: -2 to all rolls

Impaired: -2 AC, opponents have 20% concealment
Blinded/Deafened: Disadvantage to perceive, attacks against you at advantage

Frightened: Disadvantage on rolls within presence of bestower
Panicked: Disadcantage on rolls within presence of bestower and flees

Staggered/Sickened: only one standard or move action per turn, other actions unaffected
Dazed/Nauseated: Only one action per turn, cannot make AoOs
Stunned: Cannot take actions, attackers have advantage

Exhausted: cannot double move or charge, disadvantage on reflex saves
Unconscious: Drops anything held, falls prone and cannot act.

Slowed: All movement halved
Immobile: Cannot move (speed = 0), disadvantage on reflex saves
Paralyzed: cannot move (speed = 0), cannot act and disadvantage on reflex saves

Influenced: Disposition towards charmer improves by one step, charmer has advantage on checks to socially interact with you
Charmed: Regard charmer as friend/ally, and cannot attack them. Charmer has advantage on checks to socially interact with you
Dominated: You are under the control of the charmer, losing the majority of your free will and following commands to the best of your ability. Certain circumstances may allow additional saves

Fascinated: Cannot take actions. Breaking concentration ends this condition
Intoxicated: Disadvantage on skill and attack rolls, need to pass DC 10 Fort save to cast a spell or similar ability
Confused: Every round 50% act normally, 25% do nothing, 25% attack last attacker. In lieu of last attacker, nearest creature
Insane: Every round 20% act normally, 40% do nothing, 40% attack last attacker. In lieu of last attacker, nearest creature

Just to Browse
2012-10-24, 03:06 PM
You have to consider that some conditions also lower saves. So, giving someone several level 1 conditions makes applying the higher ones easier.

There are two, impairing and fear. Managing to get one of those effects on nets you a -2 to their save (will for fear, or any for impairment). Say we have a 50% success rate, that now becomes a 60% success rate.

So there's a 50% chance of giving a 60%. That means there is an overall 30% chance of hitting an enemy with an extra condition. Alternatively, you could just cast a given spell twice instead of debuffing and have a 75% chance of getting the effect on. Condition spamming is more than twice as effective over debuffing, and my preliminary calculations show that this trend doesn't break for almost any normal range of saves.

I actually like the idea of encouraging synergy with varying save debuffs, but the current set-up is nowhere near successful. You need much bigger penalties to make that sort of strategy worthwhile.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-24, 03:08 PM
I actually like the idea of encouraging synergy with varying save debuffs, but the current set-up is nowhere near successful. You need much bigger penalties to make that sort of strategy worthwhile.

The problem there is that we get back into the territory of a single spell being crippling...

Just to Browse
2012-10-25, 10:07 PM
The problem there is that we get back into the territory of a single spell being crippling... Your current alternative is... https://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/12/10/25/MxMuW6UrJUW69_G0M7K6zw2.jpg

Of course, if you just have spells apply penalties, they're not actually "crippling". A -6 to your will save that doesn't apply any actual conditions isn't crippling at all, and if you had a choice between just being shaken (penalty to your attack rolls) or just having a save debuff, you'll pick the latter almost every time.

Grinding down someone's defenses allows the next attack to hit harder, which means that if you're spending effort on debuffs, the effects of hitting someone with that debuff need to be a bigger deal, because you're giving up an entire action that you could spend killing fools.

Eldan
2012-10-26, 04:19 AM
The dfiference, though, is this: the debuff, at least, gives a -2 to something. The enemy is that much weaker. Damage, in D&D, does basically nothing, until you hit 0.

Should we introduce some kind of bloodied condition like 4E?

Yitzi
2012-10-26, 08:54 AM
Grinding down someone's defenses allows the next attack to hit harder, which means that if you're spending effort on debuffs, the effects of hitting someone with that debuff need to be a bigger deal, because you're giving up an entire action that you could spend killing fools.

No, you're giving up an entire action that you could spend doing some damage. You're right that this completely breaks down when damaging attacks can kill someone in one round...but this is designed to work with a damage system where you usually can't one-shot a level-appropriate enemy.

The goal should be that a mix of different types of condition effects (and for this purpose, damage counts as a condition effect, albeit an unusual one) should be more effective than focusing on only one or two types.

Just to Browse
2012-10-26, 09:11 AM
No, you're giving up an entire action that you could spend doing some damage. You're right that this completely breaks down when damaging attacks can kill someone in one round...but this is designed to work with a damage system where you usually can't one-shot a level-appropriate enemy.Wat? I never even brought up damage, I'm talking specifically about hitting someone with riders. If the two tactical choices are:
cast scare, then your friend casts scare
cast leech morale, then your friend casts scare

Then the success rate of your friend's scare in the second case needs to be wayyy higher. Damage is a beast all of its down, and I'm just talking about status effects.

I really do support the bloodied idea, and I also thought it would be cool to have a few rudimentary damage tracks and associated conditions. So say if you get hit by a fire attack that brings you below 1/2 HP, you are on fire. If you get hit by a blunt attack that brings down below 3xlevel HP, you are knocked back out to short range (etc.) Having a standard set of 3-5 of those (blunt, slashing, burn-y, cold-y?) would be a few things to memorize, and then every other condition wouldn't follow a specific damage track.

Actually, now that I wrote that down, it sounds worse... I feel like I get so close to the ideal thought, and then it runs away from me. :smallannoyed:

Deepbluediver
2012-10-26, 09:52 AM
Should we introduce some kind of bloodied condition like 4E?


I really do support the bloodied idea, and I also thought it would be cool to have a few rudimentary damage tracks and associated conditions. *snip*
Actually, now that I wrote that down, it sounds worse... I feel like I get so close to the ideal thought, and then it runs away from me. :smallannoyed:

I would certainly support a set of penalties for falling below a certain level of HP, but I think we should be just let damage be damage. I'm not one to argue for major changes based on simplicity, but there are already enough things to track without having to keep a running tally of HOW or WHAT KIND of damage you took. HP bounces around like a yo-yo enough as it is.

It opens the game up to all kinds of shenanigans, like the Barbarian cleaving some one with his axe dropping them to 51% health, then that target getting whacked with with a torch and suddenly bursting into flame like they're covered in gasoline (which I think is a hilarious visual but many players like a more serious approach :smallamused:).
I would rather leave individual effects up to the description of a spell or weapon enchantment.

If we want to keep the "Bloodied" condition like the others described here, we can basically set it at two levels, I think. Either at 66%-33% (two-thirds/one-third) or 50%-25%.
Personally, I favor the second option, because it allows the players to spend more time shrugging off hits that would drop an ox and fireballs to the face (i.e. feel more heroic) but the first one is probably more equitable and would make the effects of damage come into play sooner.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-26, 10:50 AM
My thought on that was fatigued at 2/3 health, then exhausted at 1/3.

Yitzi
2012-10-26, 02:52 PM
I'm talking specifically about hitting someone with riders. If the two tactical choices are:
cast scare, then your friend casts scare
cast leech morale, then your friend casts scare

Then the success rate of your friend's scare in the second case needs to be wayyy higher.

Why way higher? It needs to be substantially higher if Leech Morale does nothing other than reduce saves, but not absurdly so, as even if Scare fails, Leech Morale is still there and will apply to the next effect that's to be applied. I'd say a 50% increase to the success chance is plenty, or even less if more party members will be able to provoke saves.

Idea: If you use a 3d6 instead of d20 system, then you can get larger changes to the success chance for a smaller bonus/penalty.

Just to Browse
2012-10-26, 04:05 PM
Why way higher? It needs to be substantially higher if Leech Morale does nothing other than reduce saves, but not absurdly so, as even if Scare fails, Leech Morale is still there and will apply to the next effect that's to be applied. I'd say a 50% increase to the success chance is plenty, or even less if more party members will be able to provoke saves.... You, sir, have a very interesting definition of "way higher". a 50% increase is a -10 to saves, which I think would be great off a pure debuff spell. My definition of "way higher" is "something above 5".

I'm against 3d6 systems, and I'm not so in favor of 2/3 or 1/3 (because dividing by 3 takes a long time in my head and I don't want to rewrite my thresholds on every level up. Also I know D&D'ers who are completely math inept). I'd rather have a threshold like 1/2 HP, and then a desperation threshold based off of level. That gives asymmetric condition responses, which is always cool. Just my 2 cp there.

Having weird conditions like lighting someone on fire by taking them from 51% to 50% HP can be weird, but it's like the evasion-vs.-fireball thing, where if you just look at the combat from a different perspective, it makes more sense.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-26, 04:11 PM
Ok, ok. Getting back to the stacking debuffs thing: what if we cut that out altogether? If someone's Shaken, and you hit them with another fear spell, they still have to fail by 5 to move up to frightened.

Deepbluediver
2012-10-27, 08:52 AM
Ok, ok. Getting back to the stacking debuffs thing: what if we cut that out altogether? If someone's Shaken, and you hit them with another fear spell, they still have to fail by 5 to move up to frightened.

I liked the way it was the first time.

Maybe I'm not understanding the arguments against stacking debuffs; are we debating that they are to strong or not strong enough?
If you eventually want to kill or subdue the target (which is the goal of 95% of D&D campaigns) then loading them down with as many penalties as possible seems like a perfectly valid strategy that would still be consuming resources (spell slots, time, the element of surprise) and you're probably going to need to actually make some attack rolls or skill checks at some point anyway.
Plus, if you are already nervous (shaken) it makes sense to me that it would be easier to push you over the edge into outright fear.

I assume that you still want people to actually USE condition causing magic, because if you make it overly difficult to apply, most people will ignore it entirely and just resort to direct damage.


On an entirely different note, the list of effects that Fatigued and Exhausted have is, I think, the best choice for representing injuries in battle (HP Damage), unless you want to come up with something else entirely.
I just don't like names for this, since they seem to imply "tiredness" and not "I've been stabbed and I'm bleeding to death". Can we come up with a few more synonyms to represent a Bloodied/something/something-else track?

Yitzi
2012-10-27, 09:00 PM
Ok, ok. Getting back to the stacking debuffs thing: what if we cut that out altogether? If someone's Shaken, and you hit them with another fear spell, they still have to fail by 5 to move up to frightened.

No, as that makes it too difficult to hit the top levels. I think an in-between position (easier than reaching level 2 without level 1 first, harder than reaching level 1) is best...although something like Shaken which already provides a penalty to saves might be different.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-27, 10:03 PM
No, as that makes it too difficult to hit the top levels. I think an in-between position (easier than reaching level 2 without level 1 first, harder than reaching level 1) is best...although something like Shaken which already provides a penalty to saves might be different.

Ah, but there's the problem, isn't it? Giving a bonus encourages you to stack conditions. No bonus, and it becomes really hard to hit the high-level conditions.

Yitzi
2012-10-27, 11:06 PM
Ah, but there's the problem, isn't it? Giving a bonus encourages you to stack conditions. No bonus, and it becomes really hard to hit the high-level conditions.

And a smaller bonus should hit in the middle, where it's balanced.

When the difference between "too powerful" and "not powerful enough" is numerical in nature, there's usually going to be a numerical value in between that's just right.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-27, 11:22 PM
Mmm... how about each level of condition inflicting a -2 penalty to future saves against that same condition? So if you're, oh, Dazzled you have a -2 to more saves against Blinding effects (meaning that you effectively only need to fail by a 3 or more for a 2nd degree and 8 or more for 3rd), and a -4 if you're Partially Blinded (so you effectively need to fail by 6 or more for the 3rd degree).

Deepbluediver
2012-10-28, 01:04 AM
Ah, but there's the problem, isn't it? Giving a bonus encourages you to stack conditions. No bonus, and it becomes really hard to hit the high-level conditions.

I still don't understand why stacking conditions is something that people seem to want to avoid. If you spend 5 turns wailing on something to reduce it's HP to 0, or 3 turns debuffing and then 2 turns wailing on it, what's the difference in the end?

I would think the best balancing factor would be that anything the player's throw at the monster, the DM can throw back at them.

Yitzi
2012-10-28, 11:04 AM
I still don't understand why stacking conditions is something that people seem to want to avoid. If you spend 5 turns wailing on something to reduce it's HP to 0, or 3 turns debuffing and then 2 turns wailing on it, what's the difference in the end?

Because in one there are 5 turns where it can do you harm at full effectiveness, whereas in the other there's 1 turn in which it can do you harm at full effectiveness, 1 turn in which it can do you harm at a penalty, 1 turn in which it's close to harmless, and 2 turns in which it's completely harmless and you're just attacking it to finish it off.
It's the same number of turns, but not the same amount of risk.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-28, 11:06 AM
Because in one there are 5 turns where it can do you harm at full effectiveness, whereas in the other there's 1 turn in which it can do you harm at full effectiveness, 1 turn in which it can do you harm at a penalty, 1 turn in which it's close to harmless, and 2 turns in which it's completely harmless and you're just attacking it to finish it off.
It's the same number of turns, but not the same amount of risk.

Which is still considerably better than one round to cripple it completely, mind you.

Yitzi
2012-10-28, 12:02 PM
Which is still considerably better than one round to cripple it completely, mind you.

Definitely.

Just to Browse
2012-10-29, 01:35 AM
A non-zero bonus for applying stacking conditions will always encourage everyone doing the same thing. There is no medium in between, and getting higher conditions needs to be dealt with another way, or you need to contend with the fact that everyone will want to stack similar effects.

I recommend not putting things on condition tracks, since that seems to be adding complexity anyways. You could have some conditions that are on tracks, but are useless against a good chunk of monsters (like fear effects fail against plants, vermin, undead, dragons, golems, and prometheans) so that party members can shine by spamming one spell over and over against very specific targets. Other than that, condition tracks just should be somewhat weighted against each other, that way you know how to balance special abilities, but tracks aren't a good idea.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-29, 07:25 AM
A non-zero bonus for applying stacking conditions will always encourage everyone doing the same thing. There is no medium in between, and getting higher conditions needs to be dealt with another way, or you need to contend with the fact that everyone will want to stack similar effects.

I recommend not putting things on condition tracks, since that seems to be adding complexity anyways. You could have some conditions that are on tracks, but are useless against a good chunk of monsters (like fear effects fail against plants, vermin, undead, dragons, golems, and prometheans) so that party members can shine by spamming one spell over and over against very specific targets. Other than that, condition tracks just should be somewhat weighted against each other, that way you know how to balance special abilities, but tracks aren't a good idea.
Well then, since you disagree with my entire thesis here, perhaps you would care to suggest a different way to attempt to balance binary condition-inflicting spells and abilities against non-binary HP damage?

Deepbluediver
2012-10-29, 07:58 AM
A non-zero bonus for applying stacking conditions will always encourage everyone doing the same thing. There is no medium in between, and getting higher conditions needs to be dealt with another way, or you need to contend with the fact that everyone will want to stack similar effects.

Not every class has easy access to every debuff, so what they want and what they can actually accomplish are very different things. The majority of D&D players are NOT min-maxers (although I admit the percentage of readers of this forum who are is probably above average). Anything short of completely crippling a target will still allow it the chance to endanger you, so at some point you are going to need to attack it anyway, and as we discussed damage will probably also inflict some conditional penalty.

Also, since this is part of a larger rewrite, I suspect that the classes that do get every single debuff-spell (like wizard) will be getting a few nerfs. Not every combat will play out the same way because you will run into different types of enemies with different strengths and weaknesses, who might be immune or resistant to different effects.
The difference is, instead of a straight up SoD spell, at worst most of these are Save-or-Suck, which still allows the target a chance to counterattack. I certainly don't see it being any more monotoness within a given party then combat is currently. And that's basically my standard for fixes: not perfect, but better than RAW? I vote "Yes".

Dienekes
2012-10-29, 07:59 AM
A non-zero bonus for applying stacking conditions will always encourage everyone doing the same thing. There is no medium in between, and getting higher conditions needs to be dealt with another way, or you need to contend with the fact that everyone will want to stack similar effects.

I recommend not putting things on condition tracks, since that seems to be adding complexity anyways. You could have some conditions that are on tracks, but are useless against a good chunk of monsters (like fear effects fail against plants, vermin, undead, dragons, golems, and prometheans) so that party members can shine by spamming one spell over and over against very specific targets. Other than that, condition tracks just should be somewhat weighted against each other, that way you know how to balance special abilities, but tracks aren't a good idea.

Actually there is a method of forcing differentiation but instead of being a problem of just the Condition Tracks it has to do with class and spell design. If the classes themselves are designed to successfully counter different types of enemies better or worse than other classes then all the players being, let's say mind control focusing wizards, would actually be unoptimized in party make-up as it would be weak against enemies that cannot be mind-controlled.

Of course this is under the assumption that it even would be optimized ever for 3+ players to waste their time upping the spell effects against 1 opponent

Or you can use the M&M method that powers do not stack unless you pay for them (or in this case higher levels spells). So everyone being one thing is actually pretty weak unless you're willing to waste higher spells just to do your trick.

Of course this would mean getting rid of casters that can do everything (good riddance to bad rubbish I say).

Also is under the assumption that players will even want to play one thing. I have never seen that happen, ever. Hell even in 3.5 now it's far more optimized for everyone to play only Tier 1, if that hasn't forced everyone to homogenize their class choice then I doubt strictly weakening their effectiveness will.

Yitzi
2012-10-29, 09:55 AM
A non-zero bonus for applying stacking conditions will always encourage everyone doing the same thing.

Says who? With a small but significant bonus, doing the same thing again means that you've got a significant* chance of accomplishing absolutely nothing whatsoever.

*Assuming that the rewrite also makes it reasonably easy to make saves.


I recommend not putting things on condition tracks, since that seems to be adding complexity anyways.

So then what should be the rules for save-or-die effects? Just make it completely impossible to apply them unless he rolls extremely low on his save?

Just to Browse
2012-10-29, 12:02 PM
Not every class has easy access to every debuff, so what they want and what they can actually accomplish are very different things. The majority of D&D players are NOT min-maxers (although I admit the percentage of readers of this forum who are is probably above average). Anything short of completely crippling a target will still allow it the chance to endanger you, so at some point you are going to need to attack it anyway, and as we discussed damage will probably also inflict some conditional penalty.A majority of D&D players are not min-maxers, so it's also fine to have overpowered wizards and weak fighters! Right?


Also, since this is part of a larger rewrite, I suspect that the classes that do get every single debuff-spell (like wizard) will be getting a few nerfs. Not every combat will play out the same way because you will run into different types of enemies with different strengths and weaknesses, who might be immune or resistant to different effects. But you're encouraging everyone to be the same class. If only the rogue and wizard can do impairment, then you are encouraging a party of pure rogues and wizards.


The difference is, instead of a straight up SoD spell, at worst most of these are Save-or-Suck, which still allows the target a chance to counterattack. I certainly don't see it being any more monotoness within a given party then combat is currently. And that's basically my standard for fixes: not perfect, but better than RAW? I vote "Yes".There are options here. One is "mediocre system, potentially better than old one." The other is "better system, potentially better than old one." Voting for the former is not a good thing in any way, and I don't see why you would do it, especially if you're rewriting the game to make it better.


Actually there is a method of forcing differentiation but instead of being a problem of just the Condition Tracks it has to do with class and spell design. If the classes themselves are designed to successfully counter different types of enemies better or worse than other classes then all the players being, let's say mind control focusing wizards, would actually be unoptimized in party make-up as it would be weak against enemies that cannot be mind-controlled. I am very much in agreement there. I think building classes to have weak points will certainly encourage non-homogenous (heterogenous?) parties, but if that's the aim then there's no reason to have ability tracks anywho.


Says who? With a small but significant bonus, doing the same thing again means that you've got a significant* chance of accomplishing absolutely nothing whatsoever.If you get +1 DC (smallest bonus) to tier 2 fear effects on a target that is already shaken, now every tier 2 fear spell on that target will be 5% more likely to work than any other tier 2 spell, so everyone will want to do it. You can have your bonus, and have it encourage spamming, or you can have no bonus. There is no ground in between.


Well then, since you disagree with my entire thesis here, perhaps you would care to suggest a different way to attempt to balance binary condition-inflicting spells and abilities against non-binary HP damage?Damage thresholds. Bloodied, Fatigued, Exhausted, etc. You even brought up your 1/3 and 2/3 recommendations. Heck, the whole problem with save-or-dies is that they kill people. Just don't let debuffs kill people--have "kill" effects deal a lot of damage, and make the rest of it action or movement denial.

Dienekes
2012-10-29, 12:17 PM
I am very much in agreement there. I think building classes to have weak points will certainly encourage non-homogenous (heterogenous?) parties, but if that's the aim then there's no reason to have ability tracks anywho.

Actually there still is. It allows spells to be effective without being overpowered in use against opponents. The potential for really interesting effects is still present, and in certain situations going straight up the track could be the optimal solution but it is not the only one. The tiered solution also allows through saves a nice means of changing how spells effectiveness is used. The question on should you go for the big opponent who you might only get a Tier 1 effect on, or take on a mook to get a pretty certain Tier 2 or 3 effect becomes a valid tactical choice. As is the idea of having 3 players try to push down one opponent and risk potentially being mobbed by the others.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-29, 12:44 PM
Classes should ideally all wind up with a decent amount of variety, both in and out of combat. The question is not "are condition tracks more balanced than binary conditions--" By definition, it is. I don't think anyone is arguing that. The two questions are "is the system too complicated to use in play?" and "is condition stacking a real-life or theoretical concern?"

The first could be addressed in several ways. The first would be to reduce the number of tracks. Or at least the number of commonly used tracks-- Blinding and Wind are pretty rare, Dying (hopefully) isn't common either, and Madness is really only a very few spells and abilities. More efforts at homogeneity in the remaining tracks is also a possibility, though I did my best to include as much as possible.

The second probably can't be answered without a wide poll of playing groups. I, personally, feel that the 'danger' isn't as great as it may appear-- after all, "optimal" 3.5 means everyone playing casters and volleying SoD/SoS spells, and how many groups do you know who do that? Even if you do, it takes three successful hits to push you from 1st to 3rd degree-- maybe 4 or 5 actions, if the target has decent saves. Move, if they're a boss-type and have good saves. How many opponents can stand 4 or 5 actions worth of focused fire from an intelligent party?

All things considered, I suspect that the only way to really evaluate the questions is in playtesting. You should be able to drop the chart into any 3.5 or game and be OK.

Just to Browse
2012-10-29, 02:34 PM
Well I gave you my opinion. I really don't want stacking tracks to be central in any game, but if you guys think it's good then roll with it.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-29, 02:45 PM
And I thank you for your opinion. I do see where you're coming from, but... as I mentioned, I don't see any better way to handle things, and I think it will be OK in the end. It'll be pretty easy to take out the part about stacking conditions if it turns out to be a problem.

Deepbluediver
2012-10-29, 04:44 PM
A majority of D&D players are not min-maxers, so it's also fine to have overpowered wizards and weak fighters! Right?
That's not what I'm saying at all. My point was that it's no more accurate to say that "every combat scenario will be the same" than it is to say "every player is a min-maxer".


But you're encouraging everyone to be the same class. If only the rogue and wizard can do impairment, then you are encouraging a party of pure rogues and wizards.
This would only occur in a situation where causing status-effects was purely better than damage, and it would still run into trouble against enemies with high saves.

The solution should be to give more classes access to a variety of condition-causing effects, and no one class should be able to do them all at once.


There are options here. One is "mediocre system, potentially better than old one." The other is "better system, potentially better than old one." Voting for the former is not a good thing in any way, and I don't see why you would do it, especially if you're rewriting the game to make it better.
I'm not sure I understand what you proposed then, because reading what you wrote above it seems very much like the RAW.


I am very much in agreement there. I think building classes to have weak points will certainly encourage non-homogenous (heterogenous?) parties, but if that's the aim then there's no reason to have ability tracks anywho.
What? I don't see the corelation between classes with different strengths and weaknesses and ability tracks for status effects.


If you get +1 DC (smallest bonus) to tier 2 fear effects on a target that is already shaken, now every tier 2 fear spell on that target will be 5% more likely to work than any other tier 2 spell, so everyone will want to do it. You can have your bonus, and have it encourage spamming, or you can have no bonus. There is no ground in between.
As far as I can tell, there are 3 only tracks that affect saves:
Fatigue - Reflex, via lower Dex score
Fear- Will, directly
Impairing- everything

If you think this makes them to powerful in comparison to the other tracks, then we should either make them harder to cause, or work on fixing them by reducing the other penalties.

Just to Browse
2012-10-29, 09:30 PM
This would only occur in a situation where causing status-effects was purely better than damage, and it would still run into trouble against enemies with high saves.There is no damage effect that makes people cower. There is no damage effect that stops people from moving. When dealing half someone's HP in damage, and dealing a tier 2 condition to them, it's still obvious that a tier 2 condition is better. So the "only" situation where debuffs beat damage is actually "every" situation.

And yes, enemies with high saves can be a problem, but that's outside the scope of this thread. General condition design policies are here, specific chances are being put off. If we start talking chances of infliction, I'd love to pitch in, but that's not right now.


The solution should be to give more classes access to a variety of condition-causing effects, and no one class should be able to do them all at once.And if you have condition-stacking, now you have multiple classes who will all want to use the exact same condition. I don't see how this solves the problem of condition-spamming.


I'm not sure I understand what you proposed then, because reading what you wrote above it seems very much like the RAW.My proposition is that, instead of changing the conditions in a way that encourages bad gameplay, change the relevant abilities. Don't require nauseated to stack off sickened, just write the effect of Stinking Cloud to force Fort-v-Sickened and say "if you fail by 5 or more or are bloodied, you will be Nauseated". No stacking. No tracks. No bonuses. The problem is fixed entirely outside of condition tracks.


What? I don't see the corelation between classes with different strengths and weaknesses and ability tracks for status effects.See above. Abilities can fix this problem well, so fix the problem with abilities. Don't write up tracks of conditions.


[snip]confusion about saves[snip]That was a post in response to Yitzi, on a topic started by Grod, about allowing bonuses for conditions in the same track. Yitzi maintained that a small enough bonus wouldn't affect spamming tactics. I disagreed.

Vadskye
2012-10-29, 11:08 PM
My proposition is that, instead of changing the conditions in a way that encourages bad gameplay, change the relevant abilities. Don't require nauseated to stack off sickened, just write the effect of Stinking Cloud to force Fort-v-Sickened and say "if you fail by 5 or more or are bloodied, you will be Nauseated". No stacking. No tracks. No bonuses. The problem is fixed entirely outside of condition tracks

This is fantastic. Having different effects based on HP sounds like a very, very good idea. It's simple - provided you don't get complex with the thresholds - and neatly solves a number of different problems at once. I will definitely test this in my own system, if you don't mind.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-30, 05:29 PM
My proposition is that, instead of changing the conditions in a way that encourages bad gameplay, change the relevant abilities. Don't require nauseated to stack off sickened, just write the effect of Stinking Cloud to force Fort-v-Sickened and say "if you fail by 5 or more or are bloodied, you will be Nauseated". No stacking. No tracks. No bonuses. The problem is fixed entirely outside of condition tracks.

That would certainly work, but does require you to rewrite every spell in the game. I was kind of shooting for something that would work with pre-existing material.

Besides, I remain unconvinced that homogenous condition-stacking parties will be a problem in actual (as opposed to theoretical and over-optimized) gameplay. There are/will probably end up being be a decent number of ways to shake off conditions and the like. Not all third-degree conditions are crippling. And, let us remember, inflicting third-degree conditions requires 5th level spells/abilities.

Just to Browse
2012-10-31, 04:18 AM
That would certainly work, but does require you to rewrite every spell in the game. I was kind of shooting for something that would work with pre-existing material.You will have the pleasure of rewriting the material regardless of what you do in order to accommodate either system, and in order to work out kinks in balance. This is pretty formulaic, and it's easier IMO.


Besides, I remain unconvinced that homogenous condition-stacking parties will be a problem in actual (as opposed to theoretical and over-optimized) gameplay. There are/will probably end up being be a decent number of ways to shake off conditions and the like. Not all third-degree conditions are crippling. And, let us remember, inflicting third-degree conditions requires 5th level spells/abilities.I read the OP as saying that if you hit a shakened target with an ability that renders them shaken, they become frightened. Is this not the case? Actually, the paragraph I read that from seems self-contradicting anyways. Here it is:


If a creature is already affected by a condition, and is affected by another ability inflicting the same condition, the degrees stack. If he was affected by a first degree condition, and fails his save by 3 points— which would normally only cause a first degree condition— the two stack, and he is now affected by a second degree condition.

Even if it's only 5th level spells and above, then you're definitely of encouraging it at 3rd level spell access and ridiculously encouraging it at 5th level spell access. Delaying a problem does not remove it.

If you have monsters with lots of immunities, then you'll really encourage players to play the same class (so there's more overlap), but shaking-off might help a little... I don't think it's quite enough.

Remember that if you have any kind of beneficial stacking, you will encourage players using that stacking. There's no way around it.


This is fantastic. Having different effects based on HP sounds like a very, very good idea. It's simple - provided you don't get complex with the thresholds - and neatly solves a number of different problems at once. I will definitely test this in my own system, if you don't mind.What's mine is yours, sir. Bloodied is one of the best things 4e ever brought to D&D, and I don't know why I never thought of it.

Deepbluediver
2012-10-31, 10:56 AM
There is no damage effect that makes people cower. There is no damage effect that stops people from moving.
Under the RAW, massive blows (anything over 50 damage) are supposed to force a Fort save against instant death, so at the very least we have a way damage can cause death-effects.
In my experience though, this rule is so unpopular that most people either ignore it or houserule in a change. That would seem to indicate a similar problem with magical or quasi-magical condition-causing abilities.


When dealing half someone's HP in damage, and dealing a tier 2 condition to them, it's still obvious that a tier 2 condition is better. So the "only" situation where debuffs beat damage is actually "every" situation.
Isn't this why we where discussing adding a track for or list of penalties from damage as well?
Any time you opponent spends alive gives them a chance to strike back, so conditions are more powerful only if they end combat quicker and with less risk then damage could. It's possible they might; it's also possible they can fail. A lot would depend on the enemy you are fighting, but I'm not convinced it's nearly as clear-cut as you make it sound. If you want, propose a scenario where we can test it out.


Getting back to physical damage, D&D doesn't usually use aimed shots, but it seems like it would be possible to come up with a fairly simple list for targeting certain body parts to inflict conditions along WITH damage. Such as stabbing some one in the leg to slow them or striking them in the head to stun.


And if you have condition-stacking, now you have multiple classes who will all want to use the exact same condition. I don't see how this solves the problem of condition-spamming.
I still don't think I understand how condition spamming is a significant problem, and I certainly am not convinced it's any worse than the current set-up.
Also, unless the tier 3 condition completely disables the target, you will still need to use other additional conditions or engage in combat eventually, and as I mentioned above, additional time you spend with the target alive gives them additional chances to strike back.

Coordinating your entire team to be great at one thing is a fine tactic, until you run into an enemy with an immunity. I think TVtropes calls it "crippling overspecialization".


My proposition is that, instead of changing the conditions in a way that encourages bad gameplay, change the relevant abilities. Don't require nauseated to stack off sickened, just write the effect of Stinking Cloud to force Fort-v-Sickened and say "if you fail by 5 or more or are bloodied, you will be Nauseated". No stacking. No tracks. No bonuses. The problem is fixed entirely outside of condition tracks.

Maybe I'm confused, I assumed "stacking conditions" meant applying different conditions with different effects. I want to make sure that I am understanding the chart back on page 1: the more severe conditions replace the lower tier ones, right? We're not adding them together, are we?
For example, with the "impairing" track, I assumed the "-5 to all rolls" replaced the "-2 to all rolls" so we ended up with -5 and not -7. If I'm am mistaken, then I would say some of them are probably to powerful, and I can better sympathize with your objections.


Under your system though, if high level spells cause Nausia, Panic, or other serious conditions directly, then we are right back at the problem of the binary save/fail problem this fix was designed to address in the first place.
I like the original proposal because it gives targeted players or creatures stronger defenses against conditions-causing effect. How does your proposal address this issue?

If it is easier to cause a tier 2 condition once a player is affected by a tier 1 condition, then it still requires more resources to get them to tier 1 in the first place, whether it's spells, abilities, or turns in combat. To me this seems to make up for any additional ease you would have of afflicting the tier 2 condition once they've already been hit.


This is fantastic. Having different effects based on HP sounds like a very, very good idea. It's simple - provided you don't get complex with the thresholds - and neatly solves a number of different problems at once. I will definitely test this in my own system, if you don't mind.

Is there any reason why we can't combine the two systems?

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-31, 11:47 AM
Higher-degree conditions do replace lower ones. If you're fatigued and fail a save against ray of exhaustion, now you're exhausted, not fatigued. Inhibited (-5 to all) replaces Impaired (-2 to all), rather than stacking and giving -7 to all.

1st and 2nd level spells and abilities cannot inflict worse than first degree conditions, and 3rd and 4th level spells and abilities can't push you past second degree. Currently, they cannot push you higher with repeated uses; I'm undecided on that point.

I'm about to separate out the Death track (which already worked sort of differently) and attach 2/3 and 1/3 health conditions to it. Might take out the Wind track while I'm at it, since it really doesn't fit with the others.

Deepbluediver
2012-10-31, 11:54 AM
Higher-degree conditions do replace lower ones. If you're fatigued and fail a save against ray of exhaustion, now you're exhausted, not fatigued. Inhibited (-5 to all) replaces Impaired (-2 to all), rather than stacking and giving -7 to all.
Thanks for the clarification. I've been caught in a few arguments where the problem was that one party (often myself, I admit) was just debating under a totally seperate set of assumptions, so I try to check whenever I'm even the least bit uncertain.


I'm about to separate out the Death track (which already worked sort of differently) and attach 2/3 and 1/3 health conditions to it. Might take out the Wind track while I'm at it, since it really doesn't fit with the others.

One thing I keep meaning to ask about, but keep getting distracted. If we have a track for death-effects, does it have to relate to HP? I know it's a bit unusual, but you could make it more similar to the other effects if we have an HP-damage-leading-to-death track and a death-spell track.

For example, if you are hit by a Wail of the Banshee spell and you fail your save but not by enough to kill you, it could put you in a very precasious position but if you are healed from the condition you are physically just fine.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-31, 12:18 PM
Thanks for the clarification. I've been caught in a few arguments where the problem was that one party (often myself, I admit) was just debating under a totally seperate set of assumptions, so I try to check whenever I'm even the least bit uncertain.No problem.


One thing I keep meaning to ask about, but keep getting distracted. If we have a track for death-effects, does it have to relate to HP? I know it's a bit unusual, but you could make it more similar to the other effects if we have an HP-damage-leading-to-death track and a death-spell track.

For example, if you are hit by a Wail of the Banshee spell and you fail your save but not by enough to kill you, it could put you in a very precasious position but if you are healed from the condition you are physically just fine.
Hmm... actually, I'd kind of like to have something almost identical to the Fatigue track. Fatigued, Exhausted, -1 HP.

Just to Browse
2012-10-31, 03:22 PM
Under the RAW, massive blows (anything over 50 damage) are supposed to force a Fort save against instant death, so at the very least we have a way damage can cause death-effects.
In my experience though, this rule is so unpopular that most people either ignore it or houserule in a change. That would seem to indicate a similar problem with magical or quasi-magical condition-causing abilities.

Isn't this why we where discussing adding a track for or list of penalties from damage as well?Well, if you'd like to have a flexible set of condition-inflicting damage tracks, you certainly can. That wouldn't solve spamming, but it would help make damage better.

My personal experience with doing damage tracks is that they don't work well, because if you want the flexibility of damage to even somewhat reflect the flexibility of magic, you need several tracks, which means looking things up in the book a lot.


I still don't think I understand how condition spamming is a significant problem, and I certainly am not convinced it's any worse than the current set-up.
Also, unless the tier 3 condition completely disables the target, you will still need to use other additional conditions or engage in combat eventually, and as I mentioned above, additional time you spend with the target alive gives them additional chances to strike back.Here's a scenario:

PARTY ONE
GM: The harpy lunges for you. Roll init.
[Players Roll]
P1: I'll use scare. (harpy is shaken)
P2: I'll slice its legs. (harpy is impaired)
P3: I'll blast it with a ray of dessication. (harpy is fatigued)
[Harpy gets one round, with some terrible penalties. The players eventually take it down.]

PARTY TWO
GM: The harpy lunges for you. Roll init.
[Players Roll]
P1: I'll use scare. (harpy is shaken)
P2: I'll use scare. (harpy is frightened)
P3: I'll use scare. (harpy is panicked)
[Harpy doesn't even get a turn. The players continue on their way.]
PARTY ONE: What the hell, you just walked right through that.
PARTY TWO: That's because we're all necromancers.


Coordinating your entire team to be great at one thing is a fine tactic, until you run into an enemy with an immunity. I think TVtropes calls it "crippling overspecialization". You, yourself said that classes would have multiple types of conditions to inflict, but there will be differences. So if the party can't spam their One Trick, they'll want Two or Three. And the only good way to do that is if they're all the same class. "Crippling overspecialization" is entirely different from "everyone's a wizard".


Maybe I'm confused, I assumed "stacking conditions" meant applying different conditions with different effects. I want to make sure that I am understanding the chart back on page 1: the more severe conditions replace the lower tier ones, right? We're not adding them together, are we?
For example, with the "impairing" track, I assumed the "-5 to all rolls" replaced the "-2 to all rolls" so we ended up with -5 and not -7. If I'm am mistaken, then I would say some of them are probably to powerful, and I can better sympathize with your objections.If you impair/shake someone, you give them -2 to some things and -2 to some other things. If you impair->inhibit someone, you give them -5 to some things. 5 > (2+2), impairment is better. Especially now, because the whole party can just focus-fire that single defense.


Under your system though, if high level spells cause Nausia, Panic, or other serious conditions directly, then we are right back at the problem of the binary save/fail problem this fix was designed to address in the first place.
I like the original proposal because it gives targeted players or creatures stronger defenses against conditions-causing effect. How does your proposal address this issue?But they don't cause those serious conditions directly. They cause those conditions if the person really fails their save hard (as in, they've been debuffed or are weak) or if they're taken a bunch of HP damage (as in, they're weak). So the problem is solved, because now the party needs to bash the ogre in before they make it run away.


If it is easier to cause a tier 2 condition once a player is affected by a tier 1 condition, then it still requires more resources to get them to tier 1 in the first place, whether it's spells, abilities, or turns in combat. To me this seems to make up for any additional ease you would have of afflicting the tier 2 condition once they've already been hit.Yes... I never denied this. My problem is with the fact that you can only get a tier 2 condition off a tier 1 condition, so if you want to hit someone with a tier 2 condition, you will always spam the same tier 1 condition, because that's the only condition that will also get an enemy to tier 2.


Is there any reason why we can't combine the two systems?If you have something that will solve your problem, and then something that will kind of solve your problem but make more, why would you use the thing that makes more problems?

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-31, 03:57 PM
PARTY TWO
GM: The harpy lunges for you. Roll init.
[Players Roll]
P1: I'll use scare. (harpy is shaken)
P2: I'll use scare. (harpy is frightened)
P3: I'll use scare. (harpy is panicked)
[Harpy doesn't even get a turn. The players continue on their way.]
PARTY ONE: What the hell, you just walked right through that.
PARTY TWO: That's because we're all necromancers.
No, I understand that it's theoretically possible, but how many people will actually play like this? (Also, scare is a second level spell, and so can't push you past shaken. You'd need eyebite or something to go all the way to panic).


But they don't cause those serious conditions directly. They cause those conditions if the person really fails their save hard (as in, they've been debuffed or are weak) or if they're taken a bunch of HP damage (as in, they're weak). So the problem is solved, because now the party needs to bash the ogre in before they make it run away.

...

Yes... I never denied this. My problem is with the fact that you can only get a tier 2 condition off a tier 1 condition, so if you want to hit someone with a tier 2 condition, you will always spam the same tier 1 condition, because that's the only condition that will also get an enemy to tier 2.
I'm... pretty sure you just contradicted yourself here. You'd like spells to only inflict high-level conditions if you fail really badly or you're already penalized somehow. That's how my system works.

Eldan
2012-10-31, 04:13 PM
If I may comment on a few things here and there I saw on the last few pages...


But you're encouraging everyone to be the same class. If only the rogue and wizard can do impairment, then you are encouraging a party of pure rogues and wizards.

Not necessarily. First of all, one of my personal goals is to give every class the opportunity to get abilities that deal out conditions. Look up "Dirty Trick" in the combat thread: it's open to everyone as a standard special attack. And I think every class can get in here, really. Rogues are obvious, and will probably be the melee specialists on conditions. But fighters with stunning blow, bards with fascinating songs and barbarians with intimidation are just as common in 3.5 already. Assassins with debilitating poisons. Monks with pressure points. Rangers with called shots. Really, you can find something for every class...
As for stacking the same class: not necessarily, again. How many all Tier 1 parties have you seen in 3.5? I can't remember any. And yet, that would still be the most effective. Sure, you'll see, say, a wizard dropping a fear spell on an enemy already intimidated by the fighter. I don't have a problem with that.


I am very much in agreement there. I think building classes to have weak points will certainly encourage non-homogenous (heterogenous?) parties, but if that's the aim then there's no reason to have ability tracks anywho.

I think there still is. For the simple reason that we have far too many save-or-suck spells that are just too good, but very iconic. Hold Person should not just go, but it's too much of a game winner. Requiring save-or-sucks to be cast several times for full effect is a good idea.


There is no damage effect that makes people cower. There is no damage effect that stops people from moving. When dealing half someone's HP in damage, and dealing a tier 2 condition to them, it's still obvious that a tier 2 condition is better. So the "only" situation where debuffs beat damage is actually "every" situation.

Not necessarily. If you drop your enemy to half his HP, your next attack will kill him. Giving him the same T2 condition twice won't necessarily. However, half HP + condition is still better, because it lowers the enemy's chances to hit back on his turn.


That would certainly work, but does require you to rewrite every spell in the game. I was kind of shooting for something that would work with pre-existing material.

I went over the list. We are looking at a 1/3 to 1/2 rewrite of the spell list even in a best case scenario.


And on Death effects: I think I already argued for that one, death effects as an end result of the fatigue track.


PARTY TWO
GM: The harpy lunges for you. Roll init.
[Players Roll]
P1: I'll use scare. (harpy is shaken)
P2: I'll use scare. (harpy is frightened)
P3: I'll use scare. (harpy is panicked)
[Harpy doesn't even get a turn. The players continue on their way.]
PARTY ONE: What the hell, you just walked right through that.
PARTY TWO: That's because we're all necromancers.


There's a simple solution to that one. Various enemies are immune to some conditions. Having only scare means that the party pretty soon fails as soon as they face a golem, zombie or paladin. Diversity is often a key to success.

Deepbluediver
2012-10-31, 04:40 PM
My personal experience with doing damage tracks is that they don't work well, because if you want the flexibility of damage to even somewhat reflect the flexibility of magic, you need several tracks, which means looking things up in the book a lot.

Once per turn, a character can make a special melee attack that instead of causing damage causes certain conditions. If the attack is succesful, the target must make a save with DC equal to the attackers BAB + Str or Dex, whichever is higher. If the target fails by 5 or more, the instead advance to the second tier condition, and if by 10 or more to the third tier condition.

Strike at the legs: causes Hindered/ Save- Reflex
Strike at the head: causes Stymied/ Save- Will
Strike at the eyes: causes Dazzled/ Save- Reflex
Strike at vital areas: causes Impaired/ Save- Fort
Stike at the spine: must be flanking, causes Fatigued/ Save-Fort
Threaten: causes Shaken/ Save- Will

If your target lacks any of the above mentioned body parts because of their phisiology, they are immune to the attack. Conversely, if they have more than the usual number of bodyparts (Beholders and eyes, for example) they may be more susceptible than average

That was hard.
/sarcasm


Here's a scenario:
*snip*

Same scenario, 6 hours later:

PARTY ONE
Enjoys a good night's sleep, content in the knowledge they have killed all the harpies in the nearby area.

PARTY TWO
Spends most of the night worrying if the Harpy they chased off will come back, possibly with more friends then they have Fear spells.



You, yourself said that classes would have multiple types of conditions to inflict, but there will be differences. So if the party can't spam their One Trick, they'll want Two or Three. And the only good way to do that is if they're all the same class. "Crippling overspecialization" is entirely different from "everyone's a wizard".

And "wizards are broken" is different from "the system is broken". My argument is that people will favor versatility (every condition can be caused by at least one person in the party) versus narrowly focused power (everyone in the party can cause the same 2 or 3 conditions). Perhaps that's an opinion argument, but then so is yours.


If you impair/shake someone, you give them -2 to some things and -2 to some other things. If you impair->inhibit someone, you give them -5 to some things. 5 > (2+2), impairment is better. Especially now, because the whole party can just focus-fire that single defense.
Not all penalties are created equal against all enemies, and not all the penalties can be boiled down to a simple math equation.

Which of the following is better:
Dazzled or Shaken?
Confused or Immobile?
Impaired or Exhausted?

Your argument at most seems to be everyone will focus on the weakness granted by whichever condition is caused first, which isn't really any worse than the current system, and I don't see how your system would solve the problem any better.



But they don't cause those serious conditions directly.
Huh?


They cause those conditions if the person really fails their save hard (as in, they've been debuffed or are weak)
Which is what the original proposal does.


or if they're taken a bunch of HP damage (as in, they're weak).
Which sounds an awful lot like COMBINING the original proposal with an HP-damage condition track.


Yes... I never denied this. My problem is with the fact that you can only get a tier 2 condition off a tier 1 condition, so if you want to hit someone with a tier 2 condition, you will always spam the same tier 1 condition, because that's the only condition that will also get an enemy to tier 2.
I don't understand your complaint. If you want to cause a specific condition, you ALWAYS spam whatever attack or spell will cause that condition until you are succesful, whether it's under the RAW, this version, or your version.

Are you suggesting we should have some kind of condition Tree where each starting point has branching options?


I'm sorry, but if you're not arguing just for the sake of argument, then you are really not being clear with your posts.

Eldan
2012-10-31, 04:42 PM
I suggest a condition arrow diagram. Or an n-dimensional condition matrix. After all, that's how you model reality best.

Deepbluediver
2012-10-31, 05:21 PM
And on Death effects: I think I already argued for that one, death effects as an end result of the fatigue track.

Personally, I hate death effects. I find them bland, boring, and unnecessary. I would be happy to get rid of all SoD spells that where effective against anything with a similar CR to you, so that if you're 20th level mage wanted to use Wail of the Banshee to clear out a room full of goblins he can, but Power Word: Kill no longer ends an encounter in less than a single round. That way the so-called "death effects" are really just an alternative to AoE damage.



One more suggestion I was thinking about: What if we altered the handful of conditions that reduced saves so that they didn't reduce saves at all, and possibly buffing the new damage track slightly so that it did so more easily. (-1/-2 seems a little weak when compared to core abilities, but -2/-4 against everything seems to strong :smallyuk:)

Fear would no longer reduce will saves (because frankly, not all will-save-based attacks are fear-related anyhow).
Fatgiue can be a melee-damage attack or skill-check penalty instead, so that the Dex penalty doesn't reduce Reflex saves.
Impairing can either be weakened to -1/-3, or simply left alone since it reduces everything equally anyway.


This would effectively combine damage with an obvious was of making it easier to inflict conditions.
Let me know what you think, this is freshly brainstormed out of my head.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-31, 05:46 PM
Personally, I hate death effects. I find them bland, boring, and unnecessary. I would be happy to get rid of all SoD spells that where effective against anything with a similar CR to you, so that if you're 20th level mage wanted to use Wail of the Banshee to clear out a room full of goblins he can, but Power Word: Kill no longer ends an encounter in less than a single round. That way the so-called "death effects" are really just an alternative to AoE damage.
I mean, they feel like an iconic part of things to me. I'm with Eldan-- a modification of the Fatigue track feels right.


One more suggestion I was thinking about: What if we altered the handful of conditions that reduced saves so that they didn't reduce saves at all, and possibly buffing the new damage track slightly so that it did so more easily. (-1/-2 seems a little weak when compared to core abilities, but -2/-4 against everything seems to strong :smallyuk:)
Mmm? Bear in mind that G&G basically replaces ability scores with modifiers.


Fear would no longer reduce will saves (because frankly, not all will-save-based attacks are fear-related anyhow).
Fatgiue can be a melee-damage attack or skill-check penalty instead, so that the Dex penalty doesn't reduce Reflex saves.
Impairing can either be weakened to -1/-3, or simply left alone since it reduces everything equally anyway.
Fear gives a Will save penalty because it's harder to keep your mind together when you're scared.
Fatigue could probably go to a penalty to all attack rolls and skill checks, though I don't want all the conditions to feel the same.
I like the -2/-5, though it's mostly a relic of back-conversion from M&M.

Eldan
2012-10-31, 05:48 PM
I must admit that I'm more of a simulationist than a gamist, as silly as those terms sometimes are. I know the medical effects of fatigue. I'd rather see a system where those are represented vaguely accurately than one where they are balanced with other conditions, if I can only have one of the two. (Though there should also be a mental effect).

Just to Browse
2012-10-31, 07:04 PM
No, I understand that it's theoretically possible, but how many people will actually play like this? (Also, scare is a second level spell, and so can't push you past shaken. You'd need eyebite or something to go all the way to panic).Enough. Enough people will realize that fact and play that way, and will realize it's boring, and so will dislike the game because the best way to play is boring. Then they will go play Legend because contributions to combat require a non-homogenized party and that actually makes it interesting.


I'm... pretty sure you just contradicted yourself here. You'd like spells to only inflict high-level conditions if you fail really badly or you're already penalized somehow. That's how my system works.No, I want spells that inflict high-level condition if the target fails badly or is penalized by a different arbitrary effect of any arbitrary magnitude. Your system has spells inflict high-level conditions if the target fails badly or is penalized by the same effect of lower magnitude. My proposed replacement allows conditions to be adjucated on a per-ability case and be switched around for a variety of unique effects (so you could have all-or-nothing kill shots that require failing the save by 10, or no-save shakening effect that can't do anything else) and yours does not. My system also encourages parties to synergize by cross-referencing classes, while the current system encourages parties to synergize by cross-referencing rows of the conditions table.


Not necessarily. First of all, one of my personal goals is to give every class the opportunity to get abilities that deal out conditions. Look up "Dirty Trick" in the combat thread: it's open to everyone as a standard special attack. And I think every class can get in here, really. Rogues are obvious, and will probably be the melee specialists on conditions. But fighters with stunning blow, bards with fascinating songs and barbarians with intimidation are just as common in 3.5 already. Assassins with debilitating poisons. Monks with pressure points. Rangers with called shots. Really, you can find something for every class...
As for stacking the same class: not necessarily, again. How many all Tier 1 parties have you seen in 3.5? I can't remember any. And yet, that would still be the most effective. Sure, you'll see, say, a wizard dropping a fear spell on an enemy already intimidated by the fighter. I don't have a problem with that.Yes, just like in real life, this does not ensure 100% capacity and it won't make all players go "OMG HAS TO PLAY SAME NAO", but the players will certainly notice their increase in capability when they spam the same effect. Dirty Trick is different because it's not a spell (and so you can't scale dazzled up to blinded or exploded, etc.)

You seem to be missing my point. It's not that your game will cause people to play the same class, it's that your game will cause players to notice that they should be the same class. My illustrations were to demonstrate effectiveness since Deepblue was still confused. If the monk uses dread punch to cause shakened, and the ranger uses called shot to the Batman to cause shakened, and the barb uses BLEEEEAAAAARGHAHAAAARAAAAA to cause shakened, the players will still notice that they're at their best when doing the same damn thing over and over. And they will dislike that, because it's boring.

And I'll match you anecdote for anecdote--every time I play in a game, I play a tier 1 class because they're just better. Every game I have run, I have had a player play a Tier 1 class because they're better. The big difference is that I can have fun with my Tier 1 class because my cleric can beat out the fighter in a hundred different ways. The fearmonger party can only beat out the regular party in one way. Forever.


I think there still is. For the simple reason that we have far too many save-or-suck spells that are just too good, but very iconic. Hold Person should not just go, but it's too much of a game winner. Requiring save-or-sucks to be cast several times for full effect is a good idea. I agree with your premises, but disagree with your solution. If hold person needs to be cast several times before it really stops someone from moving, then you can say "force 1 target to make a will save versus immobilization. If they pass the save, they are instead entangled, and if they fail the save by 5 or more they are dazed."

It achieves the same effect, but it doesn't use condition tracks, thereby solving the problem without creating another one.


Not necessarily. If you drop your enemy to half his HP, your next attack will kill him. Giving him the same T2 condition twice won't necessarily. However, half HP + condition is still better, because it lowers the enemy's chances to hit back on his turn.Huh? A tier 2 condition means your next condition stack within that track will drop him (total madness, total fear, total stunning, etc. I know a minority of the tracks don't do this. Most do.) Some tier 2 conditions will have achieved that goal already. Your next attack (if it hits) may or may not deal enough damage to kill the target (srsly, each attack deals half of their HP? We're discouraging RLT right?), but your next condition is almost guaranteed to end the fight for that person. Half HP < Tier 2, almost every time. Half HP < Tier 1 + 3/4 HP most of the time too because your next Tier deals heavy blows.


I went over the list. We are looking at a 1/3 to 1/2 rewrite of the spell list even in a best case scenario.Is this on my side? Cool beans.


There's a simple solution to that one. Various enemies are immune to some conditions. Having only scare means that the party pretty soon fails as soon as they face a golem, zombie or paladin. Diversity is often a key to success.I responded to this in the exact same post you just quoted... If you have enemies with immunity to fear, then the party will want two condition-inflicting tracks together. If you give enemies a second immunity, the party will want three condition-inflicting tracks, and so the party will realize that if they want to be as effective as possible, they will want a decent spread to tracks that all inflict the same conditions.

The best way to do that? Everyone is the same class. Indeed, by giving monsters immunities to conditions, you are encouraging the party to play the same way as each other. The problem stands.


Once per turn, a character can make a special melee attack that instead of causing damage causes certain conditions. If the attack is succesful, the target must make a save with DC equal to the attackers BAB + Str or Dex, whichever is higher. If the target fails by 5 or more, the instead advance to the second tier condition, and if by 10 or more to the third tier condition.

Strike at the legs: causes Hindered/ Save- Reflex
Strike at the head: causes Stymied/ Save- Will
Strike at the eyes: causes Dazzled/ Save- Reflex
Strike at vital areas: causes Impaired/ Save- Fort
Stike at the spine: must be flanking, causes Fatigued/ Save-Fort
Threaten: causes Shaken/ Save- Will

If your target lacks any of the above mentioned body parts because of their phisiology, they are immune to the attack. Conversely, if they have more than the usual number of bodyparts (Beholders and eyes, for example) they may be more susceptible than averageI... I just... what? So instead of writing tracks for damage, you wrote a series of combat maneuvers using tracks that aren't for damage and told me I was bad at game design?

Here is the literal explanation of my quote: "Having a track that hands out conditions based of types of damage you deal when you make an attack is difficult because people need to constantly go back and reference the track related to their damage type." Your solution does not address the problem in my quote, it does something entirely different.


Same scenario, 6 hours later::smallconfused: Is that an actual contention? Here, replace scare with slow and its appropriate track conditions, and then the team can beat the ever-loving snot out of the harpies and guarantee a kill.


And "wizards are broken" is different from "the system is broken". My argument is that people will favor versatility (every condition can be caused by at least one person in the party) versus narrowly focused power (everyone in the party can cause the same 2 or 3 conditions). Perhaps that's an opinion argument, but then so is yours.At this point, I feel like you're just reading my quotes and responding to them without going back to what the argument is about. You said that monsters will have immunities and thus overspecialization is bad. I said that then the players will just have multiple of the same specializations, thus encouraging them all to be the same class. Your response appears to accuse me of saying wizards break the game.


Not all penalties are created equal against all enemies, and not all the penalties can be boiled down to a simple math equation.:smallannoyed: I gave you an example, correlating two conditions which inflicted save penalties. For a homogenous party (which is what I'm arguing) there is literally no circumstance in which 1 Tier 2 < 2 Tier 1. That was my point. By example. Not generalization.


Huh?
Which is what the original proposal does.
Which sounds an awful lot like COMBINING the original proposal with an HP-damage condition track.This will be the last time I repeat the argument, for you. I'm getting far too frustrated, and when I do that I start bordering on mocking people.
Your current system:
Stacking only occurs for effects within the same track.
There is no benefit to dealing damage.
It's hard to hit someone with an SoD right off the bat.

My proposed system:
Stacking does not occur at all.
There is a benefit to dealing damage.
It's hard to hit someone with an SoD right off the bat.

My system solves the problems, does not create new ones. The current system solves one problem and creates a new one. That is why I'm advocating for my system.


I don't understand your complaint. If you want to cause a specific condition, you ALWAYS spam whatever attack or spell will cause that condition until you are succesful, whether it's under the RAW, this version, or your version.Except if you want to hit someone with hold person in my system, you hit them with scare or leech morale or hypnotize or get the barbarian to break them, because your only chance of hitting them with the effect is to make them fail by 5 or more or bloodying them. In the current system, if you want to hit someone with hold person, you cast hold person over and over because that's the only way to inflict hold person.

(please do not contend that someone could cast another spell that inflicts the same condition. That's a strawman)


Are you suggesting we should have some kind of condition Tree where each starting point has branching options?I already responded to this on page two of the thread. I will quote it again for you.


My proposition is that, instead of changing the conditions in a way that encourages bad gameplay, change the relevant abilities. Don't require nauseated to stack off sickened, just write the effect of Stinking Cloud to force Fort-v-Sickened and say "if you fail by 5 or more or are bloodied, you will be Nauseated". No stacking. No tracks. No bonuses. The problem is fixed entirely outside of condition tracks.


I'm sorry, but if you're not arguing just for the sake of argument, then you are really not being clear with your posts.I have repeated myself several times. I'm sorry if the point is coming across, but I'm not going to continue to do that, so if you're still confused then re-read the thread.

Eldan
2012-11-01, 06:23 AM
No, I want spells that inflict high-level condition if the target fails badly or is penalized by a different arbitrary effect of any arbitrary magnitude. Your system has spells inflict high-level conditions if the target fails badly or is penalized by the same effect of lower magnitude. My proposed replacement allows conditions to be adjucated on a per-ability case and be switched around for a variety of unique effects (so you could have all-or-nothing kill shots that require failing the save by 10, or no-save shakening effect that can't do anything else) and yours does not. My system also encourages parties to synergize by cross-referencing classes, while the current system encourages parties to synergize by cross-referencing rows of the conditions table.

I don't see how that makes any sense. How does, say, being insane means you are easier to tire? Why is a blind man easier to fascinate
?



I agree with your premises, but disagree with your solution. If hold person needs to be cast several times before it really stops someone from moving, then you can say "force 1 target to make a will save versus immobilization. If they pass the save, they are instead entangled, and if they fail the save by 5 or more they are dazed."

It achieves the same effect, but it doesn't use condition tracks, thereby solving the problem without creating another one.:

This, however, I could see working. Should we leave the condition tracks as a kind of inofficial behind the scenes thing, then? A guideline for writers?



The best way to do that? Everyone is the same class. Indeed, by giving monsters immunities to conditions, you are encouraging the party to play the same way as each other. The problem stands.


Sorry, I just don't see that. Just one paragraph above, you said yourself they'd have to diversify to cover several tracks. Now it makes them all take the same tracks again?

Grod_The_Giant
2012-11-01, 09:45 AM
On the subject of working something like this into individual spells and abilities: while it would work, I'd rather have a unified mechanic. It seems to me that I'd rather have one area of the rules to remember, and spells that just refer back to it, than a dozen spells with multiple clauses all working slightly differently with the conditions they inflict.

Abd G&G is supposed to be a patch to 3.5. Something to soften the more abusable parts, stiffen the underpowered parts, and put another layer of polish on everything. Ideally, it should replace the PHB, but still be compatible with most of the the later, more balanced published material. With tracks, you can match the condition inflicted to the track and be fine. If you're folding it into spells, you'd have to rewrite every condition-based spell before you could use it.

Also: Last night I asked several of my IRL friends to look at this and evaluate Just to Browse's worries. None of them agreed about the focus-fire-party thing. One guy raised the valid point that you'd need multiple people agreeing to sacrifice individuality for this kind tactic, but that the kind of powergamer player who'd do that is usually (not always , I grant you) too focused on personal power to want to do a big team.

Eldan
2012-11-01, 10:05 AM
I don't necessarily agree on the team thing (I could see a team of powergamers), but in my experience, it seems more common that you have one in a party, not an entire group of them. (I'm one. At least a bit).

Grod_The_Giant
2012-11-01, 10:23 AM
I don't necessarily agree on the team thing (I could see a team of powergamers), but in my experience, it seems more common that you have one in a party, not an entire group of them. (I'm one. At least a bit).

Teamwork takes maturity. Problematic powergames are usually immature (like most problem players). Mature players can be negotiated with.

In any case, I did change things from flat stacking to a -2/-4 save penalty against further effects in the track, which should help head off the issue. More importantly: are there still too many tracks? Madness should probably go; should Blinding? Should we combine Fear and Impair? Fatigue and Impair? Slow and Stun?

Deepbluediver
2012-11-01, 12:10 PM
I... I just... what? So instead of writing tracks for damage, you wrote a series of combat maneuvers using tracks that aren't for damage and told me I was bad at game design?
*snip*
Your solution does not address the problem in my quote, it does something entirely different.
Sorry, this was a misunderstanding on my part then. I thought that we where just going to have one damage-based track's worth of effects, and you just wanted a method by which melee could contribute to condition-causing in the same manner as magic users.

A few posts back I had a paragraph where I stated that having to keep track of various kinds of damage (bludgeoning, piercing, fire, etc) for causing different conditions was needlessly complicated. So I guess we are (sort of) in agreement on that point?


:smallconfused: Is that an actual contention? Here, replace scare with slow and its appropriate track conditions, and then the team can beat the ever-loving snot out of the harpies and guarantee a kill.
I see that then as an argument that some of the Tier 3 conditions are too powerful, and need to be reworked.
The Fatigue, Impairing, and Stunning tracks (and possibly Slowing) prevent all actions at the highest level, which are basically the effective counterpart to death, so I would start there.


At this point, I feel like you're just reading my quotes and responding to them without going back to what the argument is about.
If I missed something and we are just arguing past each other, I apologize, but for the most part I honestly do not understand were you where coming from.


:smallannoyed: I gave you an example, correlating two conditions which inflicted save penalties. For a homogenous party (which is what I'm arguing) there is literally no circumstance in which 1 Tier 2 < 2 Tier 1. That was my point. By example. Not generalization.
You picked the one example out of the whole lot that can be easily boiled down to a simple math equation. My point about trying to compare something like Hindered to Stymied to Unsteady is that the usefullness can vary by situation.

If the numbers are a sticking point, I'd be fine with dropping the -5 penalty to -4, so that 2xT1=1xT2.

As I alluded to earlier, I like the system, so if spamming the same things are a problem because higher tiers are overly crippling, then I would rather try and tweak the conditions rather than go back to something that feels an awful like the RAW. If you have anything like Unconcious or Paralyzed in the system at all, it's going to be appealing to try and cause.


This will be the last time I repeat the argument, for you. I'm getting far too frustrated, and when I do that I start bordering on mocking people.
Your current system:
Stacking only occurs for effects within the same track.
There is no benefit to dealing damage.
It's hard to hit someone with an SoD right off the bat.

My proposed system:
Stacking does not occur at all.
There is a benefit to dealing damage.
It's hard to hit someone with an SoD right off the bat.

My system solves the problems, does not create new ones. The current system solves one problem and creates a new one. That is why I'm advocating for my system.
I believe I mentioned that I fully support adding in some rules that would allow damage to contribute to causing or worsening conditions. I even tried to write out a system that would allow you to do so.

Also, Grod added a damage track in the original post which lowers ability scores as you take hits (thereby affecting saves, I assume), so wouldn't that have the same effect as the damage in your version?

Edit: Apparently it's been changed to "penalty to all rolls" instead. I guess that will work, too, but then I feel we should alter the Impairing track to something else.


Except if you want to hit someone with hold person in my system, you hit them with scare or leech morale or hypnotize or get the barbarian to break them, because your only chance of hitting them with the effect is to make them fail by 5 or more or bloodying them.
Ok, I think I (finally) understand what you are getting at; thank you for your patience.


In the current system, if you want to hit someone with hold person, you cast hold person over and over because that's the only way to inflict hold person.
That's not exactly correct, though. In this version, I can cast Hold Person twice, or I can can use something that lowers their save (such as Impairing) or damage them to try and get them to Bloodied, which will also lower their save, and then cast Hold Person once, the same as yours.

By the same token, in your system I can spam Hold Person and hope they fail their save by more than the first time, especially if the effect lowers the relevant save (Fear effects and Will, for example.


I mean, they feel like an iconic part of things to me. I'm with Eldan-- a modification of the Fatigue track feels right.
Ok, I'm just wary of anything that even looks like it can cause instant-death. If you are going to go that route, maybe make it an exception to the rule so if can function differently.


Mmm? Bear in mind that G&G basically replaces ability scores with modifiers.
Ah, ok, that makes sense then. I'll need to go read up on the other G&G threads posts, to make sure I'm up to speed on all the changes.


Fear gives a Will save penalty because it's harder to keep your mind together when you're scared.
Fatigue could probably go to a penalty to all attack rolls and skill checks, though I don't want all the conditions to feel the same.
I like the -2/-5, though it's mostly a relic of back-conversion from M&M.
For fear, I could argue that it's harder to do anything, mental or physical, when you are scared. For the sake of balance, I'd consider removing it.
With regards to Fatigue, I was trying to figure out a method by which you could avoid lowering the Reflex save, that was all.

How attached are you to the -2/-5 level and other effects? Even though I believe that JTBrowse is overstating the potential problems (and I fully admit that is my opinion and nothing more) I can empathize with the desire to avoid a system where all combat is the same, or even where you want to spam the same ability over and over (particularly at high levels, where the spell-effects have fewer limits). Some of the current condition tracks are more powerful than others, particularly when it comes to the end-tier conditions.

I'm working on a few proposals for changes to some of the conditions, and you can tell me what you think about them. I'll post them seperately so that people can read or reply to everything more easily.


Edit: I notice I've missed out on a few other updates due to my slow posting speed. I'm reviewing them now.

Deepbluediver
2012-11-01, 12:37 PM
Here are my latest proposals.


Blinding
Dazzled: 10% chance to miss on any attack or targeted spell; -2 to Search, Spot, and AC.
Partially Blinded: 20% chance to miss on any attack or targeted spell, -4 to Search, Spot, and AC.
Blind: 50% chance to miss on any attack or targeted spell, and you cannot target enemies by sight (though you might be able to locate them with a Listen check or other methods); -6 to Seach and AC, and Spot automatically fails.

Madness
no change

Fatigue
Fatigued: -2 to attack rolls, skill checks, Caster level, and spell save DCs; 10% or -1 (whichever is greater) penalty to melee attacks and damaging spells
Exhausted: -4 to attack rolls, skill checks, Caster level, and spell save DCs; 25% or -2 penalty to melee attacks and damaging spells
Drained: (replacing Unconscious) -6 to attack rolls, skill checks, Caster level, and spell save DCs; 50% or -5 penalty to melee attacks and damaging spells

Fear
-2/-5/-5 penalties to rolls become -2/-4/-4; no more penalty to Will Save
other penalties remain the same

Impairing
-2/-5 penalties to all rolls become -2/-4/-6 to all Saves instead

Mind Control
no change


I was thinking about what to do for Slowing and Stunning when I saw your other post about combining tracks. Maybe we could take the better parts of each and reshuffle them slightly, so that each has a distinctive purpose.


Slowing
Hindered: Speed Halved, and if you take a Full-round action, on the next turn you must forgo either your Standard action or Move action
Slowed: Can only take a single 5-foot step and a Standard action per turn; must skip a turn before taking a Full-Round action
Immobile: Speed reduced to 0 ft., can't take 5 foot steps; must skip a turn before taking a Standard action, must skip 2 turns before taking a Full-round action

Stunning
Stymied: target takes a -2 penalty to their AC and Initiative, which may cause them to act later in the combat order (if they have already acted this round, the effect will begin next round); they are also limited to a single free action each round
Dazed: target takes a -4 penalty to their AC and Initiative, which may cause them to act later in the combat order; they cannot take Free Actions and are limited to a single Attack of Opportunity per round
Stunned: target takes a -6 penalty to their AC and Initiative, which may cause them to act later in the combat order; they also cannot take Free Actions or make Attacks of Opportunity


Hopefully this addresses the "Tier 3 is instant win" issue, while maintaing a diversity of effects; let me know what you think. I admit this is some pretty raw brainstorming, so I'll understand if you want to be highly critical about anything. Go to town.


Edit: Something occurs to me- since we have a "Blind" track, do we need a "Deaf" Track as well? Or is that getting too complex? I know that sound doesn't come up nearly as often as sight in the game, but it has it's moments.



In any case, I did change things from flat stacking to a -2/-4 save penalty against further effects in the track, which should help head off the issue. More importantly: are there still too many tracks? Madness should probably go; should Blinding? Should we combine Fear and Impair? Fatigue and Impair? Slow and Stun?

There are some very simple game-systems out there, and some very complex ones. I don't D&D is a good candidate for over-simplification; I like the level of options it has available.

If you really think it is necessary, make two seperate tables, a "Simple" version with 3 or 4 conditions (maybe one physical, one mental, and one hybrid) and another chart with 8-10 conditions for a more varied or realistic playstyle.

The only thing I dislike about the Madness track is it's potential to do nothing, even at the highest tier. I think a few more chances to randomly have other or more long-lasting effects might make it more interesting, and none of the options for "Insane" should be "Act Normally". Normal is the opposite of Mad. :smalltongue:

Grod_The_Giant
2012-11-01, 05:38 PM
I mean, personally I'm pretty OK with T3 conditions being instant-wins. The game needs ways to take down baddies without killing them, after all. And it should take a decent number of castings to really put people down.

Deaf, I didn't include because because it's not really a bad enough condition to need a 3-step track: I only "tracked out" the ones that did lead to fight-ending conditions.

Truth be told, I'd rather have more simple tracks than a few complicated ones. The -2/-5/out thing is easy to remember, and makes a decent universal rule. (-10%, -25%)

Just to Browse
2012-11-01, 08:37 PM
On the subject of working something like this into individual spells and abilities: while it would work, I'd rather have a unified mechanic. It seems to me that I'd rather have one area of the rules to remember, and spells that just refer back to it, than a dozen spells with multiple clauses all working slightly differently with the conditions they inflict.Your area of the rules requires me to remember 3 unique conditions and their effects and names for any given spell. If I want to diversify (which I will have to, since enemies will have immunities), then I'll probably be juggling 4 terms (track name, 3 tiers) and 3 mechanics (what each tier does) per 2 spells, whether I want to or not. And that can get more complex, especially with action-determination tracks or with specific penalties.

In my proposed solution, you can have can stock up on low-chance spells that deal huge penalties or high-chance spells that deal small penalties (2 terms and 2 mechanics per 2 spells) or you can have spells that deal a normal effect and something else when other circumstances apply (~4 terms, and 3-4 conditions per 2 spells). The simplicity of individual adjucation is greater than a static reference point on average, for a player.


Abd G&G is supposed to be a patch to 3.5. Something to soften the more abusable parts, stiffen the underpowered parts, and put another layer of polish on everything. Ideally, it should replace the PHB, but still be compatible with most of the the later, more balanced published material. With tracks, you can match the condition inflicted to the track and be fine. If you're folding it into spells, you'd have to rewrite every condition-based spell before you could use it.They're equal work. In my system, a player needs to drop their condition down a notch and add a new penalty based on bloodied/really bad save failure. That takes time, and the whole thing might end up overlapping with a previously-written spell anyways.

But on the other hand, the player who wants to convert spells in your system needs to go to one table and change the conditions, go to a second table and learn what the new conditions do (and what they stack to and from), read the section on effects to see what the save thresholds are (and edit his spell accordingly), and check spell level to see how far he can push infliction with a single casting. Only after all of those can he troubleshoot the spell by dropping the condition if it's too high for its level or checking with his DM if conditions overlap. Both of them are a pain.

And even if that's a problem, it shouldn't be a big one, because converting a single condition-inflicting ability is a minor problem in the first place for a 3rd party game--you won't find players calling a game mechanic dumb if they can't find one spell they like, but you will find players calling a game mechanic dumb if it incentivizes them all to play wizards.


Also: Last night I asked several of my IRL friends to look at this and evaluate Just to Browse's worries. None of them agreed about the focus-fire-party thing. One guy raised the valid point that you'd need multiple people agreeing to sacrifice individuality for this kind tactic, but that the kind of powergamer player who'd do that is usually (not always , I grant you) too focused on personal power to want to do a big team.You're missing the point. The point is not that players will all play the same class to win, it's that they'll see they can play the same class to win. And they will complain, and dislike the game, because it feels cramping once you realize your teamwork will never be as good as the people who photocopy charsheets.

You do not want players to dislike your game.


I see that then as an argument that some of the Tier 3 conditions are too powerful, and need to be reworked.I think you have enough discussion on this point from Grod and Eldan. I'll just add that in order to make Tier 3 conditions not good enough for spam-stacking, you will have to make them so bad that no one will want to play the stunlocker, mind controller, or grim reaper. So by "fixing" one problem, you are generating yet another.

Again, I ask you, why not just use the system that doesn't generate problems?


You picked the one example out of the whole lot that can be easily boiled down to a simple math equation. My point about trying to compare something like Hindered to Stymied to Unsteady is that the usefullness can vary by situation.I just showed you that there is an obvious benefit to a single Tier 2 condition over a Tier 1. That means that, regardless of the circumstances, you will want that Tier 2 condition over the Tier 1, and it countered your argument that stacking multiple Tier 1 conditions is totally just as good as Tier 2.


If the numbers are a sticking point, I'd be fine with dropping the -5 penalty to -4, so that 2xT1=1xT2.See the point above.


As I alluded to earlier, I like the system, so if spamming the same things are a problem because higher tiers are overly crippling, then I would rather try and tweak the conditions rather than go back to something that feels an awful like the RAW. If you have anything like Unconcious or Paralyzed in the system at all, it's going to be appealing to try and cause.Why? Why do you like the system? What is this system giving you that another system wouldn't? And on the discussion of high-tier effects, see above.


I believe I mentioned that I fully support adding in some rules that would allow damage to contribute to causing or worsening conditions. I even tried to write out a system that would allow you to do so.I described the problems with this in my second-to-last post before this. You either end up with flipping back and forth through books to reference things (which is a pain) or you end up with a very small amount of damage types which correlates very poorly to the actual attacks of a fantasy game.


Also, Grod added a damage track in the original post which lowers ability scores as you take hits (thereby affecting saves, I assume), so wouldn't that have the same effect as the damage in your version?

Edit: Apparently it's been changed to "penalty to all rolls" instead. I guess that will work, too, but then I feel we should alter the Impairing track to something else.No, damage in my version is still HP, but spells get extra bonuses when you hit someone who is bloodied (i.e. 1/2 HP, but since you're writing the game, you can move thresholds).


That's not exactly correct, though. In this version, I can cast Hold Person twice, or I can can use something that lowers their save (such as Impairing) or damage them to try and get them to Bloodied, which will also lower their save, and then cast Hold Person once, the same as yours.If by "bloodied" you mean "deal a condition that puts them at -2 to saves", that's still an inferior tactic. If hold person succeeds on the first round, but the target only fails their save by 1, you still get a tier 1 condition and now your second hold person will inflict a tier 2+ condition regardless of how much you succeed by. Inflicting them with Tier 1 Impaired means they'll only have a Tier 2 condition if they fail their save by 3 or more.


By the same token, in your system I can spam Hold Person and hope they fail their save by more than the first time, especially if the effect lowers the relevant save (Fear effects and Will, for example.No, because every time you cast hold person and fail, then your round is completely wasted. If you're casting hold person on round 1 and round 2 in my system, the math is such that it's strictly inferior to stabbing them and then casting hold person or debuffing them and then casting hold person.

In my system, spamming is not effective. In your system, spamming is the most effective. Players will notice that, and they will also notice that they're better when they play the same character, and they will dislike those things and just play D&D instead.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-11-02, 11:52 AM
Thank you, Just to Browse. You've made your point quite clear, but since reached the point where we're just yelling "my system! no, my system!" at each other, which isn't providing constructive criticism for either of us. I respect your position, and I happen to disagree with it. At this point, I doubt that either of us will change our minds, so let's just shake hands and go our own ways, yes? We'll probably both be happier that way.

Just to Browse
2012-11-02, 02:52 PM
Thank you, Just to Browse. You've made your point quite clear, but since reached the point where we're just yelling "my system! no, my system!" at each other, which isn't providing constructive criticism for either of us. I respect your position, and I happen to disagree with it. At this point, I doubt that either of us will change our minds, so let's just shake hands and go our own ways, yes? We'll probably both be happier that way.

Shouting would be if there were no argument, and I'm pretty sure we're still at the point where I'm trying to show that my system is better the current one. Your contentions are that you want something that's easy to write and backwards compatible, but my argument is that your system doesn't provide those benefits any more than mine does, while mine solves other problems.

If you still don't want to take the argument further, then that's fine, but I don't think it's true that nothing has happened here.

Yitzi
2012-11-03, 09:40 PM
If you get +1 DC (smallest bonus) to tier 2 fear effects on a target that is already shaken, now every tier 2 fear spell on that target will be 5% more likely to work than any other tier 2 spell, so everyone will want to do it.

No, because it's 5% more likely to put the enemy essentially out of commission, but 20% more likely to end up being completely useless (since the same ability doesn't stack). In many circumstances (especially if you boost saves or reduce DCs), a decent chance of a substantial contribution will be better than a weak chance of a big contribution.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-11-22, 02:36 PM
Added a "Sudden Death" track for save-or-dies.

With condition stacking gone, I'm thinking about eliminating the "spell must be of X level or higher to inflict higher level conditions" clause altogether. Thoughts on that?