[D20 Legends Project] Ashiel's Crunchy but Approachable D20

[Zilrax]

How are you planning to deal with poison?

[Ashiel]

Hey. Ash! How are you? Haven't talked much to each other lately, but I hope everything is awesome in your life... Hopefully, no more thousands of chicken corpses to bury, huh?
(No, I'm never letting that die out! )

More worried about my own corpse, but aside from that I'm doing great.

Anyway... I've playing some (heavily-homebrewed) Pathfinder again lately (I really, really needed a break from it... Once I got, I was finally able to ahve fun with the game again )... And as my players reached higher levels, we got into the portion of the game where fights grow shorter (not necessarily bad), but turns take much longer (pretty bad) and SoL effects become much more common (very bad, IMHO).

I often have the opposite effect in terms of turn rounds, but I tend to run high level encounters with a lot of enemies. But yeah, speeding up gameplay is definitely an issue that I've been trying to grapple with as well.

So I was thinking of ways to make attacks go faster and SoL less all-or-nothing (I even opened up some old drafts for homebrew combat rules I had lying around in mu google drive)...

I came up with the idea of reducing the number of attacks, but making them more powerful depending on BAB... Characters don't gain extra attacks at BAB +11 and higher, but each attacks deal more damage dice based on the weapon (something like +1 base damage for every +4 in their BAB or something like that, which wouldn't be multiplied on a critical hit because criticals are deadly enough as they are). That, however, poses the problem of making "deflect one attack" mechanics considerably more powerful than normal... I think... I can't be sure, since the attacks using the highest 2 highest attack bonuses would still be there.

Then, I remembered you had already created a similar system for your game... Only probably much better and far more thought-through than what I had in mind. So I wanted to ask you:

- How would you go about reducing the number of attacks, but retaining similar damage output (or maybe a little lower) in Pathfinder? And with that in mind, would you change the attack deflection mechanics at all? If so, how?
- Assuming you get no more iterative attacks at BAB +11 and higher... What would ability, if any, would you give as a replacement to characters who reach that level?

Well I didn't reduce outgoing attacks (in truth, martials get more attacks by 20th level). However, what I did do was...

• Added a set penalty per extra attack taken, applied to all attacks (so all outgoing attacks are at the same bonus). Which means that you can just roll all your attacks at the same time easily.
• Added scaling dice damage (+1d6 / 4 BAB).
• Changed the way critical hits work (instead of having multipliers, crits deal maximum damage, so if you're swinging for 4d6+6, a critical hit deals 30 damage.
• Made deflection a part of fighting defensively and total defense actions (you essentially give up your own attacks to have a chance to parry incoming attacks with an opposed roll).
• Added a "heroic strike" mechanic that allows you to throw a lot of your bonus damage dice into a single attack at a penalty to hit (ideal for single-shot characters who can't full-attack) which inflicts a massive penalty to deflection rolls (making it much harder to deflect their all or nothing attack).

One of the things I wanted to do was make martials deal more damage, particularly against things weaker than themselves, while having slowing down their DPR versus more level appropriate foes. The way I've approached this is, since making extra attacks applies a penalty across all of your attacks, making lots of extra attacks makes for heavy penalties. Here's an example below.

Durgen the Dwarf has 3 attacks per round and swings at a +16 to hit.
Making 1 attack he rolls at +16 to hit for 1d8+2d6+4 (15.5 av)
Making 2 attacks he rolls at +14/+14 to hit 1d8+2d6+4 (31 av)
Making 3 attacks, he rolls at +12/+12/+12 to hit for 1d8+2d6+4 (46.5 av)

A strong foe of his level might be sporting an AC of about 28.
This reduces his DPR by 55% / 65% / 75% for an average of 8.5 / 10.85 / 11.6 DPR
Or a about +35% DPR.

However, a lesser foe might have an AC of 24, and suddenly the extra attacks produce lots more damage., the damage is reduced by 35% / 45% / 55% for 10 / 17 / 20.9 DPR.
Or about +100% DPR versus a lower level foe.

[Ashiel]

How are you planning to deal with poison?

It will likely work like it does in Pathfinder (where you take initial effect and then a lingering effect over time).
As far as poison costs and effects, those are going to get overhauled pretty hard. Basically, I think that most of the prices for poisons are completely nonsensical, and the DCs don't scale, etc. More likely, you'll be able to make poisons with specific effects using the Craft (Alchemy), and those effects, how difficult they are to resist, and the prices will be standardized (to help with making your own poisons).

Also, poison immunity will be less common. I want players to be able to use poisons.

[Zilrax]

Works.

I figured out a bit ago how to sorta make poisons work reasonably well in Pathfinder. But you need to be the Alchemist. Personally I use http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base...ist-archetype/ and Vivisectionist to get free poisons and sneak attack. Then with sneak attack I can use Pernicious Stab to sacrifice dice for increased toxin dcs. Daggermark Lore and Poison focus to improve the dcs of a spell. Master alchemist to make mundane crafting not suck in time to make and possibly improved toxilogical timing and subtle poisoner to help mess with frequencies and hide from detect poison.

Then for discoveries you want Celestial Poisons the moment you can get it so you can poison undead and evil outsiders. Then you want Sticky, Malignant, Concentrated and Poison conversion.

Then for gear, you want this silly thing. http://archivesofnethys.com/MagicWea...istrian%20Kiss It's an untyped bonus from different sources so I think the magic item stacks with the spell Pernicious Poison, but not sure. Even if it's not, doesn't matter much.
Make it a spinal sword instead of an elven curveblade and you get another +2 to poison dcs. You'd want this thing too if you can get it. http://archivesofnethys.com/MagicWon...Name=Meduseion

So you pick a poison of ones preference to Daggermark Lore, then get two of those. Let's say something cheap and inexpensive but effective like Drow Sleep Poison. Dc starts at 13, 14 for Poison Focus. You go in knowing you'll use it soon so you concentrate it early, lasts an hour and stuffs cheap to make. That's dc 16 now. You use Malignant pretty much consistently since it only takes a full round, lasts a few minutes and has no penalty for time running out, so dc 20.

Now you're an Alchemist so you can use Haste and Invisibility and all that. You also apply you toxicant toxin to the weapon in case. So you pick a target and try to hit em as often as you can, using Sticky Poison to let you get multiple hits with one poison. The initial hit applies the weapons ability, giving a -4 against Poisons. So the dc effectively is 24. since invis it's almost certainly a sneak attack, letting you boost the dc by 2 to 26. And spinal blade gets you to 28. And the Meduseion makes the dc 30.

If you fail you go unconcious for 1 minute, and if you fail the second saves and for some reason are not basically dead already, you need to make two consecutive saves to get it away from you, and it keeps firing off for a full 9 minutes off one dose (rounds if using toxicological Timing)

Of course, one could use Oil of Taggit and use Poison conversion to make it contact/Injury and get +2 to the dc. One could also look to the later game when purple worm poison's craft cost of about 233 gold doesn't matter too much and have a dc 40 poison.

The dcs will slowly scale up with sneak attack a bit, and it takes several levels to make effective, but Toxicant serves as a stand in for when your opponents not worth burning gold on for awhile, as it's own toxins are pretty nasty. Daze toxin scary.

[Ashiel]

I definitely need to figure out a nice compromise on mechanics vs practicality with poisons. I think most poisons in PF are too expensive for their effects (being hundreds to thousands of gold pieces), and it becomes wholly stupid when you realize that quite a few of the poisons are literally just weeds or stuff you can pull out of any garden (like people used to murder people by poisoning them with tomato stems) or otherwise supply all the ingredients for the poison with a Survival or similar check.

Because of this, I've been strongly considering making a sort of base line poison that is effectively free and reserve the costly stuff for really exotic stuff. This would make it far more practical to run characters (both PCs and NPCs) that make use of poisons, allowing characters to collect the materials and mix them with a little time.

I'll need to incorporate it into my crafting revisions. Crafting is going to be more useful, will work more like magic item creation, and I've strongly been considering allowing players to use skills to collect the material components for things (such as using Profession [Herbalist] to provide material components for Craft [Alchemy]). This idea first sprang up in a short campaign I ran for my friends Rai, Aratrok, and Artorious, which was intended to be pseudo-"low magic". In that campaign, magic items weren't something that were casually traded in beyond simple scrolls and potions, but lots of skills could be used to gather the material components for magic items to create, so it was assumed you would create magic items out of things you found (so you might make a cloak of displacement out of specially treated vines, or the fur of a dire wolf, etc).

In any case, I've more or less been floating on D20 Legends with all the stuff that's been going on in my life lately. This crazy health thing that hit me and a whirlwind of stuff going on IRL with my family and things. However, I'm feeling pretty clear right now and the engines are warming up.

[Zilrax]

Aye. That parts always been a bit silly. My only explanation for the prices would be thats how much it;d cost to get them on the black market. But that shouldn't decide crafting prices then... And it;s not like you can craft wyvern poison... You;d milk it.

Well either way. Long as I can find a way to make my poison dealing elf who makes anthromorphic animal friends to serve as bodyguards and workers in the poison syndicate. Hurray Vivisectionest/Toxicant crosses.

For extra fun, hide lab in base behind a stone snake head that makes a waterfall fountain of contact poison. Alchemsits being immune to poison after awhile, can just hide in it. Have emergency poison fountain reservoir dump in room lever for hostile enemies.

No I haven't spent lots of time thinking about this.

[Ashiel]

Aye. That parts always been a bit silly. My only explanation for the prices would be thats how much it;d cost to get them on the black market. But that shouldn't decide crafting prices then... And it;s not like you can craft wyvern poison... You;d milk it.

Well either way. Long as I can find a way to make my poison dealing elf who makes anthromorphic animal friends to serve as bodyguards and workers in the poison syndicate. Hurray Vivisectionest/Toxicant crosses.

For extra fun, hide lab in base behind a stone snake head that makes a waterfall fountain of contact poison. Alchemsits being immune to poison after awhile, can just hide in it. Have emergency poison fountain reservoir dump in room lever for hostile enemies.

No I haven't spent lots of time thinking about this.

Honestly speaking, probably the worst thing I do with poison on the regular is I tend to play a lot of Shaper psions who get ectoplasmic creation (not to be confused with ectoplasmic trinket) as a talent, with the caveat that it cannot be augmented and only lasts 1 hour (rather than 1 hour / level). Well since I usually take sense poison and need Craft [Alchemy] to identify poisons, I occasionally just create large quantities of bio-toxins with the appropriate Craft check. It generally doesn't matter if the poison is going to vanish in 1 hour.

Basically if it comes from a plant or animal, it's fair game. Since the vast majority of poisons do (including the infamous black lotus extract), it's basically being able to create a poison on demand. Given the quantities of the poison that you can create with the power, you can do some pretty silly things. Especially when you combine it with far hand to apply poisons to things without touching them.

On a different note...
So I'm working on movement and exploration (which is going in the combat chapter since things like movement forms and different light levels affect combat heavily) and I wanted to discuss a few revisions.

1. Low-light and Darkvision: It might get a name change but the gist of it is that as written in 3.x/PF, low-light vision is weird. It works by doubling the light radius of light sources for that character only. So for a human, a torch sheds 20 ft. normal, then 20 ft. dim, and everything beyond is dark. An elf would see 40 ft. normal, 40 ft. dim, then darkness. But it interacts in some weird ways with odd light sources (such as candles, bullseye lanterns, and sunrods) due to either providing massive increases in effective light radius, or having weird edge cases (elves in PF can't actually see in a room lit by candles any better than a human, they just see further sort of). It has also been heavily contested as to whether or not elves can see in moonlight and such.

IMHO, this is overly complicated and trying to keep track of different versions of each light source gets silly (even when using tools like MapTools which can track light sources for you) and it creates too many edge cases. So I'm changing it so that low-light vision simply allows you to treat dim light as normal light and darkness as dim light. Which means that elves can get around in the dark but prefer to have some light sources and are still subject to being ambushed in the dark.

Darkvision would be modified similarly. Basically you'd suffer no penalties when dealing with darkness, and would treat "utter darkness" as dim light. Utter darkness would be the "darker than dark" kind of darkness you get when using magic to screw with light levels. Creatures like elves would be as blind as humans in utter darkness, but things like orcs would merely be uncomfortable.

2. Movement Forms: I've added some hard mechanics for burrow speeds (go find how burrow works in the PF rules, I'll wait), which determines what you can burrow through, as well as explaining that when burrowing you have total cover from the surface and vice versa, and included some rules for using Perception to try to notice things above you (or they notice you below them). Basically, you can detect a surface creature (or they the burrowing creature) with a Perception check against the creature's Stealth result, and the DC increases by +5 for every 5 ft. that the creature is below the surface.

So an ankheg with a -2 Stealth modifier burrowing under within 5 ft. of the surface would be DC 8 to detect by people above ground (the ankheg is big and rumbling in its burrowing). Similarly, the Ankheg might easily be able to notice the party's warrior in full plate, but might not notice the elven ranger stalking along the ground with light feet. This is assuming no special abilities like Tremorsense (which might still exist), but a lot of burrowing creatures will probably use this mechanic. Incidentally, this means less auto-detection of Stealth creatures (a creature listening for vibrations would have a harder time noticing a stalking cat than a striding giant).

Flying is being simplified (hopefully). I'm strait up getting rid of flight maneuverability. Instead, all creatures must move in strait lines, must move more than half their fly speed (unless they land on something), and cannot ascend at a greater than 45 degree angle without making an Acrobatics check (there is no Fly skill check anymore). Creatures apply their size modifiers to Acrobatics checks (further, larger creatures have worse Dexterity modifiers than smaller creatures further driving a divide), so a big dragon sucks at flying compared to a pixie.

A DC 10 check allows you to make a turn up to 90 degrees during your flight. Each subsequent turn during the round increases the DC by 5.

A DC 20 Acrobatics check allows you to hover. Hovering allows you to move half your fly speed or less, or to ascend or descend at a greater than 45 degree angle at half your speed.

When suffering damage or forced movement (such as being pushed or pulled by something) the creature must test to hover or begin falling. Similarly, they must test to hover each round they cannot move more than half their fly speed (such as when entangled or grappled). They cannot take 10 in this case.

Each round you're falling you can attempt to recover from the fall by performing a hover maneuver, but you cannot take 10 on your Acrobatics check when falling.

If you descend at a greater than 45 degree angle without hovering, you double your effective fly speed for the round (including the minimum distance you can fly without losing control). If you perform a charge under these conditions, the first successful attack you make threatens a critical hit (but must be confirmed normally). Incidentally this is also how lance charging will work (critical hits deal maximum damage instead of multiplied damage btw).

Haven't started on swim speed stuff. But the general idea is reducing the complexity of total modifiers applying to things and stuff you have to keep looking up while keeping things pretty smooth.

[Lemmy]

Eh... I think treating dim-light as normal light is mostly okay (although it should have some sort of range limit), but low-light vision really shouldn't treat darkness as dim-light. That makes waaaaaay too close to darkvision. And darkvision should be left to underground dwellers, strictly noctural creatures, natives from the shadow plane, outsiders and other creatures that evolved (or were designed) to deal with absolute darkness. Elves don't fit that

Low-light vision is for things like cats, which can see pretty well in the night, but aren't capable of seeing through absolute darkness. That's where elves are.

In any case... I'm usually against giving even more special senses and perception bonuses to playable races. It's cliche'd and boring. Every race under the sun gets one (except humans)... It gets old.

[Ashiel]

Eh... I think treating dim-light as normal light is mostly okay (although it should have some sort of range limit), but low-light vision really shouldn't treat darkness as dim-light. That makes waaaaaay too close to darkvision. And darkvision should be left to underground dwellers, strictly noctural creatures, natives from the shadow plane, outsiders and other creatures that evolved (or were designed) to deal with absolute darkness. Elves don't fit that

Low-light vision is for things like cats, which can see pretty well in the night, but aren't capable of seeing through absolute darkness. That's where elves are.

In any case... I'm usually against giving even more special senses and perception bonuses to playable races. It's cliche'd and boring. Every race under the sun gets one (except humans)... It gets old.

Well do note that drow elves are commonly cited as just being normal elves that for whatever reason migrated underground. In the Forgotten Realms novels I've read (admittedly few, mostly just Homeland), drow elves can function in the dark but are prone to ambushes when wandering the underdark and do in fact use light sources when not trying to be sneaky (both in the form of fire and also glowing fungus and stuff). Since things having concealment mean you can use Stealth, it means you could move around without too much trouble (not totally blind) but stuff can essentially be invisible to you unless you happen to notice a bit of movement in the dark.

I might add range limitations to them (though in most cases it doesn't matter a whole lot in environments where it's really dark), but it seemed to fit and it makes it much simpler in terms of how to adjudicate things. It also makes darkvision kind of a greater low light vision, which seems easier for most to understand (as opposed to having completely different mechanics).

Incidentally, this does play into the way races are going to be set up. I haven't fully decided what the general format for races will be (been more interested in working on the core material like the combat and magic rules) as far as what's normal for them to get. I'm not even sold on the idea that races will get ability score adjustments. Rather, I've strongly considered just making races give specific bonuses to specific things, and special features and/or abilities. Few static modifiers.

For example, instead of getting a +2 bonus to Perception, an elf might receive a feat that lets them passively search for hidden things as a bonus feat.

[Lemmy]

But drow are most often portrayed as a different race. They are simply descendants of migrating elves. They evolved (or were turned) into something different, despite having common ancestors. Low-light vision is low-light vision. i.e.: the ability to see well when light is scarce, but not completely gone.

It's your game, of course, so the decision is your... But turning low-light vision into darkvision-b seems like a waste. If that's the way to go, it's simpler to just follow 5e's lead and give elves darkvision.

[Ashiel]

But drow are most often portrayed as a different race. They are simply descendants of migrating elves. They evolved (or were turned) into something different, despite having common ancestors. Low-light vision is low-light vision. i.e.: the ability to see well when light is scarce, but not completely gone.

It's your game, of course, so the decision is your... But turning low-light vision into darkvision-b seems like a waste. If that's the way to go, it's simpler to just follow 5e's lead and give elves darkvision.

That's a fair point. I suppose I could put a range limit on it, which would essentially make it work in much the same way as it's supposed to in 3.x/PF, just without the weird light doubling thing.

I just generally don't view concealment effects as seeing very effectively. It's also worth noting that low-light by D&D standards isn't really all that low. For example, a candle provides dim light in a radius. You can read and write by the candlelight. Meanwhile, humans have to use things like night-vision goggles or cameras when recording animals out hunting in the wild in the dark.

So the way I figured it, elves can see just fine in dim light (candles and such), and enough to be moderately functional in darkness (like in a forest at night with no lights around), but useless in "utter dark" situations. Because as is, most animals in PF (who also have low-light vision) can't actually function in environments where they function in reality (where humans basically can't see).

I thought the side effect of having a mechanical explanation for why drow are fond of lights (aside from maybe an appreciation of colors) was amusing though. :)

[Klara Meison]

I like the idea. I don't remember when low-light vision ever actually came up in play, to be honest, whereas this way it might be relevant.

[Ashiel]

I like the idea. I don't remember when low-light vision ever actually came up in play, to be honest, whereas this way it might be relevant.

Well that's 1:1. I'd be interested on getting more feedback, thoughts, and/or solutions if people feel like weighing in.

[Tels]

Well do note that drow elves are commonly cited as just being normal elves that for whatever reason migrated underground. In the Forgotten Realms novels I've read (admittedly few, mostly just Homeland), drow elves can function in the dark but are prone to ambushes when wandering the underdark and do in fact use light sources when not trying to be sneaky (both in the form of fire and also glowing fungus and stuff). Since things having concealment mean you can use Stealth, it means you could move around without too much trouble (not totally blind) but stuff can essentially be invisible to you unless you happen to notice a bit of movement in the dark.

Huh, I don't recall this, though I do recall specific situations in which they did use light. For example, when Drizzt was born, they had to get out a super rare object (a normal candle) to check his eyes because Drizzt had really rare eyes (they were purple when viewed with the 2E equivalent of Darkvision and purple when viewed under a light source). Drow also brought torches along at one point when Drizzt was on patrol because they were hunting trolls and needed the fire to kill them permanently. Another situation that came up a lot was that Drow would use light sources to blind attackers, including other Drow, because it took a moment to swap back and forth between darkvision and normal vision (as Salvatore was essentially likening it to modern nightvision technology). Using faerie fire on a target would force them into normal vision, or they would be blind, but they would also be unable to see past the light generated by the spell; kind of like someone is shining a flashlight in your face. It would also paint a target on the creature for archers or spellcasters to easily identify them. Drow would counter this, however, by dropping globes of darkness on themselves because it snuffed out he light, but they could still see using their darkvision.

I also recall examples from other books, such as Daughter of the Drow in which mages had the best normal vision because one could not read tomes or scrolls without an actual light source. If I recall, back in 2E, "darkvision" was actually infrared, essentially heat vision; fun fact, there were examples of creatures that were cold-blooded being very difficult to fight in the dark because they would blend in with the surrounding when viewed in the infrared, another reason why the Drow would paint targets with faerie fire. Extremely expensive ink could be used to create tomes and scrolls legible with heat vision, but for the most part, Drow wizards needed candles and the like to read by.

[Tels]

Well that's 1:1. I'd be interested on getting more feedback, thoughts, and/or solutions if people feel like weighing in.

I think I personally lean more towards low-light and darkvision being distinctly different. Otherwise, "darkness" is kind of a misnomer if creatures with low-light vision are capable of seeing for it as that implies light is actually present.

Truthfully, I've never had that much issue with PF's low-light because we always played with it as doubling the range of light sources or doubling how far you can see within a given light-level if no light source is present, star light, moon light, and so on. It always worked for us and was super easy to implement, even if both of the above had cross over, such as when sitting near a campfire, but it was a full moon out.

However, if you were to keep it as low-light increases light levels by 1 step, but darkvision lets you see through magical darkness, then you should probably make darkvision a lot more rare than it currently is. If both forms of vision are about as common as they are in Pathfinder, it kind of ruins the whole point as they would be functionally identical except for where magic is involved. Kind of like how so many people equate being denied your dexterity bonus to AC and being flat-footed as the same thing. They are functionally identical except being flat-footed denies attacks of opportunities and some highly specific abilities can only trigger against flat-footed targets. Otherwise, the terms are practically interchangeable.

For D20 Legends, I imagine you would not want that. If the two abilities were distinct from each other, there would be less confusion. For example, if darkvision allowed you to ignore the effects of magical darkness, letting you use the prevailing light conditions, it'd be different from low-light vision. A human with darkvision would be able to see with a torch, as the magical darkness would not affect him, but would not be able to see in normal darkness, because darkvision doesn't increase the effective light level.

[Ashiel]

Huh, I don't recall this, though I do recall specific situations in which they did use light. For example, when Drizzt was born, they had to get out a super rare object (a normal candle) to check his eyes because Drizzt had really rare eyes (they were purple when viewed with the 2E equivalent of Darkvision and purple when viewed under a light source).

I was referring to material in 3.x that noted that drow frequently cultivated a glowing fungus that was used both as food and light sources. Likewise, all the art I've ever seen concerning drow settlements is generally illuminated, often appearing like a huge collection of candles in a cavern city, like these.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/hnRg3.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...5b453d4443.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3VpEvo1UOL4/maxresdefault.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...oberranzan.jpg

It's also worth noting that in D&D, dim light is like this: http://www.awtreyhouse.com/images/gu...ng-gallery.jpg. Since candles provide only dim light, humans treat everything in this room as having concealment.

I feel like there's a bit of a misnomer concerning a lot of stuff with low-light vision, from its name itself (something I mentioned possibly changing to night-vision or something), to the way it functions (its mechanics are kinda whack), to the way it interacts with darkvision (darkvision has a hard cap, regardless of the lighting conditions around you, so if you can see 60 ft. into darkness, but there's 40 ft. of dim light between you and the last 20 ft. of your darkvision, you still only see 20 ft. through the darkness, which means there's no benefit at all if you're using a light source that's greater than 40 ft. - which is most of them actually).

[Tels]

I was referring to material in 3.x that noted that drow frequently cultivated a glowing fungus that was used both as food and light sources. Likewise, all the art I've ever seen concerning drow settlements is generally illuminated, often appearing like a huge collection of candles in a cavern city, like these.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/hnRg3.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...5b453d4443.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3VpEvo1UOL4/maxresdefault.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...oberranzan.jpg

It's also worth noting that in D&D, dim light is like this: http://www.awtreyhouse.com/images/gu...ng-gallery.jpg. Since candles provide only dim light, humans treat everything in this room as having concealment.

I feel like there's a bit of a misnomer concerning a lot of stuff with low-light vision, from its name itself (something I mentioned possibly changing to night-vision or something), to the way it functions (its mechanics are kinda whack), to the way it interacts with darkvision (darkvision has a hard cap, regardless of the lighting conditions around you, so if you can see 60 ft. into darkness, but there's 40 ft. of dim light between you and the last 20 ft. of your darkvision, you still only see 20 ft. through the darkness, which means there's no benefit at all if you're using a light source that's greater than 40 ft. - which is most of them actually).

To be fair... the artwork for the Drow wouldn't be very fun to look at if it was just completely black. Artistic liberties are taken all the time with artwork.

However, the glowing fungus thing can make a certain sort of sense in that the Drow are avid slavers and many of their slaves cannot see in the dark. It might be that there is enough light for the slaves to see by, but the Drow themselves rely on their darkvision as they have no need for light.

If you want to change how they work, it is your choice to do so. I just prefer there to be a distinction between the two. Especially if both had pros and cons to them so one isn't a clear-cut better choice.

[Klara Meison]

I was referring to material in 3.x that noted that drow frequently cultivated a glowing fungus that was used both as food and light sources. Likewise, all the art I've ever seen concerning drow settlements is generally illuminated, often appearing like a huge collection of candles in a cavern city, like these.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/hnRg3.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...5b453d4443.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3VpEvo1UOL4/maxresdefault.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...oberranzan.jpg

It's also worth noting that in D&D, dim light is like this: http://www.awtreyhouse.com/images/gu...ng-gallery.jpg. Since candles provide only dim light, humans treat everything in this room as having concealment.

I feel like there's a bit of a misnomer concerning a lot of stuff with low-light vision, from its name itself (something I mentioned possibly changing to night-vision or something), to the way it functions (its mechanics are kinda whack), to the way it interacts with darkvision (darkvision has a hard cap, regardless of the lighting conditions around you, so if you can see 60 ft. into darkness, but there's 40 ft. of dim light between you and the last 20 ft. of your darkvision, you still only see 20 ft. through the darkness, which means there's no benefit at all if you're using a light source that's greater than 40 ft. - which is most of them actually).

Those seem like electric candles. As in "way brighter than actual candles" candles. That's no dim light-hell, torches aren't as bright as those things.

[Zilrax]

It looks like Starfinder has taken a lot of cues from your work, Ashiel. You might want to check some of the blogs but there's a fair bit of similarities in mechanics there. Not entirely but it's certainly looking interesting.

[Tels]

It looks like Starfinder has taken a lot of cues from your work, Ashiel. You might want to check some of the blogs but there's a fair bit of similarities in mechanics there. Not entirely but it's certainly looking interesting.

Do you have some recommendations of which blogs to check out?

[Zilrax]

The most recent one on Fridays a good mention. Some of the ones on classes work. Here, this should help. http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/starfinder

[Tels]

So it recently occurred to me, that because the rules for 3E/Pathfinder state teleportation effects maintain momentum (so you aren't safe teleporting away when you fall) this, technically, makes teleportation suicidal if you change latitude. Different parts of planet spin at different rates so since you maintain momentum, it one were to teleport from the equator to a southern latitude, you will be moving Eastward faster then your location is. On the flip side, if you were to teleport from a southern area to the equator, the planet is spinning faster than you are. Either way, you go splat.

Will teleportation spells in D20 Legends retain momentum or will they match the relative velocity of the target location?

[Zilrax]

If you maintain momentum, the question becomes, can you change orientation? If you can, this. http://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1689

[Tels]

Yeah, that thought occurred to me when I was driving to Anchorage to pick up family flying in. I was listening to the Jumper audio books and it brought up the fact when they teleport, they match relative velocity or else they go splat. Since Teleport spells "maintain momentum" when falling, this would mean changing latitude would also maintain your momentum, and therefore, you go splat. Can't have it both ways without using Handwavium.

[Tels]

Ugh, the more I see about PF2E the more I wish it was D20 Legends instead. It's like they identified many of the same problems Ash did, but then decided to solve it in a less fun away while trying to totally not copy 5E, but actually copying 5E, as possible. In many ways, PF2E is sounding more like a 5.5E than a PF2E.

[Zilrax]

I'm withholding judgment for the time being. I can see the logic in some of the decisions, but am waiting for the full look at the system in function. I have DEFINETLY felt the irritation at not being able to stealth things because no one else has it, or worse, I have to go and solve everything by myself cus I do have it. Or how the person with no diplomacy always speaking up before the person with diplomacy and whoops guess that's shot now.

So in the absence of better options I will watch and see how this plays out.