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2012-07-10, 09:28 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Singapore
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
The problem is, he has a CR listed.
CRs aren't random meaningless numbers. You can't just say "well, I want this dungeon to be extra-tough, so I'm going to make this monster tougher than it's CR indicates." That's pointless. If you want your dungeon to be extra tough, you put in a monster with a higher CR than you normally would; but the sole point of a CR is to accurately tell you how dangerous a monster is.
Having a monster that's more dangerous than its CR indicates is just a mistake.
Also, there were some other bizarre things about its first write-up. One thing I recall -- which Thunt did fix -- was the insanely high save on its dissolving touch; the problem was that it was impossible for anyone of a level that its CR said was appropriate to ever make the save, even with everything poured into your save. That's just a weird way to do it. If you want it to be impossible to resist, just say so! It's awkward to have a roll where any result from 1-20 is always going to be a failure.
I mean, it's not a big deal; who cares at this point. Balancing monsters is hard. But anyway, ideally, that's why CR should be accurate, because that's what makes the game easy to run and play for DMs, so they don't have to waste huge amounts of time on each monster determining how dangerous it is.Last edited by Aquillion; 2012-07-10 at 09:30 PM.
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2012-07-10, 09:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
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Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Being fair, some canon monsters also had issue with CR, specially dragons from what I recall, although even then it wasn't as bad as the finger horror. I think the main issue with his monster though is that he claimed it be fully rules legal. If he had admitted it was not all that good mechanics wise I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have created this whole outcry.
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2012-07-11, 01:49 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
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Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
This guy's more or less correct. I mean besides, messing with CR is just cheating your players anyway. I mean if I took a first level orcish warrior and maxed out his HP at 8, then gave him an orc double axe instead of a falchion, then swapped his starting feat from Alertness to Toughness, then he's still technically a CR 1/2 first level NPC class monster.
It's just now he's got double HP, averages double damage, and has a chance to take out even a first level fighter or paladin in one non-crit attack. And for their troubles the party gets the same amount of XP and loot as they would have anyways. It's rules legal but it sucks for players if you're making them fight enemies with double the attack power and rewarding them with the old amounts.
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2012-07-11, 02:01 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
- Location
- Lustria
- Gender
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
I am Tul. I do not run.
Spoilerbad choice, Tul...Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. (W.Whitman)
Things that increase my self esteem:
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2012-07-11, 02:37 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2012
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Wow. What a train wreck of a thread.
I find it sort of confusing that the narrativist argument combines both "we only care about telling a story" and "who cares if a DC 29 fort save is impossible to make for a level 3 party." How can you have a good narrative when the DM rolls dice and 1d4 of you die?
edit
This isn't to raise a dead horse or anything, just musing on contradictions in narrativist attitudes....Last edited by Spuddles; 2012-07-11 at 02:50 AM.
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2012-07-11, 03:51 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Tul was a great character. Maybe a little underused
What I am wondering, though:
Every time we see the Viper Clan, they suffer heavy losses. Their true strength must be special feats like "advanced fertility" and "quickened adulthood" ... seriously, they are the strongest of all goblins, right? But apparently also the bravest/dumbest. If you are at the bottom of the food chain, you'd better run more often. Instead they pick unnecessary fights at any given opportunity. They burn through their soldiers faster than CTU through their agents in 24 hours.Last edited by Puschkin; 2012-07-11 at 03:51 AM.
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2012-07-11, 01:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
- Location
- The Greyverse
- Gender
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2012-07-11, 03:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2007
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
They seem to have lost as many warriors to those hobgoblins as the Cryptic Fall lost to Minmax, Forgath, and the drow. And even after that, AND Biscuit's rampage, you can still see there are hundreds of them around to watch Duv's little ceremony. And if they do things at all like the Cryptic Fall does, they have another village somewhere full of noncombatants besides.
They're evidently holding on to enough land to feed and house all these goblins. That IS a sign of a powerful clan, even if their individual warriors are still pretty unimpressive by D&D standards.
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2012-07-11, 10:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2005
- Location
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
The thing is its not supposed to be fought straight up. You're supposed to find some way to deal with it that doesnt involve face-to-face melee, which is sometimes tactics, more often brains or something enabled by brains. Narratives often feature critters like that. Smaug forinstance, as an obvious example. CR 7,894 dragon vs a CR 15 town, a lvl 20 ranger and a lvl 6 rogue. Or an unarmed Luke vs the rancor. X-wings vs the death star. Arnie vs the predator. And so on. And yet, narrative! The point being that the DM only rolls that d4 for deaths if you dont try to outsmart the situation.
\'Twas brillig, and the slithey toves....
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2012-07-11, 10:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
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2012-07-11, 10:58 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2006
- Location
- Almonte, ON, Canada
- Gender
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
The problem is, you don't know it has these horrible dangerous overpowered killing attacks until it hits you. You have no way of knowing it's a gigantic glass cannon before the fight starts. Unless the DM lets you know through old journals or other kinds of warnings. It could be neat, but only if the party is aware that their objective is to kill it without ever being touched. Otherwise the party's introduction to the fight concept is "one of you has died".
Last edited by The Linker; 2012-07-11 at 11:01 PM.
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2012-07-12, 04:15 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
- Location
- Lustria
- Gender
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Curiously, my very first impression was the opposite: the switchbeast killed Tul mid air and the shredded corpse landed near biscuit, that was going to throw the axe at the other fleeing goblin.
It seems strange to me that biscuit would risk to remind the switchbeast that he's still around, by killingTulthe beast's current target.
But, judging from the 6th panel, it really appears that was Biscuit the one who killed Tul.Last edited by Killer Angel; 2012-07-12 at 04:34 AM.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. (W.Whitman)
Things that increase my self esteem:
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2012-07-12, 04:47 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2004
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Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Tul dodged the beast's attack.
I'm going to bet he was right. He would have successfully killed the beast. If he hadn't been stopped by an angry orc.Hark! An avatar drawn by Kate Beaton!
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2012-07-12, 05:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2005
- Location
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
You mean nobody in your party took dungeoneering (or whatever lore skill tells you about monsters), not even the skill-monkey scout? Players like power and knowledge IS power. Someone should point that out to them...
Plus a decent DM may, as you say, drop hints that caution is advised. Remains, scrawled bloody messages, Redshirt etc.\'Twas brillig, and the slithey toves....
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2012-07-12, 05:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
- Location
- DE
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Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Last edited by hajo; 2012-07-12 at 08:24 AM.
-HaJo
FLW: Oh, no. We're being rescued. How embarrassing!
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2012-07-12, 06:35 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
- Location
- Lustria
- Gender
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Last edited by Killer Angel; 2012-07-12 at 06:36 AM.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. (W.Whitman)
Things that increase my self esteem:
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2012-07-12, 01:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2004
- Location
- Enterprise, Alabama
- Gender
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Yeah, you mentioned how to fix it nicely but you got them angry (your earlier lazy comment was issue even if you apologized).
This was their reason for being jerks:
"Douglas' post harshed our vibe. We got pissed off at him, and instead of just dropping it he kept insisting he was right instead of taking the rules-lawyering elsewhere. THAT's why we ganged up on him. We weren't just defending THunt; we were defending our right to go unmolested, because we didn't have a problem with the stats. I never asked him to LEAVE; only to take this thing elsewhere. If he had shown the same kind of understanding of why we got mad and apologized, we would have welcomed him back to the forum with open arms just as we did with Rez. In fact, if he did it right now we would... or if he simply brought something ELSE to talk about. We rarely hold grudges here, except for genuine trolls."
I don't get his "harshed their vibe" or what "take this thing elsewhere, but I don't mean leave" means though.
Their vibe must be non-rules as they were angered over rule mechanics being followed.Last edited by Starbuck_II; 2012-07-12 at 02:24 PM.
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2012-07-12, 02:16 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2008
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- Carlisle, Englund
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Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Last edited by Androgeus; 2012-07-12 at 02:16 PM.
"Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." - Bill Bailey
Androgeus' 3 step guide to Doctor Who speculation:
Spoiler- Pick a random character
- State that person is The Rani
- goto 1
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2012-07-13, 06:40 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2006
- Location
- Charlottesville
- Gender
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2012-07-13, 10:27 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2008
- Location
- Carlisle, Englund
- Gender
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
"Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." - Bill Bailey
Androgeus' 3 step guide to Doctor Who speculation:
Spoiler- Pick a random character
- State that person is The Rani
- goto 1
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2012-07-13, 10:27 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
- Location
- Lustria
- Gender
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Last edited by Killer Angel; 2012-07-13 at 10:28 AM.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. (W.Whitman)
Things that increase my self esteem:
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2012-07-13, 03:36 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2011
- Gender
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Last edited by Aldreck; 2012-07-13 at 03:40 PM.
"I've just had my poetic license revoked. I was banned for taking a cesura too fast and stopping at an enjambment whilst under the influence of Auden." - Stephen Fry
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2012-07-13, 03:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
SpoilerDies truly developed during the dungeon crawl and Biscuit is still all out of bubblegum. The delayed falling of decapitated body was a nice touch.In a war it doesn't matter who's right, only who's left.
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2012-07-13, 04:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Location
- Lost in the Hinterlands
- Gender
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
SpoilerOh, Grem is not going to like that.A father taken by time, a brother dead by my own hand.
With this work behold my grief, in Stone and shifting sand.
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2012-07-13, 05:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Northern Ireland
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Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
SpoilerHowever this turns out, although I'm 85% certain they won't actually die, I have serious respect for DH.
I guess it's easier to die for your principles when you've died already."They couldn't know that the points from the mainline to the siding were frozen, and the signal should have been set at 'DANGER', but snow had forced it down."
- The Flying Kipper
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2012-07-13, 05:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
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2012-07-13, 05:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2006
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Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
/fanboy squeeling
SpoilerDies, my good goblin, you just had a grow up moment. Methinks you may have just deserved becoming chief.- Sometimes, the knights are the monsters
- The main problem with the world? So many grownups, not enough adults.
- Talk less; say more.
- George R.R. Martin, Kirkman, and Joss Whedon walked into a bar. There were no survivors.
- Current Project: Fallout 4 "nerd" build (3/7/2/2/9/3/2, PER 9 after boosts)
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2012-07-13, 05:48 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Northern Ireland
- Gender
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
"They couldn't know that the points from the mainline to the siding were frozen, and the signal should have been set at 'DANGER', but snow had forced it down."
- The Flying Kipper
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2012-07-13, 06:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2005
- Location
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Actually I would consider that a failing of how the knowledge skills are run by most dms and indeed even by the source books. Most of them are AMAZINGLY cheap in their payoffs for those skills, to the point that theyre almost useless, either providing meaningless trivia or stuff that everyone knows anyway. DC 20 knowledge check- Trolls regenerate? Ooh, thank you so very much! :P Its partly a human nature problem- Many DMs enjoy the anticipation of whatever surprises their critters have in store for the players and resent/resist the idea of losing that to a knowledge roll. But human nature or cheap rules notwithstanding, that *really* should be fixed, and I'd strongly urge every DM to be more generous with the results of knowledge checks in general.
However, by the RAW Mr Fingers abilities/weaknesses knowledge check has a DC of 13 or 14 (10 + HD), so... And homebrew he may be but the knowledge check is specific to that world and thus covers world-specific homebrew along with everything else. Unique isnt really an issue either- its the unique stuff people tend to remember and talk about more, after all. For example I bet most people know more about unicorns than they do about hippos and unicorns dont even exist, thats how rare they are.Last edited by VariaVespasa; 2012-07-13 at 06:18 PM.
\'Twas brillig, and the slithey toves....
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2012-07-13, 06:48 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2010
- Location
- Gobbotopia
- Gender
Re: Goblins IX: For that, you shall DIE!
Completely unrelated to the strip, but last night i was watching the livestream, and aparently Thunt is going to take his fiancé's last name rather then her take his.
"Hunt" means nothing to him evidentlyAvy by Thormag
Spoiler