The Taladas Debate Page
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I've been thinking about it, and to be honest, if we do make switch from one edition of the game to another, I'd rather move into the 3e or 3.5e rather than wait around for the 4e rules. Its going to be a pretty big switch as it is, and I think that continuity error will only get worse if we go straight from the 2e to 4e.
Besides, I've not got any plans to rush out and buy the 4e rules when they are published.
Andy 12:18, 12 October 2007 (BST)
Thanks
Andy 13:51, 31 August 2007 (BST)
Well to be fair, time from first to second edition, about ten to twelve years. From second to third, was about nine to eleven years. By the time it comes out (late 2008 was the plan) you'll be looking at an eight or nine year gap. A little shorter, but not by a long way.
As for the forums try this
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=686
--Alex 13:23, 31 August 2007 (BST)
A fourth edition already? Good grief, thats pushing it. I might have a look to see if I can find this forum, but if not, could you give me a link to it? Andy 12:52, 31 August 2007 (BST)
Hmm. Kev put me on to a news item recently, which was that WotC are thinking of putting together a 4th Edition of D&D sometime in the not too distant future. Apart from saying that maybe we should abandon any idea of doing 3rd edition Taladas and let Ed's campaign jump straight from 2nd to 4th edition, I was thinking Andrew might want to put his 'skills for the intellectually challenged' ideas on the forums where WotC are collecting people's thoughts of what should go in a 4th edition rulebook.
You could probably rant about how priests should be improved too.
Your local news anchorman, --Alex 16:45, 29 August 2007 (BST)
More tangential connections between Taladas and my new campaign. The next adventure will see them scrapping against an undead ogre skeleton, but one which will be standing on a plinth bearing the words 'he said no man was his brother'. Is this the final fate of one of Ed's campaign's characters? To be reanimated as a minor cleric's henchthing in an entirely different campaign? I like to think so...
By the way, what does it say about me that I'm putting in-jokes into my adventures that the players have no chance of spotting? Something deeply disturbing I'm sure...
Oh, and the characters now have ACs of 19, 19, 17 and 12. I may never get a hit in again...
--Alex 19:51, 1 June 2007 (BST)
Like I said, I took away his axe which would have made it too ugly for words. And because all but one of them have Dex-scores like professional athletes even the meagre amount of cash I let them loose with allowed some fairly impressive AC scores. They basically got half of their first fee in advance (125) and after getting a slight break from the armourer/weaponsmith for a big order walked out with:-
- Bard (Dex 16) Studded Leather for a total AC of 16
- Cleric (Dex 10) Hide Armour/Wooden Shield for a total AC of 16
- Mage (Dex 14) No armour for a total AC of 12 (although usually Mage Armours up for AC 16)
- Ranger (Dex 16) Studded Leather/Wooden Shield for a total AC of 18
Not bad for first level characters. And both the bard and ranger are angling for chain shirts to go up to 17 and 19 respectively with the cleric probably going to improve to whatever hefty stuff she can get (not having a Dex modifier to be hampered by large sheets of steel).
So even with a +8 or +9 to hit he was by no means able to guarantee hitting every time. I actually ran a few mock versions of this fight to see if it was unwinnable, although most of the time I seemed to come up with only one hero still concious. But it was set up to be the big 'end of level' baddie.
I stand unrepentant.
--Alex 12:10, 13 April 2007 (BST)
You threw a minotaur against a bunch of first level characters? And people say that I'm cruel and heartless.
Actually, the bugbear thing was just a vague idea. To be honest, I've not thought about it much. I was tempted to play a human fighter with a spiked chain, but that doesn't really relate to anything in perticular. I'll think about it.
Andy 19:04, 7 April 2007 (BST)
I don't think we are using the St Cuthbert rules from the book, since that St Cuthbert is a LN deity, while Ed's St Cuthbert is a LG saint that intercedes with Paladine on your behalf. Its just another result of Ed 'borrowing' Greyhawk adventures and twiddling them to fit.
So. A centaur, a kobold, a bugbear, and a mage of unknown race. Why do I get the feeling this adventure will start in the Whistling Fish?
As a tangent, that is kind of related to Taladas, I started my new D&D campaign with the guys down here the other week. It was a bit of a stop and start affair with them running out of the castle every few encounters, since their first level characters were going down after one or two hits. The thing that pounded them most was a minotaur. (Which took down two of the party, one down to -9 hp before the ranger could use his heal skill, and was only stopped by the ranger getting a treble-critical with his axe. And the beast managed all that with its bare hands (and horns). I dread to think what would have happened if I'd let him keep the axe they normally carry...). But the second most deadly encounter for them was... Kobolds!
Four of them.
After that fight they were forced to retreat with one unconcious body and two badly mauled characters. Even on far distant worlds kobolds continue to be the adventurer's nightmare (and one future adventure I have planned involves a whole tribe of them with well-prepared ambush spots...). They pounded the orcs with ease and killed goblins with a single shot, but somehow the little guys continue to be an adventurer's bane. It's nice to know some things are eternal.
--Alex 14:03, 6 April 2007 (BST)
For the minicampaign i think that i would like to play a kobald named Hob. Who is serching for the bones of his reverd ancester Klob in order to ether bring him back from the dead or give him the bereal that he deserves. on an other note st cuthbert is in the pc hand book are we using those rules for him?
--Geoff 23:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
If I recall correctly the 3.5 rulebook gave the druid a spontaneous casting as well (Summon Nature's Ally levels 1 to whatever I think). So I could play a druid and still cover that rule. Or I could go for a centaur bard and cover the monster levels/natural AC bit.
Mmm, centaur. Yes, that definitely sounds like a possibility.
--Alex 13:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I think that seeing as this minicampaign is designed to help Ed get used to the new rules we should play characters that reflect some of the rules used by our main characters. Specifically, I think we need some adventurers who have the following abilities/traits
- Monster levels. Someone should come from a race with multiple HD.
- Natural AC bonus - probably the same characater.
- Spontaneous casting. Which means a cleric.
- Metamagic feats, seeing as it looks like we might have few in the game.
- Barbarian rage.
Thats not to say that we all have to play the same type of character as before. There is nothing to stop Craig from playing a Transmuter with the Extand spell feat and I'll have the huge musclar bound bugbear barbarian.
Andy 14:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
After a little thought I think I'll go for either a druid or a bard. Those are the only two classes (at least in 2nd edition) that I haven't played at least once in Ed's campaign. (3rd edition has added the barbarian, monk and sorcerer, though the latter doesn't really work in Krynn's rather specific magic setting).
Alex
I reckon I might go for an entirely new character whatever campaign concept we go for. After so many warrior-types on Taladas I fancy slinging some spells around, I'm currently leaning towrds either a Druid or a Mage (transmuter specialist), though this may change...
Oh, and put me down as rather liking the idea of keeping it all in the family.
Craig
As a concept it works for me. Might need to define what is and isn't known at each step, but I like the idea.
As Ed mentioned the option of doing a trial run using new (or revamped) characters. Anyone have any thoughts on who they'd like to use? As I mentioned on the day the idea of using Nathan again has some appeal (mainly after I came up with the background for him on the wiki) as does using Firkin (though at some cost to Ed's sanity). Aside from that a druid, ranger or paladin all hold some interest.
Alternately it might be worth having an idea what sort of campaign it would be before coming up with characters. One idea I came across a few years back which sounded interesting, though I never got the chance to use it was the 'extended family' set-up, where all the characters are related, even across species (half-orc is half brother to the human who is cousin of the other human who has a half-elf half-brother whose other half-brother is a full-blooded elf...). It sounds a little strange I know, but to be fair I think a mixed-race place like Waltdorf is one of those places where it might just work.
Alex
I've been thinking a bit about the trouble we've been having with the skill rules in the 3e rules. Anyone with an even slightly below average int score gets hit very badly! A cleric with int 9 gets half as many skill points as one with an int of 10. That seems a bit too extreme. Possibly even more rediculus, a cleric with an int of 3 gets the same number as one with an int of 9.
I've had idea that will smooth things out a little and allow low int characters to be able to do something other than dribble and hit things.
Rather than a minimum of 1 point per level, the minimum is two. However, if an int penalty would take a character below this level they suffer additional restrictions on what they can send their points one. Depending on how low the penalty is, certain skills will be classed as cross class even if they would normally be class skills.
| Skill points - int penalty =... | Additional cross class skills |
| 1 | All knowledge skills, Spellcraft, skry |
| 0 | All int based skills |
| All int based skills and also profession, forgery and innuendo |
I've not got my players hand book with me, so I might have missed a few skills that should perhaps be included.
Under this system Noman would get 2 skill points per level, but would only count jump, climb, ride and swim as class skills! Essentially, we could perform well in any instinctive, animal level skill, but struggles badly with anything else.
Andy
I've stuck my thoughts on the changes page, at least those that relate to what happens if we change. As to if... I'm mostly in favour, if we can do it without much trouble. I think with a bit of jiggling we can out everyone out satisfactorily, and its not like the champaign hasn't had a few meta game shake-ups in the past, what with skills changing several times and Noman waking up with a whole new stat line up!
Andy
OK. Time to stir up a little debate for the new year. When I rang up Ed just before Christmas I let him know he could keep the 3rd Edition rulebook I'd lent him as a Christmas present. He said something along the lines of "So we can switch my campaign to these rules now."
Which got me thinking.
So should we even consider such a switch? What would be the consequences of such a change? I'm sure some people would have their own ideas, but here are some of the changes from switching to third edition.
Lets hear some thoughts.
Alex
That all sounds good to me. Using double effect as a default is simple and saves time. While I'm here, has anyone looked at the questions section of my ram bit? I'm trying a new layout, and I'd like a bit of feed back. There is a section to respond in, if you like.
Andy
Ah, yeah. I meant to put something about how I wasn't entirely sure about that one as it would probably have to be a re-roll on quite a few results (such as blunt weapons) and would be far more effective with arrows and daggers. Feel free to reject it if you are equally unsure about it...
Double dammage (or double effectiveness for things like paralyzation...) would make a good default for when the result doesn't seem appropriate and can't be reworded to make sense, afterall it is a result that works for most attacks. And it would prevent getting stuck in a chain of inappropriate results.
And using Srength bonus in addition to the roll for throwing people/weapons makes sense to me. (And not just because I have the strongest charactor...)
Craig
Hello.
Just a thought, but isn't pinning someone with a weapon tricky if a) the creature only has non-removable natural weapons, or b) happens to be using a non-pointy weapon like a whacking great two-handed mace. Obviously the latter is only a problem if we have someone in the party who has a whacking great two-handed mace...
Ah.
Hmm. How about this for a solution to the 'inappropriate roll' situation. On each thing where we can see a problem we assign a secondary result that applies if the first doesn't. So for example...
- The opponent must make a saving throw or they will be knocked out. If the victim cannot be knocked out (undead, construct, etc.) this is exchanged for a result of 13 on the table.
...and 13 turns out to be something like double damage or whatever.
Alex
As to the throwing people back, how about adding the the characters damage bonus to the D20 roll, so Noman will knock people about twice as far on average.
Andrew
I've only come up with a few ideas for new effects -
- The opponent is momentarily weakened, their damage is halved for 1d4 turns.
- The opponent is pinned, if you chose to leave the weapon pinning them then they must make a strength or dex check to free themselves.
- The opponent must make a saving throw or they will be knocked out. (the effectiveness of taking out an opponent in one turn being off-set by the chance to save against it)
Some thoughts on some of the other ideas - Driving the opponent back should have some element of strength involved, after all Noman should be able to knock someone further then Pez, not just leaving it all to chance. Knocking someone's weapon aside should probably work in a pretty similar way to knocking the opponent.
Craig
Sounds reasonable.
Andy
You could always reword inappropriate effects. The Golem could have cracks spreading across its body, which could result in the same effect as blood loss. The length of the paralyzation could be doubled rather then the damage. But if the effects can't even be reworked to make it appropriate to the situation I'd vote for a re-roll. Crits are pretty rare, so if you got one then had the effect thrown aside you'd be pretty miffed...
I'll try and think of some more effects later.
Craig.
My normally inventive brain has been struggling to come up with much for this, but here is what I've got...
- Opponent blinded for 1d4 rounds.
- Opponent disarmed.
...and not much else I'm afraid, although I'll keep think about it. As a point of interest what happens if you roll up a critical hit result that can't be applied, such as double damage on an attack that paralyses without inflicting damage, or blood loss against a golem? Do he re-roll or is the critical strike wasted?
Andy
Hi.
I've just bulldozed a whole load of the bottom of this page onto the Debate Archive Page, because it was getting too long. While I was there I picked up a couple of the ideas we were musing before about critical hits. These were some of them...
- Opponent loses 1 initiative per point of damaged suffered (lasts for the rest of the battle)
- Opponent loses next attack (lasts one round)
- Attacker gains an attack (immediate effect)
- Opponent loses 4 AC until next round (lasts one round until end of attacker's next action)
- Attacker gains a +5 damage bonus (immediate effect)
- Attacker may inflict maximum damage with this strike (immediate effect)
- Attacker inflicts double damage (immediate and traditional effect)
To this we could add...
- Opponent takes 1 damage per attack/action from blood loss until healed by skill or spell (lasts for the rest of the battle or until healed)
- Opponent dazed and strikes at -2 to hit for the next 1d4 rounds (lasts for... er... 1d4 rounds)
- Attacker drives opponent 1d20 feet in a direction of his choice (immediate effect and useful when fighting on cliff edges, near rivers, and near lava pits)
That's a 1d10 table already.
Any more ideas anyone?
Alex
Well, before we can think about giving away critical bonuses, we'll have to decide how we are going to do criticals! I think I like your second idea best, I had been thinking about something similar myself... although I was thinking more along the lines that the style already gives for one handed weapons weilded in two hands - a straight +1 bonus. I favour this because bonuses to damage from high strength are rarer in the second edition, but ultimately go up to a higher level (+6, compared to +4 that starting humans can have). You would have to have a strength of 18 to gain any bonus at all, which not many people can boast. Noman, on the other hand, would gain a colosol +4 on top of what he can already do!
Andy
Hello.
The problem with linking the two-handed specialisation to critical hits is that you only get a critical hit on a natural 20, only 5% of the time. Compared to some of the other style specialisations which are active 100% of the time it would be a tad unfair to hamper them with something less reliable. There are a couple of ways around this...
- 1) Make the benefit only something that occurs on a critical hit, but make the effect pretty darn spectacular to compensate for its rarity.
- 2) Give it some benefit to damage all the time, not just on criticals. Something like te 3rd edition 150% damage bonus maybe?
- 3) Keep it as an initiative modifier. Maybe it allows an initiative modifier based upon Strength rather than Dexterity to represent how a stronger character can swing a heavier weapn faster than a wimpier one.
I'll be back to talk about criticals later.
Alex (17th Sept)
It's been pretty quite here of late, so perhaps its time to address a few points that have cropped up. First, with the new initiative system we've been using, the effects of two handed weapon style specilization are now obselete, so that needs yo be addressed. Perhaps it could give some sort of bonus on critical hits? Speaking od critical hits, has any one thought more about making changes to the current system? I think we agreed that it need to be altered, but we never decided upon how.
Andy (14 sep)
Just another quick update - the Taladas history page continues to take shape. There's still some rejigging needed and some removal of duplication, but I'm hoping to have this nailed before we next meet up, so that it can be peer-reviewed!
Ed (17 Aug)
Hello.
Just as a quick example of how it is going to increase the variety of creatures, take Monster Summoning III. At the moment it draws on a list of 20 creatures. By adopting this system it draws on a list of 132. Some of these creatures are also going to be on the Monster Summoning I and II lists as well, and so creatures of a certain middling power level are going to be more common than the uber-powerful and uber-wimpy variety, but it should still increase the variety.
Alex.
Anything that reduces the number of gibbering mouthers in my campaign has got to be a good thing. Ditto carrion crawlers.
Ed
Hello.
Thanks for the ideas. The 'mundane' answer seems a good idea. With AC I don't think there's any problem of getting past AC 0. The only thing I've come across so far while doing the monster summoning lists that gets down to 0 is the ankylosaurus (one of Pez's dinosaurs), and I seem to recall that a rhino is about as big as he can get. Likewise damage isn't likely to get more than about a d10 on that basis. There might be a few 2d6 guys I'd like to duplicate but I'm sure I can live without them. Cheers for that.
Oh, one more thing I've come across while trying to make the new monster summoning idea work. On a couple of instances I'd have a list of about 17 creatures at, say 65 points, and would be loathe to lose 5 creatures to make a d12 table when I could add 3 and go up to a d20 table. So in a couple of cases I've 'cloned' creatures; used the same stats, just given it a new name and face. Mostly I've done this with birds of prey (the falcon gets cloned and called the kite and the merlin, the hawk gets cloned and becomes the osprey) and with big cats (jaguar becomes black panther). These made sense because Pez is an Airrider (mystically linked with birds and the air; hence Rebus) and because of some growing mystical link with Nygar (and nothing at all to do with the fact I like big cats, no, nothing at all...).
Alex.
I meant to try and look at my copy of the player hand book to rereadthe description of the spell (Contary to popular belief, I haven't memorised the whole thing verabtum.), but I seem to have misslayed it. Nevertheless, here is my advice.
If the effect in question can be achieved by the character using mundane means, I would allow it. A normal character can recieve a charging bonus by using a lance on horse back, so I'd say "yes" to te rhino question. A normal character can lower their AC by wearing armour, so I'd allow that too... down to about AC 0, the same as full plate and a shield. Anything lower than that probably indicates somesort of supernatural toughness anyway. Somepeople might argue about dex bonuses, but I don't think there are many natural creatures with that much natural armour and agility.
The only thing's that break this general rules, as far as I can see off hand, are natural flying and water breathing for fish and the like, which should still be allowed.
Actually, the problem of attacks leads me onto one of my pet grudeges against the AD&D monster manuals - why do creatures always seem to get one attackl per limb? Surely by this reconing an unarmed human should get two punches, a kick and a head butt attack every round. Talk about co-ordination all you like - I feel that the same problems apply to animals. Multiple attacks should represent great speed, ferocity, skill or some much, not just the fact that it has multiple limbs. 8 attacks for a carrion crawler is unjustifiable. 2 would be more reasonable.
That aside, I would apply my 'mundane means' rule to attack damage. A two handed sword does 1d10/3d6 damage. Naturl weapon attacks up to about there are fine, I should think.
Andrew
ps: I agree with your idea for summoning spells.
Hello again.
More questions springing up from my refurbishment of the spell sheets. This time its Pez and his fourth level nasty, Polymorph Self. My question is basically what abilities does he get and which of his own does he keep.
The most relevant bits are:-
AC - Polymorph Self doesn't say if he gets this or not. Polymorph Other says it does, but Polymorph Self says no 'special' defences, but what constitutes special? Obviously he wouldn't get the benefits of turning into a displacer beast, but is a tough hide special?
Movement - Actually this one is clear. If its normal movement he gets it. If its special movement he doesn't.
HP and THAC0 - Stay as Pez's. No problem with that.
Attacks - Does he get the attacks of the creature? Again, he can't get 'special' attacks but it isn't clear on the rest. I can understand him only getting one attack, even if he's turned into a lion (3 attacks) since that would represent his unfamiliarity with the new form. But you can read the spell description as saying he only does his usual punching damage even if he's trying to bite someone's head off with a lion's jaws. Does he get the damage numbers of his new form. Finally how special is 'special'? If a creature gets a bonus for charging, like say a rhino, and Polymorph Self has no problem with the imitation of normal movement, would a rhino-Pez get the charging benefits?
Its a cool spell, but poorly described and I'd appreciate a little help in sorting out the details.
Alex
Hello.
Two questions for Ed.
1) When we return to your campaign will any time have passed? More specifically, will enough time have passed for Pez to have done some spell research? I've got an idea for a spell I wouldn't mind him having and I was wondering if he'll have the time to get it sorted before the next adventure starts.
2)While twiddling with the spell sheets and magic item sheets (see the announcements section for more details) I also was looking at Pez's monster summoning sheets and a flaw in them really started to bug me, until I worked out a solution. The problem I saw was the arbitrary nature of a monster summoning list. Take for example the hippogriff. It's on the monster summoning IV table, and yet it's weaker than a good third of the creatures on table II and over half of table III. It seems odd that Pez can bring in much more powerful creatures now, but has to wait until 12th level before he can his hands on a hippogriff.
My solution would be to break the link between a level of spell and a specific creature, and instead make the link between the level of spell and a power level of creature (as determined by xp). So instead of summoning a giant squirrel with monster summoning I he instead summons a 'pest' (a name I've chosen for the 35xp creatures) and rolls on the table for pests which includes the giant squirrel but also has rams, giant worker ants and falcons as well. In other words the power of the creatures he summons is going to be identical to the power level of the ones he summons now. Only the faces of his summonings is going to change.
So what benefits would this bring to the campaign? Well the best thing it would do is make Pez's spells less predictable. At present, using a d20 list of creatures, Pez can cast Monster Summoning III one hundred times and be pretty sure he'd get about 5 gibbering mouthers in the mix (and indeed about five of every animal/creature/monstrosity that shouldn't have been born). With this system he wouldn't be sure of getting 5 gibbering mouthers, indeed he couldn't guarantee he would even get one (the probability is just less than half a percent I think). But he would be pretty sure he would get 5 creatures of a similar power level. And the fun comes in having a wider range of nasties to fling around.
Let me know what you think.
Alex
All old debate has been moved to The Taladas Debate Archive Page.
