Bloodline - Ability [Archive]

geeman

01-17-2003, 10:14 PM

At 11:12 AM 1/17/2003 +0100, you wrote:

>@ Vicente: Naturally you can create tables, where someone can role his
>race and post them here...

I`ll give it a shot.... ;)

d10 Race
1 Human, Anuirean
2 Human, Brecht
3 Human, Khinasi
4 Human, Rjurik
5 Human, Vos
6 Elf
7 Dwarf
8 Halfling
9 Goblin
10 Player`s choice (including offspring of various awnshegh and weird
miscellaneous populations of intelligent creatures; brownies and sylphs,
for example.)

How`s that? One doesn`t get to decide one`s hair or eye color either, so
here`s a table:

d4 Eyes/Hair (Roll once for each.)
1 Blue/Blonde
2 Brown/Brown
3 Green/Black
4 Player`s Choice (including weird, unnatural colors like orange or purple.)

Anyway, on to more serious points about blood abilities and tables.

The only problem I have with tables is that they go out of date so
quickly. The first time somebody writes up a new ability BANG the old
tables need to be rewritten or you need some addendum. This was probably
most obviously illustrated (and strangely enacted) in the Blood Enemies
supplement that had that very strange table that listed all the additional
blood abilities included in that text. Having written up several tables of
my own in the past, I`ve found probably the neatest way of dealing with
this sort of thing is to have a fairly generous fraction of the die/dice
being rolled at the "bottom" of the table that says "player`s choice" and
when a new option comes along then it can fit somewhere into that available
space at the bottom. Presenting blood abilities in a format like that
would probably represent a middle ground between the two options of
assigning those abilities to characters (letting them choose or rolling
randomly) and might in the long run be a bit more useful.

There could (and probably should) still be a bit of discussion of how the
DM could just let his PCs choose their abilities and when; before rolling
ability scores, after, etc. I`ve found that can make quite a difference in
character generation.

The other issue is how represented each blood ability will be on such
tables. The Rulebook has a kind of weird distribution of blood
abilities. Animal Affinity has a 9% chance of turning up while Iron Will
has 4%. At a glance, not a lot of characters have Animal Affinity in the
published materials, despite its relative "popularity" on Table 13. In
part this would appear to have something to do with the number of
derivations and bloodline strength scores that each blood ability has,
though there`s certainly some wiggle room in there. Later supplements, of
course, presented blood abilities for each derivation. I don`t know how
much room the 3e designers might want to dedicate to those kinds of tables,
because that could represent a lot of space. Probably the simplest way of
doing it would be to have the random blood ability tables on a single page
with the d100 roll along the left hand column and with each bloodline
derivation in the next seven columns. It would still take a lot of work to
come up with such a table, but it might be the most elegant solution.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ConjurerDragon

01-18-2003, 12:15 PM

Gary wrote:

> At 11:12 AM 1/17/2003 +0100, you wrote:
>
>> @ Vicente: Naturally you can create tables, where someone can role his
>> race and post them here...
>
>
> I`ll give it a shot.... ;)
>
> d10 Race

Why not D20 as always?

> 1 Human, Anuirean

Wasn´t rolling a natural 1 always a bad thing? ;-)
better 1 Human, Masetian suffering under the curse of the Serpent...

> 2 Human, Brecht
> 3 Human, Khinasi
> 4 Human, Rjurik
> 5 Human, Vos

10 - 15 Human Anuirean considering that most campaign are set in Anuire
- replace this range when your campaign is set in another region of Cerilia

> 6 Elf

6 Sidhelien

> 7 Dwarf
> 8 Halfling
> 9 Goblin

9 Goblin (goblin)
10 Goblin (hobgoblin - elite goblin)
11 Goblin (bugbear)
to have more humans again:
12 Human, Brecht
13 Human, Khinasi
14 Human, Rjurik
15 Human, Vos
16 - 19 DM´s choice - perhaps a scion of Azrai or for experienced
role-players one of the lost trying to come back from the Shadowworld ;-)

> 10 Player`s choice (including offspring of various awnshegh and weird
> miscellaneous populations of intelligent creatures; brownies and sylphs,
> for example.)

20 the same

> How`s that? One doesn`t get to decide one`s hair or eye color either, so
> here`s a table:
>
> d4 Eyes/Hair (Roll once for each.)
> 1 Blue/Blonde
> 2 Brown/Brown
> 3 Green/Black
> 4 Player`s Choice (including weird, unnatural colors like orange or
> purple.)

One can´t decide your original hair colour...
However even when hair-colorations and dye have perhaps not been
invented the Book of Magecraft gives
us the class of Magician as specialist for that: The Disguiser here
working as coiffeur... ;-)

> Anyway, on to more serious points about blood abilities and tables.

More serious points than hair-colour? Perhaps THAT is the reason that
there are so few female role-players? :-)

About bloodlines: It depends - if one chooses to play a heir of the Avan
line for example I would expect him to share at least 1 or more
bloodabilites which are present in the Avan line (the dragon bloodmark
for example).
If one would inherit the Roele line, it would be Courage or one of the
other bloodabilities connected with Michael Roele.
Bloodmark (Red Hair) for Talienean heirs. However that is just my point
of view that bloodabilities should be similar in familys and dynasties.
bye
Michael Romes
(Bannier Andien in ITSOD)

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

geeman

01-18-2003, 09:29 PM

At 12:52 PM 1/18/2003 +0100, Michael Romes wrote:

>>Anyway, on to more serious points about blood abilities and tables.
>
>More serious points than hair-colour? Perhaps THAT is the reason that
>there are so few female role-players? :-)

Speaking of which, you can`t choose your gender either.... We need a table
for that too, right? Male, female and other.... That should probably be
at least a d20 too since I`m sure there are many subtle nuances that could
be added to such a table. "Ambivalent, butch hermaphrodite" should
probably be on there someplace.

>About bloodlines: It depends - if one chooses to play a heir of the Avan
>line for example I would expect him to share at least 1 or more
>bloodabilites which are present in the Avan line (the dragon bloodmark
>for example).

Yeah, I`m not particularly tied to either method. There are strengths and
weaknesses to both. Having done a sort of extended point buy last time I
did BR character generation in which character points were used to buy both
ability scores and blood abilities, I`m thinking of trying it with a random
die roll next time and a more balanced set of charts just to see how it
turns out.

There is a little bit of timing involved in when one should roll (or
choose) blood abilities. If done before ability scores are determined and
one is using some sort of die rolling convention in which the player can
assign the scores to whatever ability he wants then there is an opportunity
for him to min/max. Min/maxing may not be the end of the world, but I do
find it imbalancing when trying to use the standard EL/CR system, and when
it gets right down to it, it`s not as easy to design adventures for
min/maxed PCs. Because they are min/maxed they are often less able to
perform basic activities, so adventures either need to be designed to
accommodate their unnaturally high and low scores, or one can just design
the adventures without taking the PCs into consideration and let them skip
through the parts that are easy for their characters and stumble over those
that aren`t. I`ve been adopting the latter approach more recently in order
to try to exemplify how min/maxed isn`t necessarily a good idea, but some
players just refuse to get it.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

doom

01-18-2003, 09:29 PM

On Fri, Jan 17, 2003 at 11:12:13AM +0100, Ariadne wrote:
> Oh, I think the balance IS the problem. If you CHOOSE a character
> with a great bloodline of 46 and the most powerful abilities, the game
> is unbalanced and thats why most DM`s would restrict this in some
> manner. I agree with Irdeggman, that rolling abilities isn`t this 3rd
> Edition like, but I think, here should be an exception.

I`m not certain that I have ever understood the arguement that "random
generation" promotes "balance". I _think_ this arguement is based upon
some thory that the relative infrequency of the "POWERFUL" abilities
makes it so unlikely that a character will have several such abilites,
and thus the game will be "balanced". As I`ve noted, however, I don`t
get the arguement (and never have) so perhaps I`m missing something.

I subscribe to the philosophy that a random creation systems are
inherently unbalanced (in that outliers must exist) whereas non-random
systems seem inherently unblanced in that all options are equally
available to everyone. The same should be true for blood powers IMHO.
If one or more blood powers are widely agreed to be "too powerful", then
then should be down-graded in power, or upgraded in category, n`est
pas?

________
/. Doom@cs.wright.edu

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Birthright-L

01-19-2003, 12:23 PM

Hello,

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ariadne" <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG>
> @ Vicente: Naturally you can create tables, where someone can role his
race and post them here... :P

Hehehe, you have examples in MERP, and if I don´t remember badly, in
Stormbringer you even rolled your profession. Greetings,

Vicente

P.D.: haven´t seen table for hair, eyes color, or gender, could be an
original touch for birthright :P

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Peter Lubke

01-19-2003, 03:16 PM

On Sun, 2003-01-19 at 08:09, Dr. Travis Doom wrote:

On Fri, Jan 17, 2003 at 11:12:13AM +0100, Ariadne wrote:
> Oh, I think the balance IS the problem. If you CHOOSE a character
> with a great bloodline of 46 and the most powerful abilities, the game
> is unbalanced and thats why most DM`s would restrict this in some
> manner. I agree with Irdeggman, that rolling abilities isn`t this 3rd
> Edition like, but I think, here should be an exception.

I`m not certain that I have ever understood the argument that "random
generation" promotes "balance". I _think_ this argument is based upon
some theory that the relative infrequency of the "POWERFUL" abilities
makes it so unlikely that a character will have several such abilities,
and thus the game will be "balanced". As I`ve noted, however, I don`t
get the argument (and never have) so perhaps I`m missing something.

"Balance", is a difficult thing.
Any possibility, no matter how slight of a powerful ability - whether
chosen or rolled - creates imbalance. NO AMOUNT OF COMPENSATION
whatsoever will ever change that. I agree with Travis on this one.

Each group of players (and their enemies) need be in balance only with
each other, and only the DM can decide what is "powerful" in context.

Blooded characters are, by themselves, unbalanced with respect to
unblooded by the simple existence of blood abilities. As they stand they
are insufficient to replace character class. The creation of a special
class ("psionicist") turned out to be a way of using psionics that was
balanced with respect to all classed characters. But, how balanced do
you need to be? A 2e classed-character was a step above the normal
0-level humans (including men-at-arms), so another tier of characters
(among the classed) is not such a big step. Justifying such a position
for 3e is a bit harder however.

I subscribe to the philosophy that a random creation systems are
inherently unbalanced (in that outliers must exist) whereas non-random
systems seem inherently unblanced in that all options are equally
available to everyone. The same should be true for blood powers IMHO.
If one or more blood powers are widely agreed to be "too powerful", then
then should be down-graded in power, or upgraded in category, n`est
pas?

Random systems where all choices have the same (or nearly the same)
value are okay. It`s just a way of choosing between equal choices - if
you can`t decide between two choices because of how equal they are - you
may as well flip a coin. - famous flippist philosophy

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

geeman

01-19-2003, 05:13 PM

At 01:08 AM 1/20/2003 +1100, Peter Lubke wrote:

>"Balance", is a difficult thing.
>Any possibility, no matter how slight of a powerful ability - whether
>chosen or rolled - creates imbalance. NO AMOUNT OF COMPENSATION
>whatsoever will ever change that. I agree with Travis on this one.

I think he was just saying that randomly determined ability scores aren`t
inherently more balanced game mechanically than ones determined using a
point buy system, which I guess is basically true. The problem, though, is
that urge to min/max when creating point buy characters seems irresistible
to many players. That does create an unbalancing effect because higher
ability scores change the way various character class features get
determined. You can certainly still get such results by randomly rolling
ability scores, but where they _might_ occur in randomly rolled characters
they _usually_ occur in ones based on a point buy. (At least, that`s the
case in my experience.) The problem is that various ability scores
interact with the class/level system in such a way as to make the
assumption that character level is roughly equal to CR something of a fallacy.

For instance, if we were to try to "balance" CR 6 with 6th level
fighter. If that character has a constitution score 2 points higher than
that of the standard array he will have 6 more hit points, giving that
character effectively 1 average fighter level of hit points more than the
CR system assumes. Similarly, if the same character`s strength is 2 points
higher than the standard array his attack bonus is going to be,
effectively, that of a character 1 level higher. (A +1 to BAB for
levelling up does do things like increase the possibility a character gets
additional attacks per round, but a higher strength score has other
ancillary effects as well, so generally the two balance out.) Another 2
points of intelligence and his number of skill points will be 6 greater
than a typical fighter, three times that of a fighter level. Other ability
scores have the similar effects on other aspects of character class. Most
ability scores bonuses equate to a character level or two when added to the
character class features like BAB and saving throws, but because of the way
certain ability scores interact with level-based character class features
(constitution with hit points, intelligence with skill points) the
influence of those abilities on a characters effective character level
becomes more pronounced at higher levels. At 17th level the same fighter
effectively has three fighter levels of additional hit points and almost
nine fighter levels of skill points. The different effects that ability
scores have on different aspects of character class makes it very difficult
to rate the effect of ability scores in general for the purpose of EL/CR.

The standard array was apparently used to determine CR to begin with. It
assumes an overall +5 modifier (8 -1, 10 +0, 12 +1, 13 +1, 14 +2, 15 +2)
raising +8 at 20th level without the aid of bonuses from magic items. (The
variation from the "standard" gp value of items in an inventory of a
character according to his character level is another factor in determining
EL but let`s not worry about that for the nonce.) I would suggest that
every point above the standard array represents approximately 1/4 of
character level, so the aforementioned 6th level fighter with an additional
point in constitution, intelligence and strength would be 7th level
(rounded up) for the purpose of determining EL/CR. Min/maxed characters do
make this a bit of a rough assumption, because they will tend to have their
bonuses in ability scores that interact with character class in additional
ways, such as the paladin`s reliance upon his charisma score, but as a rule
of thumb 1/4 might be a good "average" for this purpose. That number is
fairly debatable. I can see going as low as 1/3 or as high as 1/5 but
ultimately 1/4 works out pretty accurately. (There`s more than a little
math and projections upon which that number is based, but I won`t bore
anyone any more than is necessary here.)

The bonus spells for high ability scores for spellcasters have a similar
effect. The spells available to the various spellcasting classes differ,
so there`s not a real easy way to determine the benefits of a modifier in a
primary ability score for those classes, but in general each bonus does
represent about 1/4th of a level.

The point here is that if one figures EL/CR this way then it matters less
if a player rolls his PC up or his ability scores are determined using some
sort of point buy system. What`s significant isn`t the "balance" of the
ability scores but how they influence the bonuses for the various character
class features.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Ariadne

01-19-2003, 06:32 PM

Birthright-L

01-20-2003, 12:29 AM

On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Peter Lubke wrote:
> "Balance", is a difficult thing.
> Any possibility, no matter how slight of a powerful ability - whether
> chosen or rolled - creates imbalance. NO AMOUNT OF COMPENSATION
> whatsoever will ever change that. I agree with Travis on this one.
>
> Each group of players (and their enemies) need be in balance only with
> each other, and only the DM can decide what is "powerful" in context.
>
> Blooded characters are, by themselves, unbalanced with respect to
> unblooded by the simple existence of blood abilities.

In 2e, the solution proposed in the game was a 10% experience bonus to
unblooded heroes. The equivalent in 3e is an ECL for bloodlines. Maybe 0
for tainted, 1 for minor, 2 major, 3 great (or whatever, it would have to
be fiddled with). This is the way characters who begin with powers due to
their species (drow or half-dragons for example) are balanced.

So a first level character with a tainted bloodline is the equivalent of a
2nd level character, and any unblooded PCs in his party might start at 2nd
level to make them roughly equivalent. In a game where there isn`t team
adventuring, where every player has a kingdom for example, it doesn`t
matter as much.

If you did something like this, whether blood abilities are selected or
rolled, you can roughly balance for it.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Peter Lubke

01-20-2003, 02:10 AM

On Mon, 2003-01-20 at 03:49, Gary wrote:

At 01:08 AM 1/20/2003 +1100, Peter Lubke wrote:

>"Balance", is a difficult thing.
>Any possibility, no matter how slight of a powerful ability - whether
>chosen or rolled - creates imbalance. NO AMOUNT OF COMPENSATION
>whatsoever will ever change that. I agree with Travis on this one.

I think he was just saying that randomly determined ability scores aren`t
inherently more balanced game mechanically than ones determined using a
point buy system, which I guess is basically true. The problem, though, is
that urge to min/max when creating point buy characters seems irresistible
to many players.

Oh absolutely, I totally agree.

That does create an unbalancing effect because higher
ability scores change the way various character class features get
determined. You can certainly still get such results by randomly rolling
ability scores, but where they _might_ occur in randomly rolled characters
they _usually_ occur in ones based on a point buy. (At least, that`s the
case in my experience.) The problem is that various ability scores
interact with the class/level system in such a way as to make the
assumption that character level is roughly equal to CR something of a fallacy.

Some ability scores being *worse* than others - i.e. an 18 charisma and
an 18 constitution do not provide equivalent benefits. Constitution is
perhaps the worst of all. I have not allowed hit point bonuses from
constitution for nearly a year (yeah - it took me a while to catch on).

For instance, if we were to try to "balance" CR 6 with 6th level
fighter. If that character has a constitution score 2 points higher than
that of the standard array he will have 6 more hit points, giving that
character effectively 1 average fighter level of hit points more than the
CR system assumes. Similarly, if the same character`s strength is 2 points
higher than the standard array his attack bonus is going to be,
effectively, that of a character 1 level higher. (A +1 to BAB for
levelling up does do things like increase the possibility a character gets
additional attacks per round, but a higher strength score has other
ancillary effects as well, so generally the two balance out.) Another 2
points of intelligence and his number of skill points will be 6 greater
than a typical fighter, three times that of a fighter level. Other ability
scores have the similar effects on other aspects of character class. Most
ability scores bonuses equate to a character level or two when added to the
character class features like BAB and saving throws, but because of the way
certain ability scores interact with level-based character class features
(constitution with hit points, intelligence with skill points) the
influence of those abilities on a characters effective character level
becomes more pronounced at higher levels. At 17th level the same fighter
effectively has three fighter levels of additional hit points and almost
nine fighter levels of skill points. The different effects that ability
scores have on different aspects of character class makes it very difficult
to rate the effect of ability scores in general for the purpose of EL/CR.

The standard array was apparently used to determine CR to begin with. It
assumes an overall +5 modifier (8 -1, 10 +0, 12 +1, 13 +1, 14 +2, 15 +2)
raising +8 at 20th level without the aid of bonuses from magic items. (The
variation from the "standard" gp value of items in an inventory of a
character according to his character level is another factor in determining
EL but let`s not worry about that for the nonce.) I would suggest that
every point above the standard array represents approximately 1/4 of
character level, so the aforementioned 6th level fighter with an additional
point in constitution, intelligence and strength would be 7th level
(rounded up) for the purpose of determining EL/CR. Min/maxed characters do
make this a bit of a rough assumption, because they will tend to have their
bonuses in ability scores that interact with character class in additional
ways, such as the paladin`s reliance upon his charisma score, but as a rule
of thumb 1/4 might be a good "average" for this purpose. That number is
fairly debatable. I can see going as low as 1/3 or as high as 1/5 but
ultimately 1/4 works out pretty accurately. (There`s more than a little
math and projections upon which that number is based, but I won`t bore
anyone any more than is necessary here.)

The bonus spells for high ability scores for spellcasters have a similar
effect. The spells available to the various spellcasting classes differ,
so there`s not a real easy way to determine the benefits of a modifier in a
primary ability score for those classes, but in general each bonus does
represent about 1/4th of a level.

The point here is that if one figures EL/CR this way then it matters less
if a player rolls his PC up or his ability scores are determined using some
sort of point buy system. What`s significant isn`t the "balance" of the
ability scores but how they influence the bonuses for the various character
class features.

The alternative is to reduce the effects of the bonuses to a level that
is less significant (while still conferring a bonus) so that the
variance doesn`t/can`t significantly affect character balance.
(however, politically it`s sacrilegious to reduce player`s abilities --
more is better right?)

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Peter Lubke

01-20-2003, 03:14 AM

On Mon, 2003-01-20 at 10:49, daniel mcsorley wrote:

On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Peter Lubke wrote:
> "Balance", is a difficult thing.
> Any possibility, no matter how slight of a powerful ability - whether
> chosen or rolled - creates imbalance. NO AMOUNT OF COMPENSATION
> whatsoever will ever change that. I agree with Travis on this one.
>
> Each group of players (and their enemies) need be in balance only with
> each other, and only the DM can decide what is "powerful" in context.
>
> Blooded characters are, by themselves, unbalanced with respect to
> unblooded by the simple existence of blood abilities.

In 2e, the solution proposed in the game was a 10% experience bonus to
unblooded heroes. The equivalent in 3e is an ECL for bloodlines. Maybe 0
for tainted, 1 for minor, 2 major, 3 great (or whatever, it would have to
be fiddled with). This is the way characters who begin with powers due to
their species (drow or half-dragons for example) are balanced.

How do you figure that?
A 10% penalty to XP in 2e is no penalty at all, it`s so insignificant.
For example, I penalize my demi-humans 90% of all their experience - and
this slows them by about one and one-half levels compared to human
characters (although the combined levels of multi-classed characters may
still exceed a single classed character with the same XP). The added
benefits of bloodline abilities greatly (by far) outweigh a puny 10%.
(or ECL) This is particularly so because the characters start with them
at 1st level which greatly enhances their survivability.

So a first level character with a tainted bloodline is the equivalent of a
2nd level character, and any unblooded PCs in his party might start at 2nd
level to make them roughly equivalent. In a game where there isn`t team
adventuring, where every player has a kingdom for example, it doesn`t
matter as much.

If you did something like this, whether blood abilities are selected or
rolled, you can roughly balance for it.

Better to do it by ability - i..e Blood sense = 1 ECL,
Regeneration(major) = 4 ECL etc.
Even so, it is still quite unbalancing in that the selection of blood
abilities constrains the selection of characters - and always upward.

It would have been better (in both 2e and 3e) in glorious hindsight - to
have allowed blood abilities to manifest themselves more slowly and to
have their power tied to experience, whether through a separate
character class (i.e. Blooded Scion) or through simultaneous progression
(such as the original psionics). That is, bloodline represent a
potential for such abilities rather than being inate.

--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

geeman

01-20-2003, 04:19 AM

The problem with fitting blood abilities into the ECL system is that the
increments of ECL include an awful lot of material; HD/hit points, possible
BAB/saving throw increases, feats/special abilities/spells and skills. A
set of blood abilities needs to be roughly equivalent to all those aspects
of a character level in order to be "worth" a +1 ECL. Many of the minor
blood abilities don`t add up to much more than the equivalent of a feat or
special ability, so assigning an ECL to bloodlines is a rather shaky process.

One of the things I`ve been mulling over is going with an alternate
level/XP system. At present, of course, 3e uses a progressive XP table
with higher increments required for higher character levels. That`s all
well and good--it certainly looks nice on a table, and it has a nice
symmetry. Since all the CR XP award tables are similarly skewed to make
the levelling up occur at the same rate of "average" encounters, it`s
basically just a sliding scale of complexity that doesn`t really serve much
purpose other than, perhaps, to satisfy the desire of players to accumulate
larger and larger numbers of XP points. It reminds me of this pinball
machine I saw a while back that only awarded points in increments of
10,000. The machine also started the player out at 100,000 points rather
than 0 IIRC. The player got to wrack up several million points for his 25¢
but it didn`t mean anything other than that he had four 0`s at the end of
his score.

What I`ve been mulling over is a system of redesigning character classes
that would make the XP requirements commensurate with the earned class
features for that particular class. One could then design classes however
one liked and have players buy levels by spending XP (which is essentially
what they do now) but without worrying about things like balancing the
character classes against one another. A level as a "peasant" (d4 hit
dice, slow BAB and save progression, no special abilities) might cost 500XP
while that of a "Soldier-Priest" (d8 hit dice, medium BAB and mixed saving
throw progresssions, spells) might cost 1,500XP. If the values are
properly assigned there would be no effective difference between a 4th
level character and a 2nd level character who had spent XP on character
classes that were twice as costly as the 4th level one.

Within such a system one could assign a value to blood abilities (as well
as any other racial or special ability, or the class features themselves)
and then determine the "worth" of such characters based on their XP values
rather than a character level. Monsters could be "balanced" against those
characters based on the XP value of their relative stats as well.

Of course, this kind of thing makes for a total rewrite of character
classes and XP awards, costs for magic item creation, relative values of
magic items, a careful evaluation of the relative value of spellcasting,
etc. So it`s essentially a 4th or 5th edition of D&D (I`ve been calling
all my tweaks Nth edition) but if that kind of thing was going to be
troubling then I probably wouldn`t be interested in BR since the updating
and revision of an OOP campaign setting with later edition rules is so
endless that it`d make Sisyphus call for a coffee break.

A possible fix for balancing blood abilities by reflecting them in the
CR/EL system would be to include a decimal point in the CR. A 4th level
character with a minor blood ability might be level 4.1 for the purpose of
determining his XP awards, and would then receive 990 XP for a CR 4
encounter rather than the 1,000 that is standard for a 4th level
character. One would still need to determine the relative value of the
blood abilities in order to do this, but it would probably work.

I did, BTW, recently use a system of bloodlines that was very similar to
the ideas expressed above. Blooded characters got not only blood abilities
and a bloodline strength score but additional HD, BAB, saving throw
bonuses, etc. The cost for a bloodline was paid during character
generation and was based on a point buy with bonuses available for a
certain ECL. Essentially, it turned bloodlines into a sort of character
class in which bloodtheft and RP operated in the place of XP for "levelling
up" one`s bloodline. So far it has worked out fairly well--I`ve had no
complaints from my players, at least, and those boys aint` shy--but I`m
still not 100% happy with it, so some tweaking is probably going to happen
in the near future.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Birthright-L

01-20-2003, 09:49 AM

The reason we have classes in the first case is (tradition aside) the fact
they help make characters more balanced.

Now, with a level of fighter, you get +1 BAB, +1d10 hp, +2 Skill Points,
+1/2 fighter feat, +1/4 attribute point, +1/3 general feat, +1/2 Fort Save,
+1/3 will and ref save and so on. If each of these abilities could be
purchased separately (which is essentially what you are saying), then
nothing could prevent a player from min-maxing to a much higher degree than
is now possible. Give up on feats, skill points, saves, attribute points and
concentrate on hit points and BAB. Depending on how costly you make the
different components, different approached would work out well, but it is
still a min/maxing paradise.

I have played a lot in games systems that do not use levels, and this is a
constant problem. Most such systems encourage players to be very specialized
and focus on a very narrow field of ability, creating rather shallow
characters. The fighter class in 3E is really too narrow for my tastes, but
is still more diverse than many World of Darkness characters I have seen.

This does not mean that it is impossible to use a system where you bye
bloodline abilities with XP. They can be considered a type of inherent
magical abilities, and given both a level prerequisite and an XP cost. What
I`m warning you against is allowing players to build their own custom class
characters on a "what you pay for is what you get" approach - as that can
lead to overspecialization.

The generalist classes in DnD, those with a wide spread of abilities, like
bards, monks and rogues, tend to end up with very high scores on class
construction engines and similar class ability evaluators. But in play, it
is almost never these that cause problems - it is the overspecialized mages,
paladins and fighters.

__________________________________________________ ___
Gratis e-mail resten av livet på www.yahoo.se/mail
Busenkelt!

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Ariadne

01-20-2003, 05:44 PM

Originally posted by kgauck

In 2e, the solution proposed in the game was a 10% experience bonus to unblooded heroes. The equivalent in 3e is an ECL for bloodlines. Maybe 0 for tainted, 1 for minor, 2 major, 3 great (or whatever, it would have to be fiddled with).

Exactly this was, what I said. DM's would restrict bloodlines in some manner. But IMO Birthright is a game with blooded and you play a blooded character. If you use ECL's (even +1), you kill definitely something of the fun. This would encourage PC's to take unblooded characters and if you do this, there is no difference to FR...

So still if you role your bloodline, you might get a "tainted" one of 7 and no blood ability. May be the PC has luck in the next turn. He might be angry, if his neighbor has rolled a "great" bloodline of 42 with regenerate, elemental control or something as a blood ability, but everyone has a fair chance...

By the way, I don't like the point buy system either, I still role ability scores because of the same reason as above (everyone gets the same fair chance)...

@Daniel McSorley: To let blood abilities manifest themselves by power is a good idea, I think, to restrict them in some manner. This is a little bit like the Half-celestial or half-elemental template. If the character learns them over time and through randomness (without ECL and maybe the PC doesn't know which abilities he has), it would give him something special (naturally this version is much work for the DM).

usermaatre

01-20-2003, 08:08 PM

I very much like the idea that characters get to choose their blood abilities.

In 3e you get to choose your race, gender, skills, feats, weight, height, hair colour, etc. subject to the DM's approval. Some DM's don't allow some feats from some ancilliary books, or allow such things as halfling paladins on wardogs. I like the idea of choice. The ability to choose means, however, that the 3e conversion team will have to do a good job of balancing the various blood abilities. They will likely do a good job, which will be fine-tuned by our playtesting and reviews.

I suspect that chosing blood abilities will be similar to choosing feats. Like feats some BA will have no prerequisite other than being blooded, some will have some additional prerequisites, and some will even have other BA as prerequisites.

Choosing BA makes for the possibility of themed BA's. It also makes the idea that a family has inherited BA's make more sense. It seems rather odd that the newest Avan scion randomly gets Anduiras BA's. Should the scion's set not be limited to the Avan blood heritage?

On another note, I have noticed that this BB has a higher level of 2e players than I generally encounter. Amongst my friends and acquaintances I do not know a single person who still plays 2e. This holdover seems to be because people are passionate about BR, which is totally cool. I have that kind of passion for the setting. It was the first D&D campaign setting I played in. I have the same passion for 3e. So when this BB announced the Official conversion I spontaneously combusted. When I first heard of 3e I was totally sceptical. I saw it as a money grab by Illusionists of the Coast. My stoney, flinty scepticism has been turned to enthusiasm by playing and DMing 3e since it was first released.

3e is not perfect. The whole discussion and confusion in other threads on this site about CR and ECL mirror my own confusion and concerns. It is not something that the authors communicated well. I see 3e not as an impediment to BR, but as a set of rules that will make BR truly breathtaking.

Usermaatre

"The Power and Truth of Ra"

kgauck

01-21-2003, 12:05 AM

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Starfox" <stephen_starfox@YAHOO.SE>
Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 3:18 AM

> The fighter class in 3E is really too narrow for my tastes

It is a narrow class. It can do nothing but fight really well. I prefer it
that way, because I like all of the standard D&D classes to be highly
focused (cleric, fighter, wizard). Characters should be based on a more
well rounded class (expert or aristocrat) and then take levels of the
focused classes. This makes it easier to construct class concepts. Take
the son of a blacksmith (expert) character who becomes a priest of Cuiraecen
(Cleric). Since I want the cleric (even a cleric of Cuiraecen) to be a
divine spell-caster, he retains the familiar cleric mix of powers and
abilities. I just assume that most priests of Cuiraecen take a fair number
of levels of fighter levels. If the fighter class was not a pure fighter,
but was more well rounded, I`d be more warry about mixing that with cleric.
Well rounded classes make more sense in a 2e paradigm of single class
progression. With the ease of multi-classing, well-roundedness should be
achieved by multi-classing.

Someone like Kurt Warkinde (who already was a dual classed fighter-priest)
might be an Aristocrat 2/Priest 5/Fighter 3, where the aristocrat`s skills
and class features are used to support both the priestly and the combat
role. Another war-priest, Arien Borthein (who I believe is the leader of
the Hidden Temple in Boeruine) might be Aristocrat 4/Priest 6 and emphisize
the heraldric/diplomatic function of Cuiraecen without being any worse of a
fighter than any other character who does something other than bodyguard.

This narrowness of focus is one of the reasons that I stick with 2 skill
ranks per level for these core adventuring classes. A level of fighter is a
level of pure fighting, rather than a level of fighting, hunting, heraldry,
swimming, stewardship, diplomacy, and leadership. That second description
is the aristocrat. The same thing can be said with spellcasters and the
expert class. The wizard advances is casting more and more powerful spells,
but that is all. He needs some levels of expert (or aristocrat) to know
something besides Concentration. If he wants Knowledge of arcana or
religion, he needs to sacrifice his spell progression in order to learn
something else.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

geeman

01-21-2003, 04:20 AM

At 10:18 AM 1/20/2003 +0100, Stephen Starfox wrote:

>The reason we have classes in the first case is (tradition aside) the fact
>they help make characters more balanced.

That certainly _should_ be true.... ;)

>If each of these abilities could be purchased separately (which is
>essentially what you are saying), then nothing could prevent a player from
>min-maxing to a much higher degree than
>is now possible.

While one could certainly extend the methods used to determine the relative
values of various class features into a classless system of characters
that`s not what I`d want to do with such a system personally. Many RPGs do
work perfectly well without a system of character classes (though I don`t
think they`d be so great with D20 since that power scale isn`t as wide as
it is in systems that use more extensive systems of task/conflict
resolution) but I _like_ that D&D is class and level based. I just think
there should be a set of intelligent and articulated guidelines for how
those classes should be designing and rated. If someone wanted to take
such a set of guidelines and use them to create a classless system of
character advancement then more power (and min/maxing) to them, but I`m not
real concerned with how people conduct their individual games.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Birthright-L

01-21-2003, 07:58 AM

From: "Kenneth Gauck" <kgauck@MCHSI.COM>

> From: "Stephen Starfox" <stephen_starfox@YAHOO.SE>
>
> > The fighter class in 3E is really too narrow for my tastes
>
> It is a narrow class. It can do nothing but fight really well. [...]
> The same thing can be said with spellcasters and the
> expert class. [...]

All trrue (even the snipped parts). However, a player that wants a very
tight focus will never do as you suggest and take levels in an NPC class.
Actually, for someone around here playing a wizard, there is almost nothing
that could convince them to pick up a level in another class - you simply
lose too much spellcasting ability. The same is true for ECL-modified
races - very few of those will become spellcasters. And this is what my
warning was all about - if you allow even narrower specialization, some
players will inevitably fall for it and turn the power-gaming crank yet
another turn.

This adds insult to injury when the class you would pick up is a NPC class
like the aristocrat or expert.

Of course, thisis not a problem for NOCs, but Intensely dislike having
different principles of character development for PCs and major NPCs.

__________________________________________________ ___
Gratis e-mail resten av livet på www.yahoo.se/mail
Busenkelt!

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Azrai

01-21-2003, 11:47 AM

Originally posted by doom

I`m not certain that I have ever understood the arguement that "random generation" promotes "balance". I _think_ this arguement is based upon some thory that the relative infrequency of the "POWERFUL" abilities makes it so unlikely that a character will have several such abilites, and thus the game will be "balanced".

"Balance" is a matter of the campaign, not a general problem. If the player's have rolled good scores, the DM has to modify his encounters; it's that simple.

There is a BIG problem of letting players choose their blood abilities.The same problem which one has when using the point-b.-system of the DMG. There we have many 18's and many 8's. But a 17 or 18 is for shure. So there will be a lot of people, which choose the best-liked abilities. And THIS is disbalanced. For example, all Azrai scions would maybe choose "Touch of decay" or something like that. As a result, we created stereotypical characters. High-powered characters would be standard, exactly what we do not want.

I still think, random created BA should definitely be used.

Ariadne

01-21-2003, 12:22 PM

Originally posted by kgauck

[...]Someone like Kurt Warkinde (who already was a dual classed fighter-priest) might be an Aristocrat 2/Priest 5/Fighter 3, where the aristocrat`s skills and class features are used to support both the priestly and the combat role. Another war-priest, Arien Borthein (who I believe is the leader of the Hidden Temple in Boeruine) might be Aristocrat 4/Priest 6 and emphisize the heraldric/diplomatic function of Cuiraecen without being any worse of a fighter than any other character who does something other than bodyguard.[...]
But a priest of Cuiraecen needn't to be something like aristrocrat or something. Think of children who are sent to a temple in early years to become priests (or temple fighters/ paladins). Those children have no classes in aristrocrat, expert or something. So Kurt Warkinde might be a child sent to the temple to become a fighter and than found out, that he is better a priest, no aristrocrat needed...

By the way I think of those NPC levels (warrior, expert, aristrocrat) a waste of XP, if you don't get these levels as a bonus...

Ariadne

01-21-2003, 12:25 PM

Originally posted by geeman

At 11:12 AM 1/17/2003 +0100, you wrote:

>@ Vicente: Naturally you can create tables, where someone can role his race and post them here...

I`ll give it a shot.... ;)

d10 Race
1 Human, Anuirean
2 Human, Brecht
3 Human, Khinasi
4 Human, Rjurik
5 Human, Vos
6 Elf
7 Dwarf
8 Halfling
9 Goblin
10 Player`s choice (including offspring of various awnshegh and weird miscellaneous populations of intelligent creatures; brownies and sylphs, for example.)
Gary, you forgot the half-elf, I don't think, he should be listed as "all others"... ;)

kgauck

01-21-2003, 01:42 PM

We have, by now, seen so many versions of aristocrat type classes as PC
classes in specific campaign settings and proposed here, that I think it can
be inferred that I am not talking about the NPC classes as presented in the
DMG, but one of the PC varieties based on those we can find in the many
campaign settings. Surely a campaign setting based on rulership like BR
will contain one or more such classes (Rokugan has two, the Samuri and the
Courtier). The Expert can also be improved on the same lines, just as we
see PC merchant and scholar classes in some settings.

When convincing a player that its wise to spend a few levels in a class like
aristocrat or expert I use three means. First, tell the players about your
expected character design, and why you do what you do. Explaining that
characters will need to do things beyond a very narrow specialty and
emphisize that some adventures may have nothing to do with dungeons or
monsters. Second, every character is required to start off with a backround
class. Third, require skill checks often enough that characters know that
the narrow, low-skill, adventuring classes (based instead on feats and
spells) need a little augmentation. Or, actually require what you said
originally you would require. Characters with too many 2 rank skill classes
can easily be made helpless with a little water, the occasional pit, a horse
every now and then, damaged equipment, and the fact that everyone knows
they`ll never spot or hear an ambush. Start players off early in their
character`s careers with a court based adventure in which aristocratic
skills, like sense motive, knowledge (nobility), and gather information are
required. Make them do things like go hunting, dine in courtly style, and
observe the rituals of temple in order to achieve their goals.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Birthright-L

01-21-2003, 01:42 PM

From: "Azrai" <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG>

> There is a BIG problem of letting players choose their blood abilities.The
same problem which one has when using the point-b.-system of the DMG. There
we have many 18`s and many 8`s. But a 17 or 18 is for shure. So there will
be a lot of people, which choose the best-liked abilities. And THIS is
disbalanced. For example, all Azrai scions would maybe choose "Touch of
decay" or something like that. As a result, we created stereotypical
characters. High-powered characters would be standard, exactly what we do
not want.

:)

Around here, a more common problem is that everyone has 14 in all the
ability scores...

__________________________________________________ ___
Gratis e-mail resten av livet på www.yahoo.se/mail
Busenkelt!

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

geeman

01-21-2003, 01:42 PM

At 01:25 PM 1/21/2003 +0100, Ariadne wrote:

>Gary, you forgot the half-elf, I don`t think, he should be listed as
>"all others"... ;)

Orog isn`t on there either, so I suppose that should be a d12 instead of a d10.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Ariadne

01-21-2003, 02:38 PM

Originally posted by kgauck

[...] When convincing a player that its wise to spend a few levels in a class like aristocrat or expert I use three means. First, tell the players about your expected character design, and why you do what you do. Explaining that characters will need to do things beyond a very narrow specialty and emphisize that some adventures may have nothing to do with dungeons or monsters. Second, every character is required to start off with a backround class. Third, require skill checks often enough that characters know that the narrow, low-skill, adventuring classes (based instead on feats and spells) need a little augmentation. [...]
Most players would still refuse such levels. If you see a priest 4/ Aristocrat 3 or a priest 7 there is much difference (especially in spell casting), but they have the same character level. If you want my opinion about skills like "sense motive" I would say, take a level as a rogue! Then you will have more skill points, as you can see and some other advantages.

As I said already, nobody needs a background class, but he needs a background. If you want to spend some skill points into a profession skill, you will have what you want...

Requiring skill checks isn't bad, that's why you know, why a rogue in the party isn't wrong (and naturally a wizard or priest with those spells)...
By the way, your third point I would say is against your argument: If you loose some levels to aristrocrat or expert, you will get such spells like "detect lie" later, if you want to become a priest (and those spells are a little better than "sense motive" you must say)...

Peter Lubke

01-21-2003, 03:37 PM

On Tue, 2003-01-21 at 23:39, Stephen Starfox wrote:

From: "Azrai" <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG>

> There is a BIG problem of letting players choose their blood abilities.The
same problem which one has when using the point-b.-system of the DMG. There
we have many 18`s and many 8`s. But a 17 or 18 is for shure. So there will
be a lot of people, which choose the best-liked abilities. And THIS is
disbalanced. For example, all Azrai scions would maybe choose "Touch of
decay" or something like that. As a result, we created stereotypical
characters. High-powered characters would be standard, exactly what we do
not want.

:)

Around here, a more common problem is that everyone has 14 in all the
ability scores...

same smell, different animal shitting - does that mean you favor random
rolling too?

(Q. has no-one there worked out that 18+8 is way better than 13+13 ?)

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Birthright-L

01-21-2003, 05:10 PM

> Around here, a more common problem is that everyone has 14 in all the
> ability scores...
>
>
> same smell, different animal shitting - does that mean you favor random
> rolling too?
>

Some randomness is dieireable, yes, but mainly what yiuneed is a good mix
ofplayers. In VR I used a combination rolling - point my method. In
Dragonstar which I`m starting up now, it`s straight point bye.

> (Q. has no-one there worked out that 18+8 is way better than 13+13 ?)
>

Ah - but lates points costmore. The choice is between 18 + 8 and 15+15. Or
rather between 18+8+8 and 12+14+14.

__________________________________________________ ___
Gratis e-mail resten av livet på www.yahoo.se/mail
Busenkelt!

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Birthright-L

01-21-2003, 05:47 PM

This is probably my worst spelling, ever. Sorry. I`m having a terible
backache...

/Carl

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Starfox" <stephen_starfox@YAHOO.SE>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 4:46 PM
Subject: Re: Bloodline - Ability [2#1208]

> > Around here, a more common problem is that everyone has 14 in all
the
> > ability scores...
> >
> >
> > same smell, different animal shitting - does that mean you favor random
> > rolling too?
> >
>
> Some randomness is dieireable, yes, but mainly what yiuneed is a good mix
> ofplayers. In VR I used a combination rolling - point my method. In
> Dragonstar which I`m starting up now, it`s straight point bye.
>
> > (Q. has no-one there worked out that 18+8 is way better than 13+13 ?)
> >
>
> Ah - but lates points costmore. The choice is between 18 + 8 and 15+15. Or
> rather between 18+8+8 and 12+14+14.
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________ ___
> Gratis e-mail resten av livet på www.yahoo.se/mail
> Busenkelt!
>
>
************************************************** **************************
> The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
> Birthright-l Archives:
http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
> To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
> with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
>

__________________________________________________ ___
Gratis e-mail resten av livet på www.yahoo.se/mail
Busenkelt!

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 08:16 PM

I was going to combine all my replies to this thread into one long post,
but then I realized it had grown so long I`d have to send it in multiple
pieces anyway, so now I`m just going to send ten individual replies back
to back.

Anyway, a summary of my overall position: I am firmly in the point-buy
camp. Rolling dice makes things less balanced, not more.

Now for the details...

On Fri, 17 Jan 2003, Gary <geeman@SOFTHOME.NET> wrote:

> One doesn`t get to decide one`s hair or eye color either,

This is an allusion to a crucial issue that hasn`t been mentioned enough.
This is a fantasy roleplaying game, so we should get to live out our
fantasies in game play, not be forced into someone else`s. I prefer
character generation systems that give me greater control over the
mechanics of the person I am going to play, about whom I have some very
specific ideas from the get-go -- in some ways, I`ve played fewer
characters than RPG systems, because certain character archetypes appeal
much more strongly to me than others, so I go around re-implementing the
same imaginary people in multiple different rulesets with multiple
different GMs. While it may be true that portraying a character based on
the results of random rolls is a greater acting challenge, it is not one
which appeals to me. When I audition for a play, I always have one or
more specific roles in mind, not just "I`ll take whatever they give me."
I don`t like rolling ability scores in part for the same reason I don`t
like rolling character classes: it restricts player freedom of choice,
which to me is a crucial part of Maximum Game Fun.

> d4 Eyes/Hair (Roll once for each.)
> 4 Player`s Choice (including weird, unnatural colors like orange or purple.)

As an aside, IMC most Sidhelien look like this. Many of my Sidhelien
maintain fairly close elemental associations, so some of them end up
looking almost as outre` as the genasi from the FRCS (e.g. light blue
skin, dark green hair and purple eyes for a seaweedy-theme). Half-elves,
OTOH, were designed to blend in, so they all look perfectly normal. =)

> The only problem I have with tables is that they go out of date so
> quickly. The first time somebody writes up a new ability BANG the old
> tables need to be rewritten or you need some addendum. [snip]
> the neatest way of dealing with this sort of thing is to have a fairly
> generous fraction of the die/dice being rolled at the "bottom" of the
> table that says "player`s choice" and when a new option comes along then
> it can fit somewhere into that available space at the bottom.

I`ve done a similar thing, but instead of "choose" that space says
"reroll", and it shrinks or grows to fit the best available die-type,
absent the presence of d37s and d53s -- and if I`m going to be using the
table for a long time as a DM reference, I`ll just let a computer "roll"
pseudorandom "dice" of the exact size anyway.

> Presenting blood abilities in a format like that would probably
> represent a middle ground between the two options of assigning those
> abilities to characters (letting them choose or rolling randomly) and
> might in the long run be a bit more useful.

I actually think it should be all chosen or all random. Rolling to see
whether you get to choose strikes me as even more unfair.

> Animal Affinity has a 9% chance of turning up while Iron Will has 4%.
> [snip] Probably the simplest way of doing it would be to have the random
> blood ability tables on a single page with the d100 roll along the left
> hand column and with each bloodline derivation in the next seven columns.

But if you fill all 100, you are forced back into the same bind that
produced the Blood Enemies table that struck us as so odd. What I did
when making such tables for my own use was a version of the "space at the
bottom" idea above -- Animal Affinity gets 9 slots, Iron Will gets 4, and
so on (the ones from BE get divided by 3, or whatever the exact scaling
factor was...). Then total up the number of slots -- that is, widths of
die roll ranges, not the specific ranges themselves -- relevant to each
derivation (as I recall Masela had the fewest and Azrai the most), and
roll a die of that (notional) size. You could play with the relative
weights, but I`d like to leave them as a list of (possibly derivation-
specific) weights, to be converted into tables as needed, rather than
placed in hard-to-change tables too soon.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 08:16 PM

On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Dr. Travis Doom <doom@CS.WRIGHT.EDU> wrote:

> I`m not certain that I have ever understood the arguement that "random
> generation" promotes "balance". I _think_ this arguement is based upon
> some theory that the relative infrequency of the "POWERFUL" abilities
> makes it so unlikely that a character will have several such abilites,
> and thus the game will be "balanced". As I`ve noted, however, I don`t
> get the arguement (and never have) so perhaps I`m missing something.

I quite agree. It means in any party, some characters will be much more
powerful than others. The only way such statistical balance would work is
if the same group of people played lots and lots of different characters,
so that over time each of them would have had a chance to be strongest and
a chance to be weakest. Since that not only requires vastly more changes
of character than I have ever heard of, but also accepts that all parties
will always be internally unbalanced, I think it is a very bad plan.

Statistical balance works in combat, since each character is likely to
roll to-hit and damage thousands of times in its career; but ability
scores are rolled only once, so statistical balance is an illusion.

For a similar reason, I also always disliked rolling hit points once and
for all at each level, the same way I would object to rolling for skill
points awarded at each level. Therefore I have adopted an idea from a DM
I gamed with in college -- everyone rolls hit points anew every session.
Everyone has days where they feel much tougher or frailer than others, but
the fighters still are usually much more impact-resistant than the mages,
and no one gets permanent (dis)advantage from a single roll. Fixed
systems (everyone gets exactly 1/2 or 3/4 or some other fraction of their
max hp) are also much fairer than once-and-for-all rolling.

> If one or more blood powers are widely agreed to be "too powerful", then
> then should be down-graded in power, or upgraded in category, n`est pas?

Exactly. Though again, this will have to be somewhat modified based on
campaign style -- Battlewise is important when PCs often lead armies, and
useless if they never do.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 08:16 PM

On Sun, 19 Jan 2003, Gary <geeman@SOFTHOME.NET> wrote:

> The problem, though, is that urge to min/max when creating point buy
> characters seems irresistible to many players.

OK, I may get burned at the stake for saying this, but what exactly is so
bad about "min/maxing"? As far as I can tell, all the term really means
is being good at designing your character to accomplish some particular
purpose. If you pick a purpose that fits the campaign the DM has in mind,
you will be a useful member of the team; if you pick one that doesn`t fit,
you will not. Therefore, the way to encourage well-rounded characters is
to have a well-rounded campaign, rather than to tell people they`re not
allowed to carefully plan their characters. Why not just randomly assign
skill points? Isn`t getting to pick where they get allocated "min/maxing"?

The same thing can happen to character classes, too -- in a campaign where
every session has multiple combats, fighters will shine. In a campaign
where there are no combats, fighters will be useless. Does that mean a
player who picks a fighter in a combat-heavy game or a bard/rogue in an
intrigue-heavy game is also an evil min/maxer? If not, why not?

> That does create an unbalancing effect because higher ability scores
> change the way various character class features get determined.

What is unbalanced about this? Sure, it means that players who understand
the mechanics better can design more powerful characters on the same
number of points, but I`d prefer to encourage rather than discourage that
sort of intimate understanding of the rules, and use that experience to
improve the game system by identifying and changing rules that are too
easy to abuse. The DM can actually min/max much more extremely than the
players can afford to, since NPCs often appear only in one scene of an
adventure, the exact content of which the DM can pretty tightly control;
while PCs must be prepared to handle every scene of every adventure in the
campaign, the content of which they can only guess.

> You can certainly still get such results by randomly rolling ability
> scores, but where they _might_ occur in randomly rolled characters they
> _usually_ occur in ones based on a point buy. (At least, that`s the
> case in my experience.)

Meaning, for example, every cleric looks exactly the same? Well, maybe
there is a single best way to design one for a given campaign; if so, I
don`t believe anyone should be scolded for figuring that out. If it`s a
case of everyone aligned exactly at particular break points, then that`s
an artifact of the discretization of the system. That`s why I prefer d100
systems to d20 systems -- you can make the chunk size small enough that
every increment of every level, skill, etc. makes you better at everything
it affects. For example, rather than saying something like "you get +1
(on d20) to hit with your bow for every second point of Dex," you can say
"you get +2 or +3 (on d100) to hit with your bow for every point of Dex."

> The problem is that various ability scores interact with the class/level
> system in such a way as to make the assumption that character level is
> roughly equal to CR something of a fallacy.

Well, sure. It`s always been true that the relative power of a character
with all scores at least 16 and another with no score above 11 is not well
described by their level alone.

> because of the way certain ability scores interact with level-based
> character class features (constitution with hit points, intelligence
> with skill points) the influence of those abilities on a characters
> effective character level becomes more pronounced at higher levels.

Yes. Ability scores often multiply class features, rather than just add
to them. Of course, some class features are inherently multiplicative:
the power of a spellcaster is better characterized by the *square* of his
level than his level alone, since even looking only at spells castable at
the lower level, at the higher one he can cast more of them and the effect
of each one is often increased. I could make a fair argument for the
*cube* of the level, given the access to increasingly powerful new kinds
of spells.

But in some sense, all this really means is that the effect of different
ability scores is magnified by high level, so you must decide what kind of
differential award you want to magnify: do you want to vastly increase the
influence of luck (the original ability score rolls) or the influence of
player skill and planning (the original ability score point allocations)?
To me, the obvious answer is skill, not luck.

> I would suggest that every point above the standard array represents
> approximately 1/4 of character level, so the aforementioned 6th level
> fighter with an additional point in constitution, intelligence and
> strength would be 7th level (rounded up) for the purpose of determining
> EL/CR.

Good suggestion. I`m not sure of the exact numbers involved, but some
alteration for unusual ability scores is a necessary plan.

> Min/maxed characters do make this a bit of a rough assumption, because
> they will tend to have their bonuses in ability scores that interact
> with character class in additional ways, such as the paladin`s reliance
> upon his charisma score,

Which simply says that paladins with low charisma are not very good at
being paladins, wizards with low intelligence are not very good at being
wizards, etc. Why should we fear people who`ve read the books and thus
know how to get the most use out of their character`s attributes?

> The bonus spells for high ability scores for spellcasters have a similar
> effect.

Any ability-based limitation of maximum spell level is a much bigger
effect: a 20th-level priest sounds really powerful, until you discover
that for some reason he has a wisdom of only 11, so he can`t even cast 2nd
level spells. Sure, he`s got lots and lots of spells per day, but they`re
all dinky.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 08:16 PM

On Sun, 19 Jan 2003, Ariadne <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG> wrote:

> "Balanced" is realy a difficult word. What I meant is, that random
> doesn`t grant you automatically powerful abilities.

Yes, as Peter Lubke said, random is only balanced or fair if the things
assigned randomly are of exactly equal value. If you might get Resistance
(Great) or you might get nothing, it`s not remotely balanced.

> If you`re unlucky, you get only those, you DON`T want (For me it is
> "animal affinity" and "battle sense"). If you choose them, you have no
> problems with hated abilities...

As I said in a previous post in this thread, that is an argument for
choice about which we have not heard enough. The purpose of the game is
to have fun, so players should get to customize their characters as much
as possible, so as to have the most fun with them. No one should be
forced to play a character they don`t like.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 08:16 PM

On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 19:24:26, Gary <geeman@SOFTHOME.NET> wrote:

> Many of the minor blood abilities don`t add up to much more than the
> equivalent of a feat or special ability, so assigning an ECL to
> bloodlines is a rather shaky process.

Agreed.

> What I`ve been mulling over is a system of redesigning character classes
> that would make the XP requirements commensurate with the earned class
> features for that particular class.

Like D&D tried to do in every edition but the third.

> One could then design classes however one liked and have players buy
> levels by spending XP (which is essentially what they do now) but
> without worrying about things like balancing the character classes
> against one another.

Not really true. You`d still have to calculate exactly how much better
one class is than another -- if the peasant is 500, should the
soldier-priest cost 1000, 1500, 2000, or 1756.39?

> If the values are properly assigned there would be no effective
> difference between a 4th level character and a 2nd level character who
> had spent XP on character classes that were twice as costly as the 4th
> level one.

Correct. Thus the proper one-dimensional numerical index of relative
power would be not level, but number of XP spent.

> Within such a system one could assign a value to blood abilities (as well
> as any other racial or special ability, or the class features themselves)
> and then determine the "worth" of such characters based on their XP values
> rather than a character level. Monsters could be "balanced" against those
> characters based on the XP value of their relative stats as well.

Which is what nearly every RPG except D&D has always done. =)

> A possible fix for balancing blood abilities by reflecting them in the
> CR/EL system would be to include a decimal point in the CR. A 4th level
> character with a minor blood ability might be level 4.1 for the purpose
> of determining his XP awards, and would then receive 990 XP for a CR 4
> encounter rather than the 1,000 that is standard for a 4th level

Another fine tweak to the existing system.
I look forward to seeing your table!

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 08:16 PM

On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Ariadne <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG> wrote:

> So still if you roll your bloodline, you might get a "tainted" one of 7
> and no blood ability. May be the PC has luck in the next turn. He
> might be angry, if his neighbor has rolled a "great" bloodline of 42
> with regenerate, elemental control or something as a blood ability, but
> everyone has a fair chance...

But how long will it be until "the next turn"? If a character gets a bad
to-hit roll in a combat, it gets to try again next round. If a character
gets a bad bloodline, it never ever gets to try again, and the player
never gets to try again until starting over with a new character. Though
the chance of joy or misery is equal, the distribution of them is
manifestly not. To me, random rolling produces much greater and more
justifiable intra-party unhappiness than point buying.

> By the way, I don`t like the point buy system either, I still roll
> ability scores because of the same reason as above (everyone gets the
> same fair chance)...

But everyone gets the same *one* chance, which means in actual effect it
is not fair at all.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 08:16 PM

On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Stephen Starfox <stephen_starfox@YAHOO.SE> wrote:

> The reason we have classes in the first case is (tradition aside) the
> fact they help make characters more balanced.

Again I must say, for what purpose? A class, as you point out, is merely
a specific package of purchasable features. Those packages, if they are
to be balanced, must be tailored for a specific purpose -- 3e picked
dungeon crawls. If you play a game in which negotiation skills are more
important than beating people up, a level of fighter is no longer equal to
a level of rogue, if it really ever was.

> If each of these abilities could be purchased separately (which is
> essentially what you are saying), then nothing could prevent a player
> from min-maxing to a much higher degree than is now possible.

Which sounds great to me. Perhaps the proper response is for me to
abandon D&D entirely, but that doesn`t stop me from encouraging that it
get with the program. ;>

> Give up on feats, skill points, saves, attribute points and concentrate
> on hit points and BAB. Depending on how costly you make the different
> components, different approached would work out well, but it is still a
> min/maxing paradise.

But min/maxing has to be done with a goal in mind. It only produces
wildly skewed characters when the point values or the campaign itself are
wildly skewed. If everyone buys only BAB and hp, that is a sign that
either they are too cheap, or the campaign is so combat-heavy that
everything else is useless. If what you see is everyone in the party
picking a *different* specialty and optimizing it to death, then I must
ask why you don`t think, as I do, that such a situation is positive -- a
sign of good, well-planned teamwork.

> The generalist classes in DnD, those with a wide spread of abilities,
> like bards, monks and rogues, tend to end up with very high scores on
> class construction engines and similar class ability evaluators. But in
> play, it is almost never these that cause problems - it is the
> overspecialized mages, paladins and fighters.

I mostly agree -- as you said elsewhere, specialists usually overwhelm
generalists in this system: consider three fighter/mage/thief 5/5/5s
matched against a fighter 15, a mage 15 and a thief 15!

Although, to be fair to spellcasters, their problem is that a sufficiently
large spell selection list makes them too good at everyone else`s
specialty -- who needs a rogue when you`ve got an invisible flying ESP-ing
mage who`s made herself a ring of Detect Traps? A high-enough level mage
makes the rest of the party redundant.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 08:16 PM

On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, usermaatre <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG> wrote:

> I very much like the idea that characters get to choose their blood
> abilities. I suspect that this will be similar to choosing feats. Some
> do not have prerequisites, some do, and some of the more potent feats
> have other feats as prerequisites.

A good idea -- what blood abilities do you think ought to have which
others as prerequisites?

> 3e even has rules for using points to buy your ability scores. (DMG, pp
> 19-20) These rules allow me, the DM, to set the power level for the
> party, not a random set of heroic/unheroic rolls.

I heartily agree. It keeps the players more balanced against each other,
which makes it easier to create encounters that won`t be too easy for some
and too difficult for others. It also gives me some assistance in picking
ability scores for NPCs -- it always seemed to me that the people most
likely to make it to higher levels would be the ones who`d had high
ability scores in the first place, but now it`s easier to write it down in
one simple formula, like "buy stats with points = PC base - N + K per HD".

> 3rd, there is not an imbalance between PC`s. One player doesn`t have
> 3 16`s, 2 14`s and a 12, while the rest of the players each have a 14,
> a 12, 4 10`s and 2 8`s. [snip] This situation creates imbalance within
> the party, which in my mind is the only kind of imbalance that matters.

Absolutely yes!

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 08:16 PM

On 20 Jan 2003, Gary <geeman@SOFTHOME.NET> wrote:

> I just think there should be a set of intelligent and articulated
> guidelines for how those classes should be designing and rated.

Didn`t we just have that fight a couple of months ago? =) I still agree
completely with you that such things are both possible and good.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 08:27 PM

On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Azrai <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG> wrote:

> "Balance" is a matter of the campaign, not a general problem. If the
> player`s have rolled good scores, the DM has to modify his encounters;
> it`s that simple.

That`s the easy kind of balance. What happens when some of the players
roll good scores and others roll bad ones? That`s the hard kind of
balance. I agree with usermaatre that it`s the only important kind.

> So there will be a lot of people, which choose the best-liked abilities.
> And THIS is disbalanced. For example, all Azrai scions would maybe
> choose "Touch of decay" or something like that. As a result, we created
> stereotypical characters.

How is this at all unbalanced? Characters which are completely identical
are the only characters which can ever be called perfectly balanced.
If what you really want is variety, then say so -- but admit that variety
works *against* balance, not for it.

> High-powered characters would be standard, exactly what we do not want.

Only if you give out lots of points to pick them with. No one is going to
let a character with a bloodline of Tainted, 4 select seven Great-level
blood abilities. If you think a particular one is too powerful, then make
it prohibitively expensive, or just disallow it entirely. If you really
want variety, then decree that no player in the party can have the same
ability as any other, and have them take turns choosing. You could even
have them bid points for the privilege! If a particular ability is always
chosen by everyone, then that ability has too high a utility-to-cost
ratio, so it is a sign that the costs are out of line with the campaign.

> I still think, random created BA should definitely be used.

And I still think definitely not. *sigh*

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

irdeggman

01-22-2003, 09:37 PM

It's amazing how much discussion (?) came about from 2 simple sentences.

>The proposed default will be to choose your blood abilities, this is consistent with the >way 3rd ed mechanics work. There will be a proposed variant to allow random rolls for >those who wish to maintain that aspect.

Hmmm, as I read what I wrote - the proposed system will have a default mechanic (choosing blood abilities) and a variant (to randomly roll them). Seems to me that covers both ends of the discussion that has ensued. This will allow most everyone to choose the one that they think will fit their campaign style the best. Always remembering that individual tweaks, changes, etc., can be done by DMs as they see fit.

I don't recall (nor did I read it mentioned by me) the method for determining the blood ability score, only how to choose individual abilities. People seem to have read into the original 2 sentences more than was there. And no I'm not going to say what is in the proposed system for determining blood score - there would be far too many comments (based on this thread alone) without everyone having seen the "complete" package. Almost everything in the package meshes with something else so it is rather difficult to only see a "snap shot" and extrapolate the entire thing.

Note I do think that there have been rather well spoken (and though out) opinions presented, whether or not I agree with them. I do think that there will be even more well presented opinions and discussion when the "package" is delivered for review. The time line is still rather close to being met - out for review by the end of this month or very early in February (I'd estimate no later than mid-month).;)

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 09:47 PM

On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Stephen Starfox wrote:

> Actually, for someone around here playing a wizard, there is almost
> nothing that could convince them to pick up a level in another class -
> you simply lose too much spellcasting ability.

Agreed. This is because spellcaster power is nonlinear in level. If the
magic system were changed to make it linear, this would not be so
obviously problematic. However, the necessary changes would be drastic.
For example, total spell levels per day would have to be made proportional
to level, not level cubed. Also, all caster level effects in spells would
have to be removed, or altered to be spell-level-increasing like metamagic
feats: e.g., Fireball cast as a 3rd-level spell would always do 5d6; to
get 10d6, you`d have to cast it as a 5th- or 6th-level spell.

I played in such a campaign once, as a fighter-mage, and really liked it:
it made low-level spellcasters more powerful and high-level ones less,
which is exactly the sort of balance the D&D magic system needs.

Another fix -- because I really like the idea of multiclassing in NPC
classes to achieve well-roundedness -- would be arranging an XP system
which realized that when you are a wizard 14, becoming a wizard 15 is more
like becoming a wizard 14 / expert 6 than a wizard 14 / expert 1. This is
a lot like the multiclassing system from the earlier editions, which I
much preferred. What I always did was track XP for each class separately,
so that after an adventure in which the fighter/mage cast spells all day
but never drew his sword, I could say, "Your XP award is not divided
evenly among your classes, but instead allocated entirely to magic-user."

1e and 2e`s exponential XP tables made multiclassing overpowerful, in that
a wizard 15 could nearly be a wizard 14 / fighter 14 / thief 14 instead;
however, if we take 3e`s XP progression with previous editions` division
of XP, not levels, we find that one equal of a wizard 14 is a fighter 10 /
wizard 10, and another has 8 levels in each of 3 different classes; this
is not necessarily perfect, but it is much more the equal of a wizard 14
than is the 3e claim of fighter 7 / wizard 7.

One bug in this system as written is that getting one level in every class
is free, because level 1 characters have 0 XP. Simply bumping things up
by one line on the table (e.g., 0 xp = lvl 0, 1000 xp = lvl 1, etc.) isn`t
the answer either, because that would mean that for 15,000 XP, you could
have either 5 levels of one class or one level of each of 15 classes.
The way to answer both problems at once is to make adding each additional
class progressively more expensive.

One way to do this which interacts nicely with the printed table is to say
that the XP price of gaining level N in your Kth class is actually
500(N+K-2)(N+K-1). If you set K=1, this reproduces the 3e PHB table.
For K=2 (your second class), read one line further down the table, so that
your first level of the second class would cost the same as the second
level of your first class; but the fifth level of your second class costs
the same as the sixth level of your first class, the fourth level of your
third class or the first level of your sixth class.

If we apply this formula to our example 14th level single-class character,
it means that the XP equivalents (if they are distributed equally among
all classes) are not 7/7, 5/5/4, 4/4/3/3, ... 1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1,
as standard 3e would have it, but rather 10/9, 8/7/6, ... 6/5/4/3/2/1.
The largest number of classes possible for this many XP is seven,
distributed as 3/2/1/1/1/1/1.

The trouble, of course, is that while this works for spellcasters, it is
manifestly not true for combat-oriented classes: e.g., while a Wiz 8 / Clr
7 / Brd 6 might be a decent match (but perhaps still under-powered) for a
Wiz 14, a Ftr 8 / Rgr 7 / Bbn 6 is vastly more powerful than a Ftr, Rgr or
Bbn 14; those classes really are largely additive (except for the ranger`s
favored enemy bonus, which is roughly quadratic in power, but only a small
part of the package).

*sigh* I think I`m getting somewhere, but I`m still missing something.
Maybe what I need is honestly balanced classes. =)

> The same is true for ECL-modified races - very few of those will
> become spellcasters.

Within a party, perhaps, but not in the world at large -- being a Wiz 13 /
SomeRace 2 is almost certainly less powerful than being a pure Wiz 15, but
it is also true that being a Wiz 13 / SomeRace 2 is almost certainly more
powerful than being a Ftr 13 / SameRace 2.

> This adds insult to injury when the class you would pick up is a NPC
> class like the aristocrat or expert.

Meaning that if classes are to be treated equally, they must be equally
powerful, which most of us seem to agree is not the case.

> this is not a problem for NPCs, but I intensely dislike having
> different principles of character development for PCs and major NPCs.

I quite agree, and include minor NPCs as well! I want a system that
encourages some breadth of class choice, but not too much, and can reflect
the balance between classes appropriately. I`m still looking.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-22-2003, 10:05 PM

On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Kenneth Gauck wrote:

> It is a narrow class. It can do nothing but fight really well. I
> prefer it that way, because I like all of the standard D&D classes to
> be highly focused (cleric, fighter, wizard).

I agree. In fact, I think the cleric is entirely too well-rounded.
IMC, they have the same HD, BAB and saves as wizards, and analogous
equipment restrictions. If a priest wants good fighting ability in
addition to spells and turning, s/he must take levels of fighter.

> A level of fighter is a level of pure fighting, rather than a level of
> fighting, hunting, heraldry, swimming, stewardship, diplomacy, and
> leadership. That second description is the aristocrat.

I like this a lot.

> The same thing can be said with spellcasters and the expert class.

I`d prefer that to be the case, but with the spellcasting class vs.
non-spellcasting class dichotomy as currently instantiated in the rules,
it is indeed foolish for a spellcaster to take levels in anything except
spellcasting, because the differential return on investment is so much
greater for continued specialization.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Birthright-L

01-22-2003, 10:53 PM

On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, irdeggman wrote:
> It`s amazing how much discussion (?) came about from 2 simple sentences.

Yes, well, the high and mighty haven`t seen fit to hand down any more
details, so those two sentences are all we have to go by.

> And no I`m not going to say what is in the proposed system for
> determining blood score - there would be far too many comments (based
> on this thread alone) without everyone having seen the "complete"
> package. Almost everything in the package meshes with something else
> so it is rather difficult to only see a "snap shot" and extrapolate
> the entire thing.

You shouldn`t brag about that as though it`s a feature. It`s the worst
part of the whole process, actually. The release is delayed, and the
writers seem to think they`re releasing a coherent whole which will work
together wonderfully. I guarantee, though, that there will be parts that
should change. The writers won`t want to introduce a single change,
because it will affect the `complete package`, so we`re going to be stuck
with this one static release, it will get labelled `official`, and that
will be the end of it. Community involvement? Hah.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Peter Lubke

01-23-2003, 02:32 AM

On Thu, 2003-01-23 at 08:27, Ryan B. Caveney wrote:

On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Stephen Starfox wrote:

> Actually, for someone around here playing a wizard, there is almost
> nothing that could convince them to pick up a level in another class -
> you simply lose too much spellcasting ability.

Agreed. This is because spellcaster power is nonlinear in level. If the
magic system were changed to make it linear, this would not be so
obviously problematic. However, the necessary changes would be drastic.

Agreed. This is a problem is 2e and 1e also at high levels. Because the
power of non-spellcasters is linear and that of spellcasters non-linear
the classes become highly unbalanced.

1e and 2e`s exponential XP tables made multiclassing overpowerful, in that
a wizard 15 could nearly be a wizard 14 / fighter 14 / thief 14 instead;

Yes multi- and dual- classing in 1e/2e as generally applied is horribly
unbalanced, but there are well known fair solutions to this. (in 2e and
1e - and, as long as levels are not too high)
(i) For humans, who wish to change class , each level (beyond first)
gained in the new class costs the XP required to reach that level as if
from scratch, and each level gained in the new class decreases the
original class level by one. There are no restrictions on using the
original class abilities (such restrictions were always half-arsed at
best in any case). This will result in a penalty of about one level of
XP to change class (the sacrifice to get a first level in the new class)

e.g. a seventh level warrior wishing to change to magic user, would
become 6/1. On gaining a new level in magic-user he/she would be 5/2 and
so on.

A total of 60,001 XP is required to change profession from a Fighter-7
to a Mage-7, whereas it could have been used to become Fighter-8.

(ii) For humans who wish to add a second class, combine the target
levels of both classes. The XP required to achieve that target is equal
to the least favorable target XP on each level of the new class should
cost as many XP as would be required to reach the level in the original
class equal to the combined levels.

e.g. a fighter-7 (70,001 XP) adding a level of magic-user, would need
total XP equal to 125,001 -- or +55,000 XP the same as a fighter-8
(7+1). A second level of magic-user would be even more expensive.

(iii) The problem of multi-classed demi-humans was meant to be "solved"
by level limits but this only affects high-XP characters, while all
advantages accrue to the low level characters. One solution is an XP
penalty of 50% (or more).

e.g. a multi-classed elf fighter/magic-user with 70,004 XP (cf human
fighter 7) before applying 50% penalty and then sharing between two
classes, would have 17,501 XP as fighter (for 4th level) and 17,501 XP
as mage (for 4th level).

however, if we take 3e`s XP progression with previous editions` division
of XP, not levels, we find that one equal of a wizard 14 is a fighter 10 /
wizard 10, and another has 8 levels in each of 3 different classes; this
is not necessarily perfect, but it is much more the equal of a wizard 14
than is the 3e claim of fighter 7 / wizard 7.

One bug in this system as written is that getting one level in every class
is free, because level 1 characters have 0 XP. Simply bumping things up
by one line on the table (e.g., 0 xp = lvl 0, 1000 xp = lvl 1, etc.) isn`t
the answer either, because that would mean that for 15,000 XP, you could
have either 5 levels of one class or one level of each of 15 classes.

In 1e/2e, the first level of a second class (for dual-classed humans)
cost the XP of your newly gained level in your original class. The cost
of subsequent levels was never explained! People assumed that it was as
per the normal class progression.

The way to answer both problems at once is to make adding each additional
class progressively more expensive.

One way to do this which interacts nicely with the printed table is to say
that the XP price of gaining level N in your Kth class is actually
500(N+K-2)(N+K-1). If you set K=1, this reproduces the 3e PHB table.
For K=2 (your second class), read one line further down the table, so that
your first level of the second class would cost the same as the second
level of your first class; but the fifth level of your second class costs
the same as the sixth level of your first class, the fourth level of your
third class or the first level of your sixth class.

If we apply this formula to our example 14th level single-class character,
it means that the XP equivalents (if they are distributed equally among
all classes) are not 7/7, 5/5/4, 4/4/3/3, ... 1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1,
as standard 3e would have it, but rather 10/9, 8/7/6, ... 6/5/4/3/2/1.
The largest number of classes possible for this many XP is seven,
distributed as 3/2/1/1/1/1/1.

The trouble, of course, is that while this works for spellcasters, it is
manifestly not true for combat-oriented classes: e.g., while a Wiz 8 / Clr
7 / Brd 6 might be a decent match (but perhaps still under-powered) for a
Wiz 14, a Ftr 8 / Rgr 7 / Bbn 6 is vastly more powerful than a Ftr, Rgr or
Bbn 14; those classes really are largely additive (except for the ranger`s
favored enemy bonus, which is roughly quadratic in power, but only a small
part of the package).

*sigh* I think I`m getting somewhere, but I`m still missing something.
Maybe what I need is honestly balanced classes. =)

Yes. (Or *chuckle*, place level limits on the total number of levels a
character can have! - what! limits you say?! - blasphemy!!)

The original concept (D&D - pre AD&D) of having characters reach the
pinnacle of their abilities at name level is quite workable. Sort of
like level limits for humans (cf level limits for demi-humans). This
approach solves nearly all the problems with dual- and multi- classing
in 1e and 2e all by itself. It also solves the problem of high level
spell casters becoming unbalanced w.r.t non-spell casters of equal XP.

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Birthright-L

01-23-2003, 09:22 AM

I don`t really agree that spellcasters become all-powerful on high levels.
In my opinion, all classes have a quadratic developent.

A fighter gains more attacks as he increases in level. He also gains more
base attack. The formular for the total BAB a fighter gets to use during a
round is approximately Level x (Level/5), which is also a quadratic
development.

If you check out the default equipment alottment for characters in DnD, you
will find that it is 900 gp per level, cumulatively. That is 900 x (1 +2
+3... +n), where n is the character level. This can be subsumed as n(n+1)
x900 gp, also a quadratic development.

Relative power seems to depend heavily on how much magical items you allow
in the game. With few magic items, spellcasters rule. With many magic items,
spellcasters are quite balanced. When magic items are rare, spellcasters
shine, because they provide solutions to problems that nobody else can
solve.

/Carl

__________________________________________________ ___
Gratis e-mail resten av livet på www.yahoo.se/mail
Busenkelt!

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

geeman

01-23-2003, 09:27 AM

At 02:48 PM 1/22/2003 -0500, Ryan Caveney wrote:

> > The problem, though, is that urge to min/max when creating point buy
> > characters seems irresistible to many players.
>
>OK, I may get burned at the stake for saying this, but what exactly is so
>bad about "min/maxing"? As far as I can tell, all the term really means
>is being good at designing your character to accomplish some particular
>purpose.

I don`t think there`s anything inherently _wrong_ with min/maxing. It`s
just an aspect of playing the game. It does create a few issues that one
has to take into consideration, though, especially as a DM. In my
experience the problem is precisely that min/maxed characters are designed
to accomplish a particular purpose... to the detriment of most other
purposes. When one sets up an adventure with a variety of different
activities (combat, skill checks, various sorts of interaction with NPCs,
etc.) and makes those activities roughly commensurate with the level of the
PCs min/maxed characters will blow right through the ones they are designed
and stumble over those they aren`t. That`s a problem because as a DM one
of the "meta-thinking" things I do is to customize adventures for the
PCs. It`s not necessarily something I want to do, it`s just something that
needs to get done sometimes or the session bogs down and runs the danger of
becoming a snoozefest. To a certain extent this kind of thing is always
possible simply given the vagaries of the ability score and character class
systems. Min/maxed characters just exemplify those vagaries more than more
"balanced" ones.

There are several methods of dealing with this sort of thing from a DM
standpoint, many of which are particularly apt for BR. The first and
foremost is having enough players (or giving them enough PCs) so that they
can create a well-balanced party of min/maxed characters. The second is
henchmen/sidekicks/cohorts (or whatever one wants to call them in 3e.) The
important thing about such NPCs, however, is that they DM should have more
control over them than the 3e materials seem to suggest--he should feel
free to step in earlier than "life and death" issues, and the appearance of
NPCs who will accompany the party should be handled in a way that the DMG
really only hints at. Players should have more access to "situational"
cohorts and followers.

In BR campaigns I`ve played with previous groups this was less of a
problem. All the players seemed to like the idea of a large cast of
characters, and their character concepts usually revolved around getting
followers. In my current group the players haven`t evinced much interest
in the domain level of the campaign, and don`t even much care for playing
lots of characters at a time--a dichotomy that surprised me, I must
say. They don`t design characters to be leaders and to participate at the
political level of play, which is something I`ve been doing since 1e
(probably the reason I like BR so much) preferring more of what I would
describe as "standard" dungeon crawl type characters. My solution has been
to introduce a rotating cast of characters who will become "cohorts" to the
PCs "on assignment" based on the adventure and locale that they are
on/in. This has been working out pretty well so far because it allows me
to introduce NPCs that are close to the PCs and are "flavor" for the
campaign itself. It also allows me to deal with some of their min/maxing
efforts (I went with a total point buy this time round, including an +1 ECL
for additional character points, and bonus points for lower than normal
ability scores) by giving them access to certain other abilities their PCs
might need during an adventure. I suspect it will also allow me to
introduce a few less than loyal NPCs that the players may not suspect
having been lulled into accepting the concept at some point in the
not-too-distant future....

Probably the last resort for the DM is to go ahead and design adventures
that cater to the min/maxing of the players. That can be

To a certain extent min/maxing is simply utilizing the rules of the game
intelligently, but the question is at what point does the DM want that
min/maxing to take place and to what extent? If you don`t have a problem
with min/maxing try this recipe. Start the players off with 25 points and
at 3rd-5th level. Give them an additional 15 character points for every +1
ECL they take, and extend the point buy ability score table past 18. In
addition, have them get extra character points for taking ability scores
below 8. 1 point for a 7, 2 for a 6, 3 for a 5, etc. Allow them to buy a
bloodline with those same points (I think we went with 5 points to get
1d6+4 bloodline strength points) and to choose their derivation and blood
abilities. Depending on how zealously your players min/max you can easily
wind up with characters having ability scores in the lower to mid 20`s.

When using a point buy character generation system it starts at the
earliest possible point, making for characters with the most min/maxing
there can be. In BR, extending the point buy into a "choose own" blood
ability system, can make it much more dramatic an issue. Aside from any of
those issues, it does strike some people (myself included) as unnatural to
have PCs walking around with the weird range of scores that result from the
point buy method. None of these things are insurmountable obstacles during
play, but they are problematic.

> > That does create an unbalancing effect because higher ability scores
> > change the way various character class features get determined.
>
>What is unbalanced about this?

It`s unbalanced if two characters of the same class and level (and,
supposedly, the same CR) wind up having different actual abilities because
of their ability scores. Spellcaster X with a 16 in his primary ability
score gets two less spells than spellcaster Y with a 20 in that same
ability score. He also may get more skill points or a higher Will
save. When designing adventures for such characters an "average" encounter
is supposed to use up a certain percent of the characters` resources, so if
one uses that guideline then one needs to up the power level of encounters
in order to reflect the increased resources available due to ability
scores. That`s not the most difficult thing in the world for a DM to do,
but depending on the extend of the min/maxing the access to various special
abilities can be dramatic, and easily shift one character up what would be
an ECL if described more accurately.

> > Min/maxed characters do make this a bit of a rough assumption, because
> > they will tend to have their bonuses in ability scores that interact
> > with character class in additional ways, such as the paladin`s reliance
> > upon his charisma score,
>
>Which simply says that paladins with low charisma are not very good at
>being paladins, wizards with low intelligence are not very good at being
>wizards, etc. Why should we fear people who`ve read the books and thus
>know how to get the most use out of their character`s attributes?

I don`t think anyone is afraid of them unless they actually start throwing
those books after having read them. We`re just discussing the results of
those efforts. If DM`s don`t mind playing without any such analysis and
don`t want to deal with any of the issues that min/maxed characters create
then more power to them (or, more accurately, to their players.)

> > The bonus spells for high ability scores for spellcasters have a similar
> > effect.
>
>Any ability-based limitation of maximum spell level is a much bigger
>effect: a 20th-level priest sounds really powerful, until you discover
>that for some reason he has a wisdom of only 11, so he can`t even cast 2nd
>level spells. Sure, he`s got lots and lots of spells per day, but they`re
>all dinky.

Not a lot of those running around, though, are there? The standard array,
in fact, is pretty well set up so that can never happen unless DMs or
players have some sort of freakish reason for coming up with characters
that don`t function.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

geeman

01-23-2003, 09:27 AM

At 02:52 PM 1/22/2003 -0500, Ryan Caveney wrote:

> > A possible fix for balancing blood abilities by reflecting them in the
> > CR/EL system would be to include a decimal point in the CR. A 4th level
> > character with a minor blood ability might be level 4.1 for the purpose
> > of determining his XP awards, and would then receive 990 XP for a CR 4
> > encounter rather than the 1,000 that is standard for a 4th level
>
>Another fine tweak to the existing system.
>I look forward to seeing your table!

Oh, man.... Now I`ve got to write a table? I hate that. ::Irony::

Actually, I`m picturing this as part of an overall character class system,
so the table will probably be based on those numbers and might not make a
lot of sense without seeing the whole system, but when I do get something
into some sort of format that makes sense I`ll post some stuff and anyone
who wants to see more can email me off the list and I`ll send along the
file(s.)

My first attempts at this kind of thing were point-based system for any D20
setting. The idea was that a DM could say "I want 100 point character
classes for this campaign" and could sit down with a table that had all the
class features on it like this:

HD Cost
d4 3
d6 5
d8 8
d10 12
d12 17

and design his character classes. After thinking about how XP works I
realized it didn`t make a lot of sense to try to tie everything into class
features without XP factoring in, so now I`m thinking it would make more
sense to just tie everything to an XP value, add those up and you`ve got
the XP/level cost for the class. Which I know will probably provoke the
"You`re going with a classless system" argument again, but c`est la vie.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

geeman

01-23-2003, 09:27 AM

At 03:02 PM 1/22/2003 -0500, Ryan Caveney wrote:

> > I just think there should be a set of intelligent and articulated
> > guidelines for how those classes should be designing and rated.
>
>Didn`t we just have that fight a couple of months ago? =) I still agree
>completely with you that such things are both possible and good.

Yeah, but now we have to DO it.... Can`t wait for the WotC guys to come
around.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Ariadne

01-23-2003, 12:43 PM

Originally posted by ryancaveney

But how long will it be until "the next turn"? If a character gets a bad to-hit roll in a combat, it gets to try again next round. If a character gets a bad bloodline, it never ever gets to try again, and the player never gets to try again until starting over with a new character. Though the chance of joy or misery is equal, the distribution of them is
manifestly not. To me, random rolling produces much greater and more justifiable intra-party unhappiness than point buying.
In some thing you are right: Characters with low ability scores and bloodlines are more suizidal. A player of a character with an 18 in his scores and a great bloodline will be very carefull with his character, but another will jump into every fire or combat to get a new chance for rolling. This might be an argument for choosing abilities.

But with our rolling system low abilities aren't this often. We role 4d6 and you kill the lowest die. Further you role 3 tables á 6 attributes and you can choose, which ability you boost with which roled number. So this rolling system isn't totally random. The blood role is added to every table, so it can be, that a player choose the better bloodline and the lower atribut scores.

kgauck

01-23-2003, 02:04 PM

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 3:27 PM

> Agreed. This is because spellcaster power is nonlinear in level. If the
> magic system were changed to make it linear, this would not be so
> obviously problematic. However, the necessary changes would be drastic.
> For example, total spell levels per day would have to be made proportional
> to level, not level cubed. Also, all caster level effects in spells would
> have to be removed, or altered to be spell-level-increasing like metamagic
> feats: e.g., Fireball cast as a 3rd-level spell would always do 5d6; to
> get 10d6, you`d have to cast it as a 5th- or 6th-level spell.

You can scale spell levels by using effective caster level in place of
in-spell caster improvement. So that when I know magic missile. I can cast
it as a first level spell, getting one 1d4+1 missile. I can also cast it as
a 2nd level spell, getting two missiles. Because I know the spell, I know
it at each of its level`s. This means that I have to take up a higher level
spell slot to cast the spell at a higher level.

All other changes in the magic system just effect how you calculate how many
spells of a given level you know at once. I use a fluid points system for
arcane spellcasting, so its easy to tinker the number of points up or down,
rather than making adjustments all along a chart which features both caster
and spell levels. Plus, there is flexibility in spellcasting. Overall, the
number of points can be reduced compared to standard D&D, because most
players opt to cast many low level spells, rather casting high level ones.
I almost never see anyone cast the high level version of the magic missile
spell, except during specialized circumstances (multiple spellcasters, large
battles), but prefer multiple castings of the low level version of the
spell.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

kgauck

01-24-2003, 05:53 AM

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 1:58 PM

> But min/maxing has to be done with a goal in mind. It only produces
> wildly skewed characters when the point values or the campaign itself
> are wildly skewed.

I`ve always taken min/maxing to meam more than just optimizing a character.
A character with a high strength who takes a large weapon and the cleave
feat is not even on the road to min/maxing. He is, rather, got some focus.
Its when he obtains his strength by reducing his Intelleigence, gets extra
points by taking the "Clueless" penalty (-2 to all Knowledge checks), and
considers it the height of role play to use the Hulk as a model for
characterization. "Me smash!" Min/maxing must have the min as well as the
max, otherwise its just being sensible. And further, the minimization must
create weaknesses that the player hopes to either avoid, or use another
player to cover, as in "hit me with a Feeblemind spell so I can`t be
affected by mind-affecting spells".

This rises to the level of munchkinism when the player insists his character
not suffer any penalties for the weaknesses: "Well, my idiot character is
still knowledgeable about wars, nobility and royalty, dungeons, traps,
Haelyn and Cuiraecen, Anuirean politics, and the construction of castles."

> If what you see is everyone in the party picking a *different* specialty
> and optimizing it to death, then I must ask why you don`t think, as I do,
> that such a situation is positive -- a sign of good, well-planned
teamwork.

I figure if the word optimization makes sense in a context its not only
good, its not really min/maxing.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Eosin the Red

01-24-2003, 06:58 AM

>> I`ve always taken min/maxing to meam more than just optimizing a
character.
> A character with a high strength who takes a large weapon and the cleave
> feat is not even on the road to min/maxing. He is, rather, got some
focus.
> Its when he obtains his strength by reducing his Intelleigence, gets extra
> points by taking the "Clueless" penalty (-2 to all Knowledge checks), and
> considers it the height of role play to use the Hulk as a model for
> characterization. "Me smash!" Min/maxing must have the min as well as
the
> max, otherwise its just being sensible. And further, the minimization
must
> create weaknesses that the player hopes to either avoid, or use another
> player to cover, as in "hit me with a Feeblemind spell so I can`t be
> affected by mind-affecting spells".

I always believed the term to indicate minimizing your liablities while
maximizing your advantages. It is about making a bulletproof character. A
min/maxer who leaves a gaping hole in their character is not a very good
min/maxer. Obviously, there must be some trade-off and you want it to impact
your character as little as possible.

I have been wrong before......

Eosin the Red

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

kgauck

01-24-2003, 02:33 PM

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eosin the Red" <Eosin_the_Red@COX.NET>
Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 11:53 PM

> I always believed the term to indicate minimizing your liablities while
> maximizing your advantages. It is about making a bulletproof character. A
> min/maxer who leaves a gaping hole in their character is not a very good
> min/maxer. Obviously, there must be some trade-off and you want it to
impact
> your character as little as possible.

If that is what is meant, I have to agree with Ryan, its a good thing, then.
Synonymous with informed, thoughtful character design.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-24-2003, 07:20 PM

On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Kenneth Gauck wrote:

> A character with a high strength who takes a large weapon and the cleave
> feat is not even on the road to min/maxing. He is, rather, got some focus.

Good, I`m glad to hear I`m not the only one who believes in being
sensible. Not that I think the rest of you aren`t, mostly -- it`s just
that the ritualistic denunciation of "min/maxing" brushes over any
discussion about what might deserve to fall under such a heading, and at
times sounds like a prohibition on planning ahead. This bothers me.

> Its when he obtains his strength by reducing his Intelleigence, gets
> extra points by taking the "Clueless" penalty (-2 to all Knowledge
> checks), and considers it the height of role play to use the Hulk as a
> model for characterization. "Me smash!"

Well, the Hulk is a distinct archetype. Roleplaying him is easy, if not
particularly interesting to you or me. But really, don`t all clever
players of fighters "obtain Str by reducing Int"? After all, using the
standard array, it would be a very strange fighter indeed who chose to put
the 15 in Int and the 8 in Str, instead of the other way around! The way
the D&D rules work, shouldn`t most well-designed fighters have all three
physical stats higher than all three mental stats? Sure, "strong as an
ox, dumb as a brick" is a stereotype which is often taken too far, but the
basic idea is an expression of the fundamental truth that such a character
design is highly encouraged by the game system.

> Min/maxing must have the min as well as the max, otherwise its just
> being sensible.

Well, in any situation involving finite resources, it is impossible to
have one without the other. Given any finite number of build points,
skill ranks, XP, whatever, any allocated to one area necessarily reduce
the number available to allocate to all other areas. It seems to me that
what you really mean is that you`d like all characters to take some
criterion of "general well-roundedness" as one of the constraints under
which they optimize their point allocation.

> And further, the minimization must create weaknesses that the player
> hopes to either avoid, or use another player to cover, as in "hit me
> with a Feeblemind spell so I can`t be affected by mind-affecting
> spells".

So you`d prefer all players to optimize their characters individually,
without reference to the strengths and weaknesses of the other people in
the party? Again, I think what you really want to say is that there is
some baseline degree of competence in all things under which no "min"
should be allowed to drop. I think the DMG stat point buy system actually
handles this rather well, in that it is not possible to choose below an 8
in any ability score (before racial modification, of course).

Weaknesses that are avoided in play are not really weaknesses, so yes, the
specific point values assigned to balance bonuses against penalties assume
some specific level of exposure to the vulnerability -- "taking the flaw"
(to use other games` terminology) of a seriously debilitating allergy to
flowering plants should provide lots of extra build points if the campaign
takes place in a jungle where such plants are everywhere, but zero build
points if the campaign takes place on a glacier, high in the mountains, or
deep underground where the flaw will never come into play. The exact
point balance tables will always need some DM tweaking to keep them
commensurate with the kinds of things likely to happen in the campaign --
but requiring players to optimize their characters for all possible
campaigns, and prohibiting the use of any knowledge they have gained by
playing in the particular one they`re in, seems excessive to me.

> This rises to the level of munchkinism when the player insists his
> character not suffer any penalties for the weaknesses: "Well, my idiot
> character is still knowledgeable about wars, nobility and royalty,
> dungeons, traps, Haelyn and Cuiraecen, Anuirean politics, and the
> construction of castles."

Yes, this is indeed foolish. It is choosing a clear negative (low Int =
few skills) and claiming it does not exist. I`d call it cheating. It`s
one reason that even when I`m playing a combat-heavy type, I still force
myself to pick a high Int -- since I`ve never yet played in a campaign
where I didn`t end up the primary tactician and puzzle solver, I choose to
"balance" the fact that I have a very high Int as a player by requiring
myself to spend some character points to justify my use of those skills.
I`ve tried to "dumb myself down" when playing a character with a low Int,
but I`ve found that I just can`t bring myself to sit there and let the
rest of the party be stupid without doing something to stop them.

> I figure if the word optimization makes sense in a context its not only
> good, its not really min/maxing.

=) I agree, which means I still don`t really think min/maxing exists --
since, as someone who has written optimization software to guide computers
in making decisions, I am well aware that changing the set of costs and
benefits or changing the set of constraints can greatly alter the nature
of the action which counts as "optimal". Optimality is highly conditional.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Eosin the Red

01-24-2003, 08:38 PM

It is not always bad and to some degree should be encouraged. The problem is
that for some people a concept takes back seat to "kewl powerz." When the
character concept involves nothing but design considerations for tricking
your character out it detracts from my game.

"I want to be a tough fighter, who was raised by peasants but has an
instinctual understanding of the sword" = works good for me.

"I am taking 1 level of Rog, 7 levels of specialized Sorc, 1 of wizard (so I
can circumvent the restriction of magic items caused by specialization), 1
level of contemplative (access to level 1-9 healing spells), 4 levels of
Waterdeep Mage (gives access to all 1-6 mage spells), and the rest will be
in Incantrix. I will be a halfling/celestial so I can butch out my Dex, CHA,
and AC since I will have a 7 strength. I want a toad for a familiar but do I
have to carry it around? Can he just hang out at the wizard tower or
something? = Does not work for me. The powerz come first and foremost.
Nothing is done that does not seek to circumvent a inherent weakness or
boost the inherent strength of the character.

The problem is finding the middle ground. What is good design thoughts for
the character vs what character can get me this design. It is a fuzzy area
and it is hard to find a middle ground. These things tend to escalate or
slide into oblivion as new characters are brought into the game and new
splat books hit the market with kewler & kewler options.

Good design is as Ryan said, should be encouraged and is a sign of intimate
understanding of the game but there is a subjective line that crosses from
good design into something else entirely.

Eosin the Red

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kenneth Gauck" <kgauck@MCHSI.COM>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 6:49 AM
Subject: Re: Bloodline - Ability [2#1208]

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Eosin the Red" <Eosin_the_Red@COX.NET>
> Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 11:53 PM
>
> > I always believed the term to indicate minimizing your liablities while
> > maximizing your advantages. It is about making a bulletproof character.
A
> > min/maxer who leaves a gaping hole in their character is not a very good
> > min/maxer. Obviously, there must be some trade-off and you want it to
> impact
> > your character as little as possible.
>
> If that is what is meant, I have to agree with Ryan, its a good thing,
then.
> Synonymous with informed, thoughtful character design.
>
> Kenneth Gauck
> kgauck@mchsi.com
>
>
************************************************** **************************
> The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
> Birthright-l Archives:
http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
> To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
> with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
>

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Shade

01-25-2003, 12:22 PM

>"I am taking 1 level of Rog, 7 levels of specialized Sorc, 1 of wizard (so I
>can circumvent the restriction of magic items caused by specialization), 1
>level of contemplative (access to level 1-9 healing spells), 4 levels of
>Waterdeep Mage (gives access to all 1-6 mage spells), and the rest will be
>in Incantrix. I will be a halfling/celestial so I can butch out my Dex, CHA,
>and AC since I will have a 7 strength.

This character actually sucks. Level of Rogue? 1 level of Wizard??
Contemplative??? Waterdeep Mage???? Half-celestial?!?!?! This all on a
primary caster?!?!?!?!?

I would gladly allow a character like this into an FR game. I`d also laugh
when he dies way before level 10 due to 6 levels of delayed caster
progression on a primary caster build, who has an XP penalty to boot.

Of course, I would ban it outright in BR because I am very concerned about
the "roleplaying aspect" and "preserving the feel of the campaign setting."
I don`t give a rat`s ass about the sanctity of my FR games, so I allow
anything under the sun (including Darksun and Ravenloft classes), knowing
the designers have done worse.

That`s why I subscribe to the BR listserve but not the FR one :)

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

irdeggman

01-25-2003, 03:10 PM

I absolutely agree with the discussion on how to handle min/max (broad term) and detailed and well though out character design. There should be reasons in a character's history for the major pluses and minuses and the player should not be allowed to take "restrictions" that aren't really restrictions. There was a good example of this in Player's Option: Spells and Magic concerning casting restrictions - something about it is not much of a restriction to not be able to cast spells under a full moon but to not be able to cast when the moon is in the sky is a real limitation.

I tend to award players bonus exp at character creation for how well they develop their character's history. IMO this also helps give them a focus on why their character does what he does and what his motivations are.

3rd ed did a good job of trying to level out the playing field with regard to abilities. How many times in 2nd ed did a player minimize his character's Cha since it didn't really have that many in game effects. Now it is a prime attribute for more skills that are useful and for a Bard and Sorcerer it affects their spell casting ability. For a cleric and paladin it affects their ability to turn undead and well for a paladin it generally affects most other things as well, their saving throws and healing ability for instance. All in all, IMO, mechanics wise 3rd ed did a good job in stepping towards a more even game affect system for abilities.

geeman

01-25-2003, 08:25 PM

At 05:29 AM 1/25/2003 -0600, Lord Shade wrote:

>Level of Rogue? 1 level of Wizard?? Contemplative??? Waterdeep Mage????
>Half-celestial?!?!?! This all on a primary caster?!?!?!?!?

One of the things about the distribution of character levels is that
characters look a lot different when you actually level them up as opposed
to designing them at a particular character level; a situation the
illustrates part of the problem with the balance of character
classes. When designing a 10th or higher level character it absolutely
makes sense to dedicate all those levels to a spellcasting class because
the pay off at the higher spellcaster levels are so much more dramatic than
the results of a level or two in another class. If you`re starting that
character off at 1st level, however, starting off as a rogue isn`t such a
bad idea. Aside from the added survivability of the additional hit points,
access to better weapons, slightly higher AC, etc. one also has all those
extra skill points. Later, when you`re character has levelled up as a
spellcaster that rogue level might feel like a waste, but it`s possible the
character wouldn`t have survived those early levels.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Shade

01-25-2003, 09:46 PM

I don`t think 2 extra hp is going to make that much of a difference. But
ok, I will grant you at level 1 a rogue is more likely to survive than a
mage. However, when you get to level 3, a Wiz3 is far better than a
Rog1/Wiz2. Not being able to cast a 2nd level spell could easily lead to
your demise against a CR4 encounter.

At 11:58 AM 1/25/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>At 05:29 AM 1/25/2003 -0600, Lord Shade wrote:
>
>>Level of Rogue? 1 level of Wizard?? Contemplative??? Waterdeep Mage????
>>Half-celestial?!?!?! This all on a primary caster?!?!?!?!?
>
>One of the things about the distribution of character levels is that
>characters look a lot different when you actually level them up as opposed
>to designing them at a particular character level; a situation the
>illustrates part of the problem with the balance of character
>classes. When designing a 10th or higher level character it absolutely
>makes sense to dedicate all those levels to a spellcasting class because
>the pay off at the higher spellcaster levels are so much more dramatic than
>the results of a level or two in another class. If you`re starting that
>character off at 1st level, however, starting off as a rogue isn`t such a
>bad idea. Aside from the added survivability of the additional hit points,
>access to better weapons, slightly higher AC, etc. one also has all those
>extra skill points. Later, when you`re character has levelled up as a
>spellcaster that rogue level might feel like a waste, but it`s possible the
>character wouldn`t have survived those early levels.
>
>Gary
>
>************************************************** **************************
>The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
>Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
>To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
>with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
>

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

kgauck

01-26-2003, 04:43 AM

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eosin the Red" <Eosin_the_Red@COX.NET>
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 1:45 PM

> "I am taking 1 level of Rog, 7 levels of specialized Sorc, 1 of wizard (so
I
> can circumvent the restriction of magic items caused by specialization), 1
> level of contemplative (access to level 1-9 healing spells), 4 levels of
> Waterdeep Mage (gives access to all 1-6 mage spells), and the rest will be
> in Incantrix. I will be a halfling/celestial so I can butch out my Dex,
CHA,
> and AC since I will have a 7 strength. I want a toad for a familiar but do
I
> have to carry it around? Can he just hang out at the wizard tower or
> something? = Does not work for me.

So, how to fix this character, so the player can play the character he
wants, without giving yourself a headache and violating your own sense of
the BR setting?

Primarily this guy is a specialized sorcerer. IMC that strongly implies a
bloodline derivation of Vorynn. Ruornil has major spheres of Healing and
Necromantic, so lets call him the PC`s patron diety. A level of rogue would
not be an issue for me, since I will insist on a backround level as
Aristocrat, Expert, or Rogue in any event. Let`s just forget about the
single level of wizard to circumvent a restriction. This is what feats are
for. Setting up proper prerequisites will balance this power. Substitute a
single level of contemplative for a genuine progression in a PrC from the
local temple of Ruornil, which provides access to Necromantic, Healing, and
Glory spells. Since priest/mage combinations are natural to Ruornil, this
won`t be a problem. Indeed the standard priest of Ruornil has some arcane
spell casting ability already. I`m not familiar with the Incantrix, but I`m
reasonably sure that if its at all decent we can replicate those powers with
bloodpowers, an BR approprate PrC, and BR appropriate feats. The character
will look different, should have a BR feel, but may very well satisfy the
player.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Peter Lubke

01-26-2003, 12:13 PM

On Fri, 2003-01-24 at 16:53, Eosin the Red wrote:

>> I`ve always taken min/maxing to meam more than just optimizing a
character.

I always believed the term to indicate minimizing your liablities while
maximizing your advantages. It is about making a bulletproof character. A
min/maxer who leaves a gaping hole in their character is not a very good
min/maxer. Obviously, there must be some trade-off and you want it to impact
your character as little as possible.

A min/max`er doesn`t care about role-playing. Role-playing isn`t
important to them. Having a powerful character is. They do not choose to
play a wizard because they want to cast spells to solve problems, or
because they see themselves as wizards, -- they choose wizard because it
gives them the "best bang for their buck". (best value for expenditure)
Rather than choose their wizards abilities because that`s the kind of
wizard they want to emulate - they choose their wizards abilities
because it gives the wizard the best chance of survival/winning. A
min/max`ers attitude is "what`s the best I can get with the points I
have?", they are bargain shoppers, shrewd manipulators of rules (they
generally tend to be rules lawyers too), they`re the guys that let you
(the designer) know when you`ve made an unbalanced decision -- because
they take advantage of every design imbalance they can find. They whine
when you change something to reflect balance better saying - "If I`d
known that, then I would`ve taken this instead!" -- anything for an
edge.

I have been wrong before......

Hey, me too.

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Peter Lubke

01-26-2003, 12:13 PM

On Fri, 2003-01-24 at 23:49, Kenneth Gauck wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eosin the Red" <Eosin_the_Red@COX.NET>
Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 11:53 PM

> I always believed the term to indicate minimizing your liablities while
> maximizing your advantages. It is about making a bulletproof character. A
> min/maxer who leaves a gaping hole in their character is not a very good
> min/maxer. Obviously, there must be some trade-off and you want it to
impact
> your character as little as possible.

If that is what is meant, I have to agree with Ryan, its a good thing, then.
Synonymous with informed, thoughtful character design.

Partly, I think. All things in moderation. The term `min/max`er` is
usually derogative in that it refers to the extremists rather than those
that are being reasonably thoughtful.

Most players balance their character design with both their desire and
some practical consideration of a balanced character. (Argus the goat
god - a character played years ago by an insane gamer - had almost no
min/maxing at all - the character had no class abilities at all relative
to other players yet was still a viable if greatly annoying character)

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

ryancaveney

01-28-2003, 06:26 PM

On Sun, 26 Jan 2003, Peter Lubke wrote:

> They do not choose to play a wizard because they want to cast spells
> to solve problems, or because they see themselves as wizards, -- they
> choose wizard because it gives them the "best bang for their buck".
> (best value for expenditure)

Once the game hits even a low-to-moderate level (fifth, say), the fact
that wizards are the most powerful class becomes pretty obvious -- which,
as you imply below, indicates to me that it and the other spellcasting
classes are extremely unbalanced and in need of drastic revision.

> Rather than choose their wizards abilities because that`s the kind of
> wizard they want to emulate - they choose their wizards abilities
> because it gives the wizard the best chance of survival/winning.

And if the kind of wizard they want to emulate is one who does whatever is
necessary to survive / win? Also, there seems little point in spending
great effort developing a character who is fun to role-play but probably
won`t live more than a couple of sessions. The lives of most D&D PCs are
hyper-violent, so a failure to plan carefully for survival seems foolish
for *in-character* reasons even more than for metagame reasons! A wizard
who doesn`t worry about learning powerful combat spells and acquiring or
making lots of combat items but goes adventuring anyway is just asking for
trouble, and in extreme cases is basically committing suicide. I want to
roleplay people who say to themselves, "What I am about to do is very
dangerous, so the only sensible course of action is to plan carefully and
make sure I`ve got everything I can find which can help me accomplish my
goal (kill the dragon, rescue the princess, recover the lost Book of
Forbidden Knowledge, etc.) while still returning home alive."

> "what`s the best I can get with the points I have?",
> they are bargain shoppers,

I still think this is simply the definition of skillful character design.
Yes, I would prefer a certain degree of focus on role-playing ideas, but
that is not incompatible with also being a ruthlessly optimizing bargain
shopper -- I am an actor, so I am an enthusiastic roleplayer; but I am
also a mathematician, so I regard any failure to optimize anything at all
as somehow immoral. =) Furthermore, I cannot honestly say that those
people derided as "munchkin power gamers" are actually playing the game
"wrong", so long as everyone is having fun! IMO, "I want to be extremely
powerful" is just as good a character concept for fantasy gaming as is "I
want to be the third son of an impoverished sheep farmer who grows up to
be paladin crusading for honor and justice but is always lonely because
he`s under a curse which causes horribly painful and disfiguring illnesses
to afflict anyone he befriends." These two players might not be
compatible in the same campaign (or perhaps they would be especially good
together, since the paladin could only be in a party with people he didn`t
like!), but there`s no reason both can`t enjoy D&D.

> they`re the guys that let you (the designer) know when you`ve made an
> unbalanced decision -- because they take advantage of every design
> imbalance they can find.

Exactly -- they are rules editors, who help find some of the mechanical
weaknesses in the design.

> They whine when you change something to reflect balance better saying
> - "If I`d known that, then I would`ve taken this instead!" -- anything
> for an edge.

Whenever I change a rule, I always allow people to retroactively redesign
their characters, because I don`t want to punish them for my failure to
realize a problem or make up my mind soon enough. I don`t want people to
have any disincentive to report rules they regard as buggy. Since I find
rules lawyers very useful in improving game designs, I think we should let
everyone take proper advantage of rules when they happen, to prevent too
much second-guessing and attempts to pull wool over the DM`s eyes. I
think the statement you describe as a whine is a perfectly legitimate
greivance -- once a different game is being played, people should be
allowed to play it differently. Make the rules lawyers your allies, not
your enemies. Life will go much more smoothly.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

kgauck

01-28-2003, 10:53 PM

On Sun, 26 Jan 2003, Peter Lubke wrote:

> > "what`s the best I can get with the points I have?",
> > they are bargain shoppers,

Ryan B. Caveney replied:

> I still think this is simply the definition of skillful character design.
> Yes, I would prefer a certain degree of focus on role-playing ideas, but
> that is not incompatible with also being a ruthlessly optimizing bargain
> shopper -- I am an actor, so I am an enthusiastic roleplayer; but I am
> also a mathematician, so I regard any failure to optimize anything at all
> as somehow immoral.

AFAIC, the way to combine bargain shopping and role play is to have a
variety of strategies (meaningful choices) that allow players to chose a
character concept, invest in it, and get the bargain. This is one of the
reasons I have been posting recently on fighting styles. Normally, a weapon
that is medium sized and does 1d8 damage is pretty much the same as any
other such weapon. Meaningful differences between longswords and
battleaxes, diplomacy and bluff, and evocation and transmutation which are
nonetheless both desirable (albeit in different circumstances) provide the
opportunity to create competative, different characters.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Peter Lubke

01-29-2003, 03:35 AM

On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 04:34, Ryan B. Caveney wrote:

On Sun, 26 Jan 2003, Peter Lubke wrote:

> They do not choose to play a wizard because they want to cast spells
> to solve problems, or because they see themselves as wizards, -- they
> choose wizard because it gives them the "best bang for their buck".
> (best value for expenditure)

Once the game hits even a low-to-moderate level (fifth, say), the fact
that wizards are the most powerful class becomes pretty obvious -- which,
as you imply below, indicates to me that it and the other spellcasting
classes are extremely unbalanced and in need of drastic revision.

> Rather than choose their wizards abilities because that`s the kind of
> wizard they want to emulate - they choose their wizards abilities
> because it gives the wizard the best chance of survival/winning.

And if the kind of wizard they want to emulate is one who does whatever is
necessary to survive / win? Also, there seems little point in spending
great effort developing a character

Here is the nub. "developing a character" should (IMO) be about
developing the character through play -- not spending 6 hours rolling
them up and min/max`ing their scores/abilities/etc. The latter to me
should be just a bare bones start - what you "do" with a character gives
them flavour - not what you "give" a character.

The great effort therefore is inherently in survival - what did the
character need to do to survive - not what do they need to survive.

who is fun to role-play but probably
won`t live more than a couple of sessions. The lives of most D&D PCs are
hyper-violent, so a failure to plan carefully for survival seems foolish
for *in-character* reasons even more than for metagame reasons!

Beware the chicken and the egg syndrome. What comes first: the (given)
ability to be hyper-violent or the need to be so? In a campaign where a
DM is just going to throw monsters at you ad infinitum - while you
bravely slay them, gain XP, slay more powerful monsters, gain more XP,
... there is a need to be "hyper-violent". But, role-playing is not
intrinsically violent - some tasks/quests may require the
removal/nullification of guardians - which is frequently interpreted as
"kill `em" - but is not necessarily so.

What do you do with a character that is just a killing machine? -- not
much point playing checkers is there?

Players that have joined D&D through the computer game genre cannot help
but feel that violence is the only true way to play. It`s up to
responsible and imaginative DMs to show otherwise.

A wizard
who doesn`t worry about learning powerful combat spells and acquiring or
making lots of combat items but goes adventuring anyway is just asking for
trouble, and in extreme cases is basically committing suicide. I want to
roleplay people who say to themselves, "What I am about to do is very
dangerous, so the only sensible course of action is to plan carefully and
make sure I`ve got everything I can find which can help me accomplish my
goal (kill the dragon, rescue the princess, recover the lost Book of
Forbidden Knowledge, etc.) while still returning home alive."

Of course - I`m not suggesting otherwise.

> "what`s the best I can get with the points I have?",
> they are bargain shoppers,

I still think this is simply the definition of skillful character design.
Yes, I would prefer a certain degree of focus on role-playing ideas, but
that is not incompatible with also being a ruthlessly optimizing bargain
shopper -- I am an actor, so I am an enthusiastic roleplayer; but I am
also a mathematician, so I regard any failure to optimize anything at all
as somehow immoral. =)

I`m not stating that what you are doing is "wrong", just describing the
behavior. So you`re a min/maxer, this doesn`t make you a bad player. It
doesn`t make you a good player either though.

Consider this point of view. Many people hold that a flaw is beautiful -
or even necessary to display the beauty around it. A strategically
placed mole can be a beauty mark, Persian carpets often have a
deliberate flaw, interesting characters often have a "quirk" that is not
survival oriented. Characters that spring into being full balanced and
flawless do not need development or improvement. Long running and
popular TV serials (and cartoons) develop their characters as they go -
events happen to help them grow or overcome the challenges put in front
of them.

Furthermore, I cannot honestly say that those
people derided as "munchkin power gamers" are actually playing the game
"wrong", so long as everyone is having fun! IMO, "I want to be extremely
powerful" is just as good a character concept for fantasy gaming as is "I
want to be the third son of an impoverished sheep farmer who grows up to
be paladin crusading for honor and justice but is always lonely because
he`s under a curse which causes horribly painful and disfiguring illnesses
to afflict anyone he befriends." These two players might not be
compatible in the same campaign (or perhaps they would be especially good
together, since the paladin could only be in a party with people he didn`t
like!), but there`s no reason both can`t enjoy D&D.

Perhaps they can`t be in the same campaign (and both players have fun).

> they`re the guys that let you (the designer) know when you`ve made an
> unbalanced decision -- because they take advantage of every design
> imbalance they can find.

Exactly -- they are rules editors, who help find some of the mechanical
weaknesses in the design.

> They whine when you change something to reflect balance better saying
> - "If I`d known that, then I would`ve taken this instead!" -- anything
> for an edge.

Whenever I change a rule, I always allow people to retroactively redesign
their characters, because I don`t want to punish them for my failure to
realize a problem or make up my mind soon enough. I don`t want people to
have any disincentive to report rules they regard as buggy. Since I find
rules lawyers very useful in improving game designs, I think we should let
everyone take proper advantage of rules when they happen, to prevent too
much second-guessing and attempts to pull wool over the DM`s eyes. I
think the statement you describe as a whine is a perfectly legitimate
greivance -- once a different game is being played, people should be
allowed to play it differently. Make the rules lawyers your allies, not
your enemies. Life will go much more smoothly.

Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Peter Lubke

01-29-2003, 03:59 AM

On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 09:21, Kenneth Gauck wrote:

On Sun, 26 Jan 2003, Peter Lubke wrote:

> > "what`s the best I can get with the points I have?",
> > they are bargain shoppers,

Ryan B. Caveney replied:

> I still think this is simply the definition of skillful character design.
> Yes, I would prefer a certain degree of focus on role-playing ideas, but
> that is not incompatible with also being a ruthlessly optimizing bargain
> shopper -- I am an actor, so I am an enthusiastic roleplayer; but I am
> also a mathematician, so I regard any failure to optimize anything at all
> as somehow immoral.

AFAIC, the way to combine bargain shopping and role play is to have a
variety of strategies (meaningful choices) that allow players to chose a
character concept, invest in it, and get the bargain. This is one of the
reasons I have been posting recently on fighting styles. Normally, a weapon
that is medium sized and does 1d8 damage is pretty much the same as any
other such weapon. Meaningful differences between longswords and
battleaxes, diplomacy and bluff, and evocation and transmutation which are
nonetheless both desirable (albeit in different circumstances) provide the
opportunity to create competative, different characters.

rarely do I concur so wholeheartedly.

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

geeman

01-29-2003, 11:08 AM

The earliest I recall hearing the term "min/max" for 3e was in association
with the way modifiers work for ability scores. That is, a player choosing
ability scores or levelling a character up could take the "minimum" score
to get the "maximum" bonus due to the way the bonuses occur at even
numbers. If using some sort of point buy or trade off system of rules a
character with two "average" 11`s (or equivalent points) could "pay" one
point from one ability score to add a point to the other, thus gaining a +1
modifier from the second score without taking a penalty in the first,
gaining a positive overall modifier for what is, essentially, the same
character as far as points and the math are concerned.

What I think people are cautioning against here when they warn about the
potential to min/max is that if there is an opportunity to pick ability
scores or other modifiers a player has an opportunity to gain a bonus
without a penalty, or to gain a higher bonus on an ability score in a way
that breaks the simple mathematical balance of the system. It`s not quite
the same thing as simply designing a character in a way that has some
consistency in powers and abilities. (Though there are opportunities to
min/max within the character classes themselves because they aren`t
balanced with one another.) Choosing a character class and appropriate
feats/class abilities for a character`s ability scores is simply following
along with the game mechanics. Min/maxing is exploiting the game`s math or
other aspect of the game mechanics that has nothing to do with character
concept. At least, that`s what I`ve always understood the term to
mean. If min/max means something else I guess we could come up with a more
descriptive term to describe the problem. "Bonus optimized/penalty
avoided" or "system inequity exploited" or something.

Using a point buy system along with a point buy system of blood abilities
can easily create such a min/maxing opportunity.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Birthright-L

01-29-2003, 12:17 PM

To me, min/max:ing is a derogatory, and as such shlould be linmited to
abusive forms of optimization.

Some players optmize. Others do not. The first type can be just as much of a
problem as the second type. If everyone has ecually powerful characters, all
equally well optimized, the game will usually run smoothly. As a DM, I have
as much problems with under-optimizers (that I must help) as I have with
over-optimizers (that I must reign in).

Optimization easily becomes abusive with the rules are broken. If something
is obviously wrong, the thing to do as a player is to report that fact to
the DM. If you do, and there is no change, then you might use it. If it
turns out to be OK, then all is good. If it is as unbalanced as you thought
it was, expect an over-reaction and punishment from your DM - who might call
you a whiner if you complain. Life is harsh.

But the really damaging part of min/maxing is when you put everything into
combat ability. Let me show you the scenario.

You realize that you, as a good role-player, can get get your character to
do anything through good acting skills, except one thing: combat. Most DMs
encourage good roleplaying in all non-combat situations. If you act well,
your Cha 6 1/2Orc barbarian can get away with charming the elf princess
(letting her discover your inner beauty or whatever). The same is true for
tricks and traps. But there is no such thing as role-playing combat to bring
success. Tactics only give you so much. [Combat can be played well, from a
role-playing viewpoint, but that is another issue.] In combat, you have to
rely solely on your character`s abilities, not your own skill as a player.
Once you realize this, it is just a matter of time before you pour every
iota of your character`s abilities into combat.

This is the kind of min/maxing that creates poor characters - max out combat
ability, minimize everything else. If driven to extreme, that is min/maxing.

Now, the assumption that combat is king is no truism. You cannot get away
with such behavior in every campaign, as some DMs actually use skills like
Diplomacy. But it is way too common. DMs who are too generous with what they
let player`s get away with out of combat, and too stingy with what they let
them get away with in combat, cultivate and deserve such players.

DnD is written largely for such a crowd. In DnD, the non-combat abilities of
characters come cheap, while the combat abilities are very expensive and
carefully balanced. The Fighter and Sorceror (the classes with the most
fighting omph in my book) are a little stronger than the other classes in
combat - but way weaker in every other area. It is an inherent effect of the
class system. In many ways it is good. It allows people to over-specialize
in combat, but at a stiff price. It allows players with an undeveloped sense
of role-laying to have fun together with those who role-play more, each
excelling in their own area.

The problem is only that if you ake combat abilities more expensive, these
players get even more adamant about not wasting anything on something else,
in order to be able to afford those wonderful combat skills. This is much
more of a problem in classless systems, like the World of Darkness.

/Carl

__________________________________________________ ___
Gratis e-mail resten av livet på www.yahoo.se/mail
Busenkelt!

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Shade

01-29-2003, 09:20 PM

Min/Max board FAQ

http://boards.wizards.com/community/ultima...pic;f=271;t=001 (http://boards.wizards.com/community/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=271;t=001)
713

Addresses the `definition` of min/maxing.

I consider myself a dedicated min/maxer and don`t think it`s a derogatory
term at all. I think what you are referring to, I generally call
`powergamer` or `munchkin.`

while the combat abilities are very expensive and
>carefully balanced. The Fighter and Sorceror (the classes with the most
>fighting omph in my book) are a little stronger than the other classes in
>combat - but way weaker in every other area

No offense, but this shows that you aren`t really a min/maxer. Sorcerer is
way weak compared to a wizard at almost every level. (in a 1v1 duel - there
are cases in which it is better to be a sorcerer, generally when you expect
to be fighting many battles in a day)

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Birthright-L

01-29-2003, 10:50 PM

From: "Lord Shade" <lordshade@SOFTHOME.NET>

> No offense, but this shows that you aren`t really a min/maxer. Sorcerer is
> way weak compared to a wizard at almost every level. (in a 1v1 duel -
there
> are cases in which it is better to be a sorcerer, generally when you
expect
> to be fighting many battles in a day)
>

Considering what has been said in this thread, calling me "not a min/maxes
could be a compliment. :)

Anyway, I know that the wizard usually beats the sorcerer. I beleive the
reason for this is that the sorcerer has been "punished" for it`s min/maxing
combat potential. It is very easy to make a slugger sorcerer, and the
concept seems to be all about combat. But because of this, the class got
shortchanged, and is actually very weak. This is a sad thing, as the concept
is sterling.

/Carl

__________________________________________________ ___
Gratis e-mail resten av livet på www.yahoo.se/mail
Busenkelt!

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

Shade

01-29-2003, 11:52 PM

>Considering what has been said in this thread, calling me "not a min/maxes
>could be a compliment. :)

lol, that is true, but I consider a player`s ability to min/max as valuable
a skill as being able to roleplay well. And they are NOT mutually
exclusive. The downside is, if one of my players doesn`t know how to minmax
well, I can help him. If he`s a bad roleplayer, there isn`t as much I can
do to fix it.

>Anyway, I know that the wizard usually beats the sorcerer. I beleive the
>reason for this is that the sorcerer has been "punished" for it`s min/maxing
>combat potential. It is very easy to make a slugger sorcerer, and the
>concept seems to be all about combat. But because of this, the class got
>shortchanged, and is actually very weak. This is a sad thing, as the concept
>is sterling.

You`re right to a point, except the problem is that the sorcerer isn`t
really more powerful in combat either. Wizard gets more feats than a
sorcerer, meaning more versatility. Versatility = a form of power.
Furthermore, in a duel situation, a wizard has meaningful access to quicken
spell, which effectively doubles his offensive strength in a short fight.
In order to use Quicken Spell, a sorcerer has to burn one of his 7-8 feats
on Arcane Prep, which is otherwise a more-or-less useless feat. A wizard
has more feats total, which means it is easier to spend feats on buying
things like Spell Focus and Spell Penetration. He`ll also have more Craft
Item feats, and therefore a larger number of magic items.

Wizard already trumps the sorc in getting higher level spells faster and
potentially having a much wider variety. The only situation where the sorc
has an advantage is during long adventures that include multiple fights
every day, where the sorcerer`s more spells castable become an issue. Even
then, a wizard can cut down the gap a lot by being a specialist mage.

That being said, sorc is still a very fun class to play, especially with
spontaneous casting. This is why min/maxers still develop builds using
sorcerer even though Wiz is better in almost every case. Even having Cha as
your casting stat becomes a roleplaying bonus - and even stacking as many
roleplaying bonuses as you can get is a form of min/maxing.

One thing that is very important to realize is that not all min/maxing
revolves around combat. For an example check my post on the Min/Max boards
about a build for Marie Cwllmie (ETN).

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.