FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

[Curufea]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

Racist.

 

Just because some races are the best at some classes, and some races are always some alignments, and some races can never reach certain levels - does NOT make it racist!

[Sweeper]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

A Player's Prayer:

 

'Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that my GM is a power-monger and my team-mates are munchkins. Grant me tenacity against adversity and common sense to get the **** out of Dodge when things are truly bad. Oh, and Lord, please grant me a weapon that will cause lots of damage vs the Undead and other non-critable monsters as that bastard GM of mine uses them a lot. May we, the players, all roll crits, Amen'

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

Just because some races are the best at some classes' date=' and some races are always some alignments, and some races can never reach certain levels - does NOT make it racist![/quote']

No. It's racist. It's just that, under those conditions, racism is *true*.

 

...And back in my day, you couldn't just "decide" to play a Bard! You had to be a Fighter, and work your way up to 5th level or so, and then switch over to Thief, and work your way up to 6th level or so as a Thief, and only *then* could you become a Bard! And we were thankful for that opportunity!

[casualplayer]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

No. It's racist. It's just that, under those conditions, racism is *true*.

 

...And back in my day, you couldn't just "decide" to play a Bard! You had to be a Fighter, and work your way up to 5th level or so, and then switch over to Thief, and work your way up to 6th level or so as a Thief, and only *then* could you become a Bard! And we were thankful for that opportunity!

 

 

Bard: the original Prestige class.

[Lucius]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

Sometimes I cherish my ignorance.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Sometimes I cherish my palindromedary

[Markdoc]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

...And back in my day' date=' you couldn't just "decide" to play a Bard! You had to be a Fighter, and work your way up to 5th level or so, and then switch over to Thief, and work your way up to 6th level or so as a Thief, and only *then* could you become a Bard! And we were thankful for that opportunity![/quote']

 

 

Damn straight - because once you made bard, you could kick the butt of damn near anything that walked the planet: don't mess with the guy with the lute!

 

cheers, Mark

[input.jack]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

...And we had to tromp up endless flights of stairs.

 

Both ways.

 

In the snow.

 

(Darned Winter Wolves)

 

 

 

Actually, when I started playing D&D, all weapons did 1d6.

 

ALL weapons.

 

(Then they published "Greyhawk" and "Blackmoor")

[Inu]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

Then multiclass into a wizard from all that study and hard work. Of course' date=' if you lack a natural aptitude (ie have a low INT) then you won't be all that good at being a wizard, and you'll have to spend more time studying "book magic", leaving less time to study other things (like knowledge skills).[/quote']Or if you just can't cut it as a wizard, take Bard. Interpret 'bardic music' as intoning rituals you've read, and take skill Perform: ritual chanting. So rather than saying "I play my pipes and cheer up the party with my music," you say: "I intone the ritual of the light soul, which I found in my studies, bringing confidence to my allies." Most of the Bard characters I've seen friends play are quite heavily reinterpreted versions of the class that radically alter the flavour, without changing the core mechanics.

Off you go and travel, then. Spending much time spreading the word of your deity, of course, so you have limited learning time. Put points into wilderness skills. Mind you, the better answer here is likely to create the Deity which wishes it to be so and appropriate Domains with domain powers which could grant the skills the character wishes to have access to, perhaps at the cost of other class abilities. Perhaps this character gets certain wilderness skills as class skills, and extra skill points to access them [taking barbarian/ranger skill points and class skills as a guide], at the cost of being unable to turn the Undead and losing some more traditional cleric class skills [like Knowledge: religion].

And of course, even if you have access to knowledge: religion thanks to your class, you don't HAVE to put points into it. ^_-

 

A good point about multiclassing, though. A lot of people have a wrong impression about multiclassing, probably brought on by the mentality of 'character class = personality' which is... not really true. It's not even really supported by the PHB, although it doesn't go to great lengths to dispel it. Then again, they DID go to great lengths to dispel old assumptions about alignment, and that basically failed to come off. Even their own writers didn't read chapter 6 of the PHB.

 

But yeah, a cleric who multiclasses into barbarian is not seen by the world as a 'barbarian who is also a cleric'. He's a 'barbarian priest', or a 'priest from the wilderness'. I had one who was a travelling priest who went all around the countryside, slept rough, and was kinda big and burly to begin with. So he had a level of barbarian as well as all his cleric levels (and the travel and community domains). A lot of it is just about shedding preconceptions and going with what works.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

And of course' date=' even if you have access to knowledge: religion thanks to your class, you don't HAVE to put points into it. ^_-[/quote']

 

A fairly simple answer for our traveling priest would be to pull out the Druid and Cleric classes, review all of their abilities and trade between them to create the desired class. One easy step is to swap out Religion for Nature.

 

Or, hey, just start with the special abilities of the Travel Deity who's already in the PHB...

 

A good point about multiclassing' date=' though. A lot of people have a wrong impression about multiclassing, probably brought on by the mentality of 'character class = personality' which is... not really true. It's not even really supported by the PHB, although it doesn't go to great lengths to dispel it. Then again, they DID go to great lengths to dispel old assumptions about alignment, and that basically failed to come off. Even their own writers didn't read chapter 6 of the PHB.[/quote']

 

Why bother? The individuals with those misconceptions won't be dissuaded - never let the actual facts come into the picture, after all. Those not affected by those misconceptions in the first place don't need to be told they aren't correct. At the end of the day, dispelling the myths becomes a waste of space, as the players largely fall into either the "won't let my preconceptions be challenged" camp or the "don't have those preconceptions in the first place" camp.

 

But yeah' date=' a cleric who multiclasses into barbarian is not seen by the world as a 'barbarian who is also a cleric'. He's a 'barbarian priest', or a 'priest from the wilderness'. I had one who was a travelling priest who went all around the countryside, slept rough, and was kinda big and burly to begin with. So he had a level of barbarian as well as all his cleric levels (and the travel and community domains). A lot of it is just about shedding preconceptions and going with what works.[/quote']

 

I like the "starting multiclass" option for such characters so they don't spend a level as one or the other at the outset.

[Susano]

Re: Count carefully!

 

We are now up to #52. If you have more, please continue from #53. Don't just use the last number refered to in the previous post. It may not be the last number used.

 

For reference, Maccabe's #'s 26-28 will be renumbered 32-34. And subsequent ones will ripple down:

 

Blue Jogger's #32-35 become 35-38.

Chris Goodwin's 36 becomes 39.

Thia Halmades' 36a becomes 39a.

Korvar's 37 becomes 40.

Thia Halmades' 38-40 become 41-43

Curufea's 41 becomes 44

My (PhilFleischmann's) 42-44 become 45-47 (I will edit my post to reflect the new numbers.)

Captain Obvious' 40a and 40a.a become 43a and 43a.a.

Michael Hopcroft's 41-44 become 48-51.

Curufea's 45 becomes 52.

Chris Goodwin's 40b and 40b.a become 43b and 43b.a.

 

I guess there is a lot of math in HERO!

 

OTOH, why am I obsessing about this? What difference does it make? Well someone might want to compile a complete list, and it would be confusing to have different entries with the same number. Plus we wouldn't want people to think HERO players have a hard time counting.

 

Actually, if someone has complied this, I'd love to host it on my site.... (hint, hint)

[Susano]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

The ones by Paul Kidd are a hoot, and quite subversive. There's more than a few lines where the editors really should have been paying more attention *evil grin*

 

plus, as a bonus, the Justicar Trilogy drove Bob Salvatore and other drow fans out of their minds, and had to be incorported into the setting history

 

Those books are freakin' awesome!!!

[Susano]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

Not all of us.

 

Here:

 

http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptationsbook/bookchar.html#PAKS

[Drhoz]

Re: Count carefully!

 

Actually' date=' if someone has complied this, I'd love to host it on my site.... (hint, hint)[/quote']

 

yes, they've been compiled, and sorted by subject.

 

earlier in thisthread, and crossposted here http://drhoz.livejournal.com/361140.html

[Drhoz]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

Those books are freakin' awesome!!!

 

be sure to tell Mr Kidd

[starblaze]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

I once played a high-INT fighter. Don't recall the stats, but it was something like 16 or 17 INT. Dump-stat was DEX -- didn't matter, since he was wearing the heaviest possible armor meaning his DEX bonus didn't matter much.

 

Problem was... I quickly ran out of things to spend my skill points on. Fighters only have a couple of class skills -- Ride, Climb... maybe a couple more. I was blowing all my extra points on cross-class skills. I ended up throwing away a couple of Feats to give myself some more class skills. It ended up being a hideously inefficient character, just because I decided to play a concept not catered to by the rules.

 

Which brings me to my main (and really, only) complaint about d20/D&D. Unless you want to house-rule the heck out of it, you can't play your own game. By the rules, you are required to play Monte Cook's game. Now, Monte is a great game designer and I'm sure he's a nice guy, but until he shows up at my house on Saturday night with a bag of chips and a stack of books, I'm not interested in playing his game. I want to play my game. And in D&D, that's simply not possible (at least, not without making a ton of house rules).

 

I want to play my game, so I play Hero.

 

That is what has always bothered about Fighters in D&D. They can never actually be intelligent military commanders eventually, which to my mind is what they should be. They just spend their careers being meat shields which takes away from being a professional man-at-arms.

 

Give me something like Fantasy Hero, or failing that, Castles and Crusades which just uses Primes and Secondaries.

[starblaze]

Re: WTF are you guys doing?

 

Tofu is good when it's true to itself and admits it's tofu. When it tries to masquerade as meat' date=' it only disappoints.[/quote']

 

"It wears a disguise to act as meaty guise, but your not a steak, you're a tofu bo."

[starblaze]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

No. It's racist. It's just that, under those conditions, racism is *true*.

 

...And back in my day, you couldn't just "decide" to play a Bard! You had to be a Fighter, and work your way up to 5th level or so, and then switch over to Thief, and work your way up to 6th level or so as a Thief, and only *then* could you become a Bard! And we were thankful for that opportunity!

 

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0222.html

[Curufea]

Re: FRPG Ideas from D&D that ain't necessarily so

 

That is what has always bothered about Fighters in D&D. They can never actually be intelligent military commanders eventually, which to my mind is what they should be. They just spend their careers being meat shields which takes away from being a professional man-at-arms.

 

Give me something like Fantasy Hero, or failing that, Castles and Crusades which just uses Primes and Secondaries.

 

Brilliant military commanders with all the necessary skills to competently lead armies must be "Rogues" - it's the only way they could do it.