Explosive Gems play balance

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

Do we know that for sure? That seems too restrictive. If I did anything I would have used the standard 'rule of 5'

I kind of read this forum a lot but still seems to miss a lot. Has the 3d limit been set? Where was it set? Was it discussed long ago because I am kind of new to the forum?

[Tenex]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

I think explosive gems should be deleted.

That seems a bit harsh. They definitely need clarification and perhaps a die limit. Perhaps I'm overly enamored of them since I once used them in a campaign that had Borribles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Borrible_Trilogy) in it. The favored weapon of a Borrible is a "catapult", typically called a slingshot. Kind of cool to up their damage with some explosive gems.

Like anything, with a bad GM nothing works and with a good GM most things work.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Tenex

That seems a bit harsh. They definitely need clarification and perhaps a die limit. Perhaps I'm overly enamored of them since I once used them in a campaign that had Borribles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Borrible_Trilogy) in it. The favored weapon of a Borrible is a "catapult", typically called a slingshot. Kind of cool to up their damage with some explosive gems.

There are some circumstances in which I agree explosive gems aren't a problem.

Explosive gems in the hands of NPCs is one. If explosive gems were the eggs of some monster that couldn't be tamed, and would explosively hatch without warning after 3D6 days, then I wouldn't be concerned.

Similarly, in a game where the PCs are all from a culture that uses explosive gems as their standard weapon, as in your Borribles example, and the gems are plentiful, that's just part of the story.

A problem appears if explosive gems are so expensive people are reluctant to use them, but so powerful that they can't afford not to, and the campaign becomes a profit and loss affair.

It's also a problem if some character archetypes (say, slingers) can benefit and some (e.g. swordsmen) can't, assuming both archetypes are expected to appear in the campaign.

I played in a game where the GM allowed arrows tipped with explosive gems, and I think it caused huge problems. But even thrown gems are problematic.

I think the explosive gems as written are both ambiguous and a problem. I'd encourage rewriting or deleting them.

Like anything, with a bad GM nothing works and with a good GM most things work.

I hear this sentiment so often I think I need a name for it, like "game design fatalism".