Iconic Forgotten Realms Spells - As Powers and/or New Skill-based Spells

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Icelander

If the game is a sandbox one, won't the players seek to achieve goals for their characters without blithely necessarily entering areas where they are in danger of meeting terrifying monsters?

My experience with my players indicates that they will, in fact, blithely enter areas where they are in danger of meeting terrifying monsters, large detachments of very hostile forces, or cause the most political offense just by standing there. Something about these descriptions makes their "adventure!" sense tingle, and next thing you know, they've triggered something catastrophic. Even my most intelligent and tactically gifted player has a finely honed sense of "adventure!" that leads him around by the nose.

Some people are just not suited for sandbox games... well, except ones where half the point is making new characters and the other half is seeing how interesting their deaths are. Telling these kinds of players "there are entire packs of fiendish, dire T-Rexes from HELL in that valley" produces the weirdest plans to dig dire-T-Rex sized tiger traps. :P

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Bruno

My experience with my players indicates that they will, in fact, blithely enter areas where they are in danger of meeting terrifying monsters, large detachments of very hostile forces, or cause the most political offense just by standing there. Something about these descriptions makes their "adventure!" sense tingle, and next thing you know, they've triggered something catastrophic. Even my most intelligent and tactically gifted player has a finely honed sense of "adventure!" that leads him around by the nose.

Some people are just not suited for sandbox games... well, except ones where half the point is making new characters and the other half is seeing how interesting their deaths are. Telling these kinds of players "there are entire packs of fiendish, dire T-Rexes from HELL in that valley" produces the weirdest plans to dig dire-T-Rex sized tiger traps. :P

There's nothing wrong with wanting to kill demonic dinosaurs. Just, you know, start with slightly sinful Dilong or something, preferably when you know it's likely to be alone.

PCs should gather information on threats, scout in advance and only do battle when they are reasonably confident of victory. Otherwise, yes, they will not live long. The kind of mentality that blithely assumes that if threats exist in the game world, they are meant to face them all and that the GM will make sure that they win, well, I don't get it.

As ought to be fairly obvious, my players have been playing the same characters (well, some of them) in the Realms for, what, seven or eight years? When did the Basic Set come out? Their characters, now, are certainly able to cut through a herd? (pride? murder? genocide?) of fiendish tyrannosauruses. But unless there is some particular reason to do so, they still wouldn't. Why risk death for no purpose?*

*Now, risking death for a suitably heroic reason, that they do. And yes, sometimes the reason is: "He challenged me to a duel. Honour demands that I meet him on the field of valour."

[Bruno]

It's not really a "If it's there, it must be safe for us to fight" mentality. It's... really more a "We are here to ADVENTURE! Oh look, here is an obvious source of ADVENTURE! Hurray, all is right in the world!" sort of thing.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

People who spend all day entering ruins with bad reputations, infested with various monsters, may not last all that long. But it is possible to game for a very long time, defeating enemies and achieving goals, without that.

You can do such things, but its clearly not traditional, and it won't let you advance levels quickly. In the editions I'm familiar with, there aren't really provisions for giving out XP without fighting things or finding treasure (except a few notes that you can give out such rewards if you really want to) and the traditional starting adventure involves killing goblins, kobolds, and giant rats in a dungeon. You start out as no better than a typical orc but better armoured and backed up by one or two spells per trip, and you are expected to kill a few dozen orcs and capture a large treasure to reach second level. Its a weird model, with a 5-10% risk of character death per session, but works well in practice.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Bruno

It's not really a "If it's there, it must be safe for us to fight" mentality. It's... really more a "We are here to ADVENTURE! Oh look, here is an obvious source of ADVENTURE! Hurray, all is right in the world!" sort of thing.

So the typical player is portraying an adrenaline-addicted murder hobo with the self-preservation instinct of a Disney lemming?

In the real world, there do exist men and women for whom the driving motivation does indeed appear to have been the thrill of adventure and discovery. Notably, however, very few of these people spent their lives running blindly into war zones trying to find someone willing to end them.

Even people we regard as quite adventurous usually had a much better idea what they were getting into when they did something dangerous than a fantasy adventurer in the mould you describe ever will.

I prefer PCs to think: "I am here to [insert personal goals that the character has]. How do I best accomplish that?" Adventuring may be what you call the result, but it's not an aimless quest for danger for danger's sake.

Even Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, archtypical adventurers all, usually had actual reasons for the foes, evil sorcerers or monsters that they fought. They didn't just wander in their direction because they heard that that way there was a good chance of getting killed for no reason.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

You can do such things, but its clearly not traditional, and it won't let you advance levels quickly. In the editions I'm familiar with, there aren't really provisions for giving out XP without fighting things or finding treasure (except a few notes that you can give out such rewards if you really want to) and the traditional starting adventure involves killing goblins, kobolds, and giant rats in a dungeon. You start out as no better than a typical orc but better armoured and backed up by one or two spells per trip, and you are expected to kill a few dozen orcs and capture a large treasure to reach second level. Its a weird model, with a 5-10% risk of character death per session, but works well in practice.

From the second edition onward, there were story awards, roleplaying awards and awards for defeating foes without necessarily killing them in combat. That adds up to people being able to progress without necessarily grinding hordes of enemies every session.

Also, from the second edition onward, you started out as a skilled and competent person. If you were a warrior type, you ought to be well able to handle a typical orc. Weapon specialisation adds +1 to hit and +2 to damage, after all, and allows you to make 3 attacks per two turns.

I don't really like the D&D Basic and Expert or 1st Edition. There are a lot of reasons, but the emphasis on luck with the dice (because there really wasn't a whole lot else that distinguished one character from the next) was a big part of it.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

From the second edition onward, there were story awards, roleplaying awards and awards for defeating foes without necessarily killing them in combat. That adds up to people being able to progress without necessarily grinding hordes of enemies every session.

Also, from the second edition onward, you started out as a skilled and competent person. If you were a warrior type, you ought to be well able to handle a typical orc. Weapon specialisation adds +1 to hit and +2 to damage, after all, and allows you to make 3 attacks per two turns.

I don't really like the D&D Basic and Expert or 1st Edition. There are a lot of reasons, but the emphasis on luck with the dice (because there really wasn't a whole lot else that distinguished one character from the next) was a big part of it.

Most of those things (secondary skills, weapon specialization, making starting characters noticeable better than an average solider or orc, and possibly story awards) were there in late 1e, but always marginal or with balance issues until later (weapon specialization and some of the optional 1e classes were a bit too good, and WS often produced a starting fighter who could only use one or two weapons). Also, published adventures for low-level characters focused on the dungeon, rather than teaching the harder art of running adventures about all sorts of things. (This is one reason I wish there were more published GURPS adventures; I suspect that the reason that GURPS gamers tend to be older is that running things other than dungeon crawls are harder, and most GMs have to teach themselves how to do it. I think Action and Monster Hunters are designed to remedy this but I can't afford those books).

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Some people are just not suited for sandbox games... well, except ones where half the point is making new characters and the other half is seeing how interesting their deaths are. Telling these kinds of players "there are entire packs of fiendish, dire T-Rexes from HELL in that valley" produces the weirdest plans to dig dire-T-Rex sized tiger traps. :P

The other thing is gamers who don't have much initiative other than "humh, this dungeon is cleared, I guess we have to find a new one." Some love a sandbox with lots of things in motion and others ready to disturb, others like to have adventure presented to them. I noticed this when a retired CF NCO, with long experience in the SCA and LARPs, joined my gaming group. He was a lot more active at making things happen than my usual group of players ... it was fun for me because I didn't have to do all the work starting plots.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Magic Missile
Special; Resisted by IQ
[...] Each target gets a resistance roll to prevent the caster from achieving a fix on him and if successful, suffers no damage. [/COLOR][/I]

I really don't like resisted by IQ. MM in pre4.0 DnD is unerring and has no save. It is good attacking studious types (without counters) since they have low HP and relatively ineffective on brutes since they have loads of HP, and this reverses that.

What limits MM's usefulness is low DPS, an easy spell counter (shield, or any other force armor), and a moderately cheap magic item counter (Brooch of Shielding).

I'd cut the damage (even if it only left you with 1 pt each missile), give it enough bennies to hit reliably and ignore armor, and add limitations to represent inability to get through force magic of any kind.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by martinl

I really don't like resisted by IQ. MM in pre4.0 DnD is unerring and has no save. It is good attacking studious types (without counters) since they have low HP and relatively ineffective on brutes since they have loads of HP, and this reverses that.

D&D 4e has errata'd magic missile to be unerring with no save, again. It's really an iconic trait.