Well, for the first time in my current mini-campaign, I fudged a dice roll. Previously, I've made a few mistakes, mis-counting damage rolls, forgetting modifiers, or whatever, but tonight I deliberately changed a roll to allow a PC to live where he should have died.
The situation was desperate, and the PCs were in real trouble. The character in question had 64 hit points remaining, which meant he could probably survive two hits. The NPCs were carefully designed to hit about 50% of the time. So, when three of them attacked the lone PC, he was probably going to be okay.
Of course, all three hit. I was asked if I wanted to roll the damage behind a screen, but declined. The damage result came up at precisely enough to drop the character to -10 hit points. Dead. So, I fudged things. I allowed him an immediate roll to stabilise, which I did roll behind the screen (I rolled because the player wasn't there - but I like to think that that wasn't a factor in my actions; I would have done the same for a player who was there, and would probably have allowed them to make the stabilisation roll behind a screen). Anyway, the roll was passed, and the PC lived.
Tsk. Naughty GM.
That said, losing a PC sucks, especially when you're not there. And it may be worse when the campaign is winding down - I'm ending it in the session after next. Plus, I'm really not a fan of allowing a PC to go from perfectly healthy to dead as a doornail in a single roll.
So, I think in my next campaign I'll institute a house rule that no PC may be slain instantly by a single attack. The worst that can happen is that they'll drop to -9 hit points, and have at least one chance to stabilise. I'm not sure how this will mesh with such things as disintegrate spells, but then in 3.5e these spells have all been changed to avoid instant death anyway, so I doubt it will matter too much.
Oh, I should also point out that a PC who is already at negative hit points is on their own; once you're down your chances at grace have faded.
Any thoughts?
Re: Cheat!
I just thought I'd mention here that my PCs also made use of the "Aid Another" action to good effect tonight, so my guilt at screwing them over with it last week is no longer bothering me.
Sunday, 31 August 2003
Saturday, 30 August 2003
Size Modifiers
It's an odd thing that there are a couple of rules in d20 that make no sense logically, yet work rather well in implementation. For instance, there's the whole "armour makes you harder to hit" thing that keeps getting bounced around. However, the one that's been really bugging me for the past eight hours are size modifiers to AC and attack rolls.
The principle of the size modifier to AC is really simple, and doesn't need much justification: big things are easier to hit.
The difficulty comes with the size modifier to attack rolls, which is a bit more confusing. Why should a small character naturally be better at hitting things that a big one.
The reason is a pure rules dodge - if a small character is fighting a small character, neither should have any bonus or penalty due to size. However, it's easier to give a permanent +1 AC than it is to recalculate AC all the time (how often do such modifiers get missed?), so small characters are given a +1 to attack rolls as well. Thus, although both characters get a bonus, these cancel out, and any problem goes away.
It is also a consequence of this that medium characters don't need to apply an AC penalty when fighting small characters - the small characters get a +1 to hit which has the same mathematical effects.
The problem I've hit occurs where a character is riding in a mech. Since mecha give AC bonuses, it rapidly becomes almost impossible for a Medium character in a Colossal mech to hit the broad-side of a barn (assuming said barn is made out of refractalloy or the like). Add in NPC class-based defense bonuses, mecha ace class features, and dexterity bonuses (would any mecha pilot ever NOT have maxed out dexterity?), and it becomes ridiculous. Colossal mecha have the ability to single-handedly dominate the battlefield? Please. The damn things are useful for precisely one thing - to stand there and be shot at.
Still, we'll see what my players think, when their carefully maxed attack rolls change from an average of +11 to an average of +2. The enemy AC values will remain at a nice comfortably 24 or so, of course.
The principle of the size modifier to AC is really simple, and doesn't need much justification: big things are easier to hit.
The difficulty comes with the size modifier to attack rolls, which is a bit more confusing. Why should a small character naturally be better at hitting things that a big one.
The reason is a pure rules dodge - if a small character is fighting a small character, neither should have any bonus or penalty due to size. However, it's easier to give a permanent +1 AC than it is to recalculate AC all the time (how often do such modifiers get missed?), so small characters are given a +1 to attack rolls as well. Thus, although both characters get a bonus, these cancel out, and any problem goes away.
It is also a consequence of this that medium characters don't need to apply an AC penalty when fighting small characters - the small characters get a +1 to hit which has the same mathematical effects.
The problem I've hit occurs where a character is riding in a mech. Since mecha give AC bonuses, it rapidly becomes almost impossible for a Medium character in a Colossal mech to hit the broad-side of a barn (assuming said barn is made out of refractalloy or the like). Add in NPC class-based defense bonuses, mecha ace class features, and dexterity bonuses (would any mecha pilot ever NOT have maxed out dexterity?), and it becomes ridiculous. Colossal mecha have the ability to single-handedly dominate the battlefield? Please. The damn things are useful for precisely one thing - to stand there and be shot at.
Still, we'll see what my players think, when their carefully maxed attack rolls change from an average of +11 to an average of +2. The enemy AC values will remain at a nice comfortably 24 or so, of course.
Monday, 25 August 2003
Cheat!
I've been having trouble coming up with anything much to say. However, here's a thought or two regarding hordes of NPCs, fighter wings in Star Wars, and the game last Saturday.
On Saturday, I faced my PCs with a huge number of enemies. Unfortunately, I botched slightly, in that the enemy were about two steps too powerful for them, and for the story I was planning on running. Still, adopt, adapt and improve. No-one died, so there's no huge problem. And, they think they know how to get out of this mess...
That's an aside - I was wanting to get to the point that I was bouncing some ideas I've had about how to handle fighter wings in Star Wars and similar games. Broadly speaking, I think a fighter wing should move and fight as a single unit, with what amounts to a single attack roll and damage tally from the whole wing in the round. My current thinking is that each fighter beyond the first should provide a +1 bonus to attack rolls and AC to the main fighter in the wing, with each successful hit on the wing as a whole either being assigned to a random member of the wing or shifted to a member of the wing at his choice, if a Pilot roll is made (I don't know a likely DC). The basic idea there is that damage is generally assigned randomly, but individuals could choose to "drop back far enough to cover you", as in Star Wars, effectively taking the hits for their buddy.
Anyway, as a first step to this, I decided to have to 'secondary' members of the wing instead make use of the "Aid Another" action in combat, with each member thus providing what amounted to a +2 bonus to attack rolls (only) to the main pilot. I did this because I didn't want to drop in some new house rules without telling my players, especially when they're untested rules.
This worked fine. The effect was that the wing hardly ever missed, but the energy resistance of my PCs' mechs negated most hits - as expected. I've commented on my thinking that mechs should provide an AC bonus OR hardness, but not both, before.
The only problem I had with it occurred half-way through the battle, when I chanced to look up the "id Another" action in the rule-book. At this point, I discovered that it only applied to melee attacks. Whoops.
Of course, people make mistakes all the time, and it wasn't as though the mistake had cost anyone their life, so no problem. That I then didn't confess my error, and continued using the ruling even after I knew it was wrong was another matter, though...
One of the problems I sometimes feel when running D&D (and similar d20 games) is that PCs gradually become so powerful that they become immune to all attacks from low-level NPCs. So, we can have a lone Barbarian facing off against a horde of orcs and win. I have no problem with this. However, they also tend to come out of the combat totally unscathed, since the NPCs all too often require a natural 20 to hit, which doesn't happen often. Henceforth, I think I'll counter this by having my orcs make extensive use of the aid another action. Just a thought.
I'll try to think of something a bit more interesting to post nearer the end of the week.
On Saturday, I faced my PCs with a huge number of enemies. Unfortunately, I botched slightly, in that the enemy were about two steps too powerful for them, and for the story I was planning on running. Still, adopt, adapt and improve. No-one died, so there's no huge problem. And, they think they know how to get out of this mess...
That's an aside - I was wanting to get to the point that I was bouncing some ideas I've had about how to handle fighter wings in Star Wars and similar games. Broadly speaking, I think a fighter wing should move and fight as a single unit, with what amounts to a single attack roll and damage tally from the whole wing in the round. My current thinking is that each fighter beyond the first should provide a +1 bonus to attack rolls and AC to the main fighter in the wing, with each successful hit on the wing as a whole either being assigned to a random member of the wing or shifted to a member of the wing at his choice, if a Pilot roll is made (I don't know a likely DC). The basic idea there is that damage is generally assigned randomly, but individuals could choose to "drop back far enough to cover you", as in Star Wars, effectively taking the hits for their buddy.
Anyway, as a first step to this, I decided to have to 'secondary' members of the wing instead make use of the "Aid Another" action in combat, with each member thus providing what amounted to a +2 bonus to attack rolls (only) to the main pilot. I did this because I didn't want to drop in some new house rules without telling my players, especially when they're untested rules.
This worked fine. The effect was that the wing hardly ever missed, but the energy resistance of my PCs' mechs negated most hits - as expected. I've commented on my thinking that mechs should provide an AC bonus OR hardness, but not both, before.
The only problem I had with it occurred half-way through the battle, when I chanced to look up the "id Another" action in the rule-book. At this point, I discovered that it only applied to melee attacks. Whoops.
Of course, people make mistakes all the time, and it wasn't as though the mistake had cost anyone their life, so no problem. That I then didn't confess my error, and continued using the ruling even after I knew it was wrong was another matter, though...
One of the problems I sometimes feel when running D&D (and similar d20 games) is that PCs gradually become so powerful that they become immune to all attacks from low-level NPCs. So, we can have a lone Barbarian facing off against a horde of orcs and win. I have no problem with this. However, they also tend to come out of the combat totally unscathed, since the NPCs all too often require a natural 20 to hit, which doesn't happen often. Henceforth, I think I'll counter this by having my orcs make extensive use of the aid another action. Just a thought.
I'll try to think of something a bit more interesting to post nearer the end of the week.
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