Ask a Simple Question - Get a Simple Answer

Fury of the Tempest wrote:Fair enough, a Monster Manual would probably help DM's everywhere by tons.

Absolutely. It's by far the best thing we can do for the system.

tygerburningbright wrote:Are you sure that you can not just outsource the monster manual to silentbelle?

Right now, you can use all his awesome ideas whenever you like and we've already shown him all our core concepts. We're going a very different direction with our monster manual than most books are - something that should hopefully be more helpful to DMs than a raw collection of a bunch of different-leveled statblocks and lore - and I've run everything by him already. I definitely want him to be part of the process, it's just a very different process than normal so none of us can do it on our own right now. We're trying to create dynamic encounter tools for DMs that let them tweak the encounters on the fly to balance to their party's strength easily and encourage exciting, cinematic encounter design.

Yeah, we're really excited about the idea too. It's how I run encounters in my live games now, keeping things changing all the time with new enemies showing up or enemies transforming to keep combat encounters fresh - plus easily tailored to each group's strengths. We want to build a system that makes it easy for any DM to do this on the fly.

Absolutely. The rewards should be huge though if it works. We took risks with the whole system, why stop now? Worst that can happen is we end up having to try again.

The fight between kobolds here is an example of what the new system will be like...

I tried to do something like this (with timberwolves that merge into one large timberwolf when the fight isn't going their way), but the healer wasn't present at the start, one of the strikers used a first turn All or Nothing, and the giant timberwolf had low damage die and was constantly subjected to damage penalties, so the fight was all over the place in terms of difficulty, but I blame my poor planning more than the idea of the system...

As that healer, I must say that the regular timberwolves were tougher than the giant one.

Colter Bolt wrote:As that healer, I must say that the regular timberwolves were tougher than the giant one.

The giant timberwolf was basically a Danger Rating 2 monster which I doubled the hit points of and gave an extra standard action. Turns out that a d4 is not a lot of damage, especially with a -2 penalty tied to it...

Is Enfeebling Curse supposed to be an Attack? If so, why is Draw Blood a Utility? This is very strange.

Blinded – A creature that is blinded flips a coin before it attacks. If it loses the flip, the attack misses. Flip a separate coin for each target of the attack.

Does "The attack misses" mean, "no attack dice rolls to just see if you get a crit or other effects that the dice might do with that attack" or "attack deals zero damage"?

Overachiever (1)
You can have a maximum of 12 points in a single attribute rather than 10.

This racial only allows one stat be upgraded above 10, it doesn't upgrade the max in a attribute to 12, right?

It does say you can take it multiple times, I think max 3.

Max would actually be 5 since there's a trait that gives you two more slots for Trinkets.

Edit: However, Training Certificate states you can't take two of the same trait. So, even if the trait itself stacks, the way it's stated, you still could take it only once via that method.

Xel Unknown wrote:

Blinded – A creature that is blinded flips a coin before it attacks. If it loses the flip, the attack misses. Flip a separate coin for each target of the attack.

Does "The attack misses" mean, "no attack dice rolls to just see if you get a crit or other effects that the dice might do with that attack" or "attack deals zero damage"?

Wow does that suck as a rule explanation.

It's supposed to say, "the attack has no effect". Blind's wording is actually terrible in general right now for other reasons too. I'll add it to our "to-fix" list. Thanks.

Ramsus wrote:Is Enfeebling Curse supposed to be an Attack? If so, why is Draw Blood a Utility? This is very strange.

Utilities and Attacks aren't so because of flavor but rather because of mechanics and combos. For example, some interrupts respond to attacks rather than utilities. After all, players can make their flavor anything they want.

However, this is a confusing way of doing things so we might change that in the future.

Paper Shadow wrote:The fight between kobolds here is an example of what the new system will be like...

Hey, that fight was pretty fun to read. =)

Why did the attack definition of "any talent that damages a creature" show back up? As a further note, if this was intentional, why aren't Daredevil's rush or Heads I Win Tails you Lose listed as attacks?

thematthew wrote:Why did the attack definition of "any talent that damages a creature" show back up?

A long, long, long time ago. Ever since we got the keywords for attacks and utilities. Before we had the keyword on the talent, we needed a rule that told you what was an attack and what wasn't for the purpose of ability interactions. For example, some things can only interact with attacks - not utilities.

I'm asking why it's in the book again.

Gotcha.

Probably because a lot of weird stuff happened when Kindulas merged the docs. This was why we needed to merge them in the first place, because they didn't have the same rules.

Fixed.

Um.... what? You realize you didn't actually answer the questions Xel and I asked right?

To restate the information were were asking for was: Do you still make your attack roll when Blind? Yes or no. , Is Enfeebling Curse supposed to be an Attack? Yes or no. , and if so, why when Draw Blood isn't?

Ramsus wrote:To restate the information were were asking for was: Do you still make your attack roll when Blind? Yes or no. , Is Enfeebling Curse supposed to be an Attack? Yes or no. , and if so, why when Draw Blood isn't?

In regards to the latter two questions, I think Dan actually did explain it. Enfeebling Curse is supposed to be an attack, and Draw Blood isn't because that's how it's labelled, as odd as it is. It might be because Draw Blood is a weaker move, and most counters are for attacks not utilities so it gives it a bonus. Maybe it's because Enfeebling Curse causes weakening, too.

I am quite curious about whether or not you still make attack rolls when blind, part of me thinks you should, since the general concept of special moves doesn't actually depend on the attack actually doing anything, or even making an attack in the first place.

*annoyed* Clearly he didn't answer if you have to say sentences that start with "it might". According to whom is Enfeebling Curse supposed to be an attack? That's exactly why I was asking the question.

As for your second paragraph, again, he clearly didn't answer the question or we'd know that information since that's exactly why Xel was asking.

*exasperated sigh* This is why I wish Dan would just give straight answers to questions instead of PR style responses. It only makes things more confusing.

Ramsus wrote:Um.... what? You realize you didn't actually answer the questions Xel and I asked right?

To restate the information were were asking for was: Do you still make your attack roll when Blind? Yes or no. , Is Enfeebling Curse supposed to be an Attack? Yes or no. , and if so, why when Draw Blood isn't?

I assumed you'd know what the words 'no effect' meant.

It actually meant 'no effect'. Like... nothing. No dice rolling, no coin flipping, no unicorn spinning and no finger-flicking. Or anything else.

Does that clear it up?