pnp rules for shorties

[Blackwill]

In both Haze and Penitence we had racial speeds (Haze) and armor speed reductions (Penitence), and Armor Equipping Times (both), which added a great deal of realism/PnP feel to the game. If you spent less than the full amount of time putting on your armor (not shields!) then you wound up with an AC penalty, as per PnP. An attempt was also made (not sure if it worked or not) with regard to allowing dwaves to ignore the movement penalties for medium/heavy armor, which I was lead to believe was a PnP rule.

We also had racial armors/clothing which only certain sized races/subraces could wear, and yes, weight reductions for different racial armors (at least for some of them, in Haze), to the best of my recollection. Now it's quarter to 2 in the morning, so i better shower and hit the hay.

Like many of you say when you follow the previoucely quoted opinion: +1
If small creatures get reduced in speed, then armor needs to recude speed also. If you wanna play PnP, then do it properly so it stays in balace

[Swift]

If you wanna play PnP, then do it properly so it stays in balace

Too bad alot of stuff that works in PnP either a) doesnt work or b) is totally batshit boring when you put it into a computer game.

[Blackwill]

Please do not quote me out of context.
Thank you

[darrenhfx]

FWIW I thought the abovementioned tweaks in Haze/Penitence worked quite nicely. But then again I'm in favour of a thirst/hunger/fatigue system

[Mayhem]

Heres a question then:

If you were playing a small character, what penalty would you be willing to accept instead of the movement speed, or what bonus would you be willing to give up?

Or should you get all the bonuses of small size but no penalty - are folks wanting to have their cake and eat it too?

[darrenhfx]

If movement speed for critters and monsters can be accurately set at the appropriate canon level, so much the better. I'm all for having a range of variables to consider before tromping off through the wood.

If my gnome wizard hasn't figured out that he is no track star and the wolf IS going to catch him, he should be docked a few INT points anyway.

I didn't see anything specifically in the base mod discussion on creatures but I only gave it a quick skim.

[AlmightyTDawg]

I think Mulu had it pretty much dead on.

In a slow-leveling system, with combat so devalued, particularly in the quasi-party atmosphere, and lacking the out-of-engine things like crawling through a hole, ducking some branches, climbing a tree, or any of the other ways to escape from a bad situation, reduced movement for shorties isn't appropriate. The randomness involved in so many possible encounters, and just one day you walk up and are subject to a 20/20 and 20/19 on successive hits... it tends to promote looking for cheap OOC solutions like overinflated AC. In a PnP system you can handwave around some things and make smart decisions. With static content, you can't. I don't see this as being appropriate for shorties.

The idea of armor I can better accept because there is the tradeoff between that better survival rate up front and escape.

The idea of the Run feat and making further distinctions between heavy and medium armor is intriguing in theory, but to pull it off you'd need a fluid system for distinguishing walk-hustle-run that would not easily be lagged out server side. Anyone who's been in a laggy combat where they would've sworn they clicked Expertise and it didn't take knows exactly what I'm talking about there.

[Mulu]

FWIW I thought the abovementioned tweaks in Haze/Penitence worked quite nicely. But then again I'm in favour of a thirst/hunger/fatigue system

I'm going to say this as nicely as I can. I played (and admin'ed) in another gameworld that had many of these systems implemented. One of the more vocal players called it "decent into code hell" as these systems were being implemented. I came to agree with him eventually, and started protesting the changes also, and then I left when I saw that it was fruitless. That gameworld ultimately failed as people, like me, fled the circumstances created by too much coding, among other reasons.

Now, Haze and Penitence are dead worlds too, just like the one I used to play in. Is it possible that the sum total of all these coded systems contributed to that death? Something to consider. At the point where you are spending half of your online time not rp'ing interactively, but rather running IC errands imposed on you by the game system, well, that's not exactly an rp based world anymore, it's just a series of chores and errands, and many people will find it so tiresome that they'll look elsewhere for their online rp'ing fun.

As has been mentioned before, NWN is an imperfect implementation of PnP D&D. Some will argue it is better (anonymity allows for more immersion, e.g. a 6' tall hairy marine can play a hin princess if he wants to without anybody being the wiser, combat is largely automated and resolves quickly, etc.), but there is no doubt that it is a *different* implementation of D&D rules than PnP. What that means is that every PnP rule doesn't necessarily have the desired effect in NWN. Different speeds for our toons is just an in-game hassle that means frequent jogging or slowing down, something that simply doesn't happen in PnP as movement is totally abstracted ("we go to the castle"), not actually acted out step by step as it is in NWN.

Slowing down small folks, without allowing them to otherwise evade pursuing monsters due to their small size, will be an imbalanced rule. Should they move slower? I suppose, but they should get to do a lot of other things too, that you aren't giving them with this rule.

(more later)

[darrenhfx]

I won't disagree with you as I have no idea the degree of complexity adding such systems bring to the game, I'm just saying that they added different avenues for roleplaying beyond what we currently have and that I enjoyed them.

WRT shorter races not being balanced if you have more realistic movement speeds maybe having all races properly coded in the game from day 1 will go a long way in making them feel a bit more like the PnP experience.

Good discussion.

[Mulu]

*nods* And I'm sure it's more realistic to have short folks move slower, but like I said along with that slow movement short folks do not get the ability to duck under furniture/briars to avoid getting killed by a hostile with a higher move rate. Thus, they are only getting the detrimental effect of their size, not the beneficial ones.

Another aspect of too much code is the learning curve for a new player. It's relatively easy as part of an ongoing player base to learn "yet another" new system, but the total amount of new material that must be learned can inhibit a new player from joining at all. One of the advantages of playing D&D in the first place is its familiarity, which lowers the learning curve coming in. Change too many things, and you'll find a lot of good rp'ers who are not interesting in realistic minutiae, nor in reading new rules for hours, will go elsewhere. It's not like we're the only rp focused gameworld out there. Simply put, too many new rules and coded changes is a path to a dead world, one I've seen traveled before.

[HDB]

Too bad alot of stuff that works in PnP either a) doesnt work or b) is totally batshit boring when you put it into a computer game.

I'm afraid that this opinion shows more the short comings of patience, and lack of faith for well time-groomed ACR.
I agree with Blackwill. Lightly impacting HCR, left to be gaged by the DM are the best way to adhere to a level of realism attainable.

[AlmightyTDawg]

WRT shorter races not being balanced if you have more realistic movement speeds maybe having all races properly coded in the game from day 1 will go a long way in making them feel a bit more like the PnP experience.

My major concern is the PnP general form of balance. We have to do with changes based on a) what's hardcoded in the engine and b) the peculiarities of ALFA. It's more the question of how things fit together than the proper implementation on a given issue.

For example, one of the majors will always be slow advancement. While it doesn't by necessity mean this, I think generally you conclude a higher number of encounters per level than in a normal PnP system. With combat devalued, individual survivability, which is to say not subject to statistical fluctuations, becomes a real question. It's one of the reasons that the wealth numbers were pitched by default notably above DMG average, even despite the general "low magic" leanings.

I think you could alleviate the concern by all tuned/non-static encounters, but I don't think anyone wants to go there. In fact, I think the direction is towards a random encounter system, with the nontrivial prospect of unbalanced encounters. Based on all that, I'm led to conclude that a straight book implementation for shorties isn't quite appropriate. I could see something a bit more along the lines of standard PC vs DM-possessed NPC walking speed being workable, but making getting in over one's head = doom for shorties I think leverages the wrong aspects of the engine and in fact misrepesents PnP balance.

[Ronan]

In both Haze and Penitence we had racial speeds (Haze) and armor speed reductions (Penitence), and Armor Equipping Times (both), which added a great deal of realism/PnP feel to the game. If you spent less than the full amount of time putting on your armor (not shields!) then you wound up with an AC penalty, as per PnP. An attempt was also made (not sure if it worked or not) with regard to allowing dwaves to ignore the movement penalties for medium/heavy armor, which I was lead to believe was a PnP rule.

We generally expect armor equiping times to be RPed, as we don't want to penalize people for logging on late, and not having time to don their armor before joining an adventure, etc. And the "comic book time" generally runs better if, under non-threatened circumstances, people don't wait long for others to put on their gear. Especially with our time compression.

With regard to movement rates, as I understand this was considered. The problem is twofold. One, walking speed is reduced as well. This is annoying, especially in parties. Two, monsters will chase a PC forever. Even monsters who really aren't hungry/aggressive enough will. So basically the heavily-armored PC is resined to death if he needs to run, unless he has an invis potion. I cannot imagine the increased number of PC deaths we'd have if we had reduced movement rates.

We also had racial armors/clothing which only certain sized races/subraces could wear, and yes, weight reductions for different racial armors (at least for some of them, in Haze), to the best of my recollection. Now it's quarter to 2 in the morning, so i better shower and hit the hay.

Typically, we save racial/gender armor types for custom DM-given items. This saves builders from making many more armor types for all their stores, and we sort of trust players not to RP their hin removing armor from a half orc and putting it on immediately.

Haze does seem like a good example of how much easier and quicker it is to implement technical features in a smaller world with less bureaucracy.

[Mulu]

WRT shorter races not being balanced if you have more realistic movement speeds maybe having all races properly coded in the game from day 1 will go a long way in making them feel a bit more like the PnP experience.

Good discussion.

I'd also like to reiterate that in the PnP experience, you don't notice the different movement rates outside of combat mapping. And let's face it, in turn based PnP combat, a barbarian or monk is effectively a missle weapon given the usual encounter ranges, i.e. they can close to melee and attack in the first round typically. PnP D&D isn't exactly a realistic system.

[Dorn]

[quote="Mulu]....in turn based PnP combat, a barbarian ...is effectively a missle weapon given the usual encounter ranges, i.e. they can close to melee and attack in the first round typically[/quote]
Yea baby!!