How do we feel about playing and DMing in ALFA?

[Magonushi]

I feel that I have two options, team up with a level 8+ to do the adventuring for me

And that's assuming the level 8+ even would team up with you. After all, they don't know you and therefore have no IC reason to be with you.

I've usually found that people are willing to bend the IC requirements a little bit to help a level one, just because they know (OOC) how much of a bitch level one is.

[Zelknolf]

If the NWN2 death system functions as the NWN1 one did, any creature that couldn't do more than 1 damage would be unable to kill a PC.

1 hp of damage is supposed to represent harm that could actually kill you, and even being dropped to 1 hp but somehow not going below that is certainly risking death from something else. Small animals shouldn't even be able to do 1 hp of damage, nor should they be worth any xp.

I would submit that you're in the wrong gaming system, if you hold this to be true.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm

Contained therein: "Damage from an attack is always at least 1 point, even if a subtraction from a die roll reduces the result to 0 or lower."

I think you need to turn in your hat Zel.

Pshaw. He must've used a wish spell to make the crazy animated broom of doom. An ordinary animate objects spell is brd 6, clr 6, and chaos 6.

[Mulu]

I would submit that you're in the wrong gaming system, if you hold this to be true.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm

Contained therein: "Damage from an attack is always at least 1 point, even if a subtraction from a die roll reduces the result to 0 or lower."

They're talking about MONSTERS Zel, not squirrels. Yes, MONSTERS should have the ability to kill you. Though I should also point out that NWN and ALFA by extension does not follow that 1hp always rule. Monsters absolutely can do zero damage on an attack if you are stoneskinned or otherwise have some form of DR.

And although I'm sure somewhere in the world of D&D documentation some idiot wrote up monster stats for a squirrel, that doesn't mean you have to abide by it. At a certain point, you have to decide if you want your campaign to be silly or serious. ALFA tends towards the serious.

[Mikayla]

The only way a chicken should ever be able to kill a warrior with a sword is if the warrior chokes on a chicken bone while eating the "beast" or gets food poisoning from the bird's flesh. That a chicken (or a common rat, not dire rat) can kill a full grown human in armor with a melee weapon is ridiculous, and, to me, subtracts mightily from the "hard-core role-play" environment we are supposed to be fostering here.

[Spider Jones]

It's not really a huge problem, it's easily remedied, and since we're starting from scratch, there's no excuse for it not being handled better this time around.

[HEEGZ]

It's not really a huge problem, it's easily remedied, and since we're starting from scratch, there's no excuse for it not being handled better this time around.

Yep.

[Zelknolf]

I would submit that you're in the wrong gaming system, if you hold this to be true.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm

Contained therein: "Damage from an attack is always at least 1 point, even if a subtraction from a die roll reduces the result to 0 or lower."

They're talking about MONSTERS Zel, not squirrels. Yes, MONSTERS should have the ability to kill you. Though I should also point out that NWN and ALFA by extension does not follow that 1hp always rule. Monsters absolutely can do zero damage on an attack if you are stoneskinned or otherwise have some form of DR.

Damage reduction is presented as the exception to this rule.
"Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective)."
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm

Someone with anything that has an edge should draw blood when they hit, even if it's not a deep cut, and it seems that's exactly what this rule is trying to reflect. (and before the "deep cuts can't kill!" argument, I would point out that most death in medieval combat came from blood loss or infection, and that period combat manuals reflected this. Some, such as Miyamoto Musashi's Go Rin No Sho, include lengthy discussions of how best to use small cuts that individually lose very little blood to kill opponents.)

I'd still call it "bad building" if we've a squirrel that will bite more than once and run for it, of course, and worse building if they rally to other squirrels' defense, but arguing that they shouldn't do damage is just unrealistic.



Re: Rodent Attacks...

http://www.mdconsult.com/das/article/bo ... 0400009401

This article, published and peer reviewed in 2004, includes emergency treatment for tears, infections, and blunt force trauma from animals, including specific instances of injuries caused by rats and domestic cats.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17243/17 ... tartoftext

This is anecdotal accounts from a rat-catcher circa 19th century, including testimonial that rats are more likely to attack in small groups; rats killing ferrets, dogs, and mongooses; and rats causing blood poisoning.



Re: Chicken attacks...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbX91g9n ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jBGKK4X ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AohTrkBj ... re=related

It's not exactly difficult to find examples of the creatures being driven to violence. They tend to bite and hold, then work the talons, and I can say from personal experience that it leaves a much meaner gash than a dumbass with a knife.



Seems plenty logical that animals that can kill human being be able to kill human beings, but have stats that make it highly unlikely. Indeed, they would be able to weaken a stout warrior enough that he would be more vulnerable against a more threatening attack by giving them 1 damage per hit, and I would call that true to life. If a chicken gets half a minute at your legs while you try to cleanly hit it off, I'd bet you'd be in horrible shape. Maybe it just gets a bite and you boot it across the room, and then you're only a little bit worse for the wear, out a little bit of blood and maybe walking a bit gingerly on that leg. It looks to me like that's exactly what the rules give us right now, as long as we don't have flocks of killer chickens that fight in perfect concert and have an uncanny feeling of comraderie, a la Shadowdale's infamous killer chicken flock.

[Mulu]

Zel, you're starting to get ridiculous, and you are now including bear attacks with rats. I'm quite certain that a bear could kill a warrior. But how many small animal attacks have ever resulted in death from trauma? Disease doesn't count. Unless you are unconscious and therefore able to be gnawed on for awhile, you are not going to get killed by a small animal outside of disease. And let's face it, a tick can kill you from disease. I doubt you would argue that a tick bite is worth 1 hp of damage.

[Mulu]

If a chicken gets half a minute at your legs while you try to cleanly hit it off, I'd bet you'd be in horrible shape.

Well, for starters it wouldn't get a half a minute. It might get a couple of seconds if you are really clumsy. And, no, it really couldn't do any significant (read potentially mortal) damage to you. A dagger does 1d4 damage. Think about that. Getting stabbed with a dagger does 1, 2, 3, or 4 hp's of damage from an average strength human, and for a gnome with a strength of 6 (capable of military pressing 60lbs that means), it only does 0, 0, 1 or 2 hp's of damage. Do you really think a chicken peck is as bad as getting stabbed with a dagger by someone who can military press 60 pounds?

[JaydeMoon]

But how many small animal attacks have ever resulted in death from trauma?

I don't think Zelk is arguing that it's reasonable for small critters to be killing you in ALFA.

In fact, reading what is written, it looks more like a reasonable argument that small animals could realistically cause as much as 1 HP of damage in a round of attacks. I certainly believe it is possible.

Further, Zelk goes on to agree that bad building is an issue and that were an animal to actually attack you, it would probably not CONTINUE to attack you to death, nor would it's buddy animals join in the fracas, thereby actually agreeing to the actual point of this stupid debate:

"It's dumB that small animals can kill you in ALFA."

We ALL agree with this. But when someone makes a silly statement like it's not possible, or even likely, for a small animal to appreciably hurt a human being, you're going to see the arguments that they can.

Which is true. Whether this damage adds up to a HP or not might depend on what your take on HPs are, but animals, even little ones, can cause damage to people. Even rats and squirrels.

The end. I win.

[danielmn]

You sir, do not win. I win.

*unleashes his pack of berzerker chipmunks on JM*

[Mulu]

Jayde, I've worked with chickens, I've worked with rats too for that matter. Dissected quite a few in my biology lab days, and got bit a few times too. They are simply not plausibly capable of doing significant harm. A large dog, sure. But you have to remember that commoners can have 1 hp. A wizard can have 1 hp. 1 hp of damage = potentially mortal wound. Even a mosquito bite causes "harm," but not enough harm to potentially kill you. Would you really represent a mosquito bite as 1 hp of damage? There is a threshold below which harm should not be represented as hit points. That threshold must necessarily be harm which is not capable of causing a mortal wound, since some creatures and even humans only have 1 hp.

I know D&D isn't exactly a paragon of realism, but if you get too silly you break immersion. And if it's possible under your game system for something to happen, death by chicken for example, then eventually it *will* happen. Bad dice rolls are an inevitability.

And on that note, back in AD&D days low level monsters were always armed with small weapons that typically did 1d4 or at most 1d6 damage, no crits. NWN put in 1HD orcs with greataxes.... Again, dice inevitability makes such a design unwise in a permadeath environment, just to broaden the discussion, unless the encounter is designed to be dangerous to higher levels.

[Zelknolf]

And, no, it really couldn't do any significant (read potentially mortal) damage to you.

Modern medicine, anecdotal evidence from the profession, agrarian cultures and history's most successful duelist all disagree with you. I've provided the citations, and I think they're more credible.

Granted, I've said (and will say again) that a module is built poorly if anything short of powerful magic has enough small animals coordinating to kill people. Saying that they don't do damage is ridiculous.

Do you really think a chicken peck is as bad as getting stabbed with a dagger by someone who can military press 60 pounds?

No. A chicken will always do 1 damage if it hits. A 6 str fellow (by the way, double check your rules. A gnome's max load is 45 lbs. Size modifiers.) does 1 damage 75% of the time, and 2 damage 25% of the time. Comparing getting clawed by a chicken (not pecked, mind you. Beaks are for eating. Talons are for fighting.) to someone who can clean and press (not military press. Check the wording) 60 lbs and deadlift 120, plus a bladed weapon less than a foot long, I'd say the injuries from the latter would probably be only slightly worse than the first; neither has a real chance of damaging internal organs (chicken talons aren't long enough, that poor wimpy-armed fellow would have trouble penetrating muscle) but both will draw blood and (in theory) could continue to draw blood until an opponent passed out.

[Mulu]

Modern medicine, anecdotal evidence from the profession, agrarian cultures and history's most successful duelist all disagree with you.

No they really don't. None of your citations concerned a person being killed by traumatic injury from a small animal. Diseases and allergic reactions don't count for this discussion, since even a trivial scratch can do that. A blade is of course potentially lethal even from blood loss. It's wielded by a guy who could cut your head off.

Saying that they don't do damage is ridiculous.

I didn't say they don't do damage, I said they don't do significant damage. In gaming terms, insufficient to cause a mortal wound, or 1 hp. Saying a rat or a chicken can cause a mortal wound, not counting disease, is simply ludicrous. And claiming that being stabbed by a guy who can press 45 or 60 lbs is equivalent to even a rooster spur is completely out of touch with reality. Daggers are designed to penetrate muscle with very little effort, and penetrate deep. In fact, they have a pounds per square inch pressure on impact in the thousands. I doubt a chicken can boast that.

Forensic scientists have established that sharp knives penetrate human skin with no more than four pounds per square inch of pressure. Once the skin is breached, no other tissue offers ANY significant resistance, save bone. As all vital organs in the body are less than four inches from the skin's surface at some point, it becomes obvious that a very little thrust can cleave, literally, to the heart of the matter...

[Vaelahr]

OMG Crit!