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Post by Colin Clout on Aug 25, 2013 22:35:49 GMT
I like the system Dax, but I will continue to argue against having your weapon drawn at the start of combat. You mean to tell me you spend a day walking around and you have your weapon drawn that entire time? I can just imagine your goblin being startled and pointing his blade every time the leaves rustle.
What you mean to say is that no sane hunter would go into the wild without a weapon, but I can think of no scenario where an adventure party is so edgy that they keep their weapons draw at all times. It is just a out of game way of thinking, or an attempt to gain an in game advantage, and a very small one so I'm not even sure why this has become an issue.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2013 0:25:52 GMT
I am not saying survival as a class skill. Just able to use survival. It is the tracking skill and if you hunt without tracking you are just frolicking through the forest I am also a fan of the encounter roll being a secret gm roll. That way knowledge checks can come in handy I like the idea of automatic ambushes. Maybe instead of a d20 it's a d100 with 1 being party is ambushed and 100 party gets to ambush It adds a fun element to game that is still rare That's why I'm suggesting we need to have some sort of DC for the survival check to make, and a tangible benefit for making that DC. I think we should still let people frolick through the forest and happen upon some enemy though, it just makes the encounter harder to deal with. Having the encounter roll be secret is fine. I kind of liked the idea of being to influence what you get with survival - you're better able to find more desirable prey. Ambushes are fine. But they should be based on survival/perception/stealth. Note that ambushes *will* occur naturally by rolling low on those... so there's already the 1/100 chance to get ambushed.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2013 1:08:30 GMT
I like the system Dax, but I will continue to argue against having your weapon drawn at the start of combat. You mean to tell me you spend a day walking around and you have your weapon drawn that entire time? I can just imagine your goblin being startled and pointing his blade every time the leaves rustle. What you mean to say is that no sane hunter would go into the wild without a weapon, but I can think of no scenario where an adventure party is so edgy that they keep their weapons draw at all times. It is just a out of game way of thinking, or an attempt to gain an in game advantage, and a very small one so I'm not even sure why this has become an issue. I think the system as describes eliminates most of the worst problems with this, so I don't think it's necessarily an issue. Your assessment of Dax is not inaccurate. He recently saw three of his comrades get beaten to death by a giant horde of peasants as he was forced to flee for his life. More to the point, if you're facing a situation where you are in mortal peril, even if that moment might be 1 minute out of the entire day, you're going to do everything in your power to be ready for it. If that means sleeping with a sword in your hand and a chain shirt on your back, so be it. It's not players trying to power game their characters. It's their characters trying to not die. It's an issue because I saw a wizard charge an opponent with his fists, instead of his quarterstaff that was "sheathed." Note that he couldn't draw while charging because he had 0 bab. The same problem exists and is worse for level 1 rogues.
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Post by Colin Clout on Aug 26, 2013 2:35:01 GMT
1. A quarterstaff can be stowed on a man's back. If he didn't take the time to draw it I think that says more about the player than the rule.
2. You're character does not automatically assume he is in mortal peril all day everyday. That is my point exactly. If it is for 1 minute then he draws his trusty sword and deals with it. Why do characters even have sheaths if everyone just assumes they walk around weapons drawn everywhere? Sleeping with a sword in your hand? That is even more extreme. It is just not realistic.
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cybernx
Blackwater Pirate
Posts: 382
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Post by cybernx on Aug 26, 2013 2:44:55 GMT
My 2 cents.
I am of the opinion, and in games that I GM, that certain weapons can be always drawn(Spear, Scythe, Quarterstaff Pretty much any pole-arm like weapon that can be used as a walking sick). But on the whole weapons are sheathed until danger is posed or a character says they are drawing a weapon, and if they keep a weapon drawn for too long they may incur fatigue. (Come on, who carry a bastard sword around drawn when its not needed, those bitches are heavy...A dagger not so much, But if you wanna walk around with it drawn like a idiot then go right ahead but good luck getting people to talk to ya ya crazy goblin.)
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cybernx
Blackwater Pirate
Posts: 382
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Post by cybernx on Aug 26, 2013 2:46:27 GMT
oh and if they are using a pole-arm like weapon as a walking thick then its a Swift action to ready it, gotta keep some balance eh.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2013 2:55:59 GMT
I think it really depends on situation.
If you are only traveling then you won't have weapon draw all the time. But you are hunting, then of course you will have weapon ready since you don't know when will you see your target.
So for random encounter, then you don't have weapon ready. But if you specifically on a hunting mission, I think it make sense that you have weapon on hand all the time.
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cybernx
Blackwater Pirate
Posts: 382
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Post by cybernx on Aug 26, 2013 2:59:02 GMT
That sounds reasonable.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2013 3:47:49 GMT
Again, this is merely tangentially related to the thread topic. 1: He didn't have time to draw it- knowing the situation, his actions were perfectly logical. A staff is not stowed on the back, it is used as a walking stick. 2: My character assumes he has the potential to be in mortal peril all day whenever he is wandering out in the wilderness looking for trouble that has shown the capacity to kill people. He wouldn't sleep with a weapon in his hand. He would sleep by climbing a tree and using ropes to secure himself safely. My character sheet even says paranoid on it. Characters have sheaths so they don't accidentally nick themselves on swords. Characters have methods of stowing their weapons because a) they want to keep their hands free, b) because having a weapon out is an aggressive act when in the company of strangers, and c) because it's convenient and some weapons are cumbersome. You're right that intuitively it doesn't make sense for characters to be wandering around the wilderness waving swords around. But that's not because it's impractical (people use machetes all day while going through jungles), it's because swords are tools for killing people. It's a much more reasonable image to think of someone wandering around the wilderness with a spear or a bow out, because these are weapons for hunting animals. For a final point, here's an image of modern individuals who expect to be in some degree of mortal peril, but who have no reason to believe they are about to be attacked. www.militaryimages.net/photopost/data/543/Afganistan_Army_soldiers_marching_in_Kabul_in_August_2006.jpgEdit: loreseekers point about the difference between being out hunting and having a random encounter while traveling is quite valid. But that's only the case if you would normally be able to make the assumption that traveling is safe, which, for now, it does not appear to be.
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Post by hunterkiller725 on Aug 26, 2013 3:50:34 GMT
1. A quarterstaff can be stowed on a man's back. If he didn't take the time to draw it I think that says more about the player than the rule. 2. You're character does not automatically assume he is in mortal peril all day everyday. That is my point exactly. If it is for 1 minute then he draws his trusty sword and deals with it. Why do characters even have sheaths if everyone just assumes they walk around weapons drawn everywhere? Sleeping with a sword in your hand? That is even more extreme. It is just not realistic. while i can agree with this on a normal encounter event but in a hunting we are activly looking for an animal us therefore looking for a fight now if i was hunting something id at least have a bow drawn if not my sword
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constantine
Volken
Constantine Ilfrey, Wizard Extraordinaire. For a sum i can make you feel as good as it gets.
Posts: 242
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Post by constantine on Aug 26, 2013 7:43:32 GMT
Also about polearms and staves. It's a bit cumbersome to have them sheathed. A staff will always be used as a walking stick because it make walking easier instead of impairing it. A spear is not very heavy and can be carried in hand (also wearing a spear on your back is a bit awkward and a bit dangerous).
Also the concerns about danger are valid. If the party gets ambushed in an area that they think it's safe then yes they should have their weapons sheathed as they don't expect a fight. But if a party is out looking for wild animals or monster then they have weapons at the ready because they don't know when they stumble upon something that can lob their heads of and every second counts.
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ramrofl
The Band of the Hawk
Posts: 78
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Post by ramrofl on Aug 26, 2013 8:23:08 GMT
I briefly skimmed the mini walls of text, but yeah dax. That should be the system. a TPK is nothing to throw around and any level. Who is like "yeah, let the PC's dieing be a common thing to be feared!"
honestly, I want PC's to die. But not at the scale of a TPK. It wouldn't be fun id we knew we were going to over power everything other than players. And it would not be fun if the only way we could get XP is from killing other players, since the monsters outside of your door are super golden dragons and Tarraques roaming everywhere.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2013 22:45:04 GMT
Ramrofl - this isn't about preventing tpks, this is about verisimilitude. A TPK is fine as long as the people are complaining about poor luck or poor planning, but not if they're complaining about rules being set up in an unrealistic fashion.
Here are two revised proposals, based on my original one and on Effigy's idea.
Proposal 1:
For encounters where you roll randomly, roll randomly as normal. If you are hunting, also roll survival. You may modify the hunt roll up or down and amount up to your survival check / 2. This reflects you being able to hunt for a particular enemy. To encounter a player party which does not want to be found, you must beat their track DC on a survival check.
Both parties roll stealth and perception. The side which beat the others stealth check with perception by the largest amount sees the other first, at a distance equal to that difference * 10 feet (min 10). In terrain with heavy cover, like forests or jungle, only multiply by 5 feet. If neither side succeeds on the check, both sides start on the map not knowing the location of the other, but are 10 feet away from each other (stealth/perception checks are made as normal). Players may place themselves in the location available (but before they are allowed to see the enemy). Play proceeds as normal from here.
You use the highest perception in the group and the lowest stealth for the initial rolls. You can have just one person (ie a scout) make both checks using their own modifiers, but they must be 60 feet ahead of the group (30 in dense terrain). Two or more people can do this, in which case you use the highest perception and lowest stealth of those two or more people.
Proposal 2 Roll randomly and secretly to determine monster encounter. No encounter happens if a "nothing" is rolled. Roll survival for the party using the highest modifier. If it beats the track DC of the encounter, then they start off on the map knowing the distance and direction of the enemy, and may make an appropriate knowledge roll to determine the type of enemy. By default, the enemy is 200 feet away, and neither party can detect the other. Play proceeds from here. If the survival roll is failed, then the party may still encounter the enemy. The enemy will be placed somewhere within a 100 foot by 100 foot square (roll two 1d20s) that is itself 100 feet from the party. Play proceeds from there using stealth and perception checks as normal.
A note on surprise rounds: As per standard rules, a surprise round is a single standard action, and only people who make the perception check to see the enemy are allowed to act in it.
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Post by Magistrate Wizzle on Aug 27, 2013 19:50:27 GMT
A reminder, if you want this rule to change please submit a formal proposal to be voted on. Rules changes, in most cases, only come into effect on the Friday reset.
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