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Post by Thanin on Apr 17, 2005 21:08:09 GMT -5
After having looked over both 3.0 and 3.5 rules for delayed/readied actions, this is my decision. I don't like them. So this is how it will work from now on (unless I think something better comes along, or Tyler figures out away to abuse this).
Held actions allow you to interrupt anyone lower in the initiative than you. If you don't use the held action by the time the round ends, you lose the action. Your initiative goes back to its original place in the round. You don't have to specify what your held action is. It looks like 3.5 got rid of refocusing, but whether they kept it or not, I'm not.
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Post by Tyler on Apr 17, 2005 21:31:33 GMT -5
The way they explain in the books is that, on your initiative you can declare that you are going to hold your actions for a specific event.
"If he starts to yell, I hit him." Or "If he starts to cast a spell, I cast Dispel Magic as a counterspell."
From that point on, until your initiative comes up again, if that specific condition happens, you get to go. If it doesn't, then on your initiative, you get to declare another action. This action could be to again hold the same action. This makes it so a person can guard another person. It also makes it the way they intended it to be in 3rd, which is after the first round there aren't any real rounds. It's just a continuum of actions. It doesn't make any sense if I'm watching a guy, and say, "if the guy begins to scream I knock him out" and then, because he has initiative, he could run for 120 feet before I get a chance to hit him.
It's very clearly spelled out on page 160, right column, under the title "Ready". It's utterly unambiguous, and I cannot imagine how that doesn't make sense.
Please, give me an example where this rule could give someone an unfair advantage, or where a modification of these rules make it so that the combat is more realistic.
In 3.0/3.5 there isn't a "lower in the initiative". Once we figure out with the rolls what order everyone goes in, there is no "lower" just a "later".
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Post by Thanin on Apr 17, 2005 21:51:00 GMT -5
In 3.0/3.5 there isn't a "lower in the initiative". Once we figure out with the rolls what order everyone goes in, there is no "lower" just a "later". You're splitting hairs. Lower/later in this instance are the same. I never said this gives anyone an unfair advantage. As for making more sense, realistically, you can’t stop someone from screaming before they start screaming if you don’t know when they’re going to scream until they actually scream... I know that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your main point. I just wanted to write that sentence. As for the rest of it, the guy should get a chance to get away before you hit him because some people are just quicker than others. If the guy has initiative on you, then he’s just faster than you in this instance. There are situations where person A completes an action before person B get's to stop A from doing it, even when B is watching and waiting to stop A from doing it. There are a million factors that can’t be quantified, no matter how many rules you make for them. This is what happens when you have a system based off of chance. Some random factor means that through this fight, you’re just slower than someone else.
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Post by Jeff on Apr 17, 2005 22:09:51 GMT -5
It doesn't make any sense if I'm watching a guy, and say, "if the guy begins to scream I knock him out" and then, because he has initiative, he could run for 120 feet before I get a chance to hit him. That makes complete sense to me. But what do I know.
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Post by Tyler on Apr 18, 2005 8:01:39 GMT -5
There's an important difference between the two. One of them artificially imposes rounds on time. The rounds are player-specific. My round goes from when I go, until just before my next action. Josh's round goes from when he goes until just before his next action. There's no moment in the round when a "new round" begins.
If he's 'quicker' he'll make his dodge roll. Or, when I try to hit him, I'll miss because his dex made me miss him.
In your method, what is preventing the person from hitting the person when they begin screaming?
What action would a person declare if they want to try to dispel someone elses spell?
How does a person stop a caster from casting in melee? The way to do it in the PHB is that, once you get in melee distance you declare that "if the caster moves away, I move with him."
If not, then any time a caster wants to cast in melee, all he has to do is move 5 feet away from a person and cast.
Also, much of the mage-mage combat depends on them being able to cast at the same time.
Also, how does a group of people attack at the same time, like when rushing a room? In the PHB, we'd all declare to hold our actions until the first person goes, then all go at the same time.
I understand why you guys criticise 3rd edtion so much, you've never played it. You keep altering rules without trying them.
The thing that has to be inforced to make it work, is a specific triggering effect. When you declare a held action, you set a specific condition that will trigger it. "He begins to cast" "Someone enters the hallway" "Wintershield hits the door"
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Post by Jeff on Apr 18, 2005 9:28:43 GMT -5
Tyler,
The problem is systematic. It is the rules themselves. They suck. You get weird consequences either way. Here are some strange things that result if we do it your way:
1. Passing an Object: Suppose that 1000 characters are all arranged in a line, e.g., they are the vanguard of an army. Suddenly Sir Kay on the far right edge of the van realizes that he doesn't have his sword. Arthur, on the far left of the van, has it. According to 3e, he can get it in six seconds. No matter what their initiative says, each member of the line says: I hold my action until the sword comes my way at which point I take it and pass it along. (1000 is a completely arbitrary number in this example. The line could stretch from one side of the universe to the other, in which case the sword would be traveling at millions of times the speed of light.)
2. Quick Fix. A party of six must fashion a rudimentary lathe for some reason only their Trekkie DM can truly fathom. They are sitting in a circle and any one of them can reach into the lap of any other. (Stop thinking that!) The DM, who for story reasons needs to ensure the party fails at this task, tells them it will take a number of rounds equal to the number of characters in the party. Thus they will fail, for they have but six seconds (an apparently magic number in these examples.) But despite the task requiring 6X more time than they actually have, the party makes the lathe anyway, because each person can do one round of work and pass it to the next person who takes up where the last one left off.
The point is that any party has 6X the number of characters of additional seconds to complete many rudimentary tasks. If you could arrange an assembly line of some kind, you could build almost anything in 6 seconds.
3. Imaginative Feeling. This is an out of game example. Suppose you want to imagine "how things actually looked" in game. No matter what the rules are they should not/must not suppress this kind of imagination. If they do, THEY SUCK, because this is an imagination game. As a first level newbie, you ask your DM to describe to you what happened when the party killed the kobald. They DM says (and you can go to the wizards website and play their online demo to hear this right now), "Well, first Regdar missed the guy with his longsword. Then Lidda tried her sneak attack. That failed, too. Tordek stumbled when he tried to smack him with his warhammer. But Jagar Silverwolf buried his claws in the bugger's head so deep that he had to get them out with his boot." The newbie, scratches his head, "So, it was all like a little dance. First one dude then the next takes a shot?" "No, no," says the DM, "that's just a convenience of the rules." "But it's so clean, says the newbie. It's not like I imagine combat at all." "That's fine," says the DM, "how do you imagine it?" "Well, I imagine they all came at the kobald at once. The little guy could dodge pretty good, but he didn't get past Jagar." "That's pretty good," says the DM, "let's imagine it that way." "But if we're going to do that," says the newbie, "then why the hell did we just burn 45 minutes of game time on a throw-away combat?" DM: "It's that bastard Monte Cook's fault. He never read Whitehead and doesn't understand the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness..."
Sorry about that. That was my fantasy.
Jeff
PS I haven't played in three years and I haven't read much of the 3.5 rules. But these KINDS of counterexamples could certainly be constructed for 3.0. While my knowledge of the rules is admittedly fuzzy now, you can probably think of lots of 3e weirdness yourselves. Please excuse my mistakes--if possible--and come up with your own 3e stupidity if my examples don't apply to 3.5.
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Post by Tyler on Apr 18, 2005 10:08:41 GMT -5
First of all, DM's are supposed to stop behavior like the first example. It doesn't make any sense, so he says "no". So, that takes care of any example where you try to use holding your action to circumvent possibility. Secondly, you didn't give an example of how you would address the "keeping the person from screaming/casting/gettingoutofhisbonds" example. Please, if you're going to reply, try to address the problem by givning an example of a way you'd handle it better. If you reply like you did, then Dave will just say "yea, what he said" and we won't fix the game, we'll just criticise the rules without fixing anything.
Honestly, if you guys don't like it, why don't you figure out how to change it to make it better?
How would you alter 3rd edition to make it fit your criteria that you've set forth?
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Post by Jeff on Apr 18, 2005 10:11:44 GMT -5
You just gave it yourself: DM authority. He/she says no to what he doesn't think is possible in all cases. There is no substitute for a good DM. Certainly not these rules anyway.
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Post by Tyler on Apr 18, 2005 10:12:13 GMT -5
Tyler, this isn't worthy of you. "I understand why you guys criticise 3rd edtion so much, you've never played it." I wish you'd reconsider or clarify who constitutes "you guys."
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Post by Tyler on Apr 18, 2005 10:13:58 GMT -5
I put it this way, because we haven't played with the delaying rules yet. Everyone is saying it won't work without trying it.
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Post by mike on Apr 18, 2005 10:17:16 GMT -5
Here's how I'd improve the rules to meet my criteria. I'd do a radical simplification and play a version of the game I like.
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Post by Tyler on Apr 18, 2005 10:18:50 GMT -5
But how would you do that and still keep the combat strategy that some of us like?
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Post by mike on Apr 18, 2005 10:26:57 GMT -5
I wouldn't. You asked what I'd do, and that's what I'd do. If I'm the DM, I'm running 1.0. I think 3.5 combat rules, which I've played in pick-up games for at least 100 hours, is tedious. But if the game is 3.5, it makes sense to use them. On that point we probably agree.
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Post by luceph on Apr 18, 2005 10:36:02 GMT -5
"fashion some sort of rudimentary lathe"
I love that movie. Guy is good.
Anyway, onto the topic( keep in mind that I am sick out of my mind, medicated more than a seven year old with misdiagnosed ADD, cough and throw up at the slightest provacation and am missing class today because of a fever and I've had about an hour of sleep so this will probably suck) I've always liked how holding your actions works in the white wolf system. You can only interrupt someone with a lower initiative than you and your only hold your action for the one round. Every other round you must declare that you are holding your action and what for. That just seems to make sense to me. If for some reason, the guy you are guarding doesn't make a break for it until two rounds later, you don't then get to take the action you held plus the two actions that occur in each of the later rounds. I just find it makes sense to me. Also, while I am actually beginning to really like 3.5 rules, I understand David's making a DM ruling that goes somewhat contrary to the book. We aren't playing straight 3.5 combat rules. There is no five foot step, no map grid, and miniatures serve only to generally represent what is going on and not the specific placement of everybody's location that they do in the book.
Thanks Jeff, I'm going to watch Galaxy Quest now.
p.s. Jeff, did you mean to have the Black Labyrinth of the Wyrm as your avatar and if so, does this mean you have officially come out in favor of the forces of corruption and decay?
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Post by Tyler on Apr 18, 2005 10:39:36 GMT -5
Okay, let me restate the question:
How would you guys change the 3.5 rules to address these problems but still meet the requirements that everyone has set forth, namely freedom to roleplay PC decisions as opposed to allowing rolls to define behaviour of PC's, and tactical combat.
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Post by Tyler on Apr 18, 2005 10:45:02 GMT -5
Chad's example from WW is exactly how it's done in 3.5, except for the intterupting part. Imagine you're manning a cataput about to fire upon an opposing army. the army is moving through the area you can fire in. Are you saying, that because the opposing army gets initiative, you shouldn't be able to fire on them at all? Doesn't it seem more reasonabl,e for a fair and balanced system, to make it so that you get to fire "when they get to the place where i'll hit them"? That way the factors affecting the aiming of the catapult, and your ability to work the catapult determine weither you hit, and not the initiative roll.
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Post by Jeff on Apr 18, 2005 10:48:51 GMT -5
p.s. Jeff, did you mean to have the Black Labyrinth of the Wyrm as your avatar and if so, does this mean you have officially come out in favor of the forces of corruption and decay? Tharizdun, Baby! I have not defected. I just found my (2001) records from RttToEE and thought I would use it...wistfully. Jeff PS Sorry, Tyler. I am not hijacking your thread.
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Post by Tyler on Apr 18, 2005 10:58:26 GMT -5
It's like I'm suddenly playing Kauth again. Everybody's screaming that my plan sucks, but no body has a better idea.
Focus people: How would you alter 3.5 to make it better? To fix the problems?
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Post by Jeff on Apr 18, 2005 11:34:23 GMT -5
It is impossible to really fix logically any system that embodies a contradiction, as 3e does. You will always be able to draw out contradictory results. This means to get the fix you want you must either 1) excise the contradiction or 2) abandon the system. In this case 1) isn't really possible since taking out the problem (the way 3e handles time) would destroy the essence of the strategy element of the game that you admire.
That said, Tyler, I will really think about a kind of epicycle today that might work for you. Though, you guys can probably come up with a better solution.
Jeff
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Post by CaptAdam on Apr 18, 2005 13:12:35 GMT -5
Not sure if I'm stating something obvious or not, but like someone said it's the DM's call. As I recall if someone wanted to do something or if their was a possiblity that you could do something or something could happen and a rule did or didn't account for it then that's where a Good DM steps in and you use your ability rolls to decide if you can or not.
Example: Yes mister x got the inititive, but you choose to hold your action. Mister x makes his move, but as it has been stated he had the inititive and he seems to be quicker (or just one step ahead of you) The DM thinks this guy should escape or pull off his action inspite of your holding action. Well then a roll off against opposing ability scores with modifiers (if you like) or if the DM needs this person to succeed more than you feel you need to stop him (say for the plot's sake or what not) Well then it falls to the DM's call after all I'm sure the DM will fudge for your characters at a later time when you need it most, cause they are a Good DM and it's all about having fun. (I hope)
Or you can be like Ja'Gar and Web the guy where he stands and through a vile of flaming oil at him as you have someone else throw a fire ball just for good measure. While you got TR messmerizing him with a really cool song that he makes up on the spot. As the flame die down then Cisisan (sorry for the spelling) comes down with his sword from hell and splits the man if half. All the while that Terric is pilfering the charred remains.
Either way it's all good, we win their dead and their money buys the brew at the Dancing Pony.
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