Controls, DeBuffs and PC avatars
Rich F:
One way around this could be to look at purpose, rather than colour, and treat accordingly. In your example, if the Spell is intended to take a player out of the conflict, then you make it very hard to do - either through a very high target to do, and / or a low Save. It doesn't matter what the 'colour' of the spell is - A Finger of Death is equal to a Heat Metal here. In the same way, a low level spell is much easier to do, Finger of Death could weaken slightly, Heat Metal adds a difficulty to use a weapon, Earthbind adds a penalty to movement / evasion.
How easy this would be to do I can't tell you.
contracycle:
It seems to me that neither the magic effects nor the debuff aspects are significant to the problem. Would it be significantly different if the target were simply turned into a smoking cinder by a lightning bolt? Or quietly stabbed in the night by a perfectly mundane blade?
I don't think this problem is solvable; if people are already attempting to take each other out of play than that either has to be allowed to happen or the PC's have to be disempowered in some way to prevent it happening. And that comes down to the decision to either permit PvP activity with all its consequences, or to outlaw it, with all of those consequences
It's possible some of this can be mixed-and-matched though. Given your specific goals, you could introduce a rule that says "you are only allowed to fight in the last hour of a session; up until that time you are only allowed to bicker". So you have a clear on/off switch which flags up when PvP action is permitted, for the express reason of not knocking a player out too early. Obviously though this is an artificial imposition on the logic of the IS and thus may cause other problems with timing. But it also might work quite well in allowing people to bait each other and work up a head of steam in the preceding period of play.
John Adams:
Thanks for the great input. I realize now this post wasn't as clear as I intended if you didn't read all of the previous thread.
In fact I did give him a significant bonus and he choked on the roll. I wouldn't mind if it didn't come down to just one roll, and of course handing out a special one-time bonus doesn't cover all cases. I think "fair fight" and "significant effort" would be measured by melee where it's already possible to take someone down after a few rounds of combat.
I agree that "defeated" and "killed" are nearly the same for the purposes we're discussing. We recently added a rule that a player must either decide to let his PC die or propose a plausible way out of the fatal situation, so death is the player's preference. Even so you could be out for the rest of the night, combat takes a long time in this game.
I also agree that the problem has a very broad scope including NPC's using these spells against PCs or something totally mundane like a blade in the night or a poisoned cup. The real question is "what needs to happen before a PC is even temporarily removed from play?" I would love to not pull my punches regarding these things and hit the PCs with poison, midnight assassins, and nasty, nasty spells. So far my hands have been tied.
Callan, the point pool with diminishing costs is a fantastic idea. My only concern is that once you run out, you're a goner; but that's true of hit points also and we use HP. You even give the player more control over managing the resource ... I love it!
This was actually the first instance of PvP in over 2 years. I don't expect it to be a frequent issue, this group just isn't that into PvP, but it's going to happen and the player in question spoke to me about it so I'd like to come up with a fair proposal. The other angles of PC vs NPC and the mundane will be much more frequent and I'd like to be able to take off the kid gloves if we come up with a workable solution.
twilight:
Quote from: John Adams on February 05, 2008, 06:11:49 AM
In fact I did give him a significant bonus and he choked on the roll. I wouldn't mind if it didn't come down to just one roll, and of course handing out a special one-time bonus doesn't cover all cases. I think "fair fight" and "significant effort" would be measured by melee where it's already possible to take someone down after a few rounds of combat...
I also agree that the problem has a very broad scope including NPC's using these spells against PCs or something totally mundane like a blade in the night or a poisoned cup. The real question is "what needs to happen before a PC is even temporarily removed from play?" I would love to not pull my punches regarding these things and hit the PCs with poison, midnight assassins, and nasty, nasty spells. So far my hands have been tied.
I think here is where the problem lies - if a fair fight is measured by melee, then controls and debuffs have no place in the game. So option 4 would be the best choice. Simply: PCs can not be affected by controls or debuffs that involve save or fail / save or die.
The primary issue being that you are playing in a fantasy setting where controls and debuffs occur. You can't blame the mage for doing what some mages do best, i.e. control and debuff. No more than blaming the fighter for being a fighter. If PvP is going to be a subject in your game, and game balance suggests removing controls and debuffs, then the mage/controller will likely have to respec if it breaks the character concept.
For example, in a campaign I played in the half orc barbarian would go on a rampage and use the intimidate skill on NPCs and threaten PCs with violence if he didn't get his way. The party went along with it for a little while; about until my character, a controller, reached high enough level to learn the spells touch of idiocy and suggestion. He learned pretty quick that an Intelligence 5 half-orc vs. touch of idiocy was bad juju. And having a low Will save made him ... suggestible. In a setting where a fair fight is measured by melee, yeah, my poor Beguiler would respec or die.
The question being: Are you looking for decreased challenge when using controls, debuffs and poisons? Or are you looking for a solution where the PCs can't fail against them? If I'm reading correctly, you'd rather the latter - in which case, controls, debuff and poison should be restricted to color, i.e. this NPC has X under her control, that NPC died due to poison, etc. But they never, ever reach a stage where the PCs have to save or fail. Once it hits the point of resolution, the PCs are capable of failing; in 3.5, a 1 always fails, even a 5% failure can create "unfun" for some players.
John Adams:
I'm pretty sure you can have controls, debuffs and rockin' melee fighters too. You just can't have the kind of absolute controls I have. See Callan's example above, which leaves the control's duration up to the targeted player. You could also have a saving throw every round or somesuch. The important points are that it doesn't boil down to just 1 roll (or any fortune for that matter) and the target must be reasonably competent at resisting the effect.
But I don't want to force a respec by handing out sweeping nerfs. While #4 is a sweeping nerf, it could be all-inclusive rather than mage specific and it doesn't apply to NPCs just PCs. I don't think this would force a respec because PvP isn't frequent enough in our game.
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