The Gossip Board

[Dracos]

Hopefully it won't.  We do, thankfully, still have a sizable team.  We're a fair bit utility low now, and it'll be a bit adapting, but I would bet on it working out.  1 for the official post.

You'll be missed Zeph.

[Sierra]

My only concern about that is that it needs to be done in such a way that Kam and Adail don't immediately go "change of plans, we must go save Nikkolai!" Maybe he takes his leave of us for awhile to apprentice under Granny Tam or something like that?

This. Whatever brings him away should probably either be voluntary or something that's obviously a long-term project to extricate him from, or we very likely will get derailed by "must save Nikkolai immediately."

[Carthrat]

If whatever steals him is fucking terrifying you can count on Knight to go 'We cannot do this guys'

[Anastasia]

So when KNight is kidnapped by an awakened wizard tarrasque, you're fucked?

[Carthrat]

Yes, probably

[Dracos]

"Alright, here's the plan on how we're going to rescue knight from the wizard tarrasque.  We have to face the facts that at this point in time, we simply are not even remotely a match for this force.  Even training and preparing, we are unlikely to be able to face this force, a legend in its own time.  We will need to leverage every ally we can, for a non-good wizard tarrasque with a controllable deck of many things is danger to all of the planes.  Let's begin with heading to valhalla and talking with those giants again.  It'll surely be a fight for the ages and they might join in.  Adail, go head home and see if you can get the attention of the five champions of tasiel.  I will raise the issue with Gwynerth and see if they would be willing to aid us in this.  Mari, can you run back and talk with Granny tam about the possibility of an alliance to face off this terrible threat?  This is just a start people.  We're going to have to reach into every back pocket if we're going to hope to end this threat, and quickly if we expect any chance of getting Knight back alive."

Nikkolai should leave on his own.  Wizard Tarrasque will end Awesomely.

[Merc]

I would imagine an important question would be: If Zeph plans to return to game come summer, does he want to reuse Nikkolai, and level him accordingly, or would he rather just start fresh, and make a new character.

If he wants to have Nikki, as I said in IRC, just have Nikki parting with leaving a letter saying he's going to try and keep a low key and to avoid getting you guys involved in his mess. When he returns, you can either have him rejoin you, figuring he's leveled up enough, or you can rescue him.

If he's just making a new character, well, you can still have him part with the letter, you just never meet him again.

[Dracos]

may be a few mins late.  Trying to get out of office.

[Dracos]

<Kamvakua> Anyhow, raising an issue near and dear to my whims: Sense Motive - Combat Sensing - Can we formally state this as a use case for a house rule?  In actual rules, it's only available as a feat in a splat book, but I think it's actually a really nice add in to D&D mechanics as it fills a good spot of finding a way to be able to get a flag on how strong the enemy might actually be in a worldset where Looks are hardly indicative.
<Kotono> I'll throw something together.
<Kotono> Post that in the gossip board so I don't forget.
<Kamvakua> This session I rather appreciated it as even though I took no action on it, it defined what my actions might be if it came to combat, whether it'd be trying to form the best escape route in the face of overwhelming power or trying to bring the creature down. :)  
<Kamvakua> sure

Early suggestions:
Base check of CR or opposed bluff.
+2 for unknown creature type.
+4 for extremely exotic/noncorporeal type

[Carthrat]

I neither think we need this, nor do I want it. If looks are surprising, so be it. Not everything is at it seems and there is no logical way of knowing that pile of rocks X is tougher than pile of rocks Y (or whatever.) We should just assume shit is dangerous if it looks dangerous until events and facts prove otherwise. Besides, we get a pretty fast idea of how harsh anything we fight is by looking at it's attack rolls, which are publically visible and it makes a lot more sense to work it out this way, during a fight, than just looking at a guy and knowing he's tough/weak/whatever.

Besides, isn't this what knowledge checks are for?

[Dracos]

Sharp opposition!

No.  It explicitly isn't what knowledge checks are for.  Besides, fighting classes pay double for knowledge, so saying that's 'what knowledge checks are for' is stupid because that's saying that the classes that should have the most opportunity to get a sense for it have the least.  Few classes have sense motive, but there's already splat books (CA I believe) which toss this into sense motive's bulwark, only behind feats.  The fact that we use knowledge:planes for practically any kind of 'tell us what we want to know dune' doesn't imply that we should add even more in there.  If anything knowledge skills are already over rewarded in this world set and don't need more benefits for taking them.

Our average combat length is pretty short, probably about 3 rounds.  If something is OMGWTFDEADLY by the time we're first seeing those hit rolls, combat is mostly over and someone has gotten nearly killed.  This has happened already a few times in the game.

I think the statement that things are assumed to be dangerous is at least half lie.  If it was truth, then a fighting retreat would be our standard battle plan.  The assumption in standard D&D is that things are able to be dangerous...but are Beatable.  But dune doesn't always play that way.  He does toss in things we can encounter that aren't dangerous.  He does toss in things that we encounter that totally could crush us.  This leads to a much more lively ecosystem to play in that is better for it.  But what happens when we find that we can't talk our way out of a fight that at a glance is very dangerous?

Flipping around a bit? 

It allows for interesting considerations.  Misreads, based on skills and not just descriptions allowing Dune to have enemies that bluff about their strong or weak points to deceive us.  Accurate reads, when the danger level of someone talking to us isn't obvious by looks, as it is almost all the time in D&D.  The potential to decide before entering combat how I would approach combat with someone I am sitting there talking with is interesting.  It's really hard to tell from looks whether or not we can kill something or whether if we blunder into combat we should be trying to escape rather than fight.

It also slightly strengthens two skills that otherwise exist for no other reason than to oppose each other and are rarely used.  Why bluff when you can charm or diplomacize?  It provides it a way to confuse opponents beforehand or be confused by opponents beforehand.  It's a pretty natural outcropping of an existing dynamic, moved from just being social to involving combat posturing.

It's been used twice so far in the game.  Both with interesting effects.  Instead of concluding with the salamander warriors "You know, these guys really don't sound that tough.  I suspect we can just tell them who we are and slaughter them if they disagree", my conclusion became "Mmm, I'm endangering my comrades there, and even if it'd be fun to be snarky here, let's arrange for them to go by first, then take an ambush route".  The other, we didn't even fight, but if we did, it wasn't a preliminary question what goal we would've had.  There wasn't 'let's sit here and trade blows to figure out Oh God, he has like a +30 to hit and mari just got killed because we didn't know that before he punched her', when instead we might've been dashing for retreat from the very first action.

Taking humans alone, there's a tremendous number of ways to know Person X is more dangerous than Person Y, and it gets many times improved by folks who practice watching for such and also practice combat.  How they walk, how they are muscled, their confident or lackthereof, etc.  These are all things that could be represented by keeping a close eye on someone currently distracting us with clever talk.

[Carthrat]

Besides, fighting classes pay double for knowledge, so saying that's 'what knowledge checks are for' is stupid because that's saying that the classes that should have the most opportunity to get a sense for it have the least.

yeah they pay double for sense motive/bluff too, except for certain hax classes.

Our average combat length is pretty short, probably about 3 rounds.  If something is OMGWTFDEADLY by the time we're first seeing those hit rolls, combat is mostly over and someone has gotten nearly killed.  This has happened already a few times in the game.

Then we should learn not to rush into fights, not try and develop mysterious powers of foreknowledge.

But what happens when we find that we can't talk our way out of a fight that at a glance is very dangerous?

Then knowing how tough our opponent is is kinda meaningless, isn't it?

It's really hard to tell from looks whether or not we can kill something or whether if we blunder into combat we should be trying to escape rather than fight.

I generally consider this a pro. I like not automatically knowing this shit. It would force us to research, plan, or otherwise be paranoid and I am fine with that and would prefer it. You're saying that this opens up new vistas of gameplay, but I actually think it's closing them off by handing us yet more advantages and information. A bit of uncertainty is good and makes stress situations more tense. In fact it's more tense than just knowing if something is way more dangerous than you or not. I like to get a bit of a thrill here.

The decision to attack or retreat should, I feel, be based on description and what we've learned in a justified way, not what amount to basically psychic powers. Our intuition as players should serve as well enough.

If this means we should play a more cagey game then so be it, I'm fine with that. We can always try surrendering or running away, and let's face it, if Mari is getting the crap kicked out of her from the get-go, it's obviously not a fight we 'chose' since she should be hiding or in the back rank or something whilst we bruisers absorb all the horrible shit. Yeah nothing ever goes to plan like this but I can dream <_<

Additionally, you are broadening two predominantly social skills into the combat arena. First, this is just another set of rolls that demands GM attention before a fight when all the information we should have should already be on the table.

Second, can I have those skills? I'm a fighter, too, and one who tries to sell herself as being good at tactical assessments to boot! If it can be done then I should be able to do this shit. I *would* be able to do this shit if a house rule like this was stated in the first place. If it incidentally makes me really tricksy and good at telling when people lie well who cares, even though that is stuff I would normally be horribly bad at (and would prefer to be bad at IC, yes.) Yeah there is an element of personal frustration here, I cannot deny. I dislike the equation here.

Taking humans alone, there's a tremendous number of ways to know Person X is more dangerous than Person Y, and it gets many times improved by folks who practice watching for such and also practice combat.  How they walk, how they are muscled, their confident or lackthereof, etc.  These are all things that could be represented by keeping a close eye on someone currently distracting us with clever talk.

I could pay this for the very specific case of humanoid warriors. But in the case of more esoteric dudes like clerics or mages or bizzare alien monstrosities you just cannot tell how potent they are at a glance unless they are obviously bearing awesome magical gear (and even then only someone in their profession would really be able to ID it and know just how harsh they are.) A penalty of '2-4' like you suggested is kind of a joke given that skills are so easy to ramp up (and in the case of exotica, knowledge checks really are what should be helping us figure stuff out there.)

[Anastasia]

I've waited a day or two in replying here. I figured I'd let you two have a tilt at it and get your opinions out.   Since you two have made your opinions quite clear, do Gate/Cid have opinions on this?

[VySaika]

I've used rules like this before, but never anything really overly useful or formalized. I'll break down how I've done it here, I suppose.

First, only ever useful against humanoid fighter types. It's basically just figuring out what ballpark someone is in with regards to weapon skill. For monsters, use the appropriate Knowledge(so how baddass should we expect an elemental of yay large to be again? etc) and for mages, well, you're kinda SOL until they cast a spell.

Secondly, I've had the check just be "roll your BAB like it's a skill". Standard DC of 15 for someone who's not trying to disguise thier skill at all. This makes it so fighter types are the best at it, as they should be, without any complications. No needing to give fighters new skills, or as Rat pointed out, making them good at other uses of SM for this.

Lastly, what the check gives? Just a basic "you think you're better then they are", "somewhere around your level" or "you're pretty sure they've seen alot more combat then you have". The rough estimate I use is if the target's BAB is more then 3 under the PC's then it's the first, within 3 either way is the middle, more then 3 above is the third. So yeah, a rogue trying this on a fighter of equal level could quite possibly get the "he is more badass then you" result. All I've ever let it measure is BAB.

As for my general opinions on it, no, I don't think a rule like this is nessesary at all. If it is implimented, I would prefer it to be more like what I've got here then what Drac proposes(I'm with Rat on the idea that Fighters shoudl be best at this, so no to Bluff/SM being the skills in question). And yeah, something like this is only really useful for Humanoids, since the Knowledge skills do already cover everything else. We could have rolled K:P(the default skill for elementals, iirc) at that biggun and gotten a ballpark of how awesome it was supposed to be if we'd wanted. That's part of what the skill is for, it's right there in the PHB.

So yeah, there's my $.02, hope it made sense.

[Anastasia]

Sorry for the delay on replying to this, but between wanting the argument to run it's course first plus being sick over the weekend? Ew.

On listening to the arguments I think there are some valid points being made here. In particular, one pinged me. I don't want combat to be easy, safe or predictable. Many times, I'd rather you guys avoid combat. Planar combat is meant to be dangerous and deadly. There's no guarantee that any given fight will be fair or winnable if you charge in blindly.

Should there be an easy way to tell this? I'm leaning towards no on reflection. Knowledge skills can help here, but I don't think an easy way to determine difficulties serves the general interests of the game I'm trying to run. I'd rather this game keeps mystery and uncertainty, you know? I want PCs who have to role play out and deal with uncertainty, not ones that can throw some dice and know if they should fight or run. An easy answer is tempting, but I feel it will do more harm than good.

In particular, Drac rolled for some info on the giant elemental last session. This helped him determine how deadly it was...but...that worked against what I was trying to do there. I wanted you guys to be intimidated and trying to think on your feet. There was a gigantic earth elemental in front of you. I wanted you to see that, not roll and see it as a CR 11 encounter you guys could power past.