Advantages with penalties

[Arduin]

Its not lack of hit points it that one cleric in a group cannot hope to heal the whole group after a knock down drag them out fight in any kind of short order..

When a cleric heals a PC, what is he giving the PC? If it isn't because of needing more hp then don't have the clerics restore hp when they heal...

[serleran]

Rather than losing the undead turning power, I would consider some kind of fatiguing system such that:

For every spell level above the current limit available the caster suffers a level penalty; this persists for 24 hours and cannot be healed via magic as it represents a spiritual draining. If this penalty would cause the caster to be reduced to 0 or lower level, the spell effect is still made but the character is reduced for one week.

For example, if you're level 5 and have access to third level spells, and you need to get out a heal, you would drop to level 1 for all purposes because heal is 7th level.

Something. I dunno.

Swapping out any spell for any other healing spell, especially those greater than what you can normally cast is too much.

[Snoring Rock]

Yes. This and much more of the CKG, as I get deeper into it's use, make less and less sense to me. You must be careful using CKG advantages as written. They could be game breakers.

Seems like every rule question we find in the ambiguity of the rules as written, yet borrows from 1e and/or D20, is answered by "make a ruling or house rule it". There are no two "like" games of C&C played anywhere. Half of it is all house rules. The only constant in the universe is the siege engine. That was original and creative genius thinking.

[Captain_K]

right now we always are light on healers for starters AND we're two sets of PC 4th & 5th lvl and a group 2nd and 3rd lvl.. so nothing too powerful yet,...

But hey, nothing is writ in stone, all my pencils come with big erasers ;}

[Omote]

Yes. This and much more of the CKG, as I get deeper into it's use, make less and less sense to me. You must be careful using CKG advantages as written. They could be game breakers.

Seems like every rule question we find in the ambiguity of the rules as written, yet borrows from 1e and/or D20, is answered by "make a ruling or house rule it".

I have been using the advantages for quite some time. Depending on your type of players, they can be game-breaking. I had to rewrite and/or clarify all of them. As you probably know, I use advantages in my C&C power-game. If you are interested in rewritten/clarified versions of them. Perhaps this will help:
https://sites.google.com/site/advancedc ... s_expanded

~O

[Arduin]

Yes. This and much more of the CKG, as I get deeper into it's use, make less and less sense to me. You must be careful using CKG advantages as written. They could be game breakers.

Same thing happened with Feat chains in 3.x. Which is why all such nonsense doesn't enter my play. I concentrate on getting the players to imagine and role play their PC. With the Siege Engine play is fun as it is.

[Lord Dynel]

Yes. This and much more of the CKG, as I get deeper into it's use, make less and less sense to me. You must be careful using CKG advantages as written. They could be game breakers.

Same thing happened with Feat chains in 3.x. Which is why all such nonsense doesn't enter my play. I concentrate on getting the players to imagine and role play their PC. With the Siege Engine play is fun as it is.

Is it the gun or the person who pulls the trigger at fault? I look at this particular issue like that. The tools, if used in a particular fashion, can be exploitable. In the hands of those who do not seek to exploit them, they probably won't be. The problem can probable reduced down to one question: "do I have a group where no one will exploit these feats/advantages?" If you can't answer "yes," maybe they are best avoided. Feats and feat chains in 3.0, at the very beginning, weren't exploited in my group (a group that played from Day 1 of the PHB release) and weren't exploited - in my opinion - until later when we introduced more "power minded" people to our group. Then I had to start house ruling and clarifying feats, something quite daunting in 3.x.

I truly believe that those who have that power-gamer in them will be the ones possibly exploiting the rules. Like Omote, I'd probably have to clarify/revise most or all the advantages if I was playing C&C with my current D&D group (the same group in the previous paragraph because roughly half of them are power gamers. Some would probably take an advantage for flavor or to flesh out a concept, but other would select them for strictly their mechanical benefit.

In the end, I don't think their existence is a good or bad thing. I think it depends on who uses them and why.

[Arduin]

Is it the gun or the person who pulls the trigger at fault? I look at this particular issue like that.

Naw. It's not like that. It is simply power creep & escalation. They DO give more power. That is their purpose. PC's get more power to use, encounters have to get rebalanced (unless one runs a Monty Haul game). Nets the same but gets more complex without enhancing the game.

[Lord Dynel]

Is it the gun or the person who pulls the trigger at fault? I look at this particular issue like that.

Naw. It's not like that. It is simply power creep & escalation. They DO give more power. That is their purpose. PC's get more power to use, encounters have to get rebalanced (unless one runs a Monty Haul game). Nets the same but gets more complex without enhancing the game.

In C&C, I would agree. In other systems, where they existed from the beginning, they were part of the balance of the game. Encounters in games like 3.x assumed your character had feats and had magic items, spells, and class abilities appropriate to your level. But, in many cases where there are selections to be made, exploiters will find the most mechanically beneficial choices and select those to maximum advantage. When this is the case, it becomes an issue. A problem. There are plenty of choices that are apparently more powerful than others. They're usually easy to spot. That's why every druid in 3.x took Natural Spell feat (as one example) - it was a no-brainer for a more powerful choice.

So yeah...in my opinion it is like that. I was never arguing if feats/advantages gave a character more power. Sure, they do. But the exploitation isn't simply the acquisition of said feat or advantage. It's which ones were picked and why. More often than not, you'll find the exploitative type player picking feats/skills/advantages/spells/abilities/or whatnot more for the power it brings to the character than for any other reason (concept, flavor, or what have you). I've had power gamers in my groups for the good part of a decade and I've seen it ad nauseum, sadly.

But opinions vary. I think they widely depend on the player. That's from my experience.

[Arduin]

Is it the gun or the person who pulls the trigger at fault? I look at this particular issue like that.

Naw. It's not like that. It is simply power creep & escalation. They DO give more power. That is their purpose. PC's get more power to use, encounters have to get rebalanced (unless one runs a Monty Haul game). Nets the same but gets more complex without enhancing the game.

In C&C, I would agree. In other systems, where they existed from the beginning, they were part of the balance of the game. Encounters in games like 3.x assumed your character had feats and had magic items, spells, and class abilities appropriate to your level.

Yes and no. Realistically the game designers really didn't know what would happen at medium and upper levels as they added ever more feats. The number of possible feat chains became so large that it wasn't possible to test. I had a friend who designed the NORAD air def computer pgms. He tackled creating a 3.x char gen pgm around 2006. He said it was a complex nightmare. Maybe what you say was true for only the core feats in the 1st 3.0 PHB though.

[Lord Dynel]

Is it the gun or the person who pulls the trigger at fault? I look at this particular issue like that.

Naw. It's not like that. It is simply power creep & escalation. They DO give more power. That is their purpose. PC's get more power to use, encounters have to get rebalanced (unless one runs a Monty Haul game). Nets the same but gets more complex without enhancing the game.

In C&C, I would agree. In other systems, where they existed from the beginning, they were part of the balance of the game. Encounters in games like 3.x assumed your character had feats and had magic items, spells, and class abilities appropriate to your level.

Yes and no. Realistically the game designers really didn't know what would happen at medium and upper levels as they added ever more feats. The number of possible feat chains became so large that it wasn't possible to test. I had a friend who designed the NORAD air def computer pgms. He tackled creating a 3.x char gen pgm around 2006. He said it was a complex nightmare. Maybe what you say was true for only the core feats in the 1st 3.0 PHB though.

Yes, I am referring to the original offerings in the 3.0 PHB. I'd go as far to say the 3.5 core book, too. A lot of other companies made "core books" that had all the 3.x feats (vial the OGL and the SRD) but added their own feats that I think, in some cases, were too much.

But the 3.x core books (both, either) are more balanced - in my opinion - than the C&C PHB + Advantages (as written...I can understand Omote's revisions), because even at their base level, we can assume that they were playtested (and we could argue that point alone, but I take give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they playtested the system with feats in effect). So I would (again) assume they did know - and possibly have some practical knowledge - of how these feats would function in play. This is all speculation anyway, but from all indications, they did do some amount of playtesting (take that for what you will ).

And I agree...I wouldn't any faith in the balance of anything after the core books, truthfully. It did indeed become a long slow creep of power after that. I'm a traditionalist anyway - I think the best feats in the game are in the core PHB, and if I ever ran 3.x again, it'd be a core-book only campaign.

[Arduin]

But the 3.x core books (both, either) are more balanced - in my opinion - than the C&C PHB + Advantages ... because even at their base level, we can assume that they were playtested (and we could argue that point alone, but I take give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they playtested the system with feats in effect). So I would (again) assume they did know - and possibly have some practical knowledge - of how these feats would function in play.

Yes, the PHB (D&D) only would be more "balanced" as they were baked in. C&C really isn't designed to handle "feats". It doesn't work well overall while using the Siege Engine. I really think that the Trolls tossed them into the CKG purely as a sop to 3.X kids.

[Lord Dynel]

Yes, the PHB (D&D) only would be more "balanced" as they were baked in. C&C really isn't designed to handle "feats". It doesn't work well overall while using the Siege Engine. I really think that the Trolls tossed them into the CKG purely as a sop to 3.X kids.

Absolutely, which was my point from the start. When part of the original design philosophy of the system, odds are they'd have better balance with the whole. When tacked on later, balance issue can be a factor.

That said, I think the Trolls made a fantastic effort integrating them into the system. They are usually design constraints when doing it the way they did it, but I think they did an admirable job. Many of the advantages I'd most likely use as-is, but there are some I would have to tweak. I definitely think it would change the power scope of the game if they were used. And with that, potential abuse (which I think depends a lot on the individual).

[Snoring Rock]

Balanced? If anything at all is clear about the design of C&C, the concept of balance was not in the forefront, even less so was the effort to spell it correctly. C&C was a peel back on complexity and return to having more game control in the hands on the CK/GM/DM. C&C is 3.x, less the feats and skills, then adding the siege engine in to take their place. Still 3.x mechanics as a base.

I have used advantages since they came out and they do not overpower the game. The advantage I posted about originally had not been used until recently, which is why it came up.

Using "3.x kids" and "munchkin" to describe people who would use them, is in itself a display of utter lack of understanding of the paradigm used in the design of 3.x. It is name-calling and immature. 3.x is a great game. It is not 1e, 2e, of ODD. It is 3.x and that is ok. People who play the game, are good people too.

Without 3.x there is no C&C at all. C&C rules depend entirely upon 3.x for any balance if it has it at all. Take out the 3.x and all that is left are a few portions of spells borrowed from 1e and the siege engine. Nothing more. The siege engine is the original creative part of C&C. The rest is merely borrowed.

Going after 3.x for feats, which are balanced, leaving out the splat books, I speak only of core; because the Trolls wrote poorly conceived advantages, seems easy and simple-minded. Frankly, no one at WotC is to blame for the Blessed Healer advantage being broken.

My issue with the advantages is that, as Omote has pointed out, they require house rules to make them work. Sure, you could use them as written. I am not sure that healing everyone in the party is any different than using the new resting rules from 5e. There are a few on this forum that use them. That is ok. I think I get tired or writing my own rules however. The answer to most rules questions with C&C is to house rule it. There is no official understanding or interpretation of a rule. That may be ok as well. It is one of many approaches to an RPG.

I am sure that somewhere over at Paizo on the message-boards, there is someone calling C&C unbalanced, grognardian, rule-less confusion. And they would be accurate. That's ok too.

[Arduin]

Balanced? If anything at all is clear about the design of C&C, the concept of balance was not in the forefront, even less so was the effort to spell it correctly.

Within its own system mechanically. The Siege Engine is the control panel. Tossing in Feats bypasses it. You are using the wrong definition of balanced. C&C is much closer to 1st & 2nd Ed than 3rd. The first indicator is the Char XP design...

[serleran]

Without 3.x there is no C&C at all. C&C rules depend entirely upon 3.x for any balance if it has it at all. Take out the 3.x and all that is left are a few portions of spells borrowed from 1e and the siege engine. Nothing more. The siege engine is the original creative part of C&C. The rest is merely borrowed.

Take out AD&D (and a lot of Basic D&D) from d20 and you have nothing. Every edition of D&D has ripped off the ideas of the one before, changing something to call it "new." d20 invented absolutely nothing new. Not a single thing. Anything "original" is merely a repackaged idea with a new term.

[Arduin]

Without 3.x there is no C&C at all. C&C rules depend entirely upon 3.x for any balance if it has it at all. Take out the 3.x and all that is left are a few portions of spells borrowed from 1e and the siege engine. Nothing more. The siege engine is the original creative part of C&C. The rest is merely borrowed.

Take out AD&D (and a lot of Basic D&D) from d20 and you have nothing. Every edition of D&D has ripped off the ideas of the one before, changing something to call it "new." d20 invented absolutely nothing new. Not a single thing. Anything "original" is merely a repackaged idea with a new term.

The main things that 3.x newly introduced were NOT used in C&C. XP paradigm, Saving throw system, "monster encounter balancing system", etc. I don't think that any system that was new to 3.X was used in C&C.

[Snoring Rock]

Attribute Modifiers --- D20 3.x What page of the AD&D PHB is that found on?
Checks using d20 --- D20 3.x ???
AC Ascending --- D20 3.x ???

All of the rogue skills using d20 instead of percentiles, all of the class abilities mechanics....

The list goes on and on. Sure, all of the combat game elements are from Chainmail, yes all other elements either from ODD or AD&D, but not the unified d20 mechanic. I am talking mechanics here. All 3.x.

Better yet, let's say it is all from 1e. That makes my point all the better. Should anyone playing AD&D call those who prefer the unified d20 mechanic (nuts and bolts) invented, according to you, by TLG, a bunch of munchkins or power gamers for doing so?

Stop the name calling every time someone disagrees with your narrow view of a game and how others should or should not prefer it.

[Snoring Rock]

Duplication

[serleran]

Who said attribute checks had to be in AD&D in the PHB? There are several places, OA and D/WSG. The math is the math, whether its percentiles or using increments of 1:20 (which is just 5%.) Difficulties were expressed as modifiers, whether to increase or decrease success so a -15 to the roll would be the equivalent of a DC of 40 (or whatever.) That's one example. I won't waste my time with a counterpoint when it's obvious that narrow-mindedness works best with a mirror of opposition.

Execution using a different mechanic is not innovation.

Concepts are what make or break originality, not "I did it with pink, not purple. I'm awesome."

And... I would not say C&C is particularly ingenious in this regard, and I am at least halfway responsible for it.

I am saying that every game of D&D, every game that tries to be D&D, steals from it. Even games that, superficially, don't have any "mechanical semblance." But that's a matter of fundamental gameology... not a feeling of superiority.

Read it as you like. Words mean only what you assign their definition.

[Snoring Rock]

Who said attribute checks had to be in AD&D in the PHB? There are several places, OA and D/WSG. The math is the math, whether its percentiles or using increments of 1:20 (which is just 5%.) Difficulties were expressed as modifiers, whether to increase or decrease success so a -15 to the roll would be the equivalent of a DC of 40 (or whatever.) That's one example. I won't waste my time with a counterpoint when it's obvious that narrow-mindedness works best with a mirror of opposition.

Execution using a different mechanic is not innovation.

Concepts are what make or break originality, not "I did it with pink, not purple. I'm awesome."

And... I would not say C&C is particularly ingenious in this regard, and I am at least halfway responsible for it.

I am saying that every game of D&D, every game that tries to be D&D, steals from it. Even games that, superficially, don't have any "mechanical semblance." But that's a matter of fundamental gameology... not a feeling of superiority.

Read it as you like. Words mean only what you assign their definition.

True enough. I agree with most of that. We see it through different experiences in life. Back to the original reason for the thread; some gamers will use the advantages as written, some will not. Using them does not make you wrong.

[Arduin]

Attribute Modifiers --- D20 3.x What page of the AD&D PHB is that found on?

Attribute modifiers start on pg. 9 of the 1st PHB. Etc., etc.

I can see from these questions that you are EXTREMELY unfamiliar with D&D prior to 3.x. Otherwise, you wouldn't need help with these basic questions. My advice would be to learn those editions well. They are very fun to play.

[Lord Dynel]

I have to agree with Rock on this part of the conversation. While a lot of the feel/ambiance is AD&D in nature, I feel that the mechanics are more akin to d20 than they are to 1st Edition.

The main things that 3.x newly introduced were NOT used in C&C...Saving throw system...

Just a small nitpick - a saving throw system based off of attribute/ability score modifiers (modifiers modeled - not exactly ported over, but modeled - from d20) is a d20 concept.

But following Rock's lead, and steering back to the main topic of discussion, I agree that using the advantages is definitely not "wrong." Not at all. Nor are anyone that uses them. I like them. A lot, actually. I even wrote an article that got published in Crusader with a handful of new ones! I probably wouldn't make them available as options, as written, to my normal table. To my wife and kids? Sure. They'll up the power, but in most cases not to the point of brokenness.

[serleran]

[Back to the original reason for the thread; some gamers will use the advantages as written, some will not. Using them does not make you wrong.

Sure. Many games have them as a core element of character building, d20 and its brethren being but one of a line of RPGs. There are several, and I could probably ramble off at least a double fist, that have some sort of "advantage / disadvantage" system. Granted, a lot of those might be superhero games but I'm sure I could find some on my shelf that are fantasy oriented. It also depends on the semantics -- do racial benefits count as advantages? Do class restrictions count as disadvantages? They can. If so, that changes the argument radically.

I personally do not like the idea of "feats" in C&C and would prefer to see this sort of thing encouraged as a reward, rather than something the player gets to elect for their character; and I certainly do not think that, if allowed, they should ever be "mandatory." What the PC obtains should be controlled through what the PC experiences... something the DM has complete control over, even if the "rules" sometimes fail to mention it. That has always been my problem with it... even in d20. The DM should decide what is available and when you might get it. But, that's just a preference and not a requirement.

Anyway, the long end of the short shaft is that a group should play what plays them back. If you're into the engineering of a character to level 20 before they have 1 XP, great. I'm not.

[alcyone]

Just a small nitpick - a saving throw system based off of attribute/ability score modifiers (modifiers modeled - not exactly ported over, but modeled - from d20) is a d20 concept.

There is precedence in AD&D. For instance, your Dexterity based Defensive Adjustment applies to certain saving throws, as does the Wisdom-based Magical Attack Adjustment.

[Arduin]

Just a small nitpick - a saving throw system based off of attribute/ability score modifiers (modifiers modeled - not exactly ported over, but modeled - from d20) is a d20 concept.

Nope. That is a Traveller RPG concept. WAY before "D20".

[Lord Dynel]

Just a small nitpick - a saving throw system based off of attribute/ability score modifiers (modifiers modeled - not exactly ported over, but modeled - from d20) is a d20 concept.

Nope. That is a Traveller RPG concept. WAY before "D20".

Right. But they didn't take it from Traveller. That's like saying that 5e took their saves from Traveller, when we both know that's not true.

[Lord Dynel]

Just a small nitpick - a saving throw system based off of attribute/ability score modifiers (modifiers modeled - not exactly ported over, but modeled - from d20) is a d20 concept.

There is precedence in AD&D. For instance, your Dexterity based Defensive Adjustment applies to certain saving throws, as does the Wisdom-based Magical Attack Adjustment.

Yes, that's true. Certain abilities affected certain saves. But it was still chart-driven by the type of danger with the main factors being class and level and with little emphasis on ability scores. D20 and C&C are both primarily level and ability score driven, with no emphasis on the save type (meaning two different Wisdom saves, TN 15, are just that, regardless of what's making you save).

[serleran]

As I recall, and it has been a bit since I checked, but The Arcanum used attribute-based saves. A decade+ before d20. Even then it was not exactly original. In fact, from my eyes, C&C and The Arcanum share a tremendous amount in common. That's why I wanted to convert it first.

[Arduin]

Right. But they didn't take it from Traveller.

How do you know that the designers didn't get their idea from Trav? I used it in my Arduin game in '80 after taking it from Trav. Also The C&C individual attr save uses all six attributes. 3.x doesn't thus, C&C doesn't use its saving throw system. Trav uses all attributes in checks.

I'd be fascinated to know your primary source of info. Please show us the docs you have especially since C&C uses a different system than 3.x...