Out-Of-Character (OOC) Discussion

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May 24, 2018 1:04 pm
Fear not, fellow adventures, help is near!
May 26, 2018 9:26 pm
Let me know when you want me to jump in.
Qralloq sent a note to kalajel
May 26, 2018 9:34 pm
kalajel sent a note to Qralloq
May 26, 2018 9:45 pm
Cool with me. I also added some backstory to the character sheet.
Jun 1, 2018 6:51 am
Hey friends I'll be out of town Friday through Monday and don't know what my internet situation will be.
Jun 13, 2018 12:54 am
funfungiguy says:
OOC:
In my opinion, re-rolling Spellchanging or Healing checks outside of combat shouldn’t even be necessary at all, because it’s more or less pointless. Rolling for those things is only important when the characters are in combat, because a character only has about 5seconds in-game time per turn. So if a spellcaster attempts to cast or change spells and they fail, they lose their turn to their own party’s detriment.

But out of combat, like where our party is now, we have time to recover, loot bodies, discuss plans and strategies, etc., and time isn’t pressing us. So in theory, if it takes five seconds to cast a spell, a spellcaster should get about 12 attempts per minute, and if the party is recovering and regrouping and looting and messing around for five minutes, a spellcaster would basically get sixty rolls to succeed in Healing the party back up and or whatever. Making the player roll 12 times for however many minutes we catch our breath or loot bodies or eat lunch or whatever seems pointless.

I’ve always played it that if it’s during combat, spellcaster rolls are really important because time is of the essence. Outside of combat, the spellcaster is assumed to just patch everyone up in preparation for dangers to come. For roleplaying purposes it can be assumed that the spellcaster probably botched a few rolls in the process of healing the party, but as time wasn’t pressing, they eventually succeed enough times for everyone to heal.

If there was some hidden enemy approaching or planning to attack them unawares, then the spellcaster s might not have enough time to patch everyone up, so the GM May require the player to make a limited amount f rolls according to how much time the party has before they’re attacked or in-game turn order becomes relevant again.

Just my two cents. That’s about a size accurate as you can get from the 4th Edition rulebook.
I'll continue this discussion here to avoid clogging the RP thread.

I disagree. Allowing the healers to auto-heal the party after combat steps on the toes of the catching your breath and natural healing mechanics, not to mention that it makes bandages completely useless. Also, if I allow healers to auto-cast their healing spells out of combat, shouldn't I allow it for all spells cast outside of combat, and some spells in the rulebook are pretty much made to be cast out of combat (Open, Magic Ladder, etc.).
How about allowing regular checks out of combat then? There are no enemy and the party is not under pressure or duress, surely they should auto-succeed their Read Tracks or Knowledge checks...
In order to avoid making part of the book useless, and for consistency's sake, I prefer making healer roll their spellchanging checks and healing spells out of combat as well. I can see why some players might get annoyed of rerolling checks several time, but if I allow for auto-success of checks, where do I stop?
Jun 13, 2018 1:16 am
I suppose the missing mechanic is a penalty for failure, such as rolling a natural 20 rendering the spell unusable on the target for an hour or a day, or escalating target numbers for subsequent attempts after a failure. If you can fail infinitely and keep trying, then rolling is just to keep the player busy with no effect on the character.
Jun 13, 2018 1:42 am
I agree, this is pretty much why I made a "taking extra time" mechanic I use in my IRL games.
Jun 13, 2018 2:12 am
kalajel says:
funfungiguy says:
OOC:
In my opinion, re-rolling Spellchanging or Healing checks outside of combat shouldn’t even be necessary at all, because it’s more or less pointless. Rolling for those things is only important when the characters are in combat, because a character only has about 5seconds in-game time per turn. So if a spellcaster attempts to cast or change spells and they fail, they lose their turn to their own party’s detriment.

But out of combat, like where our party is now, we have time to recover, loot bodies, discuss plans and strategies, etc., and time isn’t pressing us. So in theory, if it takes five seconds to cast a spell, a spellcaster should get about 12 attempts per minute, and if the party is recovering and regrouping and looting and messing around for five minutes, a spellcaster would basically get sixty rolls to succeed in Healing the party back up and or whatever. Making the player roll 12 times for however many minutes we catch our breath or loot bodies or eat lunch or whatever seems pointless.

I’ve always played it that if it’s during combat, spellcaster rolls are really important because time is of the essence. Outside of combat, the spellcaster is assumed to just patch everyone up in preparation for dangers to come. For roleplaying purposes it can be assumed that the spellcaster probably botched a few rolls in the process of healing the party, but as time wasn’t pressing, they eventually succeed enough times for everyone to heal.

If there was some hidden enemy approaching or planning to attack them unawares, then the spellcaster s might not have enough time to patch everyone up, so the GM May require the player to make a limited amount f rolls according to how much time the party has before they’re attacked or in-game turn order becomes relevant again.

Just my two cents. That’s about a size accurate as you can get from the 4th Edition rulebook.
I'll continue this discussion here to avoid clogging the RP thread.

I disagree. Allowing the healers to auto-heal the party after combat steps on the toes of the catching your breath and natural healing mechanics, not to mention that it makes bandages completely useless. Also, if I allow healers to auto-cast their healing spells out of combat, shouldn't I allow it for all spells cast outside of combat, and some spells in the rulebook are pretty much made to be cast out of combat (Open, Magic Ladder, etc.).
How about allowing regular checks out of combat then? There are no enemy and the party is not under pressure or duress, surely they should auto-succeed their Read Tracks or Knowledge checks...
In order to avoid making part of the book useless, and for consistency's sake, I prefer making healer roll their spellchanging checks and healing spells out of combat as well. I can see why some players might get annoyed of rerolling checks several time, but if I allow for auto-success of checks, where do I stop?
The problem with this logic is that in those instances there is a penalty for failure. If you fail your check to follow tracks, then you lose the trail.

I think that our thoughts aren't quite the auto success that you are mentioning. I don't think we are talking about Auto success, more that there is no point in rolling when you can say that we took some extra time and made sure everyone was topped off. Similar to the Pathfinder take 20 system where you assume that it takes extra time and you failed a little bit but you eventually did it well enough to treat it as if you had rolled maximum on your dice.

This may be the house rule you are talking about. I just feel like there may have been some miscommunication or a misunderstanding between our posts and your interpretation.
Jun 13, 2018 2:14 am
It's more that we are saying to hand wave though all the extra (unnecessary) rolls and just say we took the time to make sure it worked out.

As was stated earlier, if there is a situation where those few minutes would make a difference then we can make the rolls as stated in the book.

These are just my thoughts on the matter, let me know if that explains our intentions better :-)
Jun 13, 2018 1:41 pm
Yeah, I tried the whole "take 10" and "take 20" before, and because of the nature of the system where your roll is usually your result, the players ended up abusing this. Also, it is entirely possible for a check to have a CTN too low to "take 10" or "take 20" successfully... So I started thinkering with something else. Though, now I realize that "taking 10" and "taking 20" might have been a bit too high for the nature of the system, and I should probably revise those numbers and make them somewhat lower (maybe more like "take 5" and "take 10"?).
I also tinkered with granting bonuses to checks and/or using a system similar to D&D5th's Advantage system where you roll more than 1 die and choose which want you want to take for your result...
Jun 13, 2018 2:19 pm
Yeah, taking 10 or 20 would not work well in this system, I don't think.

My take on it is to let things succeed if the following conditions are met:

1. The character is skilled enough to succeed on the task without extraordinary luck
2. There is no penalty for failing (Wouldn't work on walking a tightrope 100 feet in the air)
3. The character has the time to make several attempts at it and get it to work.

Rolling in games should only really be necessary when there is a chance for failure and that failure would be meaningful in some way.
Sep 29, 2018 12:24 pm
Getting a little overwhelmed with the amount games I've got going on so going to slip away from here. Thanks for the intro the game, Kalajel!
Sep 29, 2018 4:48 pm
No problem. I'll try and recruit more players.

Poor Arla, she will be so confused when it's a group completely different from the first which ends up bringing her the Star of Helia...
Oct 1, 2018 3:39 pm
Bonjour and Thanks for the add, i've been skimming thru the book and was thinking dwarven figher type? will i be starting as lvl 1?
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