Author Topic: What is the point of SoDs? Why are they needed? What could take their place?  (Read 17243 times)

Offline RedWarlock

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Mostly this is spawned off all the 5e talk that's been flying, but it makes me wonder in general. Why are they considered something vital for casters in D&D? Why is their absence in 4e considered such a travesty?

I can understand the idea of having other options than damage be able to defeat an enemy, but must it be a one-try effect for it to be considered viable? (I don't care for rocket-tag damage-wise either, as it happens. Keep that in mind, my end-goal would see rocket tag in all forms eliminated where possible, it's just not fun.) It's the same argument for the Destruction of Undead (Complete Divine pg. 87) alternate option for Tun Undead, it basically acts like a single-button ability which is either useless (unlikely with optimization) or auto-wins the encounter with no assistance or contribution from other members of the team.

I could see effects which are presently presented as SoD broken down into segments. The 4e version made them deal damage like everyone else, making all contributions towards the death of an enemy equal because they all had the same end-goal, getting it to 0HP. Alternately, we have the occasional suggestion of a condition track, where an effect weakens the target, hindering them as a threat, and, after repeat applications, leading to their destruction in a non-damage manner. However, this has been labelled a 'death spiral', which also seems to be a Bad Thing (TM).

So, to reiterate, what's the point? Why are these effects needed? I'd really like to know, because as it is, they seem to be way more trouble and headache than I could ever see them being worth.
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Offline oslecamo

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It's one of the multiple love-hate relationships in D&D (altough it also happens in other games). Petrifying, portals to nothingness, death curses, deadly poisons, shuting down minds, are all staples of fantasy people are used to seeing in stories/movies/books. They want to see it happen in-game. It's however not so funny when you're the one taking it.


Offline Basket Burner

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They do something right now. They're needed because you need ways of affecting the fight right now. About the only thing that could take their place is save or sucks but those often fall under exactly the same banner, and the only alternative, HP damage does all of nothing even when it works... at least until the last HP is gone which just means to be a relevant damage dealer you have to 1 round things (and 4th edition is hated because it makes combat incredibly slow).

Unbalanced? Perhaps. But unless you manage a game in which both offenses and defenses are relevant, it's the best you can do.

That isn't possible without at the absolute minimum giving everyone certain staples that even the odds and making the primary difference between class tiers numerical, with little difference in strategy... and as much as I like how the Pokemon meta developed under those conditions I'm not sure if those specific concepts would translate well into D&D. A good part of the reason why people are here playing 3.5 and don't like 4th edition is they want a wider range.

Offline wotmaniac

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I'm gonna have to echo oslecamo on this one (at least the middle 2 sentences) ...
Doing stuff to people like blowing them up, turning them to stone, sucking them to Hell, etc., simply cannot be done without SoDs -- sorry, but losing a few HP or being staggered or whatever simply doesn't cut it.

As to when you're on the receiving end of it .... eh, it's all just part of the game.  If there is such a thing as a "win/lose condition" in RPGs, it's whether or not your character dies -- at which point, you make up a knew character and keep driving on.  If you can't accept loss, then you probably don't have any business playing the game.  (that last bit is just a generality; not just about RPGs)

Offline veekie

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It's one of the multiple love-hate relationships in D&D (altough it also happens in other games). Petrifying, portals to nothingness, death curses, deadly poisons, shuting down minds, are all staples of fantasy people are used to seeing in stories/movies/books. They want to see it happen in-game. It's however not so funny when you're the one taking it.


Yep, pretty much.

I'd move towards gradated effects(lesser versions stacking into greater), threshold effects(effects requiring preconditions, such as HD caps for the 'full' course to be inflicted), escape clauses(providing ways to end the effect 'posthumously') or degrees of defense(fail/win by X to get full blast, else partial)
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Offline RobbyPants

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I'd move towards gradated effects(lesser versions stacking into greater), threshold effects(effects requiring preconditions, such as HD caps for the 'full' course to be inflicted), escape clauses(providing ways to end the effect 'posthumously') or degrees of defense(fail/win by X to get full blast, else partial)
I like the idea of this approach.

I'd also like to see a more fleshed out version of Frank's CAN mechanic. The idea has always been too theoretical for me to really figure out how to make it work, but I like the principle.
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Offline RedWarlock

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They do something right now. They're needed because you need ways of affecting the fight right now. About the only thing that could take their place is save or sucks but those often fall under exactly the same banner, and the only alternative, HP damage does all of nothing even when it works... at least until the last HP is gone which just means to be a relevant damage dealer you have to 1 round things (and 4th edition is hated because it makes combat incredibly slow).

Unbalanced? Perhaps. But unless you manage a game in which both offenses and defenses are relevant, it's the best you can do.

That isn't possible without at the absolute minimum giving everyone certain staples that even the odds and making the primary difference between class tiers numerical, with little difference in strategy... and as much as I like how the Pokemon meta developed under those conditions I'm not sure if those specific concepts would translate well into D&D. A good part of the reason why people are here playing 3.5 and don't like 4th edition is they want a wider range.
You're getting too stuck on the current metagame. Look beyond that. I'm talking from the perspective of tweaks and rewrites to the system at a fundamental, disrupting-the-metagame-as-you-know-it level. Anything is possible, as long as the factors are well-considered along the way.
I'd move towards gradated effects(lesser versions stacking into greater), threshold effects(effects requiring preconditions, such as HD caps for the 'full' course to be inflicted), escape clauses(providing ways to end the effect 'posthumously') or degrees of defense(fail/win by X to get full blast, else partial)
I like the idea of this approach.

I'd also like to see a more fleshed out version of Frank's CAN mechanic. The idea has always been too theoretical for me to really figure out how to make it work, but I like the principle.
Yeah, veekie's idea has been my main considered approach for a while. Those 'story-relevant' concepts people think they need SoDs to emulate aren't actually SoDs, necessarily. They could be channeled or layered effects which take multiple rounds to apply.

*reads CAN idea* Ooh, I like that! Will have to consider it.
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Offline dman11235

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My problem with SoDs (and SoSs, and Soanything, really) is the dichotomoy it presents.  At least with HP damage you end up working towards a goal (unconsciousness of opponent), so even if you don't get it there in a round, you're working on it.  From a design perspective this creates a HUGE problem.  You want every action the anything takes, especially players, to at least do something.  When the result of a failed save is "death" and the result of a successful save is 'nothing" the only way to do this is to make a failed save very common.  So as was said earlier, it cretes a rocket tag situation, where whoever goes first, wins, unless something wierd happens.  This dichotomy has the effect of making all actions that have it (SoDs, SoSs, HP damage to an extent, etc.) both necessary and useless.

This is also partly why I hate the traditional spell casting system.  They used /day abilities, which means that EVERY single casting NEEDs to be worth it, or else you used up a hard to get resource for nothing.  HP damage in spells now needs to be viable to one-shot enemies at low levels, and they need to make sure the whole suite of spells they cast benefit them noticeably.  This ended up being the reason casters are overpowered.  I've tried, and it's just impossible to balance /day abilities if they are the primary or secondary funtion of a class.  Same goes for SoDs.

I too am a fan of the build up, like veekie suggested.  Really weak enemies will succumb immediately (ECL-4 or 5 for single target, ECL-8or so for area), and others will end up needing more to weaken them before the death comes.  Sometimes a true SoD might be acceptable, but not without hoops to jump through, and not a primary ability.
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Offline RedWarlock

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Ooh! Here's a thought, which combines the concept of the CAN (when using level-derived base modifiers) with the multi-round effect. Let's say we have some kind of kill effect, and it needs three 'strikes' to work. What if we make the roll into a graded effect? Let's say for comparison's sake it's a spell which the defender makes a save against.

Now, the caster can sustain this casting to attempt to re-apply, requiring concentration or spellcraft checks of a sort if someone tries to disrupt them, but the main point here is that the caster can re-try the effect each round, making the enforcing of this spell-effect an ongoing struggle. (maybe the caster can do something during his turn to affect the target's save, or alter/increase the DC..)

If the defender fails the save, they take a strike. If they fail the save by more than 10 under, they take two strikes. If they fail it REALLY BADLY, like more than 20 under the DC, they take three strikes and are killed instantly. (this would be where the CAN-like effect comes in, a lower-level mook, or a weakened/disadvantaged character is more likely to hit the greater failures.)

If they barely succeed, they take a penalty to the future save against this effect, as the caster is wearing down their defenses. If they succeed by 10 or more, they save, no penalty. And if they succeed by 20 or more, they remove a strike if they had one, and if they already have no strikes, the caster immediately fails the casting altogether.

Heck, I could see an ability like this working great with a per-encounter ability, or even an at-will ability, since it's not just a win-button, and takes careful work to enact. If all casters were warlocks, this would be their SoDs. Heh.
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Offline SneeR

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This is the reason SoDs completely ruin D&D.
And...
This is how I propose to fix it.


Either casters need to attack gradual defenses more or mundanes need to attack binary defenses more. As is, they play different games entirely.
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Offline dman11235

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That's not a bad idea RedWarlock.

Also, not sure if this came through with my last post, but I don't think any class should have /day as its primary ability limit.  /day is probably the limit for length of recharge, and that only in specific circumstances, one example is an ability like the Kensai's strength boost ability, but that's a secondary ability and you wouldn't be able to do this for a primary; you might even limit these to /hour.  For a primary, I think /encounter is the limit for a recharge.
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Offline Basket Burner

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You're getting too stuck on the current metagame. Look beyond that. I'm talking from the perspective of tweaks and rewrites to the system at a fundamental, disrupting-the-metagame-as-you-know-it level. Anything is possible, as long as the factors are well-considered along the way.

And then you get 4th edition, which is hated and played less than the previous edition because people want to influence the combat right now and not have super slow combats.

There's also no valid way of fixing that. If you make HP non binary then you just make rockets even more prevalent, as whatever side goes first has far more ways of preventing the other from fighting back.

Remove anything that influences the fight right now and you have a slow grind fest... or no one has the ability to deal with encounters, so everyone dies.

Offline oslecamo

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As to when you're on the receiving end of it .... eh, it's all just part of the game.  If there is such a thing as a "win/lose condition" in RPGs, it's whether or not your character dies -- at which point, you make up a knew character and keep driving on.  If you can't accept loss, then you probably don't have any business playing the game.  (that last bit is just a generality; not just about RPGs)
This is very important. If the players can't lose, then what's the point of having combat rules to begin with?

I agree with you there, wotmaniac, but alas, a lot of players out there are awfully attached to their characters and seem incapable of leting them go. I myself was one of them back in my begginnings.

D&D isn't ponyland. Things die. Even the heroes.

I too am a fan of the build up, like veekie suggested.  Really weak enemies will succumb immediately (ECL-4 or 5 for single target, ECL-8or so for area), and others will end up needing more to weaken them before the death comes. 

It may look nice at first glance, but it's actualy a trap. Because now the game is screaming for players to focus-fire the enemy with no-save debilitating effects that stack into death. Single enemies are now more screwed than ever because even if they win iniative, they have nobody else to combo with and now have no hope of at least making their saves against the stacking player debuffs.

Not to mention that the game as a whole gets drasticaly more complex and combat slows down even more.

Plus, as the game goes on, ressurection and fixing ailments gets easier and easier. If your cleric isn't packing some fast revival magic by middle levels, it's your own fault.

Offline SneeR

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As to when you're on the receiving end of it .... eh, it's all just part of the game.  If there is such a thing as a "win/lose condition" in RPGs, it's whether or not your character dies -- at which point, you make up a knew character and keep driving on.  If you can't accept loss, then you probably don't have any business playing the game.  (that last bit is just a generality; not just about RPGs)
This is very important. If the players can't lose, then what's the point of having combat rules to begin with?

I agree with you there, wotmaniac, but alas, a lot of players out there are awfully attached to their characters and seem incapable of leting them go. I myself was one of them back in my begginnings.

D&D isn't ponyland. Things die. Even the heroes.
Alternatively, one could ask, "How can you play a role with gusto knowing he will be replaced?" I am incapable of letting characters go. Why go through the trouble of crafting a specific character with different traits, flaws, likes, dislikes, and stances on the world around them if you fully expect them to die?
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Offline Basket Burner

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This is why you make capable, competent characters, that way you don't have to worry about them dying all the time and can focus on playing and enjoying the game instead of desperately struggling to not get constantly slaughtered.

Offline oslecamo

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Because he'll be replaced one way or the other. The campaign won't last forever. It may even end much earlier due to time/player problems. Heck, my mythweavers acount is kinda clogged up with fully-built characters for online campaigns that died when the DM disapeared. Some were not even picked on the selection process and thus never saw the light of day.

Now think on the DM's side. He has to make dozens if not hundreds of NPCs. And just because they are non-playable, they're still characters. They need to ge given some amount of depth, traits, flaws, likes, dislikes and stances on the world around them so the party actualy cares about them besides " walking exp and loot!". And even then they'll probably die at the player's hands or be quickly forgoten, many times having just some minutes of life-time if that. If the DM is expected to let his myriad of NPCs go, why can't the players let 1-2 PCs go when their time comes?

On the other hand, nothing stoping you from re-using characters in another campaign with a fresh paintjob. :p

Offline RedWarlock

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And then you get 4th edition, which is hated and played less than the previous edition because people want to influence the combat right now and not have super slow combats.

There's also no valid way of fixing that. If you make HP non binary then you just make rockets even more prevalent, as whatever side goes first has far more ways of preventing the other from fighting back.

Remove anything that influences the fight right now and you have a slow grind fest... or no one has the ability to deal with encounters, so everyone dies.
Actually, that's not the major complaint I've seen with 4e. Myself and my group enjoy it, for the most part, the biggest problem (especially with longer fights) is that the combat gets boring not because of 'impact', but because the player runs out of interesting things to do, because they have too few abilities. The general sequence runs down to "At-will, encounter, at-will, another encounter, at-will, daily, at-will, at-will, at-will, at-will..." The at-wills get boring and repetitive, especially when the player has already run out of their other powers.

By that, I mean, you can have long fights, there just needs to be more going on and capable of happening than running down a power list and repeating options. That might mean throwing more powers(/abilities/maneuvers/spells/etc) on everyone's plate. That might mean having more balance-shifting wrenches thrown into the works mid-combat. More stuff needs to happen, but it doesn't necessarily need to happen every round.

D&D isn't ponyland. Things die. Even the heroes.
I have no problem with players dying, but I think it should require more than one die-roll to kill off a player or major enemy. That's my main problem with SoDs as they stand.
It may look nice at first glance, but it's actualy a trap. Because now the game is screaming for players to focus-fire the enemy with no-save debilitating effects that stack into death. Single enemies are now more screwed than ever because even if they win iniative, they have nobody else to combo with and now have no hope of at least making their saves against the stacking player debuffs.
Nah, actually, that's where HP is the best place for a common ground for focus-fire tactics. Don't make spell-based debuff effects stack, especially not for the strike-driven SoD alternatives. (penalties to movement/saves/attacks, sure, because they are contributing to the decline of the target in all measures..) No-save debilitating effects? Like what? Everything should have some chance of failure.

Then again, I also think there should be more 'bloodied'-style gamechangers, maybe other effects, positive and negative, that kick in along the decline of HP. Those type of effects, when properly interacted with, have gotten a lot of good responses in my group.
Not to mention that the game as a whole gets drasticaly more complex and combat slows down even more.
Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps combat needs to be de-complicated. I've noticed this, and this is a big thing I've noticed myself doing, we all want there to be five or so different things a character is doing per-turn. Maybe if more of that was broken down, spread out so the player isn't having to juggle five different action types and multiple things to juggle, combat rounds would get less complex, and combat might process a little faster. Just a thought.
Plus, as the game goes on, ressurection and fixing ailments gets easier and easier. If your cleric isn't packing some fast revival magic by middle levels, it's your own fault.
And I think the cleric's (or whatever's) primary role in the party should be mid-combat healing or strike-negating during combat, not waiting until after the combat is over to rez whoever's left and clean up the corpses. The game needs to be altered to make mid-combat defense&recovery a viable playstyle again.
This is why you make capable, competent characters, that way you don't have to worry about them dying all the time and can focus on playing and enjoying the game instead of desperately struggling to not get constantly slaughtered.
Please define each of the qualifiers you just used, (like 'capable', 'competent', 'desperately struggling to not get constantly slaughtered'), and keep in mind, the game as you know it may be changed beyond what you're used to, heck, I'm asking this as a general question because I'm also designing a non-D&D-but-psuedo-d20-system game on the side, and I'm trying to apply what I learn about D&D to the design process from the ground up, so I don't hit a lot of the major traps and pitfalls.
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Offline veekie

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One alternative to stacking is preconditions.
'Advanced' abilities use more resources, but work better when smacked onto a creature with particular conditions(including health thresholds) afflicting them. This way, instead of going to spam-mode, combat would involve chaining debilitating effects so as to unlock more potent options you can use to end it for good. This applies for martial and magical assaults alike, but necessarily needs either wide availability of advanced attack options or else generic prerequisites. Likewise, on the defending end, you would want to take these conditions off because they enhance enemy lethality.

So for example(using a 'strict' conditions example), a Cremation spell might be a evade-or-die, but requires that the target be Bloodied and On Fire, or it'd simply set them On Fire.
Alternative example(using loose conditions), a Wishbone attack might be a fort-or-die, but requires that the target be affected by at least two [Held](a descriptor applicable to any immobilizing condition, such as Entangled, Paralyzed, Grappled or Pinned) conditions or it'd just do a bunch of crushing damage.

Of course, traditional instakills can still exist, if you waive conditions for having significantly lower HD/level/CR than the attacker. The idea is to have significant fights be more dynamic and get more team involvement despite taking longer.
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Offline Basket Burner

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Actually, that's not the major complaint I've seen with 4e. Myself and my group enjoy it, for the most part, the biggest problem (especially with longer fights) is that the combat gets boring not because of 'impact', but because the player runs out of interesting things to do, because they have too few abilities. The general sequence runs down to "At-will, encounter, at-will, another encounter, at-will, daily, at-will, at-will, at-will, at-will..." The at-wills get boring and repetitive, especially when the player has already run out of their other powers.

It's both. Even really enjoyable things get boring if they drag on forever. Entering spam mode just amplifies it. Even by default though you're taking actions with low success rates and that do nothing meaningful even if they work, which is like 3.5 except with no casters and much slower.

I've found anything more than 3-6 rounds becomes a grind fest no matter what... and that's in 3.5, where there's a wide range of things that influence combat. Namely those save or something effects.

Quote
Nah, actually, that's where HP is the best place for a common ground for focus-fire tactics. Don't make spell-based debuff effects stack, especially not for the strike-driven SoD alternatives. (penalties to movement/saves/attacks, sure, because they are contributing to the decline of the target in all measures..) No-save debilitating effects? Like what? Everything should have some chance of failure.

This sounds like a great way to amplify Iterative Probability based problems.

Quote
Then again, I also think there should be more 'bloodied'-style gamechangers, maybe other effects, positive and negative, that kick in along the decline of HP. Those type of effects, when properly interacted with, have gotten a lot of good responses in my group.

That status does so many different random effects there's no way to tell what's happening. It's just random stuff happening. It'd be different if all of them were consistently beneficial or detrimental, then you'd know how to react when you see them.

Quote
Please define each of the qualifiers you just used, (like 'capable', 'competent', 'desperately struggling to not get constantly slaughtered'), and keep in mind, the game as you know it may be changed beyond what you're used to, heck, I'm asking this as a general question because I'm also designing a non-D&D-but-psuedo-d20-system game on the side, and I'm trying to apply what I learn about D&D to the design process from the ground up, so I don't hit a lot of the major traps and pitfalls.

Capable and competent both mean exactly what you'd expect. Not some low tier gimp who dies all the time. All the time also means what you'd expect. Very constantly or frequently, with extreme regularity and consistency.

A weak character isn't worth the effort of getting attached to and making an elaborate backstory for sure. Not all characters have to be walking corpses that don't know they're dead yet.

Offline Unbeliever

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M&M's system of stacking conditions works pretty well.  If I wanted to overhaul D&D's I'd use something like that.  The place of SoDs -- and you can throw all sorts of other effects in this category as well -- is to give you something else other than damage to do, which might make things more interesting. 

What I like about M&M's stacking conditions is: (a) it's still possible for a far more powerful (or lucky) person to turn someone to stone in a single go.  Vecna can snuff out ye olde commoner's life force b/c he'll fail the save by a sufficient amount right out of the gates.  (b) they inflict conditions that help out the people doing the normal damage stuff.  If the enemy is slowed or what have you, that can help out the people dealing damage.  The thing you want to avoid, and M&M sometimes has this problem, is having two different "tracks" of harm to inflict on an enemy that don't interact favorably with each other.  Then people will just abandon one for the other.

EDIT:  M&M 3E has an online srd in case people are curious to see how they do it (http://www.d20herosrd.com/).  I dont' think it's perfect, and the change my group made was to make Afflictions look more like damage so you can "wear down" people's saves, but it has merit.

I like SWSE's condition track system, and it works for that setting quite well in part b/c there are fewer abilities and effects available there.  In a fantasy milieu, though, I think having a richer set of conditions has merit. 
« Last Edit: March 08, 2012, 01:37:36 PM by Unbeliever »