Didn't see a thread for it, I'm starting a Weird Wizard campaign in a few days so figured it could use one instead of "Is coffee good for you?" posting that makes up 60% of the board now. Of the non-human and human++ options available in Weird Ancestries, which ones are most interesting or mechanically worth taking the alternative Novice path for? Personally I like Daeva as an idea, being a glorified Stand user with a dedicated summon living in your head is nice and means you don't have to wait a long time for a specific expert or master class if you wanna be a "pet class"
>>97007914bro you didn't mention the scat in the OP? it's critical to the game, or else it wouldn't be so common
>>97007914Post some nice WW art, pls. I liked a lot of the art in SotDL.
>>97007914Is the WW dwarf book in the trove? Last I checked it wasn't uploaded and it should have been out for weeks now.
>>97010455/SDL is missing an adventure but everything else should be there. At least for SotWW I'm missing some SotDL and DLE bits.
>>97007914>Of the non-human and human++ options available in Weird Ancestries, which ones are most interesting or mechanically worth taking the alternative Novice path for? Most of them are worth taking. I think Clockwork, Dragonet, Demigod are the only ones that really under-perform in the sort of way I'd recommend steering away from. A few others are weaker than core Novices but not awfully so. Dhampir, Shadowkith, and Tatterdemalion are all really interesting to me though. They each lean into their themes pretty hard and have some interesting abilities on the Path that so shake things up beyond simple variants. Dhampir is dripping with vampire flavour maybe more so than it should but it's a strong identity. Shadowkith are a intriguing gish "rogue" spin. Tatterdemalion are thoroughly weird as ancestries go and I can quite think of another game with an Ancestry like it.
>>97007914Is there any reason to jump into WW when I got a ton of shit for DL already?
>>97010799>a ton of shit for DL
>>97010799It's a different game going for different things with lots of changes to the core, rather than a new setting and tone for SotDL. I think it's an upgrade in a lot of ways and a sidegrade in others. But it's not a replacement and shouldn't be treated like it because while it's in the same engine no character option in it is cross-compatible because of how much the game changes.Initiative and the general structure of action/reaction is hugely improved. Fast/Slow works fine in SotDL but it's got its faults for sure and the new setup pretty much eliminates them. The progression of Paths changed to give everything 2 levels to start with, and Experts/Masters get 1 more level to really flesh their concepts out and it does a load of good. Master Paths in particularly really benefit and they're much grander concepts here and more akin to Prestige Classes than SotDL smaller specialisations, but they don't eat into your core progression. The extra level and higher power level in general has really made for some chunky and evocative options there, and you get a lot of them so have things like Master Paths about getting chosen by individual gods, loads of fighting styles, and some weird stuff that really fleshes out the core set. Then there are some supplement things like the new style of Path variant, religious Traditions, and Ancestry Paths. The new magic system is a major step up and fixes the power problem.The side grade stuff is mostly the higher health and damage values, it's fine that they're bigger, it works well, but they are bigger and so it's a little more maths to do at the table. The big downside is as you alluded to it's not a decade old and doesn't have a decade of content. It does still have a lot of content for it though and more than you'll likely ever use.If you like the engine but wouldn't mind a good shake up to the rules, and want something that's less horror and more heroic fantasy (while keeping some dark elements) then it's worth a look.
>>97010799Even if you have Demon Lord there is a lot of stuff in Weird Wizard that's brand new. Even ignoring that the Paths with the same name will be different implementations, Weird Wizard still has a lot of concepts that Demon Lord doesn't have. A good chunk of stuff will be fresh even if every ancestry, path, spell, and monster are all new mechanically.
I enjoyed SotDL but I see no reason to play SotWW at all. It lacks character and it seem to more focused in providing a high heroic experience something I can already get from the worlds something ttrpg or it's thousands of clones.
>>97010799Yeah.>Better base rule system>Better Health system>Better path synergiesDrawbacks are>Higher damage/health values at higher tiers of play>Not as many options as DL due to not having a decade of support>Tone/art not as strong>PCs are generally stronger (this could be a positive depending on taste, but worth mentioning)
>>97008106Based hoversluts.
>Schwalb redoing difficulty rating to better represent enemy ratios:player count based on tier of playActually cool as hell. Sucks it couldn't have been worked our of the official release, but it isn't hard to print the page and shove it in the book if need be.
>>97013427>Better health>Higher damageDoesn't that effectively cancel each other out?Not trying to be a dismissive cunt or anything but some of the pluses I see mentioned seem to fall into the camp of "NUMBER GO UP! YAY!" kind of thinking.How's the balance? DL, for example, had a pretty notable character build imbalance. You had a bunch of different build options (staggeringly high compared to most games) and all of them 'worked', however, if you focused on one trick, like going pure melee, you were pretty dramatically OP compared to someone that did build experimentation to make something with an overall theme.Did WW fix this or does it lean into just as hard?
>>97015065>Doesn't that effectively cancel each other out? Not trying to be a dismissive cunt or anythingNo, you are correct. The higher number values aren't without purpose at that, it's just some people are allergic to bigger numbers and feel they are always a bad thing, for some reason. Martial leaning characters aquire bonus damage dice at a rate based on how hard they lean into the full martial archtype, so a straight Fighterman type character can get up to +9d6 bonus damage dice (BBD) to play with by max level. This is how these sorts of characters scale in damage as the game progresses, so tougher enemies get more Health to compensate. You can also spend 2d6 worth of BBD to perform an additional attack against a seperate target (multiattacks are now available to everyone, just at the cost of BBD), so the more you have, the more extra attacks against seperate targets you can perform. This helps keep weaker enemies as usable threats in mobs, where PC power comes from being able to kill multiple of them in a round or two, while still having tougher enemies feel way more threatening at the same time. The final use for BBD is that, much like Demon Lord, all players have access to maneuvers. But unlike Demon Lord, instead of taking a Banes for performing them, you instead forgo your weapon's damage value in exchange for a (sometimes) slightly harder Target Number (target's attribute score +5) for a special effect, but your BBD and Extra Damage from attacks still apply. Some paths play with this concept by either getting rid of the increases score needed to hit an attribute, or by giving the PC the wrapon's damage value for performing them.>How's the balance? DL, for example, had a pretty notable character build imbalance.About as unbalanced as Demon Lord, where a "bad" build is still fine, and strong combos can be strong. But this time around, there are far less anti-synergistic path combos since they did away with the Power System for magic.
>>97013427>Better base rule systemBait. It's a sidegrade at most.
>>97016278>Better and more strategic turn order>Better balance with attributes>Luck as a mechanic is a really good addition once you get used to it and can force characters to change their bread and butter tactics>Better spell slot system>Bonus Damage Dice as a resource and mechanic>Weapon properties actually matteringIt's almost a direct upgrade in every possible way from a gameplay perspective.
>>97016949>Better and more strategic turn orderI wouldn't even bother debating this because it's just not true. You accomplish much of the same with DL's fast/slow ordering, rendering this a sidegrade that's just a matter of taste. They're both good and have their strategic merits.>Better balance with attributesWhat are you on? Every attribute in DL is important and worth having. How are WW's any better in that regard?>LuckYou mean a mechanic that is already usable in DL with just straight, unmodified d20 rolls? A thing you could already be doing? This isn't even a perspective worth arguing. Did you really need a name for a straight d20 roll?>Better spell slot systemAbsolutely a matter of taste. I personally prefer Power and the limitations that come with it, and my playgroup was overall split on which one they preferred. We were in agreement that both were perfectly acceptable aside from some weird edge cases in both of them. >Bonus Damage Dice as a resource and mechanicThe bonus dice and how they can be split and used as resources is a neat idea, I'll give you that. I don't care for how directly tied to Path progression damage dice are, but there are merits to it. >Weapon properties actually matteringThere aren't as many properties, but the ones that do exist in DL absolutely matter. The ones that were added in WW exist to give you more to do with your resources and build on the baked-in maneuvers that are core to the system. I'm not calling this a bad thing, but it's disingenuous to say weapon properties in DL don't matter. In exchange for all of these changes, you get some of Schwalb's most questionable balance decisions in Path and spell design by a mile. Half of the ancestries read like utter BS as well. Calling WW a straight upgrade is bunk, pure and simple. A sidegrade will remain a sidegrade so long as it doesn't emulate the things that people liked about DL to a T.
>>97016949Please don't take the bait, anon. No good comes of it, the troll just wants a reason to troll and start another drawn out flamewar over games they don't play.
>>97011012It's also really good about making good on some of SotDL's promises. Things like Pyromancer or Death Dealer are incredibly bad options in SotDL but their interactions in SotWW are not only worthwhile but do a lot more to capture the themes IMO. Pyromancer retains the resistances but it's expanded and much more useful, and them they get a strong at-will attack, and a handful of extra effects that are all about the class fantasy. Death Dealer is just a much more competent version of the same idea but doesn't require the game to bend over backwards to accommodate it. It is good vs. any tier of threat and has some useful 1-on-1 Talents so it doesn't end up with nothing against a boss.>>97015065The increase in both things isn't the same, and it's not a super linear scaling for Health. SotDL has pretty steady growth for Health but SotWW gives you more on higher tiered Paths. Which means you end up stronger at 10 relative to 1 than you would in SotDL. Monsters follow a similar curve, but a little wonkier (but getting tweaked).Character/Path balance is better in SotWW by a good margin. As I said in the reply above there aren't any Paths in core that just outright suck and have no reason to ever use. Nor are there the same sort of outliers in the other direction. You're still rewarded for building towards synergies but the way the Paths combine and scale has changed some of the math. Power is dead and now Paths always grant you the same tier of magic regardless of when you take them. This means it's way easier to take magic later without gimping your PC. If you take two martials and then a caster you will have something worthwhile for the pick, rather than getting a rank 0 spell. You'll miss out on the synergies casters will have but that breadth you gain is certainly worth thinking about as a viable choice. Obviously some Paths work better than others for this but generally the game does a way better job of not making those sorts of combinations dead weight.
>>97010455>>97010711Update: /SDL is now only missing the Honour in Life Glory in Death spell deck for SotWW.
>>97018790What are you missing for the other games
>>97017393NTA, WW is not an upgrade to DL at all.It has a reason to exist given it's a very different flavor, but I find it to be a downgrade ruleswise.The things that I do like about WW can be ported over - in fact the WW magic system did lead to a DL supplement that I quite like (although it's horribly op)
>>97019328And it's fine for you to think so. Having an opinion isn't bait. Even if, shock horror, someone disagrees.
>>97019356I thought the implication was that the guy calling it a sidegrade was baiting, but now I'm not sure who anon was refering to.My only problem with WW is that I would have rather had DL 2nd edition. But a 2nd edition is probably a terrible idea considering the way releases are done.
>>97019457What improvements for DL would you like to have seen for a 2e?
>>97019464I think there's a ton of really good new spells, paths and other materials from OP and other books, but they're mixed in with shit that is completely gamebreaking, so I would have liked a new edition to weed out a bit. There's also a lot of paths and spells that are beyond useless and would need to be reimagined. The monster difficulties are also all over the place. It's both a too simplistic system, and also wildly innacurate. There are tons of monsters labeled as 10 that should be 5 and vice versa, or monsters labeled as 25 that should be 50 at least.The WW damage dice might be cool to port over, though I'm not completely sure about that. I'd like a revamped fear system. I dislike both versions we've had, even though I really like fear and sanity systems in general. I think I'd prefer something with grades of failure, where you can be shaken or panicked or stoic instead of the current one.There's also a lot of cases of the Victims books introducing really cool mandatory stuff to the ancestries, and I'd honestly like even more ancestry specific stuff. Maybe that's another place where it's worth looking at WW.Basically there's some good ideas that went into WW, but there's too much other stuff I don't like so much, which is why I went back to DL
>>97019571I can see that. I haven't played WW yet, but looking through the books I noticed attributes don't seem to be quite as important anymore. All derived stats stem from path now it looks like. In some ways that makes sense enough, such as opening up gish options with removing Power as a Spellcasting stat. But I think it lowers the value of stats when things like health, defense and the like are no longer tied to them. DL did this better imo, and a few easy to work adjustments could've made WW superior. Instead they chose to make things bland it seems.
>>97019606Power was already rewordked in DL to make gishes completely viable
>>97019616Oh no kidding? Maybe I need to find and update to the core book.
>>97019457The guy calling it a side grade was baiting. Because it's not bait to like a game more than someone else. It's okay to think it's a side grade but you can express that without trying to start a fight on an Argentinian skydiving forum.Schwalb has always been very adamant that he's not doing second editions of a game. Which I can respect a lot, I don't have problems with editions but it's nice for games to not have that hanging over them too. We will be getting a sequel in the DLE though so that'll be exciting. Although that's a 2027 thing. But in either case SotWW wasn't standing in the way of a 2e because that was never in the cards.
>>97019621It was in a supplement that also gave caster huge amounts of extra strength and didn't even really fix the gish problem, just removed Power.
>>97019621It's a supplement. The core book doesn't get updated with new stuff (which is the main driver for wanting a 2. edition)
>>97019628>>97019631Oh that's lame. Which supplement, so I know what to look through?
>>97019633I literally don't remember the name, but the rule comes down to - Just let everybody have a set Power of level/2 round up. When a path is given Power, they instead get a little cantrip (the biggest problem with the supplement is that some of those cantrips are waaaay too strong, so I suggest houseruling those.)The problem is it makes casters better, makes gishing much easier, but it doesn't balance it out with giving something to pure martials. Imperfect supplement
>>97019633Uncanny Arcana
>>97018837No clue. Other people will have to figure that out.
>>97019626>Although that's a 2027 thing.So it's more like a 2029 thing?
>>97019651It's wild, because gish characters were already decent to begin with as long as they took utility/buff spells. Regardless, Weird Wizard's method of magic is better in actual practice.
>>97020861Doubt it. Schwalb has always been good at hitting those sorts of things. SotWW is the only one that took extra time but covid, his editor dying, some family health issues, and it being a fairly large iteration on the engine are to blame for most of that. SDL666 is a new game but it's going to be backward compatible with SotDL and it's building off of the three campaigns that are currently on-going. No real reason to assume this will take as long as SotWW ended up taking especially when DLE stuff is chugging along fine too.
POO POO MAGIC LOLOOPOO
>>97024551So does that mean the sci-fi DLE game he said was coming after weird wizard is dead now?
>>97027192No.
>>97013479There's a flying ancestry in WW?
>>97030272Multiple. But that's an image from the Valkyrie path.
What paths do you want to see converted from Demon Lord to Weird Wizard? Personally, I feel WW is lacking on martial style Paths of Skill, where a lot of them just feel like magic paths with spell slots shaved off.
>SotDL; Power 5>Fireball deals 5d6 damage in a 5y RADIUS, half damage on a successful AGI check. [2/2 casts]vs>SotWW; 1 pick>Fireball deals 4d6 damage in a 5x5 space. On a failed AGI roll, it deals an additional 4d6 damage. [1/1 cast]Which do you prefer?
>>97034078Overall I prefer SotWW's spells both in terms of the variety of the spells/designs and the specific implementations. Spaces are quicker to use than radii are and I don't feel like I lose anything for it, I think the "does damage and then checks for more damage" has a little more table impact than a save to resist, and I like the switch to the lower number of castings I'm general as it promotes more deliberate use. Even if that last point isn't incredibly applicable to Rank 3 spells. The SotWW fireball also makes flammable things ignite, and I think SotWW has more fun touches like that overall.Plus, no Power (and the general advancement changes to facilitate that). Which is such a boon that I might prefer SotWW's magic should the spells be reversed.
>>97033953Wangateur immediately springs to mind but I'd probably have to think on it a fair bit. SotWW does do a lot to cover a lot of ground from just what's already out. Especially in terms of some of the must have SotDL supplements like the Novice Path expansions.I can't think up a Path of Trickery/Path of Skill from SotDL that I'm desperate to see either. The big ones, and some new shit like a real pet Path, are covered well with SotWW's Path of Skill/Paths of Prowess. What do you thinks missing there?
>>97034189Lawbreaker comes to mind (which got reworked into Ruffian, one of the worst Master Paths in WW), and while not necessarily a Skill path, Enforcer from Bred for Battle was basically the closest thing a Warrior themed character got to straddling that line, and I wouldn't mind it being repurposed as a Skill path for the game. But regardless, Weird Wizard desperately needs a solution to enemies being immune to every condition at higher difficulty ratings.
>>97035550We've had this conversation before, if it's all the same to you I'll pass on having it again.
>>97035685The point didn't magically change. We don't have to discuss it again, but that doesn't undo the blatant fact of the matter.
>Wasn't too sure about zones>Try them out>It's now my preferred method of playShit feels like Tactics Ogre.
>>97037554I wish Schwalb would have kept zones as the default in SotWW but the optional rules for them work well at least.
>>97039617Thankfully, all the spells seems to largely play with zones well, so it's not too hard to convert.
>>97046943Jesus, why can't bumpfags ever say something of substance?
>>97033953>What paths do you want to see converted from Demon Lord to Weird Wizard?I really liked some of the Paths of Science, with Maker of Monsters being my favorite for the customizable monster companion that let you do a whole bunch of fun themes depending on how you built it. I took the upgrades that make it have an attractive appearance instead of being Horrifying and the one that makes it smart and played it as a Bride of Frankenstein deal where my character became a mad scientist to resurrect his fallen lover and he was adventuring and grave robbing to fund further experiments with the goal of perfecting himself and her as immortals
>>97037554Isn't Tactics Ogre grid based?
>>97033953That Path that was just about making money and you get three agents 1/3rd your level. That was the Path of the Pimp and I miss it in WW.
>>97016949>Luck as a mechanicrolling dice?
>>97039617Any notable changes from the Forbidden Rules version in DL? The one time I ran that it worked pretty well already
>>97049055Moreso how the game uses Luck as a means to force variety in actions. It makes it so you can have a strong strategy or attack you can lean on, but having those shut off until you pass a luck roll means there is generally a 50/50 shot you won't get it back for next turn. And if you don't like having your stuff shut off with Luck, picking the Priest path (or various divine paths at E or M tier) can help remedy that problem for you.
>>97019626Not only was I not baiting, but I was also not trying to start an argument. I've said this several times in this thread, but WW being a sidegrade is fine because it fulfills a different fantasy, but calling it a strict upgrade to DL is just being confrontational. Compare the tone of the posts and who do you think is taking a harder, more extreme stance to bait out replies? Is it the one calling WW and DL sidegrades to each other or the ones listing blatantly deceptive points of contention between the systems? The discussion about the divide between the systems has been done to death, and yet some people (and that may be generous) insist that WW is strictly superior which is bound to stoke malignment.
>>97051361Okay.
>>97050122The big deal is really that SotWW was initially designed for zones and when Schwalb moved to grids all the maths was converted over in a way that made it much nicer to use with zones. So you had spells which affected a zone as an AoE but now works as a 5x5 space. The zone rules largely rollback that sort of stuff so 5x5 spaces now mean 1 zone. It's a more robust ruleset in general but having it be so much easier to swap over makes a world of difference in and of itself.>>97051361This just makes you sound unhinged. It's okay for people to think a game is better than another game, you don't need to get assblasted over it. That's toddler tantrum levels of logic. People not agreeing with you isn't some sort of personal insult that requires your emotional investment.
>>97052492NTA but he has a good point. Trying to proclaim something as better or superior is generally foolish. It says nothing substantial and also invites arguments that just degrade the thread quality, like how the last thread went to shit because some retard insisted on calling SotWW the best system ever.
>>97053502>You have to say that everything that exists is equal to, or worse, than every other thing.
>>97054436Who are you quoting retard?
>>97008106
>>97052492So suddenly calling out bullshit like >>97016949 is assblasted? What the fuck is your problem?Keep in mind that my initial post (>>97016278) was just saying the game is a sidegrade in response to someone advising another poster by making black and white statements about X or Y being better. Why should I not inform people about the misinformation that someone else was spouting off?
>>97054436You sure you're not just samefagging at this point? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and just assume you're being disingenuous rather than samefagging. What you're saying isn't remotely comparable. DL and WW are two very different rulesets that fit different tones of game and use different math to support them. They're not equal, but it's also not a question of ordered superiority. It's an apples-to-oranges comparison. Why, pray tell, have you gone to bat in such foolish fashion for an opinion that is no more valid than the claim that the games are sidegrades to one another? Should the claim that one game is strictly better supported with some blatantly untrue statements not also be regarded as unhinged by your loose standards of the term?
>>97054764Yes, you thinking someone's opinion is "bullshit" and "misinformation" because they like something more than you, and then getting upset about it today, is you being assblasted. Some people just like it. That's okay. It's okay for you to disagree and say so but you don't have to treat every opinion that's not your own like an attempt to start a flame war.
>>97051361>>97054764Genuine question: do you have autism? Not trying to insult you but I can't understand your issue with the tone of these posts. You've got one guy saying he likes things and thinks WW is better and then another guy (you) saying that he's being disingenuous. Only 1 of those posts has a tone problem and creates a negative atmosphere in the thread. One is a positive opinion on something. The other is trying to discredit a positive option by saying they're lying about it. It's pretty clear who's being the asshole in that scenario. If you're not trying to be an asshole you can't seem to tell how your tone is coming across. Because you are being an asshole about this. You seem to have replied to the post you linked saying it's all a matter of taste which means you know it's just a matter of taste. Telling someone they're being deceptive and are lying about their taste is being an asshole. Saying someone is spreading misinformation by telling you they think something that's a matter of taste is better is you being an asshole. If you're not trying to start an argument you're going about it backwards. If you're not trying to be an asshole you should reflect on how you're coming off.
For some actual positive stuff. The Weird Wizard bestiary difficulty revision is out and it's looking very solid. Lots of stuff has been bumped up a difficulty and there are a few new difficulty categories which should really help smooth things out for encounter balancing. Some stuff that's still at the lower end has been nerfed too so they're more useful as fodder. There is also a new table for how many of a given difficulty you can use per PC which should be really useful too. It's a shame that it wasn't all like this at launch but it looks like a big improvement.
>>97054940I took a flick through earlier and have similar opinions on it, I really think stretching the monsters out like that will make things a lot easier to use, and more consistent. The new diffs should also make it a load easier to actually build encounters too and if the new math is more accurate (which looks to be the case based on things like dragons and demons) then I think my last major concern of the game is squared away. I'd still like some more modification rules but that's a small issue with such a large bestiary.
Would a moon-based path in Shadow be celestial or shadow tradition focused? I know WW has moon celebrant that seems to be shadow tradition.
>>97055260Could be either, or both. It just really depends on the major thematic elements are. The Moon Celebrant gets Shadowmancy because Sister Moon's purview is about the night and secrets which is a better fit. And it's the thematic opposite of Astromancy (SotWW's equivalent to Celestial) which is her sister's domain and the two are linked. It also ties into Lord Death's vibes as well, who is her husband. But in SotDL the Maiden in the Moon has Celestial as part of her three because she's not about the night so much. She looks outwards to the universe more and while she shares the aspect of secrets she's more inclined to reveal information too. Although we'll know more about Sister Moon's deal soon enough and will have a Tradition of spells unique to her. Either way though there is justification for both just with the two takes on the moon goddess but you don't have to look to them for inspiration either.This isn't relevant but fun fact, SotWW having unique spells for its gods isn't a new addition. For a while in the play testing when Theurgy was still a Tradition, before becoming Invocation, you used to get access to a handful of spells in that Tradition based on your god. Sister Moon wasn't around back then, when the old gods were the Circle of the Thirteen, so no real insight into what she'll get.
>>97054586This art was absolutely diabolical and I wish the game had shipped with it.
>>97054940Where is this at?
>>97055658DTRPG Secrets update.
>Tons of enemies got their HP reduced>Lots of them will die in a single round of combat by a single lvl.1 playerThis seems a bit too harsh. Some of the higher difficulty enemies make more sense, but a lot of the lower end enemies are like wet paper. Maybe it will feel better in use than how it reads?
>>97058023I'm stoked for those changes. Fodder should feel like fodder and stuff that crumples like that is good for a heroic game. We're talking about literal peasants and big bugs too. Hopefully it'll also make Starting work better too.
>>97058792They already did feel like fodder. The average sword attack is going to deal 7 damage per round before anything else is even taken into account, and a lot of the lower tiered enemies now only have 10 health. Again, I'm hoping it plays better than it looks, but it looks like taking the initiative is pretty much always going to be your best bet against these mooks, since they'll get killed in a single round of combat in most circumstances before ever getting a chance to do anything.
Can someone please share the new DTRPG Secrets update or at-least the errata file?It not in the Trove. Thanks in advance!
>>97060032Schwalb is putting on his website for free at some point.
>>97054780You clearly haven't played one, or more probably both systems if you think they are vastly different and one is not a straight upgrade of the other. Fuck off with your trolling and take it to a different general. On the off chance that you're being sincere, quite trying to police language niggerfaggot, I can say whatever I want about whether the system is superior to its predecessor.
>>97059757I just don't see the potential issue. Mooks getting one-shot is how mooks should operate and for the lowest of the low end stuff you should, at the time you start, be cleaving through them for a heroic fantasy game. You're competent to start with so a literal peasants going down to one swing is ideal IMO. Taking the initiative and one tapping them just sounds like the appropriate thing to happen to me. You react before they do and with a single slash they're on the floor.
>>97062775Kinda makes the entire encounter pointless, doesn't it? At that point, why are we even rolling dice?
Can someone explain to me, how the Empire managed to keep the orcs obedient battleslaves? They were sent out in great numbers, armed to their teeth, often in far off lands. It should have been easy for whole armies of them to rebel, break their chains and establish communities in remote regions. Why didn't they do this before Drudge?
>>97064726They were magically created, and magically enslaved. So they literally couldn't. The whole reason the Empire was so lax about arming them, sending them to die, and just keeping thousands of them in one place was because they didn't think that magical bond of servitude was ever going to break.
>>97064759If I remember correctly, the orcs were created from jotun slaves trough dark magic by the Empire's wizards. Having since adopted the faith of the New God, the emperor should have banned everyone from using such magics long ago.
>>97064774Adopting a new faith wouldn't terminate existing magic like that and it's not as if empires are particularly keen to cute the legs out from their militaries.
>>97064726>>97064759>>97064774>>97064792found the sauce
>>97064921more sauce from the Caecras book
>>97064968They were so confident in the magic of this Ahriman dude that the lead-slave was even allowed to carry a greatsword in the presence of the Emperor. Kinda ridiculous.Who's this Ahriman guy anyway?
>>97065001sauce for the saucethrone
humbly requesting pic relatedtrove no haz it
>>97065001I mean they've been enslaved since their conception and it carried on through generations with no sign of ever breaking. Hard not to rely on a thing like that.
>>97065268You want the share thread.
>>97065449I believe it's also directly stated that the whole Orc uprising is a direct result of the Demon Lord's influence as well. Not exactly the kind of contingency you can plan for
>Barghest up to D8, health down to 30>D8 is the recommended difficulty to pit a single Master Path PC against>A lvl.7 PC who picks all paths of battle will dole out 6d6 + Weapon damage (usually 2d6), averaging 28/dpr before Path abilities have even come into play>Barghest deals an average of 10.5/dpr>A pure Path of Magic PC up to lvl.7 has 34 HealthThis math seems very weird to me.
>>97069612It seems fairly consistent from what I looked at, which I think is far and away the more important aspect. Broadly all of difficulty 8 is like that. Barghests are on the fragile end of the difficulty but can hit pretty hard, some other stuff is tougher but less damaging, etc. I think it's mostly just down to what you think "average" means. Personally, I think it might be running too easy now but so long as the curves make sense under a consistent framework I think it's a fairly minor "problem".
>>97034078Damn, the WW acts like a Shadow dragon's fire breath? The WW seems better overall if you go by an average numbers game even if it did something like 2d6 guaranteed then 3d6 or half of it with the challenge roll. Is there any spell in Shadow that deals damage then also has a save to halve additional damage?
>>97069612The math is fine, no idea what your issue here is even supposed to be.
>>97075023The fact that a single lvl.7 PC (using the recommended difficulty chart for a single Master Path character) going full PoB with a greatweapon has something like an 80+% to kill the creature in a single round of combat by taking the initiative and acting before it even has a chance to do anything. That doesn't seem right. The Health value seemed much better the way it was before at 40, where that same character only at a 20% of OTKing it.
>>97078214>The damage-focused PC will one-shot the fragile monster just under half the time if he hits itWow... Got any other retarded complaints?
>>97079030>Average difficulty>One shot the thing doing the most basic action in the game, with 90% of the path benefits not really mattering a whole lot.There cannot be a better example of "Easy Difficulty," unless there is a monster in the Beastiary that will literally kill itself upon being seen that I don't know about.
>>97081180You're clearly a lost 5e player. Real RPGs do not require encounters to last for 10 rounds at a minimum before one group of HP sponges run out of sponge to grind through. Kindly fuck off or adjust your expectations.
>>97081460that's a retarded arguement. Average difficulty isnt something a single player can stomp in a single round with the most basic of actions
>>97081600You don't play the game. You are the retard.
>>97081626Nice arguement anon. Care to explain why and how is this ok? Combat should last at least a few rounds. This is true even for the deadliest of osr or other high lethality systems.Muh not 5e, so everything must end in a single round is pure retardation
>>97081641 You've already refused all logical argumentation in favor of screeching "Reeee enemies should be damage sponges, how can you kill an enemy in less than 5 hours of combat that's insane!!!"All that's left is to decide whether or not you're the same troll that ruined the last thread.
>>97081665Yeah because combat lasting a few round and a higher level enemy withstanding 2-3 hits at the very least is a damage sponge like 4e/5e.You are either, illiterate, retarded, or strawmaning so hard just to win an inane arguement Either way, this sucks, its a fault of the system and your bulshit has no impact on reality.
>>97081692Yep, you're the same troll. Of course. Hope you're mad that the thread is still alive btw. I'm gonna make sure it stays alive too.
>>97081460If you think doling out an extra 10 damage is going to take 10 hours, you're a moron. It's about giving the monster a semi-okay chance to even get a single oppertunity to DO something. If the whole team gang bangs the creature, fine, it should die in a single round. But we're talking 1v1 "average difficulty" here, where this really shouldn't be happening, especially in a system where PC's basically control the entire flow of the turn order.I actually like this system, but this change is wildly questionable.
>>97081692>>97082232I don't know, man, as these things go it seems like the most trivial thing it complain about. It's a quibble over a preference that is incredibly easy to solve at the table and requires no homebrew of any sort. By all means, send Schwalb an email about it, but the actual problem the game had does seem to now be fixed.
>>97082267>the solution is figuring out what creatures are the outliers and adjusting difficulty based on individual creature's ability to perform completely divorced from the chalkange rating table providedSo right back to where we began, only now the known problems are unknowns. This doesn't seem to have fixed anything instead of just shaking up who the problem children are. I'm all for the new chart showing how generalized a fight can be based on a X:Y scale, but the scale needs to actually be balanced for it to work.
>>97082726It looks fine to me. The old problem was that difficulty wasn't entirely reliable as an indicator of difficulty, and that the gaps between difficulties lead to spikes. Both no longer seem the case. The current argument is just about if diff 8 is too easy to be "average" for Master tier PCs not that Barghest is somehow massively out of line. It's trivial to alter the challenge of encounters at the table and is so down to preference and group comp that I can't say I mind much if it's easier than my group prefers.
The 1d4c... i mean 1d6chan article on SotDL has been considerably updated. It had been in quite a sorry stasis state for years. Maybe this sign of life inspires some other shadowfag out there to expand on it. I'm quite happy with what has been written and would like to see it grow. I still have some grievance with it tho:All the info about SotWW you can find on 1d6chan is packed into the SotDL page. This might have been ok at the time of writing, when there was only the WW playtest available, but nowadays it feels really wrong.Now here's the thing: I don't know shit about WW and would rather give the DL artictle more of my neckbeard-love, than write up some shit about a game I never played and know nothing about.TL;DR: would some fa/tg/guy or ca/tg/irl with profession Sholar:Weird Wizard be so kind as to copypaste the stuff about WW from the DL page and create one for WW?Thank you! Have some SotDL canon furry-ogre in pic related
>>97083813Maybe this is your sign to give SotWW a read. It's all up on /SDL.
>>97084000I sure will at some point, but given I run a DL campaign and there is still a shitton of lore i haven't already read, my priorities are clear.
sot/d/l
>>97082232>If you think doling out an extra 10 damageYou're complaint is irrelevant because you think being able to, 38% of the time, one-shot a monster when you hit it (Already cutting your "DPR" calculation in half btw), is too much. You would not be satisfied until there's insane HP bloat and fights take fifty rounds to resolve and feel suitably "epic" and "challenging".That or in your mind "average" means "Takes at least 5 rounds and have a 50% chance of losing the fight".
>>97084516>38%That's assuming the PC is using a basic 2d6 weapon, and their path benefits offer them ZERO capability to deal additional damage past Bonus Damage Dice (that also ignores possible crit modifiers to damage as well; a Fighter gets to roll damage twice and take the highest on a result of a 19+ against that example monster, and is already rolling with a Boon to his attacks). But I see you've resorted to projection and strawman arguments, so frankly I don't expect much in the way of a serious retort from this point going forward. One shot killing an enemy before it gets a chance to do anything isn't "average difficulty" no matter how you swing it. End of story.
SotDL (shit of the diarrhea load)
>>97069612I'm assuming this is for WW, kinda weird how Shadow's revised stats made a bunch of monsters like orcs or medium animals a lot tanker but this change in WW seems to make them easier to kill.
>>97089706Especially baffling when enemies were already quick to die as it stood. You got players tossing 10d6 damage dice for basic weapon attacks and 15d6 auto hits for spells by lvl7.
>2025>8 December (DLE/SRM): Shadow of the Red Moon Player’s Guide & Shadow of the Red Moon: Door to Darkness>15 December (SDL): Dungeon of the Damned Part 6 of 11>27 ecember (SWW): Rage of the Goblin King Part 4 of 10>2026>5 January (SWW): Mysteries of the Old Gods—Hate>12 January (SDL): Dungeon of the Damned Part 7 of 11>19 January (DLE): Book of Demons>26 January (SWW): Mysteries of the Old Gods—The Pale Lady>2 February (BS): Wicked Cults--Beloved of Euphobia>9 February (SWW): Rage of the Goblin King Part 5 of 10>16 February (DLE/SRM): Skin in the Game>23 February (SWW): From Hell’s Heart quest)>2 March (SDL): Dungeon of the Damned Part 8 of 11>9 March (SDL): Orc Wars 4 of 12>16 March (SDL): Dungeon of the Damned 9 or 11>23 March (SWW): Rage of the Goblin King Part 6 of 10>30 March (SDL): Dungeon of the Damned Part 10 of 11>6 April (SDL): Return of the Witch-King Part 7 of 12>13 April (SDL): Dungeon of the Damned Part 11 of 11>20 April (SWW): Mysteries of the Old Gods--Want>27 April (SDL): Orc Wars 5 of 12
>>97034078SOTWW, since it always sucks to roll high and then see that shit get halved on a save.
>>97092172Funny how the end result is essentially the same, but the method that's far quicker to execute somehow comes off feeling "worse" than the other.
My question is, how should fights even feel in SotWW?Quick like an OSR bloodbath? Slow af like 4e? Middle ground? SotDL fights lean on the quick and bloody side, especially on lower levels. But should fights be balanced like in pf2e? Or should they be swingy in difficulty like in Shadowdark?As long as we can't aggree on what kind of a game should SotWW feel like, I think arguements about changes like this are kind of pointless, since I have no idea what Schwalb wanted to do here. What do you think?
>>97093637You re not wrong, per se, but i dont think that people expect something along the lines of SoDL which was more deadly than 5e but less than an osr game, which is where most fantasy games that aren't osr should strive to be either way as it is something of a more healthy medium.Then of course you can argue where within the range should the game fall exactly
>>97093637It's pretty easy; the game should feel like your options matter. If enemies die too quickly for a lot of Path benefits to ever really make an impact (a lot are responses to players being attacked, or enemies getting a couple of turns to do shit), then a lot of them no longer matter. When enemies are too squishy and easily disposed of, stakes are gone and the best strategy will always be to deal as much damage as possible to warp action economy in your team's favor.I'm all on board with some adjustments that were clearly too swinging in the direction of enemies being multi-round tanks (with the caveat being there should at least be SOME in the beastiary that actually are for variety), but when you make enemies too easy, it's often far worse. Nobody short of a spell caster blowing one of their Master tier damage spells should be wiping an average difficulty enemy off the map in a single round. If they are, there literally is no point to the difficulty rating anymore, it's all piss easy (you literally cannot get easier than OTKing a monster with a single basic attack. That's overleveled JRPG tier baby mode).Combat should be balanced around 2-3 rounds on average. This gives all paths a chance to shine, enemies able to do what they're designed to do, players the oppertunity to make solid decisions while utalizing all of their combat options, and to chip away at PC resources. And since the turn order in this game is much faster without traditional rules for initiative, those 2-3 turns shouldn't take long to accomplish, otherwise the turn system is a complete failure it what it was designed to do.But yeah, Rob is the only one who seemingly knows the target goals he's shooting for when making these changes, but they don't look like they're helping the game other than forcing GMs to flood the board with more dudes, which hilariously does MORE damage for slowing the game down.
>>97094271The game goes up to diff 128. Acting like diff 8 is somehow defining the entire scale is wild. You have so much room to make encounters more difficult and you should use it if you're bitching about it being too easy. I even agree diff 8 is too easy for average at Master but it barely matters. The game doesn't functionally change if 8 is bumped to 16.
>>97093637Honestly, it's a flexible game. In general it's reasonably fast, rarely over 5+ rounds, and you're generally pretty hardy and dying is pretty uncommon. The major threat of combat is resource depletion and your max health is a resource which can be chipped down by a fair amount of things. PCs are heroic though and while there are plenty of monsters able to stomp them into the ground it's not the kind of game where you're going to be scared of every monster you come up against. The way the game scales though does mean you can run it as super heroic with no major threats, or very tough where death is likely in every encounter. It's more of a quest-by-quest basis there than an overall curve. Some premade quests are really tough while others aren't nearly so threatening. But that's the whole game. It's not dark fantasy all the time, it's not heroic fantasy all the time. It never gets as dark as SotDL does but it doesn't shy away from darkness or horror either. Which goes for the premade quests too. Plenty of those are pretty brutal.
>>97094524And once again, we're right back where we originally where, where the difficulty scale is largely meaningless. So why change it at all in the first place? You're still going to need to find out where the "sweet spot" is through trial and error again. If the scale isn't an accurate representation of encounter building, then the rework was pointless.
>>97094974The difficulty scale averages didn't change. The sweet spot is not going to be the same at any table and will always require you knowing the game.
>>97090104>>Shadow of the Red Moon Player’s Guide & Shadow of the Red Moon: Door to Darkness>>Mysteries of the Old Gods—Hate>>Book of Demons>>Mysteries of the Old Gods—The Pale Lady>>Mysteries of the Old Gods--WantBased.
D8 and lower got their health reduced>Somehow, the game managed to make Ruffian even MORE useless, since it's ability to double BBD against targets inflicted with fear (basically nothing D16+ due to immunities) ends up being meaningless when shit dies in a single hit regardlessJust scrap the Master Path at this point, jfc.
>>97096254Less than half of stuff 16+ is gonna be immune to frightened under the new rules, but even then if you're only relying on frightened for the ruffian you're doing something wrong. Ruffian (potentially) gets a nice spike from frightened at 10 but really does the most good when there are lots of afflictions about.
