Dungeons and Dragons Online

[schild]

Sometime in the late 80's/90's didn't munchkin become a term for someone who uses an uber-templated character, likely fudges his stats, and always tries to steal the loot first. In addition, he asks if everything is Magical.

Speaking of, hmmmm. I wonder if there's a client with dice rolls and somesuch, and we could run an AD&D campaign over teamspeak. That would be...interesting.

[Samwise]

I use AIM for online gaming and it works pretty well.  There's a dice roller built in, and being able to save the log is incredibly handy when figuring out XP (or for people who missed the session and want to know what went on).

[schild]

Hmmmm, if enough people are into this, I would be intensely interested in being a player in such a thing. There aren't enough people where I live that would be remotely interesting to play with. Shall we start another thread on this? Does some proactive soul want to pick a world, etc?

[Samwise]

You tempt me horribly.  What are your feelings on Call of Cthulhu?

[schild]

Never played it, always wanted to. Hit me up on one of the instant messenger services. We'll talk about getting an f13 game going.

Everyone else: return to talking about DDO.
Everyone else who wants to play - send me a PM.

[Sky]

(e.g. conning the DM into letting them play a lizard man with +5 natural armor and no significant drawbacks).

Well, shit. I used to love players that tried that kind of crap. Turns out the town the party needs to base out of is incredibly racist against non-humans. Lizards in particular, they have been raided by lizardmen in the past. Player is lynched and killed.

But really, I'd never let someone play an inappropriate race in the first place.

Or you could be like one tournament DM I got stuck with back in the 80s, I was entered in the tourney with my lead singer. He was a thief and I was a mage/thief. Party had us scouting ahead, stealthed. We pocketed everything not tied down, unbeknownst to the party. The DM was pissed about that, and rather than handle it in a mature fashion (tougher traps, alarm, etc)...he sent in invisible teleporting ninjas. I shit you not. Had to bring the officiator of the event over to protest it, and he was reprimanded and we moved on to the next round, because we scored so high with our lewtz and assassinations and whatnot. Good times.

[Daeven]

Speaking of, hmmmm. I wonder if there's a client with dice rolls and somesuch, and we could run an AD&D campaign over teamspeak. That would be...interesting.

I've run full fledged PnP campaigns online via OpenRPG (http://www.openrpg.com/). It works great.

[HaemishM]

Speaking of, hmmmm. I wonder if there's a client with dice rolls and somesuch, and we could run an AD&D campaign over teamspeak. That would be...interesting.

I've run full fledged PnP campaigns online via OpenRPG (http://www.openrpg.com/). It works great.

I'd be up for a "Gaslight" era Call of Cthulu RPG game. I love that era.

[Sky]

I'd be interested....but our last attempt at an online p-n-p game ended before I could take my first turn (I was introduced several turns into the game)...

[Samwise]

That happened our first few online sessions too.  I just started evolving methods to keep things moving along, such as imposing limits on how long you have to tell me what the hell you're doing that round (and if your action is something that requires a die roll, you need to roll the dice when you declare the action, to cut out the extra latency that die rolls usually introduce).  Things go at least twice as fast if the GM keeps the pressure on.

[jpark]

If you guys are going to do a pen and paper session - how are you going to simulate a server shutdown or lag? 

[WayAbvPar]

Count me among the interested parties.

[Samwise]

If you guys are going to do a pen and paper session - how are you going to simulate a server shutdown or lag? 

Send a bottle or 7 of good scotch to the GM.  I can attest that it works really well.

Samwise415 (7:27:38 PM): oh, like THAT proved your innocense
Samwise415 (7:27:42 PM): censece
Samwise415 (7:27:43 PM): cence
Yevaud333 (7:27:45 PM): lol
Samwise415 (7:27:45 PM): fuck

[WindupAtheist]

So DDO is going to have a chance, however small after cleric buffs, of players being instakilled by enemy spells?   

Niche game.

[Samwise]

So DDO is going to have a chance, however small after cleric buffs, of players being instakilled by enemy spells?   

Almost any game has a chance of instakills under certain circumstances.  If you're a level 1 character and you draw aggro from a level 100 mob, odds are it will instakill you.  If you're a level 100 character and you strip off all your gear, the same might be true, depending on the game.  And even if you are properly equipped, shit sometimes happens.  Whether you die from taking more damage than you have hitpoints or from an "instakill" is a meaningless distinction.

Wait and see how it plays out in the game before judging this one.  Based on my experience with PnP, I suspect it won't have nearly the impact on gameplay that you think it will, and much of my PnP experience is with versions of D&D with a lot more instakill effects than 3.5 has.  Since I started playing 3.5 I haven't seen a single instakill effect in game.

[shiznitz]

Kind of like the Explosion+hally hit days of UO!

I agree that getting one-shotted in anything other than an epic encounter sucks, but we aren't talking about permanent character death here. Death in DDO will just be a timesink like all the other MMOs, I imagine.

[Samwise]

Never played it, always wanted to. Hit me up on one of the instant messenger services. We'll talk about getting an f13 game going.

Everyone else: return to talking about DDO.
Everyone else who wants to play - send me a PM.

Bah.  AIM Express sucks donkey dick today, and it's the only one I can use at work.  Going to start a thread, if you don't mind terribly.

[schild]

Go for it.

[WindupAtheist]

You guys are forgetting that this isn't going to be PnP players, it's going to be MMOG players.  Thousands of people are going to grind and catass and end up taking on the uber instakilling monsters a hell of a lot more often than PnP players would, hence they're going to soak up a lot more instakills.

And they're going to scream.  In volume proportionate to the ressurrection penalty.  All over the forums.

I don't see what the point of leaving these in even is, except slavish devotion to PnP rules to the exclusion of MMOG common sense.

[Samwise]

The more you punish a catass, the more addicted he will be to your game.  It makes his accomplishments all the more valuable, at least in his mind, if he has to go through unimaginable pain to get there.   

[shiznitz]

The more you punish a catass, the more addicted he will be to your game.  It makes his accomplishments all the more valuable, at least in his mind, if he has to go through unimaginable pain to get there.   

So true.

[jpark]

The more you punish a catass, the more addicted he will be to your game.  It makes his accomplishments all the more valuable, at least in his mind, if he has to go through unimaginable pain to get there.   

Well put. 

[Alkiera]

Default 3.5 penalty for death, if you manage to get a rez, or someone spends 5k exp to Wish you back to life, is you lose a level.  You're set to the exp value halfway to the level you used to be, no matter how far you were into that level.


W

Speaking of, hmmmm. I wonder if there's a client with dice rolls and somesuch, and we could run an AD&D campaign over teamspeak. That would be...interesting.

I've run full fledged PnP campaigns online via OpenRPG (http://www.openrpg.com/). It works great.

This looks pretty cool.  Maybe I can manage to get disparately located people online to play a game now that they've moved to the four winds.

Alkiera

[Miasma]

Default 3.5 penalty for death, if you manage to get a rez, or someone spends 5k exp to Wish you back to life, is you lose a level.  You're set to the exp value halfway to the level you used to be, no matter how far you were into that level.

Wow, that's very punitive, especially if you only have 20 levels. What happens if you don't get a rez of some sort? Or do you have to get a rez in order to play again?

[WindupAtheist]

Betcha this stabilizes around 100k subs at best.  That's way too hardcore/catass to pull anyone away from even EQ2.

[jpark]

Betcha this stabilizes around 100k subs at best.  That's way too hardcore/catass to pull anyone away from even EQ2.

Possible.  I just think it's too early to make predictions (but that's the fun I know).  As CoH and WoW demonstrated - clean execution means a lot too and cannot be inferred from pure design or license discussions.  So execution has emerged as a much bigger variable in these games I think which is hard to get a handle on in early phases.

[Alkiera]

Default 3.5 penalty for death, if you manage to get a rez, or someone spends 5k exp to Wish you back to life, is you lose a level.  You're set to the exp value halfway to the level you used to be, no matter how far you were into that level.

Wow, that's very punitive, especially if you only have 20 levels. What happens if you don't get a rez of some sort? Or do you have to get a rez in order to play again?

If your character doesn't get a rez, they're just dead.  Like every other PnP RPG I'm familiar with, D&D has permadeath.  The only one I know of that does not use permadeath is Paranoia, and you only have 5 clones, afterwhich the master computer decides you're worthless.

Really, tho, with an actual person there managing the encounter and able to fudge dice-rolls, you shouldn't have to deal with characters dying much, unless the players are dumb.

Alkiera

[SirBruce]

Just so you know, these issues are already addressed in the DDO FAQ:

What happens when my character dies?

Character death will be something to be avoided – there will definitely be a penalty to pay when your character dies. However, your characters cannot be permanently killed in Dungeons & Dragons Online.

[NEW] In PnP D&D, characters can get taken out very quickly by instant death spells (Finger of Death, Disintegrate, etc.). How will these spells be handled in DDO?

According to our resident PnP D&D expert, most DMs reserve these types of spells for special encounters, and give their characters fair warning before facing them. We’re taking the same approach in DDO – high-level characters don’t have to deal with these spells every time they turn a corner, but they probably want to be protected by a death ward spell before they take on that really powerful necromancer.

Bruce

[WindupAtheist]

So if Akiera is done telling me about PnP rules when I'm asking about an MMO...

Is there a full one level death penalty?  And are these warding spells 100% effective?  Because instadeath in any form plus a full level penalty are insanity in an MMO.

[Sky]

Wow. That death system sounds like garbage. Lose between 1/2 to 1 1/2 a level on death, only avoidable by a wish spell (and another players exp loss). And there are instakill spells in the game.

Next.

[Alkiera]

Wow. That death system sounds like garbage. Lose between 1/2 to 1 1/2 a level on death, only avoidable by a wish spell (and another players exp loss). And there are instakill spells in the game.

Next.

That's the D&D 3.5 default penalty.  Whether that's the penalty DDO will use, or not, I don't know.

Death Ward is a 4th level spell for Clerics, Paladins, and a 5th level spell for Druids.
This means they have access to it starting at level 9.  Makes you immune to all magical death effects, as well as negative energy effects, and energy drains.

The list of spells that can ressurect people is longer than just Wish.
Cleric 5th - Raise Dead, requires 5k gold in diamonds as component, requires corpse
Druid 4th - Reincarnate, requires 1k in oils as component and piece of dead body, generates entirely new body, of random race.
Cleric 7th - Resurrection, requires 10k in diamonds and holy water and piece of corpse, restores complete body.
Cleric 9th - True Resurrection, requires 25k in diamonds and holy water.

Also,
Sorc/Wiz 9th - Wish, can duplicate a res spell above, but costs caster 5k exp. (to get from 19 to 20 requires 19,000 exp, to keep things in perspective.)  Also has same component costs if they are 10k gold or more.

The main difference between the cleric spells are the amount of the corpse is needed to cast the spell successfully, the length of time since death that the spell will work(10 days for raise dead, 10 years/caster level for true resurrection), and the state the formerly dead person is in when they are resurrected. 

Those money amounts sound excessive?  Keep in mind, a +1 weapon costs 2k gold above the base weapon cost...  and you can get one of those pretty easily by 4 or 5, sometimes earlier.  Also, magic items are more available than normal in Eberron, but still worth the same amount.  Basically, inflation means 5000 gp woth of diamonds isn't all THAT much money to adventurers.

Also...  This is all PnP D&D info.  I'm pretty sure the devs will be changing things some for the sake of fun.  They have mentioned making changes to other abilities, but have released no details on the death penalty.

Alkiera

[Samwise]

Seen the Ghostwalk campaign setting?  Upon reading that I immediately thought it'd make a great MMOG setting, because death in that setting is very much like death in a MMOG - your ghost becomes corporeal and drags your body to the nearest temple for a rez.  No level loss.  This happens because the setting is right at the edge of the veil between life and death; ghosts can assume physical form very easily (making it possible for them to tote their corpses around, or even keep adventuring), and resurrection is so much easier that close to the veil that there's no level loss trauma.  It's like getting a flat tire fixed.

So there's certainly precedent in D&D for cheap and easy resurrection.

[waylander]

There is a new dev diary up where they are going to use the point system for magic users rather than the tradition Spells per day x PC level.  It makes sense to me, but I hope they have enough rest areas around.  Mages don't start kicking a lot of butt until level 10+.

[Alkiera]

Hrm, I'll have to read it.  It seems to be a pretty common solution for online games, I played a d20 MUD that used a point system for spellcasters.

EDIT: Read it, they are using something based on the spellpoint system in Unearthed Arcana, which is similar, apparently, to how the psionic power point system works.  Psionic power base costs are based on spell level, lvl 1 is 1 pt, lvl 2 is 3, and so on.  Basically, (spell level * 2) - 1.  Then you get a number of points based on your level and high casting stats.  If you prepare spells, you can prepare what spells you wish within the limits of your points, otherwise you can just cast spells and pay power like your average 'mana' based system.  It's pretty useful.

Alkiera

[Sky]

There is a new dev diary up where they are going to use the point system for magic users rather than the tradition Spells per day x PC level.  It makes sense to me, but I hope they have enough rest areas around.  Mages don't start kicking a lot of butt until level 10+.

At what point is it D&D in name only?