I took 10 HP from Trees

Over the last couple hours I took to taking out trees from the fence line of a 10 acre ranch property. In that process I faced more signifigant challenge than one would honestly expect even if you are a d20 proffesional. I am not joking! Between thorns and wild swings of the hand axe I have to have taken 10 hp. I mean my shoulder is going to be sore for days, with bedrest!

The limbs of the trees thwacked me several times, and some of them had thorns. None of the trees were tall so this actually made them more resiliant and springy insomuch as hacking through a real tree trunk with limbs far above me would not have resulted in as many 1hp pings. Note, I have alergy plant so in addition to a half dozen thorn and branch knicks I will also be effectively poisoned for like 20 subdule damage from poison effect. Ouch.

Another point of fact is I fumbled an equipment roll somehow when I stood up suddenly after having been knelt over pulling up roots of a bush and woop my glasses flew off and literally snapped in twain on the back of my hand axe. Arg. And! Either I dont have prof: simple weapons, my str score is too low without weapon finess, or there is some sort of trap CR based on the act of deforesting a fence line that makes you take a reflex save for every attack because I about lost that dang thing half a dozen times. Maybe I have some negative 'weak grip' trait that makes it harder to handle the hand axe? I literally thonked my thumb with it, but I was luckily wearing leather gloves and wasnt swinging hard enough to do more than jam it.

One thing that I am obviously reafirmed of after swinging an axe for two hours is the need for some kind of fatigue system that affects when you have been exerting yourself even for a few minutes. What is interesting that I feel as tho ( myself anyhow ) I feel as tho I get to fatiged after the first couple combat rounds, but them dont get signifigantly more fatigued for as much as a few hours of continuing at the same pace. As tho simply having exerted myself for more than one consecutive combat round made me fatigued, but it wasnt until about the end of the second hour of sustained exertion ( usually only 3-10 rounds at a time interspersed with walking ) that then I wanted to stop and have a cigarette. Having done many things like this before I am also well aware that the prolonged fatigue will be alleviated by a simple ten minutes of breathing and basically standing still.

This is all Second Wind / BST thoughts, and rather than start getting into numbers and score arrays and algorythims I will say,

Intersting,

Check out more BST stuff on CompleteSRD.wikidot and join the group to contribute :D

The Hunt Check

I do most of my contemplations of system in the completely open and available 'Revised 3rd Edition' flavor of the Open Game Rules. I have a website with a decent set of links and some spattering of stuff I started two years ago on Complete SRD. The last three Chamber Plays that I was participant in were so called 'Three point five plus alpha' games. Something I liked calling '3.75' in the days before the fourth edition of the rules base was developed. I prefer to call it the Third Edition Open Game base, or something similar. Fourth Edition uses certain rule variants that become unseemly with the Third Edition, and despite all rational thought and conclusions I have *not* read the OSRIC Project. Yet. As I was saying, I am thinking primarily in Third Edition terms when I rulify. Squabbly little details like second winds and healing surges aside the underlying systems are the same, but like writing code.

While what you wrote may mean the same thing to a human, to the rules it don't.

Sitting outside the Fourth Edition and Pathfinder arena's as I am at the moment makes me wonder if they are still using the RAW language to debate the details and consequences of certain literal statements. In RAW a rock is an improvised club. In my book you can use the 'craft action' (DC 22) as that little movement when you heft the rock in your hand and get the weight. In the hands of the master weaponsmith negating the improvised weapon penalty is easy for simple weapons like club and quarterstaff. Its not RAW, but I use a standard 'in combat' +10 modifier to craft checks when you are trying to do stuff that would normally take weeks in a manner of moments. Ahh, idea.. wait, what was I posting here about? Is that an Int Check or Wis Check? Hunt check.

It is my opinion that the so called track check is not good enough. One of the things I am a very big fan of is also one of the things that keeps me away from moving to the Fourth Edition arena. From the long view I can tell that all the functions are semi isolated. I prefer, to make actions like Track into a large and universally available system that individual character traits can improve and alter. Track strikes me as a very fourth edition rule. You can use this system if you have the track feat or you have the scent attribute. Without these traits hunting something through the city or woods is ..maybe.. a gather information check accompanied by a series of combat awareness checks (spot) ..maybe? 'Hunting' perse is a simple survival check. Roll a d20 get better than ten and you 'survive' in the wilderness. That is pretty much it out of the completely available material. I haven't seen allot of development in the 'hunt' department of the OGL.

Track is not even really the common skill I am referencing. Tracking is a noncombat action, and I am definitely thinking more in the terms of 'hunting a deer' action in this specific instance. Admittedly it is a fairly simple exercise to have a PC take a couple pot shots with a longbow and say they killed a deer, but that really doesn't build up dicitement. I am thinking something along the lines of Shadowrun's chase mechanism. Opposed checks based off of Attack Bonus and perhaps intelligence?

They say man is the most difficult prey to hunt..... anyway. A thought of the day.

World of Darkness One Rote

Contemplating around things, and thinking of funny jokes one of those, like 'chehehe' ideas. A real :ROFL: idea. Ya know when you contemplate flying satanists, shapechanging panda bears, and the assorted version of will working and magic ..believe that these things are in some distant echo of possibility and are want to weave these thoughts into some sort of experiencable phenomena of play. I came up with a Euthanatos / VA rote. Wanna hear about it? Here it go,

A reality hacker plans a modification to a computer algorythm. More than the simple actions, but the entire experience of redesigning the program. This rote prepared the mage could instantaniously apply the task to the designated target. *Magic* This would require some form of data storage prime/spirit/mind rote to prepare, and some fashion of quintessence spenditure. If spirit an action on the other side, if prime ..well, if mind the memory might be sacrificed or stamped depending. Fin! Rote:System Hack.

In dice this would be a rote activation roll (arete) to create the storage space. Possibly a social roll, if you are using the spirit sphere. The Storyteller then performs the same series of skill checks that would need to take place to hack the system in question. You may or may not then require a containment or storage roll (arete) again so that the actions are maintained (paradox induced failures are a possibility here) and then! The spell casting itself, aka the fun part. You would be bop your way into the place that the spell is to go off and trigger it with another arete roll. If your curious 'arete' means 'understanding' in like Greek or Etruscan or something. SUccess results in the hack substantiating instantly, failure ..well that is the fun part about this particular magical system. Failure could mean ..anything.

Mage The Ascension is not about fireballs and dragons. The theme of this story play setting is that of nearness to reality. How would this, *really work? Magic being 'not as easy as falling off a log' but a simple action that is contingent upon the character's comprehension of reality. The idea is simple. The more you know, the more you can effect. Realms of understanding are differentiated into 'spheres' that define the mechanical aspect of what kind of phenomena you are able to create. Paradox represents the *gap* between the character's understanding and the reality of the situation. A matter rote extends the character's comprehension beyond human ken. A forces rote turns the flow of gas in a pipe to trigger an explosion. Paradox occurs.

No matter what, the mage's arete is insufficient to alter the very fabric of reality directly. Though these are the understandings of the sphere's of entropy and prime. Destruction and Creation. Should a mage utilize more than the first rank (the observational) allowances of the sphere at least a single paradox will occur. Using matter one to analyze the pipe is fine, reality has not been altered. Your character has simply become aware of information that ultimately his avatar is already aware of. Using the allowances of force two in order to push onto reality creates the 'push back' of reality itself. In the pipe example two paradox would occur, unless the character in question has a rote for this spell. Rotes can be pretty wild, bunkish even, but wonton will working relying on nothing more than your comprehension of existence automatically produces paradox ~ expressly due to your lack of understanding in what it was that you did. You don't have any idea *how* you did what you did, you simply understand that it is possible. You flex your willpower and viola!

Learning D20

Learning is an interesting subject to consider when contemplating D20. 3D20, 4D20, or 5D20. How is it that learning is handled? In many systems, and in many games the rule is as such. 'I the conductor tells you that you learned something, and instructs you to write it on your sheet' and that's that. One friend of mine uses a numerically vertical system to mechanically handle learning. This is a 5D20 dot system. When you succeed at a check, you get a dot. When your dots equal your value regarding that skill your value goes up by one. Quest for Glory and the Elder Scrolls systems use this kind of numerically vertical utilize and benefit system. I consider that to be a worthy and emminatly playable system. I also consider innacurate in the terms of verisimilitude. In reality you should learn most from your failures than you sucesses, as the old addage says. Success breeds regularity and rutine. Hard work is regular, successful, and yes familiarity comes with regular use of any system. However, it is more in the 'I'll never do that again' moments, than the development of habits (and often the cause of the development of habits) that one should call learning. imo.

I prefer spot attribution of experience and learning, but cnsidering the amount of time shift and miss that occures in the system during the narritive.. you are looking at countless scads of unquantified skill checks that are occurring conceptually, but not provoking reaction from conductor or players as the incident occurred outside the narrative. I have thought on this often, and a 'Learning System' is an intended major feature of the Complete SRD.

Time Management ~ 3d20 cyberpunk hero

Time Maximization

You have a character. She is a hyper computer tech, and she wants to maximize her click through rate for a monotonous task. She has a job with a tech company and they want her to implement a process and training procedure for this new task. The task is ..name indexing and crm management for a large research company named ..Vantage! They happen to be the subsidiary of a villinous corporate cult, but your Vigilante computer hero don't know that.. yet! You are playing in a 3d20 varient of the 3rd edition Shadowrun system¹ :smile:

( :heh: ¡ this would make a good ecad article if I cut the :cheeky. ) ²

To start with a player decision would be called for. Do you want to use programing or process to streamline the process. An MPC³ would set the cognitive die to intelligence in the long term check to determine that process is the solution in this case. A player should be expected to make these desicion and save as part of the cognitive die when they make the check. An MPC does not make saves. The challenge die is set to the computer skill, and the constitution die is set to stressed due to the other long term checks that are being maintained by your hero. The check in this case is shared. As part of your player decision you also decide to use a contact to help with developing a training module for your characters efficiency maximized click path (with keyboard shortcuts). You decided to use a contact because your character would have needed to set the challenge die to profession in order to create the training module. In this case the contact is your friend and fellow player. This will be how your teo characters are brought together in the narrative of the story play. The first scene will be the meeting of you characters, and that scene will also be the location of the other two players work. They will not be involved in this long term check except on the saves. You roll 3d20.

Bam! Turns out the waiter (one of the other two players) fails the constitution save. Everyones checks go fine otherwise. The click path is made and ready for the scene. The training module is 90% made because you already have the path from another module, the specific click paths simply need to be punched in, and the fluff text is best left to Vantage anyhow :smirk: the project is all but done when you are meeting each other in the classy restaurant. Then, :smirk: the waiter (who did not call in sick to work even though he should have) sneezes ..horribly!

Now, talk. You ~ are in the kitchen.

This is the start of a game. If I had premade characters. I could. Run this game right now. As easy as I wrote this. Direct stream of thought, complete with Typos™

¹ That I am fabricating on the fly as I write this. Cognitive, Challenge, Constitution! Perfect! ¹

² No :hm: or :ha: ..dude ²

³ Mechanical Player ..Conducted Character? CC? C5 system? C7 system? ³

How do you get a Job?

Lets say you are a fifth level Aristocrate. Roll Gather Information. A tenth gen Sabat Pander? Roll streetwise plus manipulation. Power rating ten Mutant? A Knowledge check might suffice, but a contact would be a more likely choice. If you are a SIN-less Shadowrunner then you will most deffinatly using a contact. That begs the question. If you are a SIN-less Shadowrunner and your real job job required you to get a fake job inside an office compley? Now that will take a couple of rolls. Lets examine the scenario of a day job in 2062.
You have no SIN. Social security number, for a post apocolyptic United Canadian American States. First purchase is a fake one of those. Street level contact, couple hundred nuyen, no problem. Next a background check on yer new self. Not even a hundred nuyen. Credit check, pocket change. Call to the local court house for a warrant check, free from a payphone. That's one contact roll and one streetwise check. You could have it all 'taken care of' by a class 3 fixer, but your a DIY guy. So you know who you are, and you know what is going to come back when someone checks on ya. Your ready to go chummer.
Walk into the place with pride. Acting roll. Slot your stolen resume and act casual, forgery. Wait for superior slash supervisor to reply, and then explain why you are not coming through normal channels without mentioning that you are not coming through normal channels. You could try and bribe one of the late night employees into suggesting you as a friend referal, but being related to the owner or going to school with the owner's cousin's daughter is right out. Fastalk or Con Artist roll ..or bribery. Then? Well, wait ..either you have the job or you flopped one of your rolls. It's either red team go! or plan b. Shoot everybody and camp out till Lone Star comes after you with drones.
There ya go. Getting a Job Shadowrunner style. The Aristocrat example is still buzzing in my mind. Maybe I'll do it next time. Maybe..

Conducting One's Morning

A morning cup of coffee. I'm not talking about when you get river water in your face while white water rafting. I am speaking of the wakemeup. More expresely a morning ritual. Everyone has a morning ritual. Mine includes ciggarettes and yoga. Preferably two, and a good putter round the vincity. Some people are up and at em with a lightning quickness, and some people take nice long showers and shave while still rubbing the blur of dreams from their eyes. Along with eating and breathing waking up from sleep is a universal experience. Oddly enough waking up is a subject I have scarcely seen addressed in Story Play rule systems.
D&D 3ED has some reference to the phenomena. Specifically in order to be used in combat scenarios. In this case a listen check to successfully notice the need and a will save with flat DC. This mechanic does well to simulate a mid night ambush wherin you will awaken surging with adrenalin. I have used the mechanic several times successfully. The Storyteller system has a reference to slumber in the extented merits and flaws system. The trait 'deep sleeper' makes it more difficult to rouse your character. There is also a trait called nightmares in the Storyteller system that I am familiar with that gives you a one in six chance of awakening without having gained the benefits of sleeping, but where is that morning ritual?
Should you want to characterize the phenomena of the morning ritual and how it impacts a character I suggest we take a look at the Video Game 'Fallout' Fallout 3 specifically. In this video game your pixel is granted a boon of increased experience points per kill when they have had a full nights rest. Keeping in mind that the pixel also suffers absolute zero penalties for not sleeping, even for as long as two weeks worth of in game time, the express mechanic does not translate well to the story play. But, the idea is there. Benefit the character in some way for using their morning ritual.
Perhaps a bonus to perception? Perhaps a bonus action point? Perhaps a bonus die on certain tasks? One way or another granting the character a boon for having 'properly prepared' themselves for the day. This boon reflects the benefits of performing a morning ritual. An SRD example would be to grant the character the benefits of the alertness feat for six hours after the morning ritual. A Storyteller example would be to reduce all mental targets by one for six hours. If you really wanted to go wild with this idea you could.
Say you are playing 'Offices and Officials' (an imaginary game of keeping a day job and paying your taxes) what you could do is actually hammer out ten or twenty morning rituals (from yoga and ti chi to coffee and blogging) that provide different boons to your workaday character. Coffee could grant you a plus four alertness for three hours while yoga could grant you a plus two for six hours. Blogging increases your typing speed for the day while ti chi increases your balance. For the more serious blood and guts player morning rituals need not be restricted to Clerics and Druids who worship with the morning sun. An hour of stretching and excersise in the morning could grant a warrior character with a +1 to con and dex for the day!
Mornin!