I think WoW being in that list is pretty unfair.


Also, apparently everyone secretly plays CoC and doesn't talk about it, which was a real shock. It's like the fight club of video games.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combat ... .htm#cover



Lick my balls, yo.

I'm still buying 5 horses - 4 for each of my corners, and one that I'll rig on a harness above me to stop those pesky harpies from dropping stones on me.

With my HorseCover and my Ringmail Of Rings Of Protection, there will be no stopping me. I'll be like a tank inside of a forcefield inside a ball of adamantium.

No problem. +2 to AC.

Your mother possesses questionable morals.

That's all I gave anyone. A guy trying to take cover behind a horse, I decided, was +2. When standing next to a horse, an arrow has to go through the horse to hit most of his torso. The legs aren't such great cover, though, which is why it's +2. This is also why someone laying down next to a horse doesn't get a +6 as PCs seem to think is appropriate right up until the moment I start playing with that shit.

On the other hand, if someone is ~70 feet away from an archer and there is a horse at roughly the midpoint...? I'm not seeing any way in which that is cover. An arrow arcs over a horse to hit that guy. There's no cover from something that's not in the way.


Then we have to asshole bringing in the "Quick side duck to receive bonuses from all directions." Don't look at me for that one.


In short, my mother's morals seem fine, but she is insane. She called me Saturday morning to talk at me. I still don't know why. Words just kept coming out.

By the official rules, the horse provides +4 to AC.

The reason I was in hysterics (and am smiling even now) is how quickly a new thing, when added in, suddenly collapses the arbitrary system and suddenly it's very detailed stuff, based on horse shapes. So you'd duck down and I'd picture a horse standing where you were gesturing and being like why is this crazy man near me.

And the reason I'm teasing is the sudden rule changes. Like the horses weren't there, then they were, and everything just changed from round to round, and then there was a bonus to AC that we'd never known we could get, etc.




Whatever you come up with will work wonderfully. If you're willing to suckle an imaginary mare for realism, I know we're all gonna have a good time with whatever model you apply. But for tactics sake, we just need to know what's going on with the board, so do give it some thought!



For reference, here's the official rules on it:
(cover)
Creatures provide "soft cover". This is +4 to AC, but it doesn't give reflex bonuses or the ability to make a Hide check. Missing by 2 doesn't trigger a roll against the creature that was giving you cover- it's just a miss.

Creatures provide "soft cover" with the same rules as anything else for cover. Cover is determined by the attacker. The attacker chooses a corner of any of his spaces, and choose one of the defender's spaces. Lines are drawn from the corners of the selected attacker's space to each corner of the destination's space. If any of these lines passes through something that blocks line of effect from whatever is being fired, then the defender has cover. This means that if the attacker can choose a corner with unbroken LOE, then there's no cover, and if he can't, then there is.

This page covers cover (lewl!):
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm


When I brought up this cover rule (I have never played with soft cover), it was mocked openly by the table, including you. The line was very much something like "you can't get cover by hiding behind your friend" or whatever- this was during your last campaign. The emphasis at the time is a big part of why I assumed that rule was actually gone (it was certainly gone when I tried to get Marchosias a +4 cover bonus from an enemy arrow).


I don't have a suggestion, other than I would really like something that I can predict ahead of time. Ex- "creatures give +4 soft cover bonus", "large creatures give soft cover bonus +2", or literally whatever. Whatever rule or set of rules you pick, I'd really like to not be mocked as a powergamer for asking about a book rule that says my ally gets cover, and then a few years later to be mocked as a powergamer for expecting the book cover rule to not pop back into existence as I loose an arrow.


Ride:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/ride.htm

These are where we were getting the ride rules. This isn't really esoteric rules lawyering, and neither is the "cover" action. If you don't like it, change it, you're the DM!


The mounted rules aren't bad, and are pretty realistic. It's a pretty big advantage to be on a mount in combat if you have a war trained mount (warhorses, which we'll be grabbing soon), or are a god at riding any kind of mount.



Again- whatever you come up with will be great. I can't think of any houserules you've ever done that I haven't thought were great. But I reserve the right to sarcasm face if I have to wear a dress and bonnet...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpE_xMRiCLE

See, to me, right off the bat, hiding behind a horse makes sense. Hiding behind your compatriot seems moronic. Partly it's simply the size issue. Horses are large. Also, it is typical that you would not hide behind something that... uhhh... also doesn't want to get shot.

I was seriously considering that if the shot into cover misses by the cover, then if the roll is high enough to hit the cover, it does. And actually, I think I'm going to go that way. I never liked the old thing where if you miss, you then roll where you missed and anyone there is automatically hit. If your horse has an AC of 25 and you have an AC of 21, and then you duck behind your horse for +4, then an attack roll of 24 should dink off the horse's amazing armor.

I will look at these later. I will rewrite some. I don't think it's that complicated, nor do I think the rules are terrible as written. I do think there should perhaps be a penalty of some kind for some of these actions like trying to jump off quickly. Of course, I also think there should be a penalty for tumble. I mean, you'd doing some acrobatic shit and fuck it up, and it seems like someone should get a bonus to hit you with his attack of opportunity if you faceplant on your cartwheel. I'm not changing that rule, of course, so maybe I should not suddenly start making costs for failing ride checks. I just think it would make it more interesting.

Oh! I have an idea. Sort of. I have the beginnings of an idea. The option as for fast dismount remains unchanged. Now imagine an alternative "Hold my beer fast dismount." Ok, the name could use some work. It's a lower DC (15ish), but if you fail, you fall and are prone. See, these are the fun decisions I like offering players. They have to pick the probability of failure versus the cost. Do you take the low probability of success with no real failure cost, or go for the dangerous one that has a higher chance of success? WHAT TO DO!?!?!?!

My perspective is that both are flaky without actually using an action of some sort. With the 6 (or 10) seconds of fighting, someone actually trying to stay hidden will take those actions, and someone who is not focused on that will not. I also think that the creature's motivation and understanding could be taken into account- an enemy who isn't aware of his ally trying to snipe through him would likely provide a better bonus than one who is coordinated, and a horse likely doesn't understand range weapons at all, but does have a grasp of melee things.

So how do I handle this? I use "creatures don't provide cover", because I feel it is closer to the average case of reality while also not being very complex. The stock rules use "creatures always provide cover", and the devs probably had their reasons as well, as that rule is also pretty simple.


You definitely want a closer mapping to reality than either my interpretation, or the stock rules' interperation. I would suggest something that sort of scales. Going off of the stock rules (+4 to AC cover bonus from creatures providing LOS) and our typical way of playing (no bonus), how about something like:

"Determine line of effect normally. If this line of effect passes through one or more creature squares, use the highest cover bonus provided by any single creature, as determined as follows:

> Creature is a size category larger than you: +1
> Creature does not understand ranged weapons: +1
> Creature understands ranged weapons and would be willing to stand in the path of one for you: +2
> Creature has a shield spell active: +1

Etc."

This kind of approach adds complexity, but also depth. It would also codify what you consider intuitive such that the players could look at the board and think "Ok, that guy will probably shoot at the wizard, so I'll try to stand in his path"

If you want to go on "cover shots are able to hit the intervening targets"- a strategic rule of serious importance that you need to tie into the feat system so it doesn't suffer from "created last" syndrome- then not having the reroll is the way to go. That rule, with the reroll, was in the game for at least some time period that I can't recall, and I hated the thing where it missed someone on a 1, and then crit the guy in front of him, or whatever dumb shit. I will say that your rule has one (potential) flaw:


A ---------B---C


Assume a field of foes with low AC, class "B". Assume also a field of foes with high AC, class "C". Archer "A" wants to line up every shot as followed, and at "C", because while "A" may only have a 30% chance of striking C, any shot that misses C will hit B (or enough to matter).


If you are ok with (or even intend) this tactical fallout, that's fine. If that strikes you as cheese, then you'll want to reconsider.


Also note: The current rules have a 4 AC penalty for shooting into melee. The stock rules on this are even dumb: If target A (who you hate) is fighting target B (who you also hate), you get a -4 penalty if you shoot at A or B. I do waive that (it is a niche scenario), but keep it for the much more common one: a target is in melee with your ally. Precise Shot is the feat to get around this (prereq: the shitty Point Blank Shot). I actually roll those two feats together, but you do not. If you are more accurately tracking penalties based on stuff, what, if anything, happens to this rule? This is the rule (and the feat) that replaced the "you can shoot your ally by accident" rule. Does Precise Shot work on your version of it? What is the wording of it? Would the chance to strike a different creature replace the -4 penalty, or be some new penalty entirely?

By the way, I absolutely concur that offering a choice set increases game depth. It does by that depth with complexity.

Obligatory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU

I freely add complexity to buy depth. Does it work? Sometimes yes. I think that by the end of last game, Keichi was getting a lot of play depth out of the complexity (dual resource system, feats and powers interacting with it). But remember the universal rule I had to mitigate the power loss of melee characters forced to move at high level? To refresh, here were my rules:

If you have a base attack of +11, your standard attack action or charge attack action is resolved as normal, but you may also do one of the following:
> Take an extra attack at -10 to hit with the same weapon.
> Take an extra attack at -8 to hit with a second weapon you are wielding.

Easy, right? And you can see that while a full attack from a 2H guy might be like, +18/+13/+8/+3, and a full attack from a dual wielder might be +16/+16/+11/+11/+6/+6/+1/+1, that this makes the standard attack or charge into +18/+8 (2H) or +18/+10 (dual wield). This closes a lot of the gap, and fixes a lot of the strategic issues...

And those rules were hard to remember. Super hard, even after playing with them in effect for a year and a half. They were in the house rule set, etc. But Alenka and Keichi both had a really hard time remember it, and all the players were consistently sad when an NPC would do it.



This is why I'm currently considering a system for next game that REPLACES the existing rules about multiple attacks. It's a bigger change, so it has hooks into all the feats and balancing of the rest of stuff, but the EFFECT- what I feel I should design to- would be like this:

"You can take one attack at +18, or two attacks at +15, or three attacks at +12. If you move more than 5 feet, take -2 on everything"

The numbers are just made up. But something with CONSISTENT rules that you use EVERY round is the key (the consistency ends up making them simple, but the rule that comes up twice a combat gets filed as "malarkey to deal with"). I would even be willing to lose a bit of game balanced in exchange for this, as I don't feel the existing rules are the amazing at that anyway, and this would let the player roll three dice and compare them all to the to-hit number he's trying to reach- much faster resolution.




Anyway, just a thought- not about the melee numbers, which won't matter in this game, but about how systemic changes can be a lot better than patchwork ones.

And again- make SURE you integrate with feats. If you add restrictions to ranged weapons to stand in for the baseline rules, then the feats that let you ignore the restrictions with baseline rules need to remove the custom rules, or whatever. You wouldn't want being an archer to go down in effectiveness, or require a set of new feats such that the total feat list to be effective goes up, etc. That part of it is balancing, though- the base rules you are trying to base off of a simulationist approach (we are "simulationist" DMs, by the way, according the internet).

Alright, so... on the 26th, I was with wife and sister. They decided that we were shopping for discount wrapping paper and shit. Seriously. So I started playing the Clash of Clans thing. It seems very pointless, but whatever. Anyway, I'm not joining Yeti's Nebraskan Cousin's clan for sure. So I made Snarky Greenmen (#9RR2GOCY). I'm still not entirely sure what I'm doing with it. It's invitation only, which I think means you ask and then I approve.

See, I don't like people I don't know. I don't like most of the people I do know, but I definitely don't like people I don't know. If you have a better solution, I'm fine with that. I'm also fine making all of you co-leaders, though admittedly I don't know how to do that just yet.

You should join us. You know more people in the clan than you don't know. Me, Yeti, Sweets, Cooley, Gus, Cosmo. Although, apparently your wife just left us for you.

Yeah, I don't like Nebraska.

Also, I'm pretty sure Cooley said he wanted to make a separate clan at some point.

Nobody likes Nebraska. But you love us.

Yes, I know, which is why I thought it would be more fun to do a clan where we all know each other. That's not to say I mind a few degrees of separation to other people, but going through Nebraska means I have to deal with people who don't know how to read.

I was just going with "And maybe if Zem plays we can start our own clan" ~Cooley.

Well, despite actually hanging out with you guys since playing, and playing with my CoC all alone for over a month or two, I'm still not in a clan, and none of you were able to invite or even point me to the clan name. So I think I'm in for Zem's clan, which I was able to find with about 8 seconds of work.


Also, note that you should really try that Star Wars game. It features a ricer tank, Chewbacca getting shot in the face with a rocket and shrugging it off, and cute little medical droids. Oh, and the Republic turrets are deeply sexual, especially when watching their shots penetrate imperial troops. If you're into that sort of thing.

Also, in the Star Wars game, there are theoretically five members, but literally the only people who have spoken are me and Cooley. My guess is that one other guy sorta plays but never speaks and the other two do not.

So essentially the guild there would be the three of us, plus whatever that last guy is if he ever speaks. Which he has yet to.

Edit: Removed public links between this avatar and gaming handles

^ cfalcon

(references still in fid / private forums ofc)

Yarp.

I feel like I encountered a glitch. I was raided 16 times in the span of 1.5 hours this morning.

No, that happens...

And yes, we need one or two more people to really start putting a hurt on the Empire.

H, 2 of the 3 other guys in the guild work with me. And you are correct, one plays sometimes, and the other two really do not.

We could use another strong presence...

I will have to think about what clan to be in. I think that for now, I will stay where I am.

Maybe in the future I will make another clan called Switzerland Rulz! that would be a nice neutral spot where we could all mingle, and steel loot and bond...

Seriously? That makes no sense. In one week I got exactly one raid. Then 16 in 1.5 hours? If that's a real thing, that's semi-retarded.

Anyone can raid you at any time, unless you have a shield. My guess is that about two people view your base every minute, and either press next or attack you.

The catch is that *you get a shield when you've been hit hard*. If you are being hit hard (hard enough to lose resources) and not getting a shield, then share a reply and I can probably help you a bit there.

How many of the raids were people who deployed one troop and then quit? Those guys are handing you rating because they want a lower rating. They are trying to get low enough to be fighting "below their weight", such that they can farm a base with a lot of gold and elixir without having to use a lot of troops, and are tanking their pvp rank to do so.

Anyway, if someone obliterates your base, you can't be attacked for like a day or something. If they get a narrow victory, you get like an 8 hours shield, and even a close loss will still give the victorious defender a small shield.


So if you are being raided by people who are terrible and can't take your stuff, then 16 in an hour is great! If you are being raided by people who get to 20% and then lose, but take a lot of your loot, then that's the worst possible case, and you can fix it by guarding your resources tighter. You want someone who takes your loot to have had to deploy heavily- you want to be as hard of a target as you can as regards loot (and likely as regards stars- some players put their main base far away from everything to hand the victory to anyone who stops by, but I do not do this).

NEXT!!!

January 17: Open
January 24: Open
January 31: Open

I am available for all of those. I think.

January 17: Open
January 24: Not Avail
January 31: Open

Sometimes I don't have a big enough blue shakey head for you. Either way, it is a fun game and I hope you all enjoy

I am open for all of those dates. I can't wait to initiate rolling horse barricade type 2.

January 17th - Available, but Shelle will be coming back from Pueblo that day, and I am watching Livi, so I may have to bring here with me for the first bit depending on when we start, and when Shelle gets back.

January 31 - Available, but that is 2 weeks from our due date, so that may put a monkey wrench in things...

February will be even more interesting...

Maybe Livi can play one of the shieldhorsen.