Houserules For A Battle of Words [Archive] - Wizards Community

Houserules For A Battle of Words [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
crystalseas
09-09-07, 08:42 AM I've been thinking about a system for adjudicating verbal encounters. Someone earlier talked about a shy or socially unskilled person being able to get XP even if they weren't naturally good at the activity. It struck me that D&D has an elaborate setup so that those of us who are not naturally strong, or good shots, or dexterous sword fighters can roleplay such activities using in-game technical overrides.

For example, a fighter with good Dex, using a rapier, and Weapon Focus, Weapon Finesse, and other tools can have a well-detailed encounter with another fighter.

What if we apply the fight-with-steel template to the fight-with-words encounter?

Weapons: Negotiations (d6), bluffs (d4), sweet talk, charm, flirt (d6) good looks (d8), promises, technical jargon (d12)
Armor: Bitter experience, BS detector, technical education, prince/princess attitude.

Skills: Politician (maybe this is a class, like Fighter), Word Focus, Word Finesse, Diplomacy , Bluff, Concentration, Decipher Gobbledegook, Intimidate, Sense Motive, Use Words.

Feats: Debate Proficiency, Negotiation Proficiency (Light, Medium, Heavy), Brainy, Oratory Expertise [Improved BS, Improved Doubletalk, Improved Fallacy, Whirlwind Attack], Vocabulary Reflexes, Deceitful, Dodge [Facile Retort, Sarcastic Attack]

And we could take care of the waste-of-time fighting with a single skill check (Sword-fighting, Bow-fighting, Wrestling)
NewJeffCT
09-09-07, 09:18 AM I've been thinking about a system for adjudicating verbal encounters. Someone earlier talked about a shy or socially unskilled person being able to get XP even if they weren't naturally good at the activity. It struck me that D&D has an elaborate setup so that those of us who are not naturally strong, or good shots, or dexterous sword fighters can roleplay such activities using in-game technical overrides.

For example, a fighter with good Dex, using a rapier, and Weapon Focus, Weapon Finesse, and other tools can have a well-detailed encounter with another fighter.

What if we apply the fight-with-steel template to the fight-with-words encounter?

Weapons: Negotiations (d6), bluffs (d4), sweet talk, charm, flirt (d6) good looks (d8), promises, technical jargon (d12)
Armor: Bitter experience, BS detector, technical education, prince/princess attitude.

Skills: Politician (maybe this is a class, like Fighter), Word Focus, Word Finesse, Diplomacy , Bluff, Concentration, Decipher Gobbledegook, Intimidate, Sense Motive, Use Words.

Feats: Debate Proficiency, Negotiation Proficiency (Light, Medium, Heavy), Brainy, Oratory Expertise [Improved BS, Improved Doubletalk, Improved Fallacy, Whirlwind Attack], Vocabulary Reflexes, Deceitful, Dodge [Facile Retort, Sarcastic Attack]

And we could take care of the waste-of-time fighting with a single skill check (Sword-fighting, Bow-fighting, Wrestling)

How about an either/or? It would be nice for those of us who are not that outgoing to be able to play a bard and have an actual mechanic that can be used to resolve certain social situations. But, if I wanted to play a half-orc barbarian, I can use the normal to hit & damage rolls with combat feats to be a reaver in combat.

And, how does one decide what to use for various "social" feats? While they've undergone many modifications over the years, the combat mechanic has been d20 to hit for 30+ years now and it has withstood the test of time.
geekling
09-09-07, 09:18 AM And in my corner I've been pondering a house rule that includes 'resolve' or 'will to fight' in the non-lethal damage rules.

A system where the social skills, like diplomacy and intimidate deals non-lethal damage. When the non-lethal damage racks up to exceed remaining hitpoints, the foe surrenders, tries to flee or falls unconcious - which ever is most apropriate, rather than just toppling over unconcious as per RAW non-lethal rules.

example:
Random Kobold A has 10 HP.

Saccy the smooth talking Bard wins initiative and begins to try and convince random Kobold A of the futility of resistance. Rolls a diplomacy check against random Kobold A's DC - assuming he beats it then rolls damage dealing 4 points of non-lethal damage.
Grog the barbarian hits random Kobold A over the head with his big hitting stick of eternal pain. Rolling attack and damage as usual, dealing 5 HP worth of damage.
Misti the monk, who's not so blood thirsty as Grog and sees the wisdom in not vantonly killing random Kobold A. So chooses to make an unarmed attack. Rolling attack and damage as usual, dealing another 2 points of non-lethal damage.

As random Kobold A is now on 5 HP but has taken 6 points of non-lethal damage. He's had enough and surrenders.

Kind of thing.
crystalseas
09-09-07, 09:25 AM yeah, hit points. Thats what the (d8) damage per talk weapon was meant to imply. I like your non-lethal damage idea.

I guess I was assuming the d20 roll to resolve each action/round in the talk encounter, exactly as you would in the injury encounter. I like the way geekling lets me integrate both kinds of behavior into one encounter.
Pamela
09-09-07, 09:58 AM Could this non-lethal damage be considered psychological damage?
crystalseas
09-09-07, 10:33 AM What is 0 then? Is it your opinion changes or you go crazy?

For example, when Apollo's Will changed his mind, I don't think he went crazy. I think he changed his mind. Reached 0 on an opinion and went to -1.

I can see a different skill between driving someone crazy by gaslighting them, and getting them to adopt your position.
Pamela
09-09-07, 10:47 AM I'm just trying to figure out how you'd re-interpret non-lethal damage in this kind of context. If it's damage, what IS being damaged? The strength of one's will, or opinion?
crystalseas
09-09-07, 11:25 AM How about something like this:

Supporting an Opposing Viewpoint (Starting hit points)
Understanding the Orator's Viewpoint (zero hit points)
Supporting the Orator's Viewpoint (-10 hit points)

I wanted Understanding to be zero, but that would be a different game mechanic than injury hit points. Perhaps after zero hit points the NPC would no longer be able to argue against the Orator's viewpoint.

I like the idea of it being Will. But I also like the idea that you would have an Armor Class for this kind of battle. I'm trying to get the range of weapons and armor so that people can have different skills and defenses.
Tyhm
09-09-07, 02:08 PM I like the idea of Nonlethal instead of some mystic Morale-points system...either way, you get to 0 and you're no longer in the fight. ;-)
If that means running away, throwing yourself to the floor, playing dead, obeying any order shouted at you ("Do the worm!"), surrendering any saleable equipment...well, ideally it should work out as well or better than having corpses to deal with. A spiritually broken warrior is unable to rebel for like a week; suddenly you have a chain of Kobold porters, to carry loot for you. If they get uppity, you shout at them, they pee a little and get back in line.

Their AC should be something similar to the DC to intimidate them; something to do with their + to will and their level...evil clerics and rampaging barbarians will be harder to talk down than low-level mercenaries...
Mostly it should have a place in their Monster Manual Entry. "Social AC", right next to Touch and Flat-Footed. The number you have to roll to affect them. Maybe you can crit them too; say something about his mother would be ashamed of him, and his mother just died that morning as he was setting out on the raid. Bonuses for knowing details like that, naturally.

Not sure Feats are the way to go. Maybe Skill Tricks though. Rapier Wit, Keen Intellect, Cutting Argument...

___

Mostly: Shouldn't need House Rules. 4e should just have this. 4e should recognize "Not everyone likes to crack heads open like walnuts." 4e should recognize "Sometimes the mercenaries realize with their last breath, 5g wasn't worth dying for."
crystalseas
09-09-07, 02:17 PM I was trying to set up Skills and Feats like weapons have.

There would be skills you can improve using ranks, and Feats you can take that affect those skills.

But, the "combat" might simply be a conversation, and not include any weapons. Steel weapons and verbal weapons, if you will.
fodigg
09-09-07, 02:44 PM I think this is a good discussion for taking a look at some of the ways Star Wars Saga deals with "verbal attacks".

In saga, a condition track determines you overall effectiveness. One of the classes (Noble) has a number of feats which allows her to affect an enemy's place on the condition track (and their overall combat effectiveness) with words.

It includes not only weakening resolve, but effectively winning an encounter by causing them to surrender/flee.

While this is combat oriented, something like this system could be used for conversation only encounters. These mechanics should assist in roleplaying however, not replace it. I would hate to see roleplaying become the same thing as combat.
LordofNightmares
09-09-07, 02:54 PM I don't think a hit point system is needed for dealing with a battle of words. The recent podcast mentioned something about what I have been doing for a while. Where with a combination of actual role-playing and multiple diplomacy/bluff checks against the opposing sense motive check you have to slowly convince the target. Feats like Skill Focus and the various +2 for 2 Skill feats could work, but are not enough to specialize a non-combat character who is a master of words.
Tyhm
09-09-07, 03:55 PM I think this is a good discussion for taking a look at some of the ways Star Wars Saga deals with "verbal attacks".

In saga, a condition track determines you overall effectiveness. One of the classes (Noble) has a number of feats which allows her to affect an enemy's place on the condition track (and their overall combat effectiveness) with words.

It includes not only weakening resolve, but effectively winning an encounter by causing them to surrender/flee.

While this is combat oriented, something like this system could be used for conversation only encounters. These mechanics should assist in roleplaying however, not replace it. I would hate to see roleplaying become the same thing as combat.

I like that; "You can't strike true if you're not confident." So you attack their confidence. Then they're just in the fight because they vaguely recall it was a good idea. You attack their motivation. They're not sure why they're in the fight, but they're still sure they want to survive and get out with as much of a profit as they can. You attack them again. They're either so certain they're going to die they'll do anything to get out with their neck in one piece, or they don't think they deserve any better anymore "after what I done, mama'd be ashamed."
geekling
09-09-07, 06:10 PM I'm just trying to figure out how you'd re-interpret non-lethal damage in this kind of context. If it's damage, what IS being damaged? The strength of one's will, or opinion?

I think perhaps you're taking the word 'damage' to literally.
It is an abstraction to cover a game mechanic on how much 'fight' there's left in them. Just like Hit points don't really translate into how many hits with a club or much blood your character character can loose before she suddenly falls down unconcious. But up until that point were functioning just as she was hale and whole.
Solik
09-09-07, 08:28 PM I proposed just such a system awhile back and created a thread here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=916206) to discuss it in Astrid's (post contains two links to the proposed system).
KillerGM
09-10-07, 02:33 PM I think you might get more responses if you posted this in The Houserules Forum (http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=480).
crystalseas
09-10-07, 05:55 PM Killer, I appreciate the effort you are making in this forum to get all of us women who post here to post in the male-dominated forums instead. I'm assuming that you see yourself as a mother-hen, shooing the timid chicks out of the nest.

I post here because I want feedback from other women. If I wanted feedback from a more representative group of gamers, I'd ask in the other forums. If I wanted more responses, I would post in forums that had more members.

If a woman posts here, I assume it's because she's decided that it is the best place for the kind of feedback she is looking for.

We do not need anyone else to tell us where we "should" be posting. Or how we "shouldn't" feel unwelcome in those other forums. Please assume that we have the same level of intelligence that you do, and can make our own decisions.
WizO_Brak
09-10-07, 06:02 PM Moved to the House Rules forum.

ZOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!

~Brak
Rustmonster
09-10-07, 07:46 PM So, what you're saying, if I understand, is that, for example, I'm fighting someone with 50 hp. Then, with my WORDS, I cause 49 non-lethal damage to him. Then, I hit him with a sap for 2 non-lethal damage, and he gets K.O.ed?

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
crystalseas 09-09-07, 08:42 AM	I've been thinking about a system for adjudicating verbal encounters. Someone earlier talked about a shy or socially unskilled person being able to get XP even if they weren't naturally good at the activity. It struck me that D&D has an elaborate setup so that those of us who are not naturally strong, or good shots, or dexterous sword fighters can roleplay such activities using in-game technical overrides. For example, a fighter with good Dex, using a rapier, and Weapon Focus, Weapon Finesse, and other tools can have a well-detailed encounter with another fighter. What if we apply the fight-with-steel template to the fight-with-words encounter? Weapons: Negotiations (d6), bluffs (d4), sweet talk, charm, flirt (d6) good looks (d8), promises, technical jargon (d12) Armor: Bitter experience, BS detector, technical education, prince/princess attitude. Skills: Politician (maybe this is a class, like Fighter), Word Focus, Word Finesse, Diplomacy , Bluff, Concentration, Decipher Gobbledegook, Intimidate, Sense Motive, Use Words. Feats: Debate Proficiency, Negotiation Proficiency (Light, Medium, Heavy), Brainy, Oratory Expertise [Improved BS, Improved Doubletalk, Improved Fallacy, Whirlwind Attack], Vocabulary Reflexes, Deceitful, Dodge [Facile Retort, Sarcastic Attack] And we could take care of the waste-of-time fighting with a single skill check (Sword-fighting, Bow-fighting, Wrestling)
NewJeffCT 09-09-07, 09:18 AM	I've been thinking about a system for adjudicating verbal encounters. Someone earlier talked about a shy or socially unskilled person being able to get XP even if they weren't naturally good at the activity. It struck me that D&D has an elaborate setup so that those of us who are not naturally strong, or good shots, or dexterous sword fighters can roleplay such activities using in-game technical overrides. For example, a fighter with good Dex, using a rapier, and Weapon Focus, Weapon Finesse, and other tools can have a well-detailed encounter with another fighter. What if we apply the fight-with-steel template to the fight-with-words encounter? Weapons: Negotiations (d6), bluffs (d4), sweet talk, charm, flirt (d6) good looks (d8), promises, technical jargon (d12) Armor: Bitter experience, BS detector, technical education, prince/princess attitude. Skills: Politician (maybe this is a class, like Fighter), Word Focus, Word Finesse, Diplomacy , Bluff, Concentration, Decipher Gobbledegook, Intimidate, Sense Motive, Use Words. Feats: Debate Proficiency, Negotiation Proficiency (Light, Medium, Heavy), Brainy, Oratory Expertise [Improved BS, Improved Doubletalk, Improved Fallacy, Whirlwind Attack], Vocabulary Reflexes, Deceitful, Dodge [Facile Retort, Sarcastic Attack] And we could take care of the waste-of-time fighting with a single skill check (Sword-fighting, Bow-fighting, Wrestling) How about an either/or? It would be nice for those of us who are not that outgoing to be able to play a bard and have an actual mechanic that can be used to resolve certain social situations. But, if I wanted to play a half-orc barbarian, I can use the normal to hit & damage rolls with combat feats to be a reaver in combat. And, how does one decide what to use for various "social" feats? While they've undergone many modifications over the years, the combat mechanic has been d20 to hit for 30+ years now and it has withstood the test of time.
geekling 09-09-07, 09:18 AM	And in my corner I've been pondering a house rule that includes 'resolve' or 'will to fight' in the non-lethal damage rules. A system where the social skills, like diplomacy and intimidate deals non-lethal damage. When the non-lethal damage racks up to exceed remaining hitpoints, the foe surrenders, tries to flee or falls unconcious - which ever is most apropriate, rather than just toppling over unconcious as per RAW non-lethal rules. example: Random Kobold A has 10 HP. Saccy the smooth talking Bard wins initiative and begins to try and convince random Kobold A of the futility of resistance. Rolls a diplomacy check against random Kobold A's DC - assuming he beats it then rolls damage dealing 4 points of non-lethal damage. Grog the barbarian hits random Kobold A over the head with his big hitting stick of eternal pain. Rolling attack and damage as usual, dealing 5 HP worth of damage. Misti the monk, who's not so blood thirsty as Grog and sees the wisdom in not vantonly killing random Kobold A. So chooses to make an unarmed attack. Rolling attack and damage as usual, dealing another 2 points of non-lethal damage. As random Kobold A is now on 5 HP but has taken 6 points of non-lethal damage. He's had enough and surrenders. Kind of thing.
crystalseas 09-09-07, 09:25 AM	yeah, hit points. Thats what the (d8) damage per talk weapon was meant to imply. I like your non-lethal damage idea. I guess I was assuming the d20 roll to resolve each action/round in the talk encounter, exactly as you would in the injury encounter. I like the way geekling lets me integrate both kinds of behavior into one encounter.
Pamela 09-09-07, 09:58 AM	Could this non-lethal damage be considered psychological damage?
crystalseas 09-09-07, 10:33 AM	What is 0 then? Is it your opinion changes or you go crazy? For example, when Apollo's Will changed his mind, I don't think he went crazy. I think he changed his mind. Reached 0 on an opinion and went to -1. I can see a different skill between driving someone crazy by gaslighting them, and getting them to adopt your position.
Pamela 09-09-07, 10:47 AM	I'm just trying to figure out how you'd re-interpret non-lethal damage in this kind of context. If it's damage, what IS being damaged? The strength of one's will, or opinion?
crystalseas 09-09-07, 11:25 AM	How about something like this: Supporting an Opposing Viewpoint (Starting hit points) Understanding the Orator's Viewpoint (zero hit points) Supporting the Orator's Viewpoint (-10 hit points) I wanted Understanding to be zero, but that would be a different game mechanic than injury hit points. Perhaps after zero hit points the NPC would no longer be able to argue against the Orator's viewpoint. I like the idea of it being Will. But I also like the idea that you would have an Armor Class for this kind of battle. I'm trying to get the range of weapons and armor so that people can have different skills and defenses.
Tyhm 09-09-07, 02:08 PM	I like the idea of Nonlethal instead of some mystic Morale-points system...either way, you get to 0 and you're no longer in the fight. ;-) If that means running away, throwing yourself to the floor, playing dead, obeying any order shouted at you ("Do the worm!"), surrendering any saleable equipment...well, ideally it should work out as well or better than having corpses to deal with. A spiritually broken warrior is unable to rebel for like a week; suddenly you have a chain of Kobold porters, to carry loot for you. If they get uppity, you shout at them, they pee a little and get back in line. Their AC should be something similar to the DC to intimidate them; something to do with their + to will and their level...evil clerics and rampaging barbarians will be harder to talk down than low-level mercenaries... Mostly it should have a place in their Monster Manual Entry. "Social AC", right next to Touch and Flat-Footed. The number you have to roll to affect them. Maybe you can crit them too; say something about his mother would be ashamed of him, and his mother just died that morning as he was setting out on the raid. Bonuses for knowing details like that, naturally. Not sure Feats are the way to go. Maybe Skill Tricks though. Rapier Wit, Keen Intellect, Cutting Argument... ___ Mostly: Shouldn't need House Rules. 4e should just have this. 4e should recognize "Not everyone likes to crack heads open like walnuts." 4e should recognize "Sometimes the mercenaries realize with their last breath, 5g wasn't worth dying for."
crystalseas 09-09-07, 02:17 PM	I was trying to set up Skills and Feats like weapons have. There would be skills you can improve using ranks, and Feats you can take that affect those skills. But, the "combat" might simply be a conversation, and not include any weapons. Steel weapons and verbal weapons, if you will.
fodigg 09-09-07, 02:44 PM	I think this is a good discussion for taking a look at some of the ways Star Wars Saga deals with "verbal attacks". In saga, a condition track determines you overall effectiveness. One of the classes (Noble) has a number of feats which allows her to affect an enemy's place on the condition track (and their overall combat effectiveness) with words. It includes not only weakening resolve, but effectively winning an encounter by causing them to surrender/flee. While this is combat oriented, something like this system could be used for conversation only encounters. These mechanics should assist in roleplaying however, not replace it. I would hate to see roleplaying become the same thing as combat.
LordofNightmares 09-09-07, 02:54 PM	I don't think a hit point system is needed for dealing with a battle of words. The recent podcast mentioned something about what I have been doing for a while. Where with a combination of actual role-playing and multiple diplomacy/bluff checks against the opposing sense motive check you have to slowly convince the target. Feats like Skill Focus and the various +2 for 2 Skill feats could work, but are not enough to specialize a non-combat character who is a master of words.
Tyhm 09-09-07, 03:55 PM	I think this is a good discussion for taking a look at some of the ways Star Wars Saga deals with "verbal attacks". In saga, a condition track determines you overall effectiveness. One of the classes (Noble) has a number of feats which allows her to affect an enemy's place on the condition track (and their overall combat effectiveness) with words. It includes not only weakening resolve, but effectively winning an encounter by causing them to surrender/flee. While this is combat oriented, something like this system could be used for conversation only encounters. These mechanics should assist in roleplaying however, not replace it. I would hate to see roleplaying become the same thing as combat. I like that; "You can't strike true if you're not confident." So you attack their confidence. Then they're just in the fight because they vaguely recall it was a good idea. You attack their motivation. They're not sure why they're in the fight, but they're still sure they want to survive and get out with as much of a profit as they can. You attack them again. They're either so certain they're going to die they'll do anything to get out with their neck in one piece, or they don't think they deserve any better anymore "after what I done, mama'd be ashamed."
geekling 09-09-07, 06:10 PM	I'm just trying to figure out how you'd re-interpret non-lethal damage in this kind of context. If it's damage, what IS being damaged? The strength of one's will, or opinion? I think perhaps you're taking the word 'damage' to literally. It is an abstraction to cover a game mechanic on how much 'fight' there's left in them. Just like Hit points don't really translate into how many hits with a club or much blood your character character can loose before she suddenly falls down unconcious. But up until that point were functioning just as she was hale and whole.
Solik 09-09-07, 08:28 PM	I proposed just such a system awhile back and created a thread here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=916206) to discuss it in Astrid's (post contains two links to the proposed system).
KillerGM 09-10-07, 02:33 PM	I think you might get more responses if you posted this in The Houserules Forum (http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=480).
crystalseas 09-10-07, 05:55 PM	Killer, I appreciate the effort you are making in this forum to get all of us women who post here to post in the male-dominated forums instead. I'm assuming that you see yourself as a mother-hen, shooing the timid chicks out of the nest. I post here because I want feedback from other women. If I wanted feedback from a more representative group of gamers, I'd ask in the other forums. If I wanted more responses, I would post in forums that had more members. If a woman posts here, I assume it's because she's decided that it is the best place for the kind of feedback she is looking for. We do not need anyone else to tell us where we "should" be posting. Or how we "shouldn't" feel unwelcome in those other forums. Please assume that we have the same level of intelligence that you do, and can make our own decisions.
WizO_Brak 09-10-07, 06:02 PM	Moved to the House Rules forum. ZOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!! ~Brak
Rustmonster 09-10-07, 07:46 PM	So, what you're saying, if I understand, is that, for example, I'm fighting someone with 50 hp. Then, with my WORDS, I cause 49 non-lethal damage to him. Then, I hit him with a sap for 2 non-lethal damage, and he gets K.O.ed?