Half Humans Supplement

Creating game materials? Monsters, spells, classes, adventures? This is the place!
hebitsuikaza
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Re: Half Humans Supplement

Post by hebitsuikaza »

I love how these are all very well-balanced against one another. They may not be worthwhile options when put next to some of the standard races, but put next to one another there is no feeling that one gets all the special abilities and another is left with nothing and told to like it.

You deserve quite a lot of credit for this. If only the standard races were this well balanced and simple, the game would be much better for it.
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Solomoriah
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Re: Half Humans Supplement

Post by Solomoriah »

Wow. Just, wow.

H, do you realize that the same person wrote both this supplement and the Core Rules?

And that person is me?

If you have complaints about the standard races, make them in the Core Rules comment thread. I'm not likely to change them (as in, it just ain't happening), but you are free to make your feelings known.

Considering your comments in this thread and in the Monsters as Player Characters thread, I have to wonder, why are you here? It doesn't seem as if you think much of the game, or of the people who have created it.
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LibraryLass
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Re: Half Humans Supplement

Post by LibraryLass »

Keep calm, Solo, it took me a while to adapt to the OSR's less... robust power curve and differing sense of balance too.

Hebi: My solution to you is to do as Gary Gygax once said: Decide how you want it to be, and make it that way. Don't like the rules Solo's made? Make up some houserules and run your own campaign.
hebitsuikaza
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Re: Half Humans Supplement

Post by hebitsuikaza »

Solomoriah wrote:Considering your comments in this thread and in the Monsters as Player Characters thread, I have to wonder, why are you here? It doesn't seem as if you think much of the game, or of the people who have created it.
Perhaps you are right. I am not sure what I was supposed to see as the actual difference between this and the other dozen games that copy the 30-40-year old D&D original, 1st and 2nd edition rule sets, slap a new name on it and call it "their" product. Basically, why not just share old pdf copies of the old rules if you are going to go as far as any of the dozen games have. I am not trying to troll or be rude, but your responses have raised this as a very valid question in my mind-- what are you during here that makes it worth using as opposed to the dozens of other people doing precisely the same thing?

Personally, I had hoped the change would be the thing that irked me the most when I played AD&D-- poor balance and parity between the options available as races. That either you would have done a better job than I could have done or my own, or you'd be open to criticism and change. Maybe I had ideally and foolishly hoped that the core races had been balanced and brought in line and this area of the game hadn't been explored and could use someone to spin up a few of these that were in-line with the already balanced core races.

The changes I have seen that you have made in terms of the core races have been primarily removing all their restrictions while retaining all the power they gained in exchange for those restrictions. For instance, in your version Dwarfs, instead of being restricted to using medium weapons two-handed, can now use all large weapons except polearms (which are terrible anyway and no one uses) and long bows. But none of their abilities was removed in exchange for removing nearly all the bite of that previous penalty. In very real ways, the disparity between them has been made much worse. You have been generally kinder to some of the monster races than the Complete Book of Humanoids, but it seems primarily because you have chosen to get rid of attribute bonuses and penalties on races in general.

Ultimately instead, your response seems to be 'if you want fair balance, do it yourself'. Okay, well... everyone can do that.... and everyone can also find a pdf of old TSR products without any real trouble and use those too.

But then, what was your motivation for writing these pdfs and what did you intend to offer by writing them? Especially if, given your very first response to me on these issues, you admitted yourself that if you were actually going to create a PC of these races or you were going to make them a major presence in the world, you probably wouldn't even use these versions.

But then, I have to keep coming back to... humans have well, almost nothing. Honestly, the 10% experience boost doesn't really amount to anything due to how leveling works. Yes, there is a small chance they could achieve the next level an adventure before everyone else when experience and levels are actually calculated and applied, but otherwise? You aren't going to have a level over everyone else until level 17/18 and, of course, that difference would disappear in just a couple more levels after that. Humans previous bonus was dual classing and having exclusive access to the best classes. You threw those rules out of your system. Which means... yes, even these, as skimpy and simple as they are, end up being kind of better than playing a human.

Look, I am not particularly diplomatic, I know that. Perhaps I try too hard to make my case or I am too opinionated. I have a bit too much ambition. Honestly, though I have only made criticisms beyond my first post of dropping a dozen ideas, I actually would have written up a set of these for you and edited them until everyone seemed satisfied had I felt there was any point. I did the same for DDN and 13th Age after all.

But, I feel as though you aren't ready to admit that there might be room for some improvement with this whole "races" section of the game. So, yes, I have been wasting my time writing to you. But I am not sorry that I at least tried to make you aware of this.
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Solomoriah
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Re: Half Humans Supplement

Post by Solomoriah »

hebitsuikaza wrote:Perhaps you are right. I am not sure what I was supposed to see as the actual difference between this and the other dozen games that copy the 30-40-year old D&D original, 1st and 2nd edition rule sets, slap a new name on it and call it "their" product.
Who told you that you were supposed to see a difference?

Basic Fantasy RPG was, historically, the first to attempt to replicate the actual rules mechanics of the early 1980's RPG experience. You can read my remembrance of the history in our blog (it's the very first post); there's a link in that post to the forum discussion that led to OSRIC, which was the second as far as I know, and in that thread they discuss BFRPG.
hebitsuikaza wrote:Basically, why not just share old pdf copies of the old rules if you are going to go as far as any of the dozen games have.
It's not legal to do that; though WoTC did, finally, allow PDFs of some of the early games to be legally sold, they did it after the original retro-clone quartet of BFRPG, OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord were already on the market.
hebitsuikaza wrote:I am not trying to troll or be rude, but your responses have raised this as a very valid question in my mind-- what are you during here that makes it worth using as opposed to the dozens of other people doing precisely the same thing?
If you don't see a reason to use or like Basic Fantasy RPG, then you are almost certainly not part of our target audience. I really can't explain it more clearly than that.
hebitsuikaza wrote:That either you would have done a better job than I could have done or my own, or you'd be open to criticism and change.
And here is the crux of the matter. We are open to criticism, though much less so to change (as replicating the feel of the game we all remember and love naturally defines our parameters). But you have no tact. You insult us, directly and indirectly, for our design decisions.

I'll let you in to a little secret... you never, ever get someone to change their mind by insulting their opinion or their work.
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artikid
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Re: Half Humans Supplement

Post by artikid »

Was taking a look here: so Half-elves get to be Fighter/Magic-users with a 1d8 Hit Dice?
Does not seem right to me...
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Solomoriah
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Re: Half Humans Supplement

Post by Solomoriah »

... and how many years has this supplement been out there???

Yeah, you're right, the hit dice should be bumped down. I'll see about it soon.
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Dimirag
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Re: Half Humans Supplement

Post by Dimirag »

That's due to the way combination classes work in BFRPG
Sorry for any misspelling or writing error, I am not a native English speaker
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artikid
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Re: Half Humans Supplement

Post by artikid »

What about Half-elves having a D6 Hit dice cap but an 18 Constitution maximum?
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Dimirag
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Re: Half Humans Supplement

Post by Dimirag »

I thought it was part of their human side removing part of the elve's frailty. I guess its a matter of not having a d8 fully armored fighter/mu... Removing the armored casting ability seems to screw up the class combo.
Sorry for any misspelling or writing error, I am not a native English speaker
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