Nicholas's Idea #5

the gm's here are pretty good at doing that anyway.

Heh, I can do that on my own, but when there is a 1 on 1 combat and my GF keeps rolling 1's and 7's and the damn owlbear skeliton keeps rolling a 17 when her AC is "18" (This accualy happened yesterday) and you have gotten to the point where you just want to get it over with because the owlbear skeliton has ONE HP LEFT, it all came down to me saying "Roll init, miss, miss, roll init, miss, miss, roll init, miss, miss" and I was like, screw this, let's just "Pretend" the next hit from her hits, HORAY! It died! 600XP!

Yeah... but I was thinking it should do that for mainly the reason stated above when some battle just because too tedius to describe yourself. And for new DM's who arn't too detailed in their descriptions of battles or something. Just to make a new DM or a boring battle less generic.

who rolls init every turn?

and who awards xp for 'killing' a monster?

Bleh. I do that anyway, as a player and as a DM ;)

Lazy players disgust me to no end, by the way. If I'm describing the monster's lunge and attack, and the fiery shot of pain and blood as the demon rips your intestines out (quite painfully) through your eyeballs, I expect at least:

"I slash down mightily!", and not just "/roll 1d20+2"

Yeah. I tend to award XP for overcoming obstacles myself. Killing monsters may be part of it, but so are traps, getting around monsters (not necessarily killing them...), pc/npc interaction, etc.

Ye kill anything 'evil' in my games without second thought, and that is the quickest way to be stuck at a dead end, with no information on what to do. I tend to give my big 'insanely evil' baddies quite important information.

And some people like that variable init system, I personally don't though. Well, not in DnD anyway...

no, i meant for having the dm basically kill the monster for you..

oh...

There are those out there that do that?!

Oh... wait... no wonder my players learn to run...

His point was that after round 36 of utterly boring and repetitive combat* (unless you're playing DBZ, in which case, round 36 of uttely boring and reptitive dialogue), you just get sick of typing in an 80-page discourse on how your character rolls 3 off of the to-hit number, and end up either copy-pasting shtuff, or not being descriptive at all.

This idea just makes it easier to disguise the fact that you're using a macro, as the macro spits out random description instead of the same effin thing every time.

*If a DM can keep a battle fresh and enjoyable for 36 rounds, he deserves exactly 1.21 jigowatts of congratulations.

yeah, i didn't know people rolled initiative EVERY round...
that's crazy, plus there's the chance of someone getting a turn twice in a row..I try to avoid rolling at all costs. Roleplaying is my style, Rollplaying is for quags.

Also, i know personally that every DM i know would get frustrated if the words changed, i'm glad you included in your initial description an escape function. But to be honest, a DM that needs to use that for creativity is probably not a good DM at all. I mean come on...that's what roleplaying is all about, and that's just a tool that distances you that much from roleplaying.

[quote="Solace"]Also, i know personally that every DM i know would get frustrated if the words changed, i'm glad you included in your initial description an escape function. But to be honest, a DM that needs to use that for creativity is probably not a good DM at all. I mean come on...that's what roleplaying is all about, and that's just a tool that distances you that much from roleplaying.[/quote]

*sniff* that... was so beautiful... brought a tear to my eye.

*cough* right, the bell, back to work.

[quote="Acid_Trees"]His point was that after round 36 of utterly boring and repetitive combat[/quote]

Yeah. I know what he meant. And no. My battles don't last 36 rounds. Nor do I give 'brownie points' for killing a monster for them. Nor do I tone down a monster for them. Nor do I ever kill a monster for them. Or even contemplate it. I might fudge a roll... now and then. But rare.

My point with my previous statement on 'There are DM's that do that?!', I meant just that. If my players don't roll very well over the course of a battle, they learn the tactical advantage of retreat, or the tactical advantage of becoming fertilizer. Victory isn't victory if it wasn't earned in blood sweat, and tears.

And besides, I go sessions without combat... oh... actually... that's quite unheard of now too *sigh* ah well.

if it's getting monotonous to the point where you know the player is going to win eventually, there are story options you can go to skip the rest of the fight. It's a rare situation, but suppose the situation you had where you were simply waiting for the player to get a high enough attack roll, you can simply forego that and say "After dodging and sidestepping each others blows for several swings and parries, the monster finally slips up and misplaces his toe in a stone crevice, and in the second that he looks down to pull it out, you manage to rake him across the belly. His intestines hit the floor before he did"

But the situation where you'd need that is rare, and so the usage of this command would also be rare. I think adding features that aren't going to be used should not be added at all, it adds to the exe size, it adds unnecessary complexity..

[quote="Solace"]But the situation where you'd need that is rare, and so the usage of this command would also be rare. I think adding features that aren't going to be used should not be added at all, it adds to the exe size, it adds unnecessary complexity..[/quote]

And, you forgot the most important part for the record.

Ever hour Tux (or anyone) spends programming in a command that will be rarely, if ever, used, is an hour spent not working on something else that is more desired, would be better used, or otherwise an improvement to OPnP.

Besides, IIRC, you [i]do[/i] have chat macros already that replace word/phrase A with word/phrase B.