[MOD] Elemental Dee aN Dee

Published on November 16, 2009 By Chirmaya In War of Magic

The 'What'
This mod aims to bring the D&D combat into an easily manageable form via computer.

The 'Why'
Seeing as Dungeons & Dragons has never released their Dungeon Builder, I just wanted to try my hand at a small combat sim for it. While a tabletop is great, I tend to get a lot of slowdown in the normal game, such as where my gameplay board isn't big enough for an archer to be out of range, people constantly needing to recalculate their attack and damage roll bonuses, or the amount of space it takes up on my table. I hope that I can get this into a working state so that a DM (Dungeon Master) can use it simply on a laptop, maybe connected to a projector or a TV, etc. and have gameplay go a lot faster.

The 'Crazy, rambling thoughts of what I plan to add'
A lot of this should be 'module-based' so that a monster, race, item, or item-sets could be created and added separately, so that it can be updated bit-by-bit content-wise, and so that others could add to it as well

Main Menu:

Design Menu:

Design - Character Screen:
- Race
- Class
- Stats
- Skills
- Feats
- Powers
- Items
- Overall Play Info (non-editable)
- - Shows all play info such as HP, to-hit with all of the powers, etc.

Design - Monster Screen:
- Overall Play Info (editable)
- You can download and upload others' monsters

In-game Battle Screen:

- You can create a map with the "custom map builder tool", setting up all of the tiles with things like:
- - difficult terrain
- - impassable terrain
- - walls
- - pop-out notes

- You can choose what player-created map to use, your own or others' that have been uploaded

- Buttons to expand the battle area in a direction, so that if you need to expand into a new area during play, it can be added there and then

- Working save/load functions

- All rolls can be auto-generated or manually input at the time of rolling

- Info Log, which holds the log of every roll, attack, effect, damage, etc.

- Units should have an image-based list of every status effect and conditional effects, which can bring up a panel with more details on the effects, such as:

- - On-going damage of whatever type and how much it is reduced

- - Prone, flanking

- - Base concealment and cover, maybe along with situational concealment and cover via other character

1. Place down your hero tokens at the start

2. Begin the battle setup with the "Setup Battle" button
2. a) Drag and drop units in or out of the battle roster. By default, all units on the battle board are in it
2. Designate units that get a surprise round, and in what order

3. Begin a battle session with "Initiate Battle" button
3. a) Begins the initiative rolls, which can be optionally manually entered

4. Surprise round units get their turn

5. Units get their normal turns as per initiative order

- On a unit's turn, they get 5 choice buttons with pop-out sub-options:
- - Standard Action: attack, full defense, use item, -> Move Action, -> Minor Action
- - Move Action: move, stand up, shift, use item, -> Minor Action
- - - On a "move" Move Action, you will get a line drawn from the tile your unit resides on to the tile your mouse pointer is over. Valid tiles to move on shall be green, while invalid shall be red. You will need to hold shift to give non-straight moves. This shall also detect the terrain such as difficult terrain, etc.
- - Minor Action: use item
- - Free Action: drop prone
- - Delay Turn: take turn after...

The first prototype will likely be the battle screen with a few "PC's" and a set initiative order, with only the attack command and preset to-hit and damage values, and the Info Log to show the results of attacks. Well, that is my plan at least. We shall just have to see what comes of it. This will only be after the combat portion of elemental comes out, so it will not be for a little bit =3

Audio Files Screen:

This will be located somewhere in the main menu. Basically, you will be able to setup a sound library that you will be able to call on during the game.

* note to self: reverse placement of playlist list and sounds-in-playlist list.

Audio Files Pop-out:

This pop-out menu will allow you to play the sounds/music during a battle. (Enemy taunts, creepy music for those undead battles, etc.)

Module Screen:

This screen is accessed through the main menu before you are in a game. The plan is to have it really accessible since all of the content will be added through modules, mainly for two reasons:

1) It really allows you to customize exactly what content you want running in your game.

2) It allows for anyone else to easily create content that anyone else could also use.

The "sort by" will have options like Date installed, creator, alphabetic, enabled, and such.

The search field will really help in some cases, allowing you to do a very quick filter.

We have the enabled and disabled modules in the lower left, with the highlighted one displayed over to the right. It will show the module image (should one exist) and the module description. Hm. I think that I forgot an enable button. Well, double-clicking should work, although I'll add an enable button as well.

Now, the download tab will only really work if I can somehow get it setup to download from a module repository in-game, so that would be much further down the road.

Comments (Page 2)

pslblog

on Nov 20, 2009

VicenteC

reply 13

Real world combat stinks: real fencing is "five seconds and you are dead". Unless you don't mind redoing your character every 10 seconds, real combat is not fun at all. It's a good thing systems don't try to model real combat but just something that is fun to play.

Also, it could be argued than in a RPG describing is left up for the players, not the rules. A fail can be a dodge, armor deflection, parry,... A strike can come after several skilful feints or just a direct pure strenght blow. Some people use rules for "fencing maneuvers" (maybe the systems you noted, I don't know them), others use descriptions and the DM judges (like DnD 4e),...

There are some important points to consider here:

1. Combat is largely tactically defensive in many eras. "Stealing a march" on your opposition was critical because that allowed you choice of position where you could defend from.

2. Units not prepared to die will often break, something notoriously missing from many strategy games.

3. Units prepared to die to a man are scary as hell. By the way, this is one reason Sun Tzu is quite condemnatory about surrounding folks. Although there is some historical criticism of some versions of the Alamo story, Gen. Santa Ana was repeatedly proved a doof after that engagement. If Santa Ana had bypassed the Alamo, leaving a guard to keep them in check, he wouldn't have used up difficult to replace food and impossible to replace trained troops.

4. There are veteran troops in most every era (except possibly WWI, which was so wasteful as to diminish our civilization as a whole) and so although combat is quite lethal, there are ways of surviving it in most every era. (Not charging machine guns in fixed formations is a big rule, by the way.)

5. LTGEN Lewis B. (Chesty) Puller lived. My father met him on three separate occasions. One legend that has a really scary ring of truth is that Chesty Puller on frequent occasions deliberately exposed himself to enemy machine gun fire to get the enemy to reveal their positions; he knew the timing of recognition, target acquisition, and the flight of shot so well that he would be down in cover before the bullets landed. He knew this because he had survived over 100 combat engagements in Haiti, Nicaragua, China, the Pacific, and Korea. Heroes of mythic stature exist in this world even if they don't swing swords or wave wands. It is worth studying how they come about.

Sorta 6. One disturbing aspect of the recent conflicts roughly lumped together as the "War on Terror" is that there aren't any surviving Medal of Honor winners. There are some reasons for this that may be a bit counter-intuitive. Our troops are in better shape than any troops in history, and the greater physical condition reduces situations so screwed up that they require heroism that great. Our troops are better trained than any in history, this also reduces situational screwups. Similarly our troops are also better led and supplied than at any time in history. Finally, the Medal of Honor is only awarded in situations where no reasonable person would fail to excuse the awardee from refusing to take the action, and I believe that our troops are open and honest about their doubts when they live as a function of their professionalism. Nobody can ask those who died about their doubts: Paul Ray Smith, Ross McGinnis, Jason Dunham, Michael Mansoor, Michael Murphy, and Jared Monti. It is also worth knowing how these remarkable heroes lived and died.

MagicwillNZ

on Nov 20, 2009

pslblog

reply 16

There are some important points to consider here:

1. Combat is largely tactically defensive in many eras. "Stealing a march" on your opposition was critical because that allowed you choice of position where you could defend from.

2. Units not prepared to die will often break, something notoriously missing from many strategy games.

3. Units prepared to die to a man are scary as hell. By the way, this is one reason Sun Tzu is quite condemnatory about surrounding folks. Although there is some historical criticism of some versions of the Alamo story, Gen. Santa Ana was repeatedly proved a doof after that engagement. If Santa Ana had bypassed the Alamo, leaving a guard to keep them in check, he wouldn't have used up difficult to replace food and impossible to replace trained troops.

4. There are veteran troops in most every era (except possibly WWI, which was so wasteful as to diminish our civilization as a whole) and so although combat is quite lethal, there are ways of surviving it in most every era. (Not charging machine guns in fixed formations is a big rule, by the way.)

5. LTGEN Lewis B. (Chesty) Puller lived. My father met him on three separate occasions. One legend that has a really scary ring of truth is that Chesty Puller on frequent occasions deliberately exposed himself to enemy machine gun fire to get the enemy to reveal their positions; he knew the timing of recognition, target acquisition, and the flight of shot so well that he would be down in cover before the bullets landed. He knew this because he had survived over 100 combat engagements in Haiti, Nicaragua, China, the Pacific, and Korea. Heroes of mythic stature exist in this world even if they don't swing swords or wave wands. It is worth studying how they come about.

Sorta 6. One disturbing aspect of the recent conflicts roughly lumped together as the "War on Terror" is that there aren't any surviving Medal of Honor winners. There are some reasons for this that may be a bit counter-intuitive. Our troops are in better shape than any troops in history, and the greater physical condition reduces situations so screwed up that they require heroism that great. Our troops are better trained than any in history, this also reduces situational screwups. Similarly our troops are also better led and supplied than at any time in history. Finally, the Medal of Honor is only awarded in situations where no reasonable person would fail to excuse the awardee from refusing to take the action, and I believe that our troops are open and honest about their doubts when they live as a function of their professionalism. Nobody can ask those who died about their doubts: Paul Ray Smith, Ross McGinnis, Jason Dunham, Michael Mansoor, Michael Murphy, and Jared Monti. It is also worth knowing how these remarkable heroes lived and died.

I don't want to be rude, but I want to warn you that you are starting not to make any points at all. This has no relevancy to DnD and I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to argue, considering you didn't address any of VincenteC's points. Talking about surrounding armies and Sun Tzu and morale is irrelevant in a game like DnD which is about orcs and the people who chop them to pieces. There doesn't need to be rules for guns in DnD because there are no guns in DnD!

Obviously you know a ton about the military and that's cool. Warfare and the military are extremely interesting subjects. But Steel Panthers: World at War is this way.

Bellack

on Dec 02, 2009

I hope this is for the 3.5 rules and not 4.0 (shivers with horror)

Bellack

on Dec 02, 2009

pslblog

reply 8

A lot of people have problems with D&D because armor exists to allow you endure damage, not elude it. In D&D, THAC0 means "To Hit Armor Class 0", a collection of mistakes that means a catapult can hit a castle wall with the same facility as an individual sparrow, so long as they are both Armor Class 0. There are a variety modifications that attempt to make sense of this essentially flawed premise, but they all essentially fail because armor protects you from damage and other things protect you from being hit.

That being said, there are a lot of fun things about the D&D mythos, providing you can extract them from the fundamentally flawed conflict resolution premise. And the notion that you learn French by killing Orcs. And the concept of leveling in general. (If somebody here has learned French from killing Orcs or suddenly became 5% more likely to withstand cyanide after being granted a certificate, I will cheerfully withdraw this statement.)

There are a lot more interesting, fun, extensible, realistic and playable combat resolution systems than D&D. If Elemental allows you to mod the game to the point where you can put both feet in buckets when that is your joy, more power to it. Personally, I'd prefer a combat resolution system that doesn't displace machine gun fire because my plate armor dissuades the bullets from crossing my sillouette when I stand up.

If you want a deeply fetishistic combat system that is more realistic, I'd suggest FGU's "Aftermath". "Aftermath" does allow for quite effective swordplay and machine gun suppressive fire. For a card based game, Paul Kidd's "Lace and Steel" (Various Publishers) has much to recommend it for playability and fun.

Stick with D&D 3.5 rules (there is no thaco in that rule set.)

Bellack

on Dec 02, 2009

MagicwillNZ

reply 9

Quoting pslblog,
reply 8
A lot of people have problems with D&D because armor exists to allow you endure damage, not elude it. In D&D, THAC0 means "To Hit Armor Class 0", a collection of mistakes that means a catapult can hit a castle wall with the same facility as an individual sparrow, so long as they are both Armor Class 0. There are a variety modifications that attempt to make sense of this essentially flawed premise, but they all essentially fail because armor protects you from damage and other things protect you from being hit.

You are about one edition behind, my friend. Attacking walls and attacking creatures are now distinct. Non-living objects have "Hardness" which is essentially is damage reduction. So it might be easy to hit, but hard to damage, as you say. THAC0 is no longer used, either, which I agree THAC0 was a bad thing. Actually, a lot of what you have said really no longer applies to DnD

But, this aside, I'm comfortable with the dissuading armor. I think that DnD is the best combat system for what it is trying to do. If I had to pick the "best" combat system, it would be Unknown Armies, but I would never run Unknown Armies with a high-powered game like DnD, and I'd never use DnD to run my low-powered games. The fact is that both Unknown Armies and DnD have extremely genre-specific combat systems, which makes them fun.

DnD doesn't need damage reduction from armor because it doesn't have machine gun bullets that can punch right through it. It can actually simulate this by having a "touch attack" which ignores armor, but I suspect you know 2nd edition and aren't aware of the rule changes. But guns are simply are not in the universe. Just as in Unknown Armies melee weapons are run extremely simplisticly simply because the differences between a sword and a halberd are just sort of irrelevant in a world of magic and guns. Leveling makes sense in DnD because it's a heroic game where heroes suddenly get more skill and power rather fast, where when you hit someone, it is dramatic as a opposed to meek, which is why there's no damage reduction. There's no damage reduction so that players don't have to bother rolling damage for insignificant hits, when glance blows and such are simulated by the AC system. Learning French from killing Orcs, while odd, can be explained by the player by his character studying French in his downtime.

That being said, I love different rulesets and I'll definitely check out "Aftermath" and "Lace and Steel".

pslblog

reply 8

Stick with D&D 3.5 rules (there is no thaco in that rule set.)

Actullly guns are in the universe. You have the Flintlocks and d20 Modern/D20 Star Wars/ D20 Dragon (somthing I forget the rest of teh name basically D&D in space) as well as other d20 games fit well with 3.5 D&D since they are they use the same basic rule system. And yes most guns/lasers do Touch attacks for archaic armor.

Bellack

on Dec 02, 2009

pslblog

reply 12

As somebody who first saw D&D as an expansion of minatures combat rules put together by a Swiss Pike formation enthusiast, my view of avertive armor is somewhat jaded, I admit. THAC0 stunk as a way of arbitrating individual combat in 1976, and it stinks today despite the modifications and changes it's added. It fails to describe fencing, archery, SCA combat, real mideval combat, and anything resembling firearms. The importance of machine guns is that they produce a field of fire where any exposed target will be struck as a function of the amount and duration of exposure. The difference between facing a Maxim in Flanders in 1916 and facing English Longbowmen in Agincourt in 1415 is largely a question of training and logistics, not ballistic probability. A clothyard shaft in a cloud of clothyard shafts will punch through quite as well as a Maxim bullet for all concerned downrange. D&D combat takes that probability case as an exception rather than the rule.

I will continue to argue that levelling is a deeply flawed description of skills improvement and damage tolerance that leads to some very bad downstream effects. Anybody who has dealt with massively multiplayer games, delicious though that revenue stream might seem, knows the many unpleasant ways power gamers skew the experience for all. Levelling rewards exploitive behavior that ruins economies and gameplay experience for many folks. Since Elemental is turn-based the "rat fix" obsessive behaviors of many power gamers is not as heavily rewarded, but it still bears talking about.

I will freely admit there are some exceptions to the ability to handle damage that are worth discussing. Marcus Luttrell's book "Lone Survivor" describes real world experiences that were incredibly harrowing, where SEALs endured numerous gunshot wounds and kept fighting long beyond rational human expectations. Nevertheless, the events surrounding June 28th, 2005 are also notable because though the four SEALs on the ground all kept fighting through numerous hits for hours, 16 other special operators (8 SEALs and 8 160th SOAR crew) all died in moments when an RPG shot down their helicopter. (Of course one obvious conclusion is that it is safer to surround yourself with Afghan rock than American Jet Fuel.)

Another important testimony to the endurance of humanity under fire worth discussing is David Bellavia book "House to House". Former SFC Bellavia describes in painful detail the actions that got him nominated for the Medal of Honor (which he probably put the kibosh on). The amount of damage the terrorist fighters in Fallujah endured through a combination of pharmacuetical assistances was incredible. Later, Bellavia describes the kind of endurance US Army Infantry showed in their continuing efforts to clear Fallujah, which is another point worth discussing.

Both of these books describe different ways endurance to damage can be built up unrelated to any kind of artificial assessment such as a level.

Gurps would be the system your looking for. Skill based and a more "realistic combat system than spans from caveman times into outer space.

I too have played D&D since the begining and I too disliked many of the D&D 1st and 2nd edition rules (switched to Gurps but used the D&D modules and background)

But once 3.5 D&D rules came out my group went back to it. And we perfer these rules because they are fun to use without being riduculous like the first two rule sets. The difference between 1st and 2nd ed and 3.0/3.5/4.0 editions are pretty big as to be a completely different game.

VicenteCartas

on Dec 02, 2009

Bellack

reply 18

I hope this is for the 3.5 rules and not 4.0 (shivers with horror)

Why? (curiosity, I like both editions a lot although I find 4.0 superior in general)

MagicwillNZ

on Dec 03, 2009

VicenteC

reply 22

Quoting Bellack, reply 18I hope this is for the 3.5 rules and not 4.0 (shivers with horror)

Why? (curiosity, I like both editions a lot although I find 4.0 superior in general)

I generally found 4.0 easier to run, but it sacrificed so much character creation depth that I found it intolerable. Also, the level of material staggering between supplements was just insane. I mean really, Half-orcs in Player Handbook 2?

VicenteCartas

on Dec 03, 2009

MagicwillNZ

reply 23

Character creation depth? What was the depth in creating a 3e fighter? About the material, well, it was easy to do your own half-orcs while you waited for the official ones (although it seems half-orcs were a fan favorite, I have seen more people angry about that exact point).

Bellack

on Dec 03, 2009

4.0 is too cut back. For me it is like what basic D&D was to Advance D&D. It's stripped down bare bones rules from the 3.5 rules set. And some of the rule changes are just not good in my opinon. Like the way spells and combat are handled, much perfered the 3.5

MagicwillNZ

on Dec 03, 2009

VicenteC

reply 24

Well, it was dead simple to multiclass in 3.5. I read some odd rules, too, in some of the 4.0 books. Rust Monsters produced a dust that was of equal value to the magic item destroyed. If you give a magic weapon to a cohort, the book specifically says to ignore the gameplay effects. It was balanced to a point where it was difficult to make mistakes and that violated internal logic, methinks.

It's not so much that everyone loved half-orcs. It's more like Wizards was trying to make Dragon-people, Devil-people, and two types of elves without first covering the most basic races.

Magical flying barbarians that summoned fire I didn't think floated real well.

I just feel like Wizards staggered out 4e into oblivion. It wasn't a terrible system. But no one should have to buy two player's handbooks and four monster manuals to get classic DnD material. Why the heck did they put rust-monsters and ice giants into Monster Manual II when no one cares about Shadar-kai from Monster Manual I?

And besides, Pathfinder is just an awesome system.

VicenteCartas

on Dec 03, 2009

MagicwillNZ

reply 26

Well, it was dead simple to multiclass in 3.5.

I'm going to disagree here, 4e is the first DnD where multiclass works. In 3e, to allow spellcasters multiclassing in the end they had to add classes that would increase caster level (or nearly no one would multiclass and lose higher level spell slots, also related to the unbalance of magic in DnD).

MagicwillNZ

reply 26

It was balanced to a point where it was difficult to make mistakes and that violated internal logic, methinks.

You didn't have a player who had a pixie cohort with the Mounted Combat feat riding in his head so he could use the feat to avoid hits to him, right? (I didn't either, but I saw it and it's perfectly legal btw).

With more than the very basic books you have things as horrible as Pun-Pun the kobold:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun_(DnD_Optimized_Character_Build)

MagicwillNZ

reply 26

It's not so much that everyone loved half-orcs. It's more like Wizards was trying to make Dragon-people, Devil-people, and two types of elves without first covering the most basic races.

Mmm, I wouldn't say that half-orcs are a basic race (and the other race they didn't do were gnomes, and no one cared much about that). Draconians, tieflings and several types of elves are probably as old or more than half-orcs...

MagicwillNZ

on Dec 03, 2009

That's not true. I have players who played gnomes. Not my cup of tea but I see their role in the gameworld. It's not even so much which classes are "older" (half-orcs, btw, were in 1st edition, and beat out Draconians, tieflings, and several types of elves) but half-orcs and gnomes are certainly more established and have a bigger role in people's campaigns.

Now, I didn't say 3.5 was balanced. 3.5 character builds are infamous, but it's partially the GM's discretion to allow or disallow these builds. I personally wouldn't allow that unless the game was particularly silly.

You still haven't told me what you think about the new rust monster rules, btw. Do you think that's acceptable?

Well, if you could call it "multiclassing". I find the multiclassing rules in 4e just incredibly meek. The system in 3e certainly was not perfect, but it was simple and it was powerful.

You still haven't addressed what I think is the worst element of 4e: The staggering of material. How do you feel about having to buy two monster manuals to get all of the classic core monsters, or two players handbooks to get the classic core classes, or just to get half-orcs?

In any case, I no longer play 3.5 so I don't want to defend it. I use Pathfinder now which I find superior to 3.5.

VicenteCartas

on Dec 03, 2009

MagicwillNZ

reply 28

Gnomes are not a very pretty race I think (even if they have their niche). About if half-orcs are older or not: half-orcs, draconians and several types of elves are all 1e (half-orcs as a playable race, not sure about the others). Tieflings are 2e (playable in Planescape). But then half-orcs were taken out in 2e as a basic race, kind of similar to what has happened here. Could be to sell more PHB2 books, or could be because they aren't very popular either, no idea.

MagicwillNZ

reply 28

I think I misanderstood you in the balanced point. Agreed 3.5 is very easy to break.

MagicwillNZ

reply 28

You still haven't told me what you think about the new rust monster rules, btw. Do you think that's acceptable?

Yes, why not? The 3e rust monster comes from a tradition of monsters that are just designed to correct a problem with the GM (too many magic items in the group) and not because they are good monster themselves. There was another monster just designed to hit people listening through doors in dungeons (don't remember the name) who was just another nonsense to avoid people listening through all the doors (another GM problem).

4e rust monster is better designed as a monster itself. It continues to be a pain (as you have to recreate the magic item) but not such a pain as the 3e version.

MagicwillNZ

reply 28

Well, if you could call it "multiclassing". I find the multiclassing rules in 4e just incredibly meek. The system in 3e certainly was not perfect, but it was simple and it was powerful.

3e system was simple in the rules, but not in the design implications, and that's why it never got to work well: multiclassing produced far more powerful (Pun-Pun and other broken builds) or far less powerful characters (spellcasters with non-spellcaster levels in general) than non-multiclassed ones, instead of more or less equal characters. 4e has some broken builds (I think that's impossible to avoid), but all characters have more or less the same utility, multiclassed or not.

MagicwillNZ

reply 28

I haven't addressed it because I don't see it as a problem (or at least is not for me). I got some material in 2e, another different material in 3e and another different material in 4e. For me classic core is human, elf, dwarf, halfling, fighter, cleric, wizard and rogue and I do get that, so I don't have any problem if they add further material in other PHBs or MMs (appart that I have an insider subscription, so I couldn't care less about the physical books ).

Bellack

on Dec 03, 2009

MagicwillNZ

reply 26

And besides, Pathfinder is just an awesome system.

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