this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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I recommend this video to look more into OSR philosophy regarding the rules: https://www.youtube.com/live/bCxZ3TivVUM?si=aZ-y2U_AVjn9a6Ua

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Frankly I could point it right back at you as the example of a good thing to have. If you need to dive underwater without equipment or cross smoke during a fire, it's useful to have a reference of how long you can keep at it, how many rounds does that take, how much distance you can cross, what happens once you can't keep at it anymore. We are talking about adventurers, it's surprising that this is somehow thought of as an irrelevant edge case.

Are we expecting that the player should always have spells or some magic scuba for this?

I really don't get what's with OSR and not wanting to roll. I'm playing an RPG, I'm up for rolling. Though in this case, the rule does not even require rolling until you are already drowning.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oooor, 1 con roll. It can be that easy

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

1 con roll for what? A turn? A minute? 10 meters of movement?

The value of more thorough rules is setting common expectations among everyone. If you'll just keep making it up by vibes, you don't need any system. You might not even need dice,

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Per turn. We already have rules for difficult terrain and for movement. Adding more than that is completely unnecessary

As others have expressed pretty well, a game that fucks up its own core system is bad game design.

5e keeps on breaking its own core system. Pf2e tries to make everything work with the core system, that's why its bloat is less confusing than 5es, but it's still there for the sake of complex combat options

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I wouldn't call that a fuck up by any measure. This seems meaningfully distinct than just "difficult terrain", since its a hazard in itself. It's not a matter of just going slow, just staying there is dangerous. Not to mention it can compound with difficult terrain.

In practice, I'd still prefer the 5e rule where everyone has at least some time they can manage being in there as opposed to just rolling con and having your wizard drown immediately when they touch water like it is a video game.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is a survival skill in the core of the system, right?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

For tracking and foraging. You don't roll Survival to resist damage so I don't think the idea is the same here.

And you know, just because it could be done in other ways, it doesn't mean the way they are doing it is bad, even if you don't like it.