[projectaon] Re: Outstanding Errata Sprint (Week 6)
- From: Jonathan Blake <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:34:31 -0700
On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 1:17 PM, David Davis <feline1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I would vote to junk the entire footnote!
>
> I would simply put a footnote at any section involving which tells you to
> use an RNT other than three as follows:
>
> "Note that the Random Number Table bonus given here for use of Bow with
> Grand Weaponmastery is higher than the usual +3."
>
> That's it! No big deal! No fuss! No waffly speculations about possible
> rules, misprints or hidden loyalty bonuses.
> Just a concise reassurance to the reader (i.e. "yup, you read that right. It
> says +5 here. That's higher than usual. Relax, you got some free lunch! Now
> fire your arrow...")
I realize that the footnote is unwieldy, but the issue is complex,
more complex than just the occasional +5 bonuses.
If I try to recapture my Grand Master naivete (which was actually not
so very long ago because I had to buy it second hand after they were
no longer being published (because I waited a long time fruitlessly
hoping that they would be published in the U.S. (but I digress))), I
remember being tripped up by the +3 bonus and assuming it was a
mistake. I never noted the occasional +5 bonuses. My confusion was
rooted in the Grand Master Disciplines section itself. So while your
recent reservations seem to be originally rooted in the occasional +5
bonuses, footnoting just those sections would leave the naive reader
wondering.
And no, I don't think the concept of hidden loyalty bonuses is a slam
dunk here. For all the reasons outlined in the proposed footnote, I
think using +5 isn't wrong despite the idea of hidden loyalty bonuses.
And just between you and me, hidden loyalty bonuses smell like a
convenient dodge that was thought up after the fact to either paper
over getting caught in an omission in the rules or more likely to make
nerfing the Disciplines sound more respectable. It's hard to fix game
balance issues retroactively when you're dealing with dead tree
technology. :)
--
Jon
~~~~~~
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