Writing Abilities 101

[K]

Ok, someone asked for a primer on writing abilities, so here is what I learned from writing Tomes material. Note that some are critiques on things I've done which don't look so good in hindsight.

In no order of importance:

1. Write abilities, not numbers.
No one cares about bonuses to stuff. Seriously, you can hand out a bonus so big it becomes an ability (like 3e True Strike), but at the end of the day people are deeply unsatisfied when you say "I used my Power of the Ancients special power given to me by the gods FOR ..... a +3 to my next attack."

Basically, this is why 4e DnD fails. It has 14 unique abilities, and hundreds of damage mechanics pretending to be abilities. There is a great article on the 4e site about how they had to houserule their own combats to make combats more interesting than numbers hitting other numbers.

2. Interact with the ruleset.
Ok, can a Burning Hands set a velvet couch on fire? I don't know, and that's a problem.

Don't write a mechanic when there is a mechanic already in place, and try to anticipate where your rules are going to interact with other rules. For example, 3e Storyteller games had dozens of mind control powers from different supernaturals, and no one knew how they interacted with each other.

Kinda a no-brainer, but game designers constantly don't do this.

3. Remember when something is a flavor ability, and when something is a real ability.

Fire resistance is cool, and sometimes it will save your life, but it is not an ability. You may go your entire adventuring career and never get hit with a fire attack. Personally, I have never had Fire Resistance AND been hit with a fire-based attack. Somehow its been one or the other, and I've had good DMs and bad ones.

That being said, flavor abilities can just be handed out for free and you stop when it becomes too much to write on a character sheet. Your character just became a native outsider? Who cares? You have a lifespan four times that of the other characters? Not a problem. You get bonuses to talk to Giant Frogs? Whatever.

4. No penalties are so big you don't take the awesome.
People try to offset some awesome power with some terrible penalty, and they find that somehow people keep taking the power and they figured out a way to not pay the penalty.

By definition, these are "unbalanced powers."

5. Story powers.... just don't.
OK, sometimes you get a power that is basically meant to be used by a villain to touch off a story. Animate Dead, most summons, and the like should live in your system somewhere, but they need to be be playable.

This means if you have a cool idea for a story and can't figure out how to do it with your rules, its time to rethink the rules and don't write some new mechanic that borks your game when put into the hands of players.

6. Deals with the Devil aren't good deals.
Don't ask people to set finite resources on fire. XP costs, GP costs, and permanent HP loss are some of the many things that have been tried, but they are all bad. People WILL cast spells that cause their fingers to literally shoot off and kill their enemies. Don't tempt them.

7. Rule Breakers generally are game-breakers.
If someone gets a immunity to something, don't make a power that specifically overrides that immunity. Some muthafvkers are always trying to iceskate uphill.

8. I love your theme, but I won't play it.
OK, you've decided you need a character that has an undead tumor that lets him implant other undead tumors in people. OK, that's weird, but not good for your playerbase, so don't try to sell it in a general sourcebook. That kind of crap is for the appendix of the adventure featuring that character.

General stuff gets traction. Generalized stuff in a basic theme works pretty well too, so don't toss out your material that you wrote for Forest Elves (like dead cats, you can't swing them without hitting something). Powers for someone who has licked a specific statue somewhere on an infinite plane and carrying about a bit of it in his pocket are not good.

9. Niches are for Bi.... ummm, yeh.
Fireballs are good. Need a guy dead? Boom. Need a door opened fast? Boom. Need to set a forest fire? Boom.

You want powers to be versatile. You want people to come up with awesome uses for powers. A spell that turns snow into evil snow is awesome in an arctic campaign where literally 99% of your world is going to be snow, but it fails everywhere else and a smart cookie would just let you produce evil snow and then people can port it into ANY campaign.

10. Set your powers to a benchmark.
Just pick one. No one will ever agree with your balance points, so like many other design decisions this will be just be arbitrary. Then set other powers to that. If you've decided that at 1st level someone should be able auto-hit people for damage at a range, punking out at higher levels and making people start rolling attack rolls is kinda insulting.

11. Don't Capstone.
People somehow think that if you sink enough crap into something, you should get a prize at the end. While that works in life (getting your degree, getting laid, you name it), in games it fails.

People who want to turn into living shadow just want to do it. They don't want to wait five levels on the hope the campaign won't end because someone just boned the DM's girlfriend.

This is recreation. Let people get their iconic ability upfront and they'll be happier for it.


Ok, so thats my initial pass. A cookie for anyone who can name the powers referenced as examples.

[Midnight_v]

K... you're so fuckin cool.
M_V

[Lokathor]

Powers for someone who has licked a specific statue somewhere on an infinite plane and carrying about a bit of it in his pocket are not good.

Planar Touchstones. They were weird.

[Koumei]

People WILL cast spells that cause their fingers to literally shoot off and kill their enemies. Don't tempt them.

Lahm's Finger Darts or whatever it's called: Book of Vile Body Piercings.

If someone gets a immunity to something, don't make a power that specifically overrides that immunity.

Searing Spell feat, every Energy Mage class (though in the case of Energy Mages, I'd argue it's mandatory to include it).

OK, you've decided you need a character that has an undead tumor that lets him implant other undead tumors in people.

The Cyst spells/feat from Libris Mortis.

Powers for someone who has licked a specific statue somewhere on an infinite plane and carrying about a bit of it in his pocket are not good.

Planar Touchstone.

A spell that turns snow into evil snow

Bloodsnow, from It's Cold Outside.

If you've decided that at 1st level someone should be able auto-hit people for damage at a range

Magic Missile.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

You referred to Magic Missile, and that set of spells from Libris Mortis (forgot the name). I'm guessing you referred to a spell from its Cold Outside.

K, you have put two words much of my thoughts on D&D. Thanks a bunch.

[Psychic Robot]

1. Write abilities, not numbers.

Could you give some examples of "abilities, not numbers"?

[Thymos]

That's awesome. I already agreed with a bunch, but just seeing it typed is nice.

Thanks.

[Kaelik]

In addition to all the spell people have named:

Fire resistance is cool, and sometimes it will save your life, but it is not an ability. You may go your entire adventuring career and never get hit with a fire attack. Personally, I have never had Fire Resistance AND been hit with a fire-based attack. Somehow its been one or the other, and I've had good DMs and bad ones.

That being said, flavor abilities can just be handed out for free and you stop when it becomes too much to write on a character sheet. Your character just became a native outsider? Who cares? You have a lifespan four times that of the other characters? Not a problem. You get bonuses to talk to Giant Frogs? Whatever.

Epic arguments about how overpowered Infernal Dalliance is on WotC. Same for the "you are any age" part of True Fiend. Also, how every PC class or PrC that gets resistances pays out the ass for the privilege of FR 5, so everyone bitched at the Various Tome of Fiends classes getting Resistances that don't suck in addition to attacks that don't suck, instead of in place of.

Also, People talking about Aasimar's LA, because they always talk about how Native Outsider and FR 5 are worth so fucking much.

People try to offset some awesome power with some terrible penalty, and they find that somehow people keep taking the power and they figured out a way to not pay the penalty.

Celerity

[Leress]

1. Write abilities, not numbers.

Could you give some examples of "abilities, not numbers"?

I can think of some

Elusive Target
Shock Trooper
Sculpt Spell

[Mask_De_H]

The aim of the Tactical Feats
Combat Expertise
Stunning Fist
Perfect TWF
Reserve Feats
Arcane Disciple

Also, for the cookie:
Warden/Druid Encounter Power
Monk L20, Monk L14?, Animal Empathy
Celerity, Hellfire Warlock, any "Suck now for Awesome Later PrC"
Wish, Gate, Artificer Spelldancing, I don't know what the permanent HP loss one is.
Mother Cyst feats from Libris Mortis, Planar Touchstones
Bloodsnow from It's Cold Outside
Magic Missile
Shadowcaster?

[Psychic Robot]

Isn't Combat Expertise just switching numbers around, though?

[Mask_De_H]

Wait, Expertise is anti-Power Attack. I meant Reflexes. The one that gives you more AoOs.

Oh yeah, Karmic Strike, Robilar's Gambit, Short Haft.

[Username17]

This is an excellent summary, and should be mandatory reading for everyone who writes these things. The one part I think is problematic is #4. After all, everything that lives in a resource management world has a cost, and that's actually fine. PPCs use more heat than Large Lasers, and Manablast costs more drain than stun bolt. And that's fine. Giving people the option to pay more for bigger effects is OK. The real non-no that I think #4 is referencing is when you set the cost of using a power so high that "no one will be willing to pay it" - because of course, you know they will.

Giving someone the ability to win the game in exchange for not being able to play their character anymore is not a really difficult choice, but it does make the game no fun. I guess what I'm really getting at is that #4 should have the wording tightened up a bit so it makes a distinction between the Fire/Firaga cost divide and Suicide Bomber: The Reckoning.

-Username17

[God_of_Awesome]

I disagree on everything but the Don't Capstone. Well, okay, I agree, but I like putting them there anyway. Their neat. No one will ever use the level 20 capstone but I bother to make it anyway.

[Maxus]

I disagree on everything but the Don't Capstone. Well, okay, I agree, but I like putting them there anyway. Their neat. No one will ever use the level 20 capstone but I bother to make it anyway.

Wait, what? Did you have a moment of mental abstraction there?

Those first two words don't seem to match up with the rest of the post...

[RandomCasualty2]

9. Niches are for Bi.... ummm, yeh.
Fireballs are good. Need a guy dead? Boom. Need a door opened fast? Boom. Need to set a forest fire? Boom.

You want powers to be versatile. You want people to come up with awesome uses for powers. A spell that turns snow into evil snow is awesome in an arctic campaign where literally 99% of your world is going to be snow, but it fails everywhere else and a smart cookie would just let you produce evil snow and then people can port it into ANY campaign.

This one should really have an opposite warning that says "Don't make powers too general".

A little specialization in your powers is good, because you don't want one power to be able to handle every conceivable encounter. That's really one of my biggest problems with 4E. Every power you get is pretty much useful against almost every monster, so there's really no diversity for using certain powers over others.

While you don't want to get into ridiculously situational powers, you don't want abilities that work in every conceivable instance.

[Wyzzard]

I don't know what the permanent HP loss one is.

Weapons of Leprocy have it as an option.

Niches are for Bi.... ummm, yeh.

This one should really have been "Blessed By Tem-Et-Nu"; I'm sure someone somwhere has run a hippo themed campaign.
If nothing else, Bruce Cordell apparently would.

[Falgund]

9. Niches are for Bi.... ummm, yeh.

Don't be like me and read inches instead of niches.

[RobbyPants]

11. Don't Capstone.
People somehow think that if you sink enough crap into something, you should get a prize at the end. While that works in life (getting your degree, getting laid, you name it), in games it fails.

People who want to turn into living shadow just want to do it. They don't want to wait five levels on the hope the campaign won't end because someone just boned the DM's girlfriend.

This is recreation. Let people get their iconic ability upfront and they'll be happier for it.

What's so funny is how often I see as people using the capstone as some sort of anit-multiclassing incentive. I look at all the 20 level builds at CO that involve gimping your character for the first five or ten levels to be awesome at 20th, and I wonder how many games those characters actually see. Really, you only roll a guy like that if the DM says the game starts at 20th level.

I do like the idea of handing out iconic abilities up front. Of course, you hand out level-appropriate abilties at level 1, but that goes without saying. Your character should be able to realize their iconic abilities right off the get-go. It makes for fun game play. I'm running a 2nd level shapeshifting druid in a game right now, and even though it's weaker than the standard druid, I'm having a helluva lot more fun because I can do all of the important things right now. Sure, I have cool stuff to aspire to (better spells, more shapes), but I have my iconic abilities and I love it.

9. Niches are for Bi.... ummm, yeh.

Don't be like me and read inches instead of niches.

Am... am I not supposed to admit that I read it that way at first too?

[Murtak]

I disagree on everything but the Don't Capstone. Well, okay, I agree, but I like putting them there anyway. Their neat. No one will ever use the level 20 capstone but I bother to make it anyway.

I think capstones are fine when the flavor of the ability handed out is the capstone. Capstones suck when you pay for ten levels just to gain an ability which then breaks the game or when you don't get the ability that defines the class until the last level.

So I am fine with handing out immunity to aging ("you are now one with the universe") or fortification ("you transform your body into elemental matter"). But what is not ok is breaking your spellcasting (Rainbow Servant) or taking ages to finally let you travel through shadows (Shadowdancer).

[Crissa]

Yeah, we're playing a game where the DM moved down abilities by washing them out with durations and effects.

We're having a blast letting the mage (at fourth level) turn us into mice to escape the guards. Sure, it takes five minutes of in-world time and gives us no real bonuses aside from size... But it lets us do the magic and sword thing now, not later.

-Crissa

[God_of_Awesome]

I disagree on everything but the Don't Capstone. Well, okay, I agree, but I like putting them there anyway. Their neat. No one will ever use the level 20 capstone but I bother to make it anyway.

I think capstones are fine when the flavor of the ability handed out is the capstone. Capstones suck when you pay for ten levels just to gain an ability which then breaks the game or when you don't get the ability that defines the class until the last level.

So I am fine with handing out immunity to aging ("you are now one with the universe") or fortification ("you transform your body into elemental matter"). But what is not ok is breaking your spellcasting (Rainbow Servant) or taking ages to finally let you travel through shadows (Shadowdancer).

Oh yeah. With my Champion class, I figured the three iconic abilities, the magic mount and weapon and slow deification, were straight up 1st level. And some other abilities; like Sphere casting, summoning divine help, communing and the upgrades to the iconic abilities. The 20th level capstone, the power to turn into an Avatar of your god, is thematically appropiate (As well the logical conclusion of the 1st level ability of deification) but not iconic.

I understand that much. But captstones are still fun to write.

[Koumei]

I understand that much. But captstones are still fun to write.

That's why we just cut the crap and write "You win", these days.

[God_of_Awesome]

You guys are so jaded.

[ubernoob]

You guys are so jaded.

And?