Towards a better buffing paradigm.

[Lago PARANOIA]

These are of course all assumptions. But I think they're pretty good assumptions, based on my experience from the past two D&D editions.

[*]Buffs either have to generically affect you or affect the whole party. It's okay to have buffs for a specific type of character, but it's not okay to have a buff that will only affect others and not you. I did a thread on why this is a bad idea.

[*]A buff should not change more than one thing on a character sheet or RNG expression (like skill checks or saving throws) or more than one token on a grid at a time. It's fine to seed the change upwards, meaning that you can have a buff that will chance a Base Level Bonus or a Strength Stat for example, as long as it's one thing on a character sheet. This is because +2 to Strength requires less mental space than +1 to attack rolls, damage, and strength checks even though the latter are more numbers to keep track of.

[*]Summon Critters should probably count as one buff if they have any of the following: 1) Per five lines (including game statistics) it takes to describe them. 2) Per three critters in the spell. 3) More than two distinct abilities. Yes, this does mean that summoning a mid-level apprentice wizard should take as much buffing space as summoning 10 iron golems. This entire document is a treatise on mental space it takes to handle buffs, not game balance. That kind of thing should be done separately.

[*]Summon Critters should be forced to stay 'as is' except for debuffs. If someone wants to buff summon critters it should come out of someone's mental space.

[*]Buffs should not come coupled with a 'balancing' weakness. Not only because this has a tendency to push people off of the RNG after people find a way to subvert the weakness, but because it requires more mental space on behalf of the player.

[*]Buffs that inherently change several things at once (like Dragonshape) should be rated as a multiple-buffer. This means that Divine Power is worth (in terms of mental space) as much as Resist Elements, Bull's Strength, and Overland Flight unless I'm missing something.

[*]Buffs should either be rated as in 'combat length' (4E gives this as two to five minutes) or 'until it's turned off'. Any other duration can go fuck itself. If you want until the end of turn buffs then they should be debuffs the NPCs or PC applies. Meaning that instead of a one-turn or 1d6 turn '+2 bonus to attack rolls' power, it's now 'enemies get a -2 penalty to defenses' power. No minutes, no hours, no days, no 'until the end of next turn' crap.

[*]The number of buffs that should be expected to change in a combat should be no more than three. The number of buffs total buffs that should be expected to change no more than once over the course of an adventure is six. Yes, this means that if you want a character to have more than three buffs the new ones are going to have to be semi-permanent except if they're changed between game sessions or in an extraordinary situation.

[*]Related to the buff/debuff paradigm, party buffs should ONLY be temporary. There are no such thing as permanent party buffs. This isn't because of balance issues but because it's easier to remember what your friend did twenty minutes ago than 3 hours ago.

[*]The mental space for buffs is slightly lower than what a player can be expected to handle, but that's so people have some room for situational bonuses like higher ground or flanking or being debuffed by a monster.

[*]The maximum number of buffs are supposed to be reserved for skilled veterans who play MMORPGs and have several campaigns under their belts and are basically the number-crunching methamphetamine freaks whom basketweavers hate. Starting out players should seriously have like two buffs.

[Swordslinger]

[*]A buff should not change more than one thing on a character sheet or RNG expression (like skill checks or saving throws) or more than one token on a grid at a time. It's fine to seed the change upwards, meaning that you can have a buff that will chance a Base Level Bonus or a Strength Stat for example, as long as it's one thing on a character sheet. This is because +2 to Strength requires less mental space than +1 to attack rolls, damage, and strength checks even though the latter are more numbers to keep track of.

Totally disagree. Changing substats is much more confusing than simply telling you the end result bonuses. +2 to melee attack and damage rolls is a lot easier to remember than +4 to strength, because first you have to convert that into a +2 bonus, then a +3 bonus to damage for two handers, and so on. That "simple" +4 expands to a lot of different numbers. It's a lot better to just keep your bonus fixed at +2 and hand it out to a bunch of different categories so there's only one number to remember. People will mentally try to convert substat bonuses to actual roll modifiers anyway, so you might as well just spell it out for them.

[Endovior]

[*]Buffs should either be rated as in 'combat length' (4E gives this as two to five minutes) or 'until it's turned off'. Any other duration can go fuck itself. If you want until the end of turn buffs then they should be debuffs the NPCs or PC applies. Meaning that instead of a one-turn or 1d6 turn '+2 bonus to attack rolls' power, it's now 'enemies get a -2 penalty to defenses' power. No minutes, no hours, no days, no 'until the end of next turn' crap.

This. It's probably the most important point you've made. Keeping track of weird durations is just obnoxious, and leads to a lot of stupid things happening.

Of course, you'll want a nice careful definition of 'combat length' to minimize things like the 'retreat just long enough to debuff your opponent' technique.

[Endovior]

[*]A buff should not change more than one thing on a character sheet or RNG expression (like skill checks or saving throws) or more than one token on a grid at a time. It's fine to seed the change upwards, meaning that you can have a buff that will chance a Base Level Bonus or a Strength Stat for example, as long as it's one thing on a character sheet. This is because +2 to Strength requires less mental space than +1 to attack rolls, damage, and strength checks even though the latter are more numbers to keep track of.

Totally disagree. Changing substats is much more confusing than simply telling you the end result bonuses. +2 to melee attack and damage rolls is a lot easier to remember than +4 to strength, because first you have to convert that into a +2 bonus, then a +3 bonus to damage for two handers, and so on. That "simple" +4 expands to a lot of different numbers. It's a lot better to just keep your bonus fixed at +2 and hand it out to a bunch of different categories so there's only one number to remember. People will mentally try to convert substat bonuses to actual roll modifiers anyway, so you might as well just spell it out for them.

No. That just gives you the thing where you've got three or four very similar buffs that give +1 to mostly the same things, and you have to do head-scratching about just what it is that's not getting fully affected by all your buffs. It'd be far easier if the substats were just plain buffed separately.

[Swordslinger]

No. That just gives you the thing where you've got three or four very similar buffs that give +1 to mostly the same things, and you have to do head-scratching about just what it is that's not getting fully affected by all your buffs. It'd be far easier if the substats were just plain buffed separately.

Look, substat buffing sucks ass. Not only is it mentally confusing, but it also allows bonus stacking, because while you can only have one power bonus to attack rolls, you can have a power bonus to strength, a power bonus to melee attack rolls and a power bonus to BAB, and they all stack because you're affecting different things. It's bonus stacking hell.

By making a standard of only modifying actual rolls, you ensure that you'll only get bonuses affecting one thing.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Totally disagree. Changing substats is much more confusing than simply telling you the end result bonuses.

What do you think it's easier in terms of thinking for someone to do? Tell you the second and fourth days that come after Tuesday or all six of the days that come after Tuesday?

Of course, you'll want a nice careful definition of 'combat length' to minimize things like the 'retreat just long enough to debuff your opponent' technique.

By combat length I should mean five minutes or until the end of the encounter, whichever is longer. 4E had a moment of accidental brilliance by enforcing you to take a 5-minute short rest to regain encounter powers, making it a moot point anyway (since encounter powers are worth more than buffs) so except for some really edge cases. So in practice 'until 5 minutes or until the end of combat' rarely causes any problems.

[Lago PARANOIA]

It's a lot better to just keep your bonus fixed at +2 and hand it out to a bunch of different categories so there's only one number to remember.

This is incredibly limiting to the point of being stupid. You can't have effects that, say, would meaningfully transform you into a golem anymore because you would either have to have a golem form that did something lame like only buff your damage or strength rolls or you would have to reserve enough for all of the end results. And you would hit the ceiling for changes really quickly.

It's okay to have effects that only buff a minor substat, but they should cost the same amount of 'buff' space as one that does something up the stream. It seriously takes about as much mental space to judge a general case as a special case.

[quanta]

Responses.

1. Agreed bar some weird exceptions (like a buff that only affects others and not you that takes concentration to maintain or something; that will help prevent circle-jerking).
2. Depends. Derived stats must be more sane for this to be good. That means no dividing by two and flooring to get derived changes. No multiplication.
3. Need to think about it more.
4. Agreed.
5. Agreed.
6. Agreed. And serious consideration should be given to maybe making shit like dragonshape give you essentially a temporary replacement character to avoid having to change ~10 stats.
7. I might go farther. An "until end of turn" debuff takes just as much space to track as a buff. Debuffs need to be considered more carefully too.
8. Clarify the per adventure part please.
9. Agreed.
10. Agreed.
11. Agreed.

[Lago PARANOIA]

6.) I don't really think that it's impossible to have a Dragonshape spell that would go out of the bounds of mental space. You can have a credible 'Dragonshape' spell if it gave you a helping of Size, Strength, Flight, Resist Elements, and the appropriate Breath. Meaning that it'll either be a high-level spell or you'll have to give up one or more of the benefits (like Resist Elements, the Breath, or the Flight). You might even do something like having the 'Breath' spell granted by the power to have to displace one or more of your powers. And of course if it gets turned off everything in the array gets turned off.

7.) The two biggest problem people have with buffs are memorization and people not being sure about how much of a buff people are supposed to have. One-turn debuffs can temporarily go past the memorization limit in the same way that someone can remember a message they get from a caller without having to write it down as long as they purge it from their memory really quickly (by writing it down or delivering it); after that point it doesn't really matter whether the person memorized it or not because it's moot. And because you have 3-7 people witnessing the same event it's less likely that someone will forget it.

On the 'expected to have it' side someone forgetting a temporary debuff when it does happen is less likely to cause problems than forgetting a permanent buff.

8.) By per adventure I meant gaming session. It's okay for someone to have to change the more 'permanent' ones once or twice but no more than that. The in-game time also doesn't matter, what's important is that someone isn't trying to adjust their brain to a new buff setup while they're supposed to be paying attention to the game.

[Josh_Kablack]

This problem has already been solved

[quanta]

6.) I don't really think that it's impossible to have a Dragonshape spell that would go out of the bounds of mental space. You can have a credible 'Dragonshape' spell if it gave you a helping of Size, Strength, Flight, Resist Elements, and the appropriate Breath. Meaning that it'll either be a high-level spell or you'll have to give up one or more of the benefits (like Resist Elements, the Breath, or the Flight). You might even do something like having the 'Breath' spell granted by the power to have to displace one or more of your powers. And of course if it gets turned off everything in the array gets turned off.

I guess? But then it feels to me like since dragonshape would give you 5 things (or 4 if the breath replaces something) where as you said normal buffs would change only 1 thing on a sheet, then dragonshape is a lot better than most buffs unless it requires having 5 "buff slots" or whatever and is otherwise just not castable.

Plus, I'd want someone in Dragon shape to gain better damage resistance/AC or more HP to represent increased toughness, and I'd like them to have attacks associated with their claws and tail.

On the other hand, it's probably not a good idea to hand out the ability to basically be a different character to some characters and not others so the "dragonshape is a buff that hands out enough characteristically dragon things" route is probably the most mechanically solid way to go.

7.) The two biggest problem people have with buffs are memorization and people not being sure about how much of a buff people are supposed to have. One-turn debuffs can temporarily go past the memorization limit in the same way that someone can remember a message they get from a caller without having to write it down as long as they purge it from their memory really quickly (by writing it down or delivering it); after that point it doesn't really matter whether the person memorized it or not because it's moot. And because you have 3-7 people witnessing the same event it's less likely that someone will forget it.

I'm worried about crazy debuff stacking. I think there's a limit. It's not hard to remember 1 debuff floating around, but if a huge patch of PC's and monsters get hit by a slew of varying debuffs (say someone launches a prismatic rays type spell with random effects and different character save against different part of the debuff. Or you're fighting in a poisonous swamp where you get poisoned if you're shoved into the swamp water against enemies who have status-effect attacks), I feel things may get a bit hairy.

Basically, I don't see why 1-turn debuffs are a better idea than 1-turn buffs (although I can understand why sticking with one or the other may be easier). Too many happening at once can still be a pain in the ass.

8.) By per adventure I meant gaming session. It's okay for someone to have to change the more 'permanent' ones once or twice but no more than that. The in-game time also doesn't matter, what's important is that someone isn't trying to adjust their brain to a new buff setup while they're supposed to be paying attention to the game.

Ah, ok. Yeah, I agree that ideally, there shouldn't be more than ~2 times people swap one "long-term" buff for another in a 2-3 hour session. I'm not sure what mechanism would be good to enforce that though.

[Swordslinger]

This is incredibly limiting to the point of being stupid. You can't have effects that, say, would meaningfully transform you into a golem anymore because you would either have to have a golem form that did something lame like only buff your damage or strength rolls or you would have to reserve enough for all of the end results. And you would hit the ceiling for changes really quickly.

Well what constitutes a golem? It's big, it's strong, it has some DR and (if you want the 3E kind, it resists magic).

So you'd do something like.

[*] +5 power bonus to strength based damage rolls and strength checks.
[*] +2 power bonus to AC.
[*] Resist weapon damage 10.
[*] Spell Resistance 25.
[*] Become large (Reach +1)

I don't see anything wrong with that spell. It's fairly complex but not unbearably so.

If you really wanted a full golem immersion spell, you could just as easily do it where you actually throw out your existing character sheet and just take the golem's monster stats too. Handling polymorph the way the 3E PHB2 did isn't a terrible method either, especially if the monsters are done 4E style where the monster stat sheet is easy to read and run.

The one thing you don't want to do is handle it the base PHB 3E method where you try to make myriad adjustments to all the PCs ability scores to try to turn him into some hybrid of a golem and a classed character. Not only is it complicated and tedious as hell, but it produces imbalanced results. If you care about imbalance at all, you won't want to do it that way.

Either keep it relatively simple or go for full replacement.

[souran]

The buffing/debuffing paradigm for the game should do something similar to WOW and have a finite list of effects.

You can have buffs that offer 1, 2 or 3 effects, and and you really do not care what effect comes from what particular spell.

This allows you to cap the total buffed effect of a group to something knowable. It discourages dumpster diving and makes novaing less effective because you cannot stack things that provide the same effect.

[Lago PARANOIA]

RE Quanta and Dragonshape:

We sort of assumed a 3E D&D mental base for all of this, but Dragonshape would take up less mental space in Shadowrun than it would in D&D due to unification of stats. An unstated assumption would be that you need to compress game mechanics, but there are other problems as well. In some systems there's no such thing as a 'claw' attack; it's just a generic flavoring to your melee attack so there's really no difference in a human with a +20 bonus to strength punching people and an unbuffed adult dragon doing so. This is not the case in 3E D&D, obviously.

The point is that it's really hard to talk about these things in a vacuum. If you feel that the assumptions would neem out a particular buff it may be more helpful to think about the system being changed rather than writing off the buff entirely--especially for something so iconic as changing into a dragon.

That means yes, it is totally easier to change the system than change the behavior of players. That's the main assumption of this thread, that there is a maximum amount of mental space an average player can reserve and the system should be build around that.

Basically, I don't see why 1-turn debuffs are a better idea than 1-turn buffs (although I can understand why sticking with one or the other may be easier). Too many happening at once can still be a pain in the ass.

On paper they're not better in terms of saving mental space. Regardless they're still preferable for three major reasons:

1.) Debuffs for some reason or another challenge peoples' WSoD less than buffs. People find it harder to swallow that a certain attack can add +2 to AC than an attack adding -2 to an enemy's attack. People balk at the idea of the rogue setting off a trap that will give players +5 to hit points, but not at a rogue setting offf a trap that will give enemies -5 to hit points. Debuffs are thus allowed to be more diverse.

2.) Debuffs neatly avoid the whole 'Bag Of Rats' or 'Righteous Brand the Wall' problem without requiring heavy-handedness on the part of the MC.

3.) Debuffs have a bit more tactical opportunity than buffs. A player that gives himself +4 to attack doesn't change the battlefield much, but a lizardman that gets a -4 to defense can--they can slip behind their buddy and use a safer attack for instance.

Well what constitutes a golem? It's big, it's strong, it has some DR and (if you want the 3E kind, it resists magic).

Thanks for demonstrating exactly why buffs should filter upstream whenever possible.

Have you done any integral calculus or worked with series? There's a reason why the first step is almost always 'factor out constants/greatest common multiple', especially if you're working with sums. It's because 'apply this number universally' invites less mistakes than 'the number HERE is a 5, here is a 15, and here is a 20' even though it's technically more steps.


I'm very strongly against hard caps. They break WSoD and cause thematic problems such as not being able to transform Steve the Crap Covered Farmer into a Death Knight. It's very important to have a sensible not-stacking paradigm of course. Of course as 3E and 4E D&D have showed us having named bonuses is a lot less important than designer discipline, because game designers are always introducing ways to get around the supposed soft caps.

[K]

This is incredibly limiting to the point of being stupid. You can't have effects that, say, would meaningfully transform you into a golem anymore because you would either have to have a golem form that did something lame like only buff your damage or strength rolls or you would have to reserve enough for all of the end results. And you would hit the ceiling for changes really quickly.

Well what constitutes a golem? It's big, it's strong, it has some DR and (if you want the 3E kind, it resists magic).

So you'd do something like.

[*] +5 power bonus to strength based damage rolls and strength checks.
[*] +2 power bonus to AC.
[*] Resist weapon damage 10.
[*] Spell Resistance 25.
[*] Become large (Reach +1)

I've always been an advocate of full replacement for the simple reason that none of the things that say "Golem" to me are on the that list. I mean, I turn into a living statue because I want to walk through poison gas because I don't have to breathe, not because I want some stat boosts.

And that's part of the shapeshifting experience: all the little things that are part of a monster that aren't a part of the gross stats make shapeshifting fun. I turn into a dragon for the fast flight and the senses as much as the breath, AC, and claws, and I think most people want that too.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, having stat replacement for shapeshifting has two big issues.

1) While I agree on having greater monster/PC transparency the problem with it is that you're still creating situations where people get pushed off of the RNG. Tenser's Transformation isn't unbalanced or even useful to all Cleric Archers/Gishes but it's unbalanced for enough of them.

2) You have to continually up the transformation gambit. That means that at every increase in power level you need to have a new set of forms. But people transform by theme, not by stats. Meaning that if your character concept is 'transform into a golem', at spell levels 4, 8, and 9 there's not a golem for you to turn into unless you want to have things like Wood Golems and Adamantium Golems.


If people really want to do stat replacement then they should become summoners. The fact that 'master of golems' can pave over their concept by just summoning an additional stone golem during the dry levels (then switch from two stone golems to one iron golem) both saves space and is more balanced. And if people think that having their summoner cast fireball is too much of a distraction from the joys of being a dragon then you could also implement some kind of Pokemon/YGO rule or option that removes the summoner from play. Maybe even give them the option of controlling an iron golem with their own piece disabled or a summoner and a stone golem.

[K]

Okay, having stat replacement for shapeshifting has two big issues.

1) While I agree on having greater monster/PC transparency the problem with it is that you're still creating situations where people get pushed off of the RNG. Tenser's Transformation isn't unbalanced or even useful to all Cleric Archers/Gishes but it's unbalanced for enough of them.

Are you confusing stat replacement with full replacement?

Stat replacement is what 3.x has where you have all your stuff and all the monster stuff. That's pretty imbalanced.

Full replacement is where you take your character sheet, set it down, and play the monster entry instead. That's pretty balanced.

[Lago PARANOIA]

No, I'm not, I'm just saying that there needs to be an option for Maleficent to transformation into a dragon AND cast her signature spells (which dragons don't normally do). If Jafar doesn't want to cast spells in giant serpent form and in fact does not want to do anything that giant cobras don't do then he can just be a summoner that removes his token from play while 'transforming'.

The buffing paradigm is for Maleficent, not Jafar. And for her she needs to have her dragon transformation represented by a series of buffs, not full stat replacement, otherwise it'll be unbalanced.

[Swordslinger]

No, I'm not, I'm just saying that there needs to be an option for Maleficent to transformation into a dragon AND cast her signature spells (which dragons don't normally do).

Becoming a badass fighter and maintaining your spellcasting? No, just no.

[RadiantPhoenix]

In 3e terms, there is (supposedly) nothing wrong with a character who is like a 16th level fighter with a 16th level wizard glued to his or her back, it's just an 18th level character.

[Cynic]

So how are team buffs supposed to work.

Most of the time that I've played a 5-player group - Wizard, Cleric/druid, Warrior, rogue/beguiler/dragonfire bard. .

So, half the time, I have three spellcasters or a UMd rogue spellcaster.

So if two people play buffer/part-time buffer, you have a shitload on the people.

So, you still have 4-6 buffs on the team. How do you handle that? Do we put a buff limit on a single player?

So 3 persistents from the cleric, dragonfire bardic buffs, two buffs from the druid/wizard. So you basically have, bab, damage, strength/dex, AC,, saves, additional types of damage (elemental, whatever else.)

Now you take the druid or any other summoner and this gets it even worse.

It's hard enough to manage 1 character with buffs. So a druid with an animal companion, and three summons. And this is if you have the summoner with a standard set of summons for different situations. But if you have a newcomer or someone who doesn't do the standard sets of summons, it just becomes a monster manual clusterfuck.

How do we handle this?

[ishy]

I also feel dispelling buffs should probably change.
Currently it just takes too much time for most groups.

For example make buffs not dispellable or make dispelling work for all buffs at once.
That way people can deal with it a lot quicker.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Who said that Maleficent's spellcasting dragon form had to be stronger than Jafar's giant snake form? There's nothing that mandates that, you're just letting 3rd Edition D&D bias your judgment.

For example make buffs not dispellable or make dispelling work for all buffs at once.
That way people can deal with it a lot quicker.

I don't think that buffs should be able to be dispelled at all. It of course increases the tactical complexity when Madam Mim is rudely jolted from her dragon form and she has to fall back on regular witchy spells, but I don't think that it's worth the tradeoff in increased bookkeeping.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The other thing that's becoming increasingly clear is that buffs need to come packaged with a debuff. Not for balance reasons but for issues of variety.

Unless you make the number of buff slots in the game very small, people are always going to go after a discrete package of bonuses. That is, they'll buff to the limit of attack, defense, damage, saves, etc.. that they're allowed to. Which means that people will pick up the same array of buffs or you need to inflate the amount of writing done by having bonuses only be arcane-only or rogue-only. You can avert these two to some extent by stating that Stoneskin reduces your speed or Divine Power shrinks your visual range. That way even though players will have the same overall boosts to their stats they'll still end up looking differently from each other.

Note that this isn't saying that caveat #5 is incorrect. You're not packaging disadvantages as a balancing factor but you're packaging them as a flavor factor.

[A Man In Black]

You can avert these two to some extent by stating that Stoneskin reduces your speed or Divine Power shrinks your visual range.

This will only work as long as you make sure to remember that these disadvantages aren't meant to balance the advantages, but merely to help encourage people to choose the buffs with disadvantages they can minimize.