Perilous System

[Manxome]

"Healer" meaning the calling, not necessarily the role; there's nothing in the Perilous rules so far that uses the word "cleric."

Though a wizard is identical to a healer except for the types of magic allowed as favored/specialization, so it should be equally viable for him.

[rapanui]

I'm rereading your rules from top to bottom this evening. I still intend to run the test combats. You have done a great job laying them out, formatting them and explaining them thus far. They are also well thought out and show a great deal of promise. The most difficult part for any starting game designer is getting enough people to test his rules out.

You shouldn't stop working on them if you enjoy doing so, and you really need to get people that are there with you to sit down and run through as many combats with as much variation in character builds as possible. Remember: a good game system reduces the incidence of gimping just as much as the incidence of broken power loops and that sort of thing.

I know I promised to do this last weekend, but I get lazy and frankly it's not much fun when you don't have another nerd helping you out.

[Manxome]

Makes sense. I get lazy all the time. I just want to know whether I'm being deferred or completely ignored, so I can avoid becoming a pest.

I am continuing to work on them, but these techniques take serious time to write, and even to name (how many verbs can you think of that mean "to heal dexterity damage"?). The geomancy list alone has like 90 techniques on it.

I may be able to sucker some people into running a test game starting in September/October if the system's ready for it by that point.



On a philosophical tangent, while I agree that gimping is a problem as much as broken power loops, I would add that I don't think it's practical for a system in which the players' choices have any real power to prevent players from making pathologically stupid choices. Someone with a basic understanding of the rules (and maybe a few choice bits of advice) shouldn't have to worry about accidentally gimping himself, but if someone really has no clue what they're doing or is deliberately trying to create a weak character, I don't think it's a problem if they end up with a weak character.

It's not like a powerful character couldn't be ruined by stupid tactics anyway (in anything approaching a risky encounter), so I'm really only concerned with balance for players who make not-obviously-bad choices.

[Catharz]

I know that the game isn't set up this way, but IMO having more than three abilities that do the same thing with different numbers is just a waste of your time. If you can figure out the number scale you like (-(nx+c) & +(mx+k)), use that instead. Techniques that do more than two or three things are really just Maneuvers.

D&D actually does OK with foo, improved foo, and greater foo.

[Manxome]

Actually, given the limit on the number of techniques you can learn and apply at once, having a technique that does more than one thing, or has numbers equivalent to two other techniques, is (at least potentially) a significant and meaningful upgrade...if you wanted to do those particular two things, of course. There is actually an option to learn and apply a single technique twice to a single action, and it is supposed to actually be useful, though I don't expect it to be used particularly often.

Most lines of techniques that do essentially the same job have so far been limited to ~3 techniques, and usually the more "advanced" ones are not simple improvements, but are supposed to subtly change how the technique is used (e.g. changing the ratio of successes to grace spent). In fact, technically none of them are strictly better, because having a higher rank requirement is a liability, even after you've reached that rank, because if penalties or debuffs temporarily lower your skill rank the technique could suddenly become unavailable.

I suppose I could add some sort of "+X per rank" clause to some techniques, but I'd prefer it if players didn't need to do an extra multiplication to figure out what their spell even does, and raising rank already gives a consistent, linear improvement to your spells by adding to your roll.


Though I am interested in feedback regarding the naming conventions. At least one person I talked to before said that he liked having distinct names like heal, mend, knit, etc. rather than heal 1, heal 2, fast heal 1, etc. The latter would make it easier to see how techniques are related to each other, but it also seems to suck some flavor out of the game...

[rapanui]

Manxome:
"I just want to know whether I'm being deferred or completely ignored, so I can avoid becoming a pest."

Not to me. This is the most professional-looking non-d20-derivative system I've seen in a long time, and the fact that it takes a page from SAME makes it immensely appealing, since no one has actually built anything using the SAME core yet.

Manxome wrote:
"I may be able to sucker some people into running a test game starting in September/October if the system's ready for it by that point."

Great. Also, (if you think it's a good idea) we can schedule a time to run some test combats with you online, etc. AIM or MSN Messenger would be preferable.


Regarding technique names:
I prefer naming conventions that make relationships clear.

Flavor is a campaign-specific concern. Heal 2 might be called "Lord's Grace" in one campaign, "Lay on Hands" in a different campaign, or even "Bioplasm" in another. Flavor and rules should be separated as much as possible (although of course, some flavor simply IS implied by the rules, such as having healing in the first place).

[Manxome]

I didn't mean flavor in the sense of what the world's like--heal 1, heal 2, and fast heal don't really imply anything less about the mechanics involved in the spells than mend, knit, and restore do, but the latter have a certain, I don't know, elegance to them that's lacking from the former. I think I'd look forward to getting "immolate" more than getting "fire DoT #6," but I'm not sure if that's worth the cost of people having trouble keeping track of exactly what "immolate" actually does.

EDIT: Also, to be fair, this is really not a SAME derivative. It's based on some of the same design principles, like not including attributes that some character designs can flush down the toilet and not care, but mechanically I don't think it's any closer to SAME than to lots of other systems. It doesn't use the "half your successes spill over" mechanic from SAME, it doesn't use the wound-tracks-with-cumulative-lethality-but-distinct-partial-effects idea, etc.

[TRQ]

Hi Manxome,

Just thought I'd post to give you encouragement! The system is, as rapanui said, very well constructed, and I would like to see it continue! I didn't want you to think rapanui was the only one who was enjoying your work.

Might as well give you some silly comments while I'm here, like pointing out errors/fixes in the manuscript.
1) Under "Casting a spell" you say that when there is no defense to roll against, you should roll against the number for gathering mana, then say "(20 by default)". The number for gathering mana is 15 above that. You should probably also specify whether the +1/2currentmana factors into that as well.
2) Under "Desperation" you say "recall that..." you can't use more fatigue than your vitality in any one attack. I didn't recall seeing that anywhere else.
3) The whole "character creation" section shows up twice.

Other Comments:
1) Healing shows up even earlier than you say... why spend 3 points to get "mend" when you can spend 1 point for "soothing". Then each person can heal with his own grace (and not use up the healers), and doesn't even need to succeed on any rolls. Obviously for out of combat.
2) Curious about when a weapon grants a technique, like your "/3 Disarm" in the example... If you already know "Disarm" as technique, the fact that your weapon has this means nothing, right (unless you want to disarm twice, I guess)? I don't see what you gain from it. You say explicitly that you can't use it in maneuvers, and fighting folk are mostly using maneuvers, so if they wanted a maneuver with disarm in it they'd have to learn the disarm technique, and then the fact that they're using a weapon suited to disarming doesn't help a bit. Since you haven't created techniques like "disarm" yet, techniques which have mechanics which aren't purely wound/peril/grace/stat based, I'm not sure where you're going with this... is it just to help people untrained in disarming out, or is there some reason why someone who knows disarm would use the weapon. Do these techniques work just like the others?
3) Speaking of which, I am curious how you plan on incorporating attacks like disarm, as well as other tactical status effects (prone and being tripped, flanking, etc?) Are there going to be techniques specifically interacting with, say, flanking? Are there going to be techniques which aren't attack related, say something that increases your speed for a round and also your peril? I think you've done a fantastic job setting up a numerical system that's consistent and very interesting and tactical, but when thinking about making a character I realized that unless his schtick is essentially numerical as well, I didn't know how to implement it.
4) Obviously there needs to be some testing... I was just pondering whether 1 point of VIT damage should really be equal to 14 wound damage. You have fatigue penalties, not wound penalties, so dealing VIT damage really does incapacitate them before they're gone (especially if it limits the fatigue of their moves). Using, say, 28 successes and dinky spells to deal 56 damage seems far less bad than dealing 4 VIT damage. 16 wound vs. almost doubling their fatigue penalties, and preventing them from doing many techniques.

[rapanui]

1186884052[/unixtime]]I didn't mean flavor in the sense of what the world's like--heal 1, heal 2, and fast heal don't really imply anything less about the mechanics involved in the spells than mend, knit, and restore do, but the latter have a certain, I don't know, elegance to them that's lacking from the former. I think I'd look forward to getting "immolate" more than getting "fire DoT #6," but I'm not sure if that's worth the cost of people having trouble keeping track of exactly what "immolate" actually does.

EDIT: Also, to be fair, this is really not a SAME derivative. It's based on some of the same design principles, like not including attributes that some character designs can flush down the toilet and not care, but mechanically I don't think it's any closer to SAME than to lots of other systems. It doesn't use the "half your successes spill over" mechanic from SAME, it doesn't use the wound-tracks-with-cumulative-lethality-but-distinct-partial-effects idea, etc.

I didn't mean to imply it was a SAME derivative, just that you obviously took some measure of inspiration from it. And you're right, there is a certain elegance to naming things a certain way... but you're crafting a new core system, and it seems prudent to me to make it as readable as possible so that people can follow it easily.

[Manxome]

Glad you're enjoying it.

1) Under "Casting a spell" you say that when there is no defense to roll against, you should roll against the number for gathering mana, then say "(20 by default)". The number for gathering mana is 15 above that. You should probably also specify whether the +1/2currentmana factors into that as well.

Thanks. The difficulty for gathering mana was revised downward, and I forgot to change that part; fixed now. And no, the difficulty is not dependent on your mana.

2) Under "Desperation" you say "recall that..." you can't use more fatigue than your vitality in any one attack. I didn't recall seeing that anywhere else.

Interesting; not sure how that rule escaped that version of the writeup, but it's now included in Techniques : Action Costs.

Basically, you can't spend more than your VIT in fatigue or more than your SPR in exhaustion on any single action; those attributes are supposed to increase your ability to "go nova" as well as increasing endurance.

3) The whole "character creation" section shows up twice.

The character creation section is immediately followed by a somewhat similar character advancement section, but I only see one character creation section in my copy (which I've just republished, so it should be the copy available for download now).

1) Healing shows up even earlier than you say... why spend 3 points to get "mend" when you can spend 1 point for "soothing". Then each person can heal with his own grace (and not use up the healers), and doesn't even need to succeed on any rolls. Obviously for out of combat.

Yes, if every character gets Soothing, that will let you perform out-of-combat healing (at significant exhaustion cost--remember that gathering mana costs exhaustion, and the healing cap per use on Soothing is low), but one character with Mend can heal the whole party, and I hesitate to call Soothing "basic healing magic." Regardless, the general point is that your party doesn't need a dedicated healer to have out-of-combat healing.

On a side note, remember that even pure fighters still care about exhaustion, because it reduces their ability to deflect enemy magic.

2) Curious about when a weapon grants a technique, like your "/3 Disarm" in the example... If you already know "Disarm" as technique, the fact that your weapon has this means nothing, right (unless you want to disarm twice, I guess)? I don't see what you gain from it. You say explicitly that you can't use it in maneuvers, and fighting folk are mostly using maneuvers, so if they wanted a maneuver with disarm in it they'd have to learn the disarm technique, and then the fact that they're using a weapon suited to disarming doesn't help a bit. Since you haven't created techniques like "disarm" yet, techniques which have mechanics which aren't purely wound/peril/grace/stat based, I'm not sure where you're going with this... is it just to help people untrained in disarming out, or is there some reason why someone who knows disarm would use the weapon. Do these techniques work just like the others?

If you already know a technique, having it granted by a weapon helps you if (a) you want to apply it twice to a single attack, (b) your skill is penalized/debuffed so your lose access to your learned version, or (c) the weapon grants it as a masterful technique (indicated by an asterisk), in which case it ignores your normal technique limit and can be added on-the-fly to maneuvers.

However, there are a lot more techniques in the game than one character can plausibly have access to. Even within your specialization, you'll probably know fewer than half of the techniques available at your rank (depending on what skill and what rank we're talking about). Weapons can also grant highly advanced techniques, or techniques not granted by weapon skills at all (or by any skills, for that matter--you can have a weapon that grants the "plot device" technique if your GM wants).

The main purpose of having rules for weapons that grant techniques is so that there's a standardized way to add special powers to magical weapons. For example, if you want to have a sword with the intrinsic magical ability for its blade to turn into fire, you could represent that with some technique on the weapon that changes the attack's damage type into fire (either masterful or not, depending on how difficult you want it to be to use). Putting non-masterful techniques that the players already have on weapons doesn't accomplish much, but that's really a fairly special case.

3) Speaking of which, I am curious how you plan on incorporating attacks like disarm, as well as other tactical status effects (prone and being tripped, flanking, etc?) Are there going to be techniques specifically interacting with, say, flanking? Are there going to be techniques which aren't attack related, say something that increases your speed for a round and also your peril? I think you've done a fantastic job setting up a numerical system that's consistent and very interesting and tactical, but when thinking about making a character I realized that unless his schtick is essentially numerical as well, I didn't know how to implement it.

There are going to be several secondary combat skills like "tactics" and "acrobatics" that grant techniques applicable to special actions (which are currently only mentioned in passing in the rules, because nothing relies on them yet). These are going to cover a lot of less-direct fighting stuff.

There's also a significant possibility for a lot of that stuff to be available in the current technique lists at higher ranks--or even at the ranks already covered, if it seems appropriate (my current technique-writing strategy is to brainstorm until I think I have enough to justify the skill's existence through about rank 10-15 and then move on, but I'll be revisiting those skills later).

Disarm would probably involve tapping peril to move your opponent's weapon some place other than his hand. "Prone" probably wouldn't be a special-rules condition, but might be represented by techniques with names like Trip that result in the target being unable to move and experiencing other penalties for some time window.

There are already two ways to get the basic tactical effects of flanking. One is to use techniques that briefly debuff the target's defense or resistance, like Exposing and Penetrating, which are very close to net zero if you're the only attacker but which become very valuable when you're ganging up on someone. The other is simply to have lots of people engage a single target in melee, which will tend to result in them making a lot of lower-than-usual defense rolls (see Defense Skills Defending Against Multiple Opponents, p. 6).

The number of techniques that increase your movement speed will probably be limited, on account of the fact that I want to make sure that people actually have time to do interesting things during chase scenes besides "run as fast as I can," but I do expect to include a few.

4) Obviously there needs to be some testing... I was just pondering whether 1 point of VIT damage should really be equal to 14 wound damage. You have fatigue penalties, not wound penalties, so dealing VIT damage really does incapacitate them before they're gone (especially if it limits the fatigue of their moves). Using, say, 28 successes and dinky spells to deal 56 damage seems far less bad than dealing 4 VIT damage. 16 wound vs. almost doubling their fatigue penalties, and preventing them from doing many techniques.

Turning 28 spell successes into 4 VIT damage does require either more techniques or higher costs (and a higher minimum evocation rank in either case) than turning it into 56 wounds. I don't think doing 100% pure VIT damage is even possible for anyone except an evocation specialist; martial fighters certainly aren't going to be able to avoid dealing a significant amount of their damage as regular wounds (though they have other advantages compared to an evocation specialist). If half of your damage is in wounds, then by the time you've reduced their VIT by half, they're out of the fight anyway.

Also, primary casters probably don't care about their fatigue penalty being doubled, so this is a situational advantage at best (and it's not even double if the target's base VIT is higher than 8). Even casters are supposed to think seriously about putting an extra point into VIT every now and then, and I expect martial fighters (who are the most vulnerable to this attack pattern) to be doing it fairly regularly as they level up.

But it is certainly possible that attribute damage is undervalued. I consider that better than having it be too weak to bother inflicting, but many aspects of the game may need balance tweaking.

[TRQ]

Hmm... I really did have two identical character creation segments (the first during the Talents section). Oh well.

However, there are a lot more techniques in the game than one character can plausibly have access to...

In that case, I do have one suggestion. I would allow people to make maneuvers that include techniques they do not even know, with the obvious caveat that one can not use the maneuvers unless one can use all the techniques. This is nothing new, since its just like having maneuvers requiring techniques you DO know that, because your weapon skill was lowered, you can't use (in fact, it fits rather well with your whole paradigm of how abilities and requirements work). However, this would allow one to make use of one's favorite weapons and weapon-granted techniques inside maneuvers, since most people want to be using maneuvers most of the time anyway.

Major question: Many of the martial techniques say "if you deal damage, then tap X peril to..." It seems to fit with your paradigm to say that these abilities can be activated when you tie on your damage roll (so the attack is a success, but no damage is dealt)... is that what you meant? I.e. should you change all the "if you deal damage" to "if the attack is a success" so that it matches the equivalent for spells? Specifically, if you use the Feint technique, should you be able to use any of these abilities so long as you make the finesse roll? I hope so.

Also, I notice that there are many spells which attack SPR, WIL, and ART, as well as spells which attack DEX, STR, VIT; meanwhile, there are no physical attacks which damage SPR, WIL, ART. I can see why it makes sense flavor-wise, but really if a fighter is attacking a wizard he should be able to hit him where it hurts. Maybe.

I raised the question of VIT damage (and the Feint) because of the first character concept I thought of: A wily guy who gets his opponents to overextend themselves and then bashes them in the bits that really hurt. I.e. high DEX, heavily defensive character, puts most of his skills in finesse, none in damage. With masterful technique on feint, almost always uses it (so that he deals peril on every successful finesse roll) (his other masterful is something like silencing? who knows). Has maneuvers like
1) Baiting/Baiting/Exaggerated/Feint* (4 fatigue)
2) Devitalizing/Wilting/Something/Feint*(1 fatigue)
3) Precise/Fast/Something/Feint*(4 fatigue)
so that with 1) and 3) he can build peril quickly on people who don't attack him or who do attack him. Then he uses 2) on folk with peril to deal VIT damage. Uses his weapon PP on finesse and parry, since no need for damage. Other than this, entirely defense focused. You can pull this off at level 1, and even have reasonable defense. I like the idea.

Then I tried to make a magic version of him, and its even easier... between Jinx and Devitalize you have all you need, and can just focus on pumping up those mana/casting checks. Toss in a Dispirit for going against casters. Then you have tons of maneuvers and techniques left over to do something else too.

So VIT damage focusing is not all that difficult.

[Manxome]

In that case, I do have one suggestion. I would allow people to make maneuvers that include techniques they do not even know, with the obvious caveat that one can not use the maneuvers unless one can use all the techniques.

I don't see a problem with that mechanics-wise, though for flavor reason I think I would add the caveat that you must have access to the technique from some source at the time you learn it.

Major question: Many of the martial techniques say "if you deal damage, then tap X peril to..." It seems to fit with your paradigm to say that these abilities can be activated when you tie on your damage roll (so the attack is a success, but no damage is dealt)... is that what you meant? I.e. should you change all the "if you deal damage" to "if the attack is a success" so that it matches the equivalent for spells? Specifically, if you use the Feint technique, should you be able to use any of these abilities so long as you make the finesse roll? I hope so.

They are "if you deal damage" specifically to prevent them from being used with Feint. Mostly because the flavor of Feint is antithetical to inflicting actual damage, and partly because it's a lot easier to throw out a lot of Feints than to use the complementary Wild, Opportunistic, and Timed--maneuvering your opponent into a bad position without actually hurting him is supposed to be easier than powering your way through his defenses, but with the drawback that you're not actually hurting him.

It should be entirely viable to have some characters focused on generating peril and others on spending it, though.

Also, I notice that there are many spells which attack SPR, WIL, and ART, as well as spells which attack DEX, STR, VIT; meanwhile, there are no physical attacks which damage SPR, WIL, ART. I can see why it makes sense flavor-wise, but really if a fighter is attacking a wizard he should be able to hit him where it hurts. Maybe.

I just don't like the flavor of swinging a nonmagical sword and inflicting mental damage on the target, though it's entirely plausible that psychological warfare will show up under "tactics" and other skills.




Regarding your character design, note that you're actually allowed to have 4-technique maneuvers and still add masterful techniques on the top (if you care). Also note that Devitalizing can only be performed with a crushing weapon, which might not come with particularly high finesse bonuses.

[Fuzzy_logic]

I just wanted to say I've been reading along the whole time and love what you're doing.

I do have a few questions and quibbles, but will get into that more later. Just wanted to give some encouragement.

Actually, two quibbles I can't hold off on.

Regarding "feint" -- I too had come up with the feinting VIT damage build. Isn't it confusing having two such similar criteria? Since a damage roll that succeeds by zero still inflicts peril, the rules seem to imply that inflicting zero damage is still inflicting damage.

Regarding Dual Wielding: Am I missing something, or is this really bad?

Sure, you can get two damage types, but you give up technique flexibility. Two weapons gives you access to mroe bonuses, but this doesn't matter much until you have *really* high skill. Plus, weapons are *heavy* -- you need a heavy investment in two-weapon before you can reasonably do it.

And you give up access to shields as well!

[Manxome]

The description of Feint says that the attack deals "no damage," which was intended to clarify that, but I could see how it might still be confusing. I've tried to make techniques as self-contained as possible, but it's really inevitable that some interactions will require more explanation than conveniently fits in that table.


Regarding dual wielding, I certainly don't expect every character to have it, but I'm not sure it sucks as much as you seem to think it does, particularly at high levels, because dual wielding requirements don't scale up very quickly. The highest weight armor you can wear is based on an attribute plus a skill, but the highest weight (single) weapon you can wield is based only on an attribute, which rises much slower than a skill, which means that weapon weights can't increase very fast (advanced weapon use is limited mainly by PP, not weight). Similarly, the difference between your weapon skills needn't grow any larger than you choose to allow. About 3-5 ranks in dual wielding may be sufficient for an almost arbitrary-level dual-wielding character, and on a 500 or 1500 skill point build that's really peanuts.

The investment isn't even that big at level 1 if you don't choose really heavy weapons. A level 1 character can plausibly wield two daggers or staves (or one and a short sword), with zero dual wielding skill and no weight penalty by just having 10-11 STR.

Dual wielding two types of weapons sort of restricts your selection of techniques, but just because you're holding two weapons doesn't mean you have to use them both on every attack--you can choose to occasionally use only one or the other if you want to use a specific technique. Regardless, there aren't very many techniques restricted to only slashing, piercing, or crushing (and some of those are allowed by two out of three). Also, having two weapon skills also generally increases the total number of techniques available.

Of course, you can also wield two weapons of the same type, which is probably more in line with the literature, anyway (characters wielding two swords seem a lot more common than characters wielding a sword and an axe). You might need a couple ranks of dual wielding to absorb the weight, but after that it's like you're weilding a single higher-level weapon than you actually own, and if you acquire specialty weapons you can mix-and-match them.

You give up the ability to use a shield, but you're supposed to be able to create competitive one-handed fighters that also don't use shields, so if not using one is a problem, it's a shields balance problem, not a dual-wielding balance problem.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Let's say we're going to dual-wield daggers. Together they add up to 10 weight. Most level one characters probably don't have 10 strength, so we're probably sinking a few skill points into Dual Wielding 1 or 2.

What do we have now? A Piercing weapon with +8 Finesse +4 Damage and +2 Parry.

Compared to using, say, a Short Sword this is a little better, but not much. At skill level 1 or 2 it's the same. At 3 it's strictly worse. If our weapon skill is above three, we do gain some flexibility.

Theoretically, we do save some skill points at high levels -- the short sword guy eventually caps out his sword skill and works only on finesse and damage, while we can get the same benefits from dagger, keeping our total SP cost down. Of course, if the short sword guy can get a better sword, all bets are off.

In any event, a shield is an even easier way to save points. Shield 3, Dagger 3 costs less than Dagger 6, and yields the same number of proficiency points. Admittedly, the shield benefits are somewhat worse -- they seem less efficient, and are defensive rather than offensive abilities. But even so, it seems that a character who has two skill to level up rather than one has a huge advantage.

[Manxome]

Most level one characters probably don't have 10 strength

I think most level 1 fighters probably do have 10 strength, actually. It's plausible that your second-highest attribute will be a 10 (either an 11/10/8 split or a 10/10/9 split) and likely that strength will be at least the second-highest attribute for a fighter. It's not a given, but it's not exactly unlikely, either. Especially if you know you're designing a character that will benefit from high strength.

Compared to using, say, a Short Sword this is a little better, but not much. At skill level 1 or 2 it's the same. At 3 it's strictly worse. If our weapon skill is above three, we do gain some flexibility.

I have difficulty imagining that a fighter would want to start with his main weapon skill lower than 4, whether dual-wielding or not. Starting with 5 or 6 ranks seems more plausible.

When I was designing sample characters, even the casters ended up with 4 ranks in their weapon skills. It's certainly possible that that's not optimal, but fighters with only 1-3 ranks in their main weapon skill are really not a demographic I'm concerned about.

In any event, a shield is an even easier way to save points. Shield 3, Dagger 3 costs less than Dagger 6, and yields the same number of proficiency points. Admittedly, the shield benefits are somewhat worse -- they seem less efficient, and are defensive rather than offensive abilities. But even so, it seems that a character who has two skill to level up rather than one has a huge advantage.

Having 3 PP on your shield isn't necessarily inherently any better than having 3 ranks in parry or dodge, which are both accessible to a dual-wielding character; using a shield only increases the number of skills you're benefitting from if you also get dodge or parry, which do not stack with block on a single defense roll (and even if you want two defensive skills, a dual-wielder can still get both dodge and parry). Shield is supposed to be balanced against dodge and parry; if it's not, that's a problem with shields (or dodge/parry), not with dual wielding.

Also, ranks in your weapon are inherently better even ignoring the fact that weapons are offensive, because your weapon skill grants techniques and allows maneuvers, and the shield skill does not.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Aha! I think the real problem here is that you underestimate the power of Shields.

I've reviewed your arguments and concluded that dual-wielding *is* a reasonable option compared to using a single weapon, but still worse than sword-and-board.

Shields just *aren't* balanced against dodge and parry. Yes, blocking is more or less like doging or parrying, but forget about blocking.

Let's say I already have dagger 3 and Dodge 3. I could get plus 3 to hit by buying Dagger up to 6, or +3 to Dodge by buying Dodge up to 6. Either way, it would cost my 15 points.

However, for 10 points, I could buy Shields 4, which would give me +3 to Tolerance. Unless Tolerance is somehow worse than Finesse or Dodge, that seems like a better deal.

I have never designed a character under this ruleset who didn't use a shield.

[Manxome]

Hm...there probably needs to be a rule that you can't get any bonuses at all from a shield while parrying or dodging.

[Fuzzy_logic]

So, I've thought it over, and I think Dual-Wielding, while maybe not perfect, is actually in a reasonable place. It isn't typically the obviously right way to go, but it's different and playable and good in some builds.

That said, I'm wondering whether we actually need Dual-Wielding and Shields to be a separate mechanic. What's to stop us from making "Shields" like this:

Main-Gauche
Shield
Weight 5
+5/5 Block
+2/3 Finesse
+2/3 Damage

[Manxome]

Having an actual weapon that gives a bonus to blocking is OK, mechanics-wise. There are already weapons that give bonuses to parrying, after all. But bonuses from weapons is supposed to be one of the things that sets parry apart from dodge and block, so I wouldn't want blocking weapons to be standard gear.

However, turning shields into a type of weapon completely screws up a number of mechanics with major balance ramifications.

The main one is that PP you use on your shield now come out of those available for your weapon, while keeping your total weapon PP at the same level, which prevents shields from being a viable alternative to parry and dodge. It also means that you need dual-wielding skill to use a shield, which is rather bizarre. Finally, it means that you're now learning techniques from your shield skill, unless there's a special rule saying you don't.

The net result of all of which is that shield would have to be used like a weapon skill, and would be a viable alternative to daggers or axes, not to parry and block. And that seems rather pointless.

[Fuzzy_logic]

I think you misunderstood my suggestion.

Don't treat Shield as a weapon skill. And don't use the dual-wielding skill. The suggestion was to completely delete the dual-wielding skill and simply allow certain shields to add bonuses to attack and damage.

I'm not sure I like it any better than your original system (Which I will now agree is playable), but I thought I'd throw it out there.

ETA: I'm statting out some characters and looking into play-testing a little bit.

Also, if you have any thought about what some typical low-level opposition might look like, I'd love to see it.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Sorry to double post, but came up with an obnoxious exploit I thought I'd mention.

Maybe this is only a problem until we get real wealth rules, but I notice that under the current rules any character can make himself completely immune to evocation just by wearing enough amulets of shielding. I'm not sure if this matters, but it's a little weird.

[TRQ]

First, confirmations/question/comment:
1) I assume that an "attack" is just a physical attack... this is obvious, but I wanted to make double sure. If you use baiting on a mage, he'll just keep casting and won't care.
1.5) Judging from what you said earlier in the thread, fighter calling gives you +1 techniques normally, +2 in maneuvers, for a total of 2 normal, 4 in maneuvers. For this to be more clear, remove the parentheses where it says (+2 in maneuvers) so it doesn't look like you were just adding +1 and +1.
2) When you use "threatening" or "silencing" or what have you, does it generate peril when they gather mana? As written, the answer is no. Do you really want that?
3) It is REALLY HARD to be defensively focussed in this game. That's, of course, totally fine. I just wanted to make sure you knew.

That said, here's my first lame attempt at a character - Defensive Man:
He doesn't have enough skill points to be defensive and have any offense as well, so he just is a thorn in people's side, wasting other people's actions (attacking this guy is truly a waste of an action).
He has +20 to parry rolls, +13 deflect rolls, and reasonable resistances (for lvl 1). He walks into the middle of some guys and starts baiting them/slowing them down, and hopes he doesn't die. Never uses any techniques that require success on either finesse or damage. Uses split to bait/delay more people.
Calling: Fighter
Talent: Masterful Technique
Abilities: STR 8 DEX 10 VIT 10 WIL 9 SPR 8 ART 7
Skills: Swords (Favored)(Specialized) 6
Some dumb weapon(Favored) 1
Parry(Favored) 4
Armor 2
Dual(Favored) 4
Deflection 4
Artifacts 3
Techniques:
Delaying x2
Some crappy level 1 technique
Some crappy level 2 techinque x2
Threatening x2
Baiting x2
Split*
Retaliatory*
Exaggerated x2
Maneuvers:
Taunt - Baiting x2, Exagg x2 (1 fatigue, +1 per masterful added)
Control - Threat x2, Delay x2 (1 fatigue, +1 per masterful added)
Equips: Amulet of Prot, Plate, Short Sword x2 (all parry)

[Manxome]

I don't think that equating shields and dual-wielding makes sense no matter which subsumes the other, and I don't think players who want to play with a dual-wielding concept will be particularly happy with the idea of using a shield that provides offensive bonuses as "dual wielding."

There's no mechanical reason you can't have some shields that grant offensive bonuses, but if you make them large or common you risk people ignoring blocking and picking up shields for cheap bonuses, as you suggested before.



Regarding opposition, the first cut is to create NPCs following the same rules as PCs, and just let the PCs outnumber them (or have a level advantage) to ensure the odds are in their favor. There's a link to a few sample characters at the start of the thread.

Fodder bad guys should probably have markedly low VIT and SPR (to prevent battles from taking too long, and to balance out the fact that the PCs need to worry about future fights without much rest while the baddies usually don't) while their attack and defense bonuses should probably be closer to typical for PCs of the level they're fighting, so that they can plausibly hurt the PCs but aren't likely to win the battle.

BBEGs, conversely, should be able to take a beating, and should generally have offense and defense superior to the PCs, but not so high that there's a high probability of a PC dying too quickly to react. Healing is balanced on the assumption that killing someone in one round is difficult unless you've already built up a bunch of peril.

As for monsters, I haven't statted anything out, but the next step would probably be starting with some reasonable stats for an (equipped) PC and then shifting them to be a bit more specialized than a PC would have (e.g. more tolerance and less defense) by ignoring diminishing returns and keeping the sum of bonuses about the same. That should produce some creatures whose stats are recognizably not normal and encourage adaptive tactics without screwing with the basic balance too much.

The level scale here isn't the same as D&D, so doubling the number of opponents is most likely not equivalent (in difficulty) to increasing their levels by 2, but you can still be reasonably sure that any well-played party should have an advantage against a smaller, same-level opposing force. Doing some "equal strength" matches might provide equally (or more) interesting test results, though, with the proviso that the strategies for managing fatigue are likely different when fighting lots of easy battles than when fighting one big one.


EDIT: More posts while I was writing...

Maybe this is only a problem until we get real wealth rules, but I notice that under the current rules any character can make himself completely immune to evocation just by wearing enough amulets of shielding. I'm not sure if this matters, but it's a little weird.

You'd have to take some really incredible penalties to your willpower and be vulnerable to fire/ice/lightning, but yes, you're right that that's a problem; there's supposed to be a rule that you're incapacitated if any of your attributes is reduced to 0. I'll make sure to add that in in the next publication.

First, confirmations/question/comment:
1) I assume that an "attack" is just a physical attack... this is obvious, but I wanted to make double sure. If you use baiting on a mage, he'll just keep casting and won't care.
1.5) Judging from what you said earlier in the thread, fighter calling gives you +1 techniques normally, +2 in maneuvers, for a total of 2 normal, 4 in maneuvers. For this to be more clear, remove the parentheses where it says (+2 in maneuvers) so it doesn't look like you were just adding +1 and +1.
2) When you use "threatening" or "silencing" or what have you, does it generate peril when they gather mana? As written, the answer is no. Do you really want that?
3) It is REALLY HARD to be defensively focussed in this game. That's, of course, totally fine. I just wanted to make sure you knew.

1) Correct.
1.5) Correct.

2) That's correct, casting only. Don't bother using it if you know the target doesn't have any mana available to cast with. Buffing and debuffing casters is weird all around because of the alternate-turns mechanic.

3) I find it tends to be unsatisfying if fights end in stalemates, so that's probably not a terrible thing, though I don't want effective defense to be impossible.

That's a pretty impressive defensive build, though. 28 peril is quite a disincentive.

Don't forget that you can layer armors on top of each other.

[Manxome]

Updated [counturl=78]rules[/counturl] with benediction techniques, and various other changes.

Any comments on the relative power of the talents, or ideas for additional ones? In particular, do you think that fighting/magical/ethereal expertise offer enough incentive to seriously take them over masterful techniques? (Since masterful techniques also effectively increase the number of techniques you can combine.)