zeruslord wrote:If you really want random variations in power availability, there's a couple ways to do it. One is to work like the Crusader from Bo9S - have a smallish deck of cards and a small hand of them, with limited ability to discard without using. One is to make a set of power lists and determine access to them randomly each turn - the issue here is that either the player gets to determine the lists or the character is on rails, and how your lists are arranged can be a major balance factor.
I plan on using the first mechanic for my crusader and the second for my druid.
zeruslord wrote:If you're really desperate to keep a die per element, you could maybe have it affect caster level instead of spell level.
That's an option, although some spells don't care about CL very much. I'd have to look at the lists.
FrankTrollman wrote:
But other than that, the point of the Essentia Necromancer is for actions to be overall equal to an at will hero. So if you take everything from defense and put it into attack you should be squishier than the knight and do more damage, but there's no reason that shouldn't be a thing you do turn after turn.
That makes sense. I was trying to unlock various spell (or spell-like) abilities at various investment levels for various powers. I guess the idea is to make sure that any of them should be usable at-will, period.
DSMatticus wrote:For the elementalist, I went with a 1dX+Y, result being the highest level spell you can cast from that element. That works out to pretty much exactly what you're thinking when you scale it correctly.
My hesitation with the dX part is if you jump from a d4 to d6 (or whatever), you increase the variance, and end up with a situation where while having access to higher level power, you end up with a lower chance to get your top level power. Although, if you go from needing a natural 6 to get 5th level spells (or whatever) to a natural 7 for 5th level and a natural 8 for 6th level, you could view it as "a 25% chance to get 5th level
or better". I might be overthinking the scaling thing.
DSMatticus wrote:but in my write-up undead conjuring powers took at least an hour to cast and if you ever took the essence out of them your undead either collapsed or went rogue. So you'd drop essence on being able to cast the rite, then you could just use the rite whenever and it'd take a chunk of time that made spamming it not really a thing, and if you wanted to keep the skeleton army or whatever that you'd created with the rite you had to keep the essence in it.
My current write up is you invest points in the
ability, and the number of points indicates the number of HD you can have animated at a given time. Any time your investment drops to the point where you have more HD animated than you should, the excess HD fall inanimate. I'd considered the "going rogue" thing, but that seems more exploitable. You could stash hundreds of undead in a confined area as a trap or send a bunch in ahead to attack and reallocate to attack/defense and let them run amok. I preferred to just have them fall down. About the biggest exploit I see there is "corpse transportation for later reanimation".
OgreBattle wrote:
As for the elementalist, an alternative to dice would be drawing cards. So your red/blue elementalist has a small pile of MTG lands with islands and mountains, draws X of them a turn and can use any powers he has the correct mana for.
That's an interesting take, and different enough from the Crusader that it has merit.
OgreBattle wrote:
look and feel of the game similar to 3E, but with classes that are more balanced.
What other class/mechanics you plan on fielding?
It's pretty close to DSM's list, with a few changes. Off the top of my head, my at-will class is the Shifter (a shape changing class). I have a point-based class that has a recharge mechanic that is sort of like a White Mage. I think I have my Psion being the backlash class instead of the point class.
PhoneLobster wrote:RobbyPants wrote:I don't feel like dredging up links to old posts, but Frank made a post about different classes each with a different resource mechanic, and DSM elaborated on it with his take.
Aw? Really? Because it would be nice if you did so I could point out how the ingenious plan to make well nigh infinite multi-class incompatible but ALSO simultaneously
game compatible action resourcing mechanics has
strangely made absolutely no fucking progress since it's basic content free outline.
RobbyPants right in the fucking OP wrote:
Figure I'm aiming to keep the overall look and feel of the game similar to 3E, but with classes that are more balanced. I am not considering multiclassing or PrCs at this point.
You'd make less of an ass of yourself if you read the post you sarcastically responded to.