The Gaming Den

So an adamantine wall or the cover from a web spell or whatever, it all basically doesn't mean dick.

Of course it does. If you don't have a shot, you don't have a shot. If someone is behind an adamantine wall then your cover ignoring attack doesn't do fuck all. If he's partially behind said adamantine wall, he's in for a world of surprise.

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1198261429[/unixtime]]

So an adamantine wall or the cover from a web spell or whatever, it all basically doesn't mean dick.

Of course it does. If you don't have a shot, you don't have a shot. If someone is behind an adamantine wall then your cover ignoring attack doesn't do fuck all. If he's partially behind said adamantine wall, he's in for a world of surprise.

Well yeah, but how D&D cover works, being behind an adamantine wall is probably going to be the same as being behind a stone one. Full cover is full cover. So really, the material of the wall doesn't matter much.

And what good is it anyway if I can't fire out from behind cover? I mean the purpose of terrain is generally to grant some kind of combat advantage. I guess it might not be terrible if you just plan on buffing your allies, but that's about all you can do from behind total cover.

What's to keep you from firing from behind full cover? Sure, it's only half cover if you're standing, but becoming prone is a free action. You'll fire less often, since you have to stand up every round, but your iterative attacks don't matter anyway. The same effect could be achieved with Shot on the Run.

What's to keep you from firing from behind full cover? Nothing. Just like nothing is stopping the other side from using readied actions.

Or you could decide to wait behind the wall and summon monsters or heal party members or await reinforcements. Or you could pop up and snipe, forcing your opponent to wait there like a sucker and get off less shots (you'll get less shots as well of course).

That wall has just become a delicate tactical instrument. Before the other guy had that ability it was just a no brainer. You have the wall, so you'll stay here and shoot until they figure out something to do about it. But now that standing there like a weapon turret doesn't get you anything, the number of credible options you have for what to do just spiked up

-Username17

When you avoid mechanics, it doesn't matter the flavor.

All the high-level field effects mean nothing if the mechanical base for them is removed. Abilities need to be apparently useful, but not negating a part of the game. If they exist that way, then they become imperative to have - and a character without that feature is useless in comparison.

I'm not sure how we get around that.

Frank, can you give us examples of abilities which would be bad to offer?

-Crissa

At this point I think it's worth talking more about damage tracks and status effects.

For one, how can they be reduced to a minimum? I was thinking about how you would implement a 'slow' effect, but 'slowed' is pretty much the same mechanically as 'entangled'. There should probably be a track for 'slowedness' or 'entagledness', but would this be the same as 'fatigue'? Would tracks be divided by how long it takes to recover, or how you recover? If so, fatigue will probably not be shared with entaglement.

So, an example:
The "entanglement" damage track reduces dexterity (-2) and movement (halved) for each step point of entanglement.

It might be nice to have a track for each attribute (Weakened, Sickened, Befuddled, Shaken, Dissed, and Entangled).

It could, however, be argued that fatigue should just give a flat penalty to all actions (a single pure 'status' track), or reduce a number of attributes, both mental and physical.

And then there's the exotic stuff: Petrified or turned to goop (Entangled?), on fire, covered in biting centipedes, prone (can you get 'really prone'?), scared, turned into a pig, &c.

My thought is that characters would have an "effect threshold" (which is some fraction of their hit points), and a "wound threshold" (which is some fraction of their hit points). People would just have one wound track, and they would write down the thresholds on their character sheet.

Then each attack would list what happened from the attack if you did enough damage to exceed their effect threshold. And it would list what would happen if you exceeded their Wound threshold as well (or not if it just provides a "wound"). So for example, if you have "Stunning Fist" it has an effect of "Stun: 1 Round" so if you do enough damage with it to hit the Effect Threshold, your target gets stunned. It doesn't say anything on the Wound line, so it just knocks soemone down the Wound chart if they get wounded by it. So if someone was "fucked" and they took enough damage to go get wounded, they would shift to "proper fucked" (or whatever). In addition, I would like it if when you lost half your hit points you got hit with the effect of whatever the last attack that damaged you was (no matter how little it did), and if you lose your last hit point you suffer the wound effect (again, regardless).

Now, the world could indeed have non-damaging attacks which merely do an amount of virtual damage to see if they cause their pet effect or wound effect. Or we could go the route of celestial chastisement, where domination effects just plain do damage.

-Username17

I support that naming system for Wounds:

Healthy > Hurt > Wounded > Fucked > Proper Fucked > Before ze Germans Get Zere > Dead > Small Pieces

The mechanic sounds pretty good, too, and virtual damage is easy for the system to handle: you roll damage as normal, then you don't note it down, you just check the number.

There should be a spot past small pieces like 'ashes' or 'dust'.

-Crissa

While tying Wounds to damage is obvious, and tying secondary effects like Stunning Fist to damage works for streamlining things, I see no benefit to virtual damage for things like Mind Control.

The reason is primarily that, while tying it to HP seems like an ablative system (which might be an interesting direction to try), it really isn't. You're comparing HP (based on Level and Con) to damage (based on Level), with a little uncertainty added by rolling damage (but not as much uncertainty as a d20 roll has).

So let's boil this down to the essentials. What we have is basically an opposed level check with less uncertainty. While basing it on HP means we add Con, it would make more sense to use stats based on the type of attack - Wis or Cha for resisting mind control, for instance. And the attacker's side should also be adding their stat, to make the math smoother.


Which gives us this:
Level + (Stat) + d6 vs Level + (Stat) + X

If you succeed, the effect happens. Tweak X to get the appropriate success chance against equal level foes (X might be negative, or added to the attacker's side). Tweak the d6 to something else if you want more/less randomness.


Example (50% success vs equal foe, so X = 4)
Adam (L5, Int +3) tries to use Mind Control on Bob (L5, Wis +2). Mind Control is an Int-based Mental attack. So Adam rolls d6 + 8 against Bob's mental resilience of 11.

Whether this should just be folded in with the saving throw / attack roll is also a point to consider, but even if it stays separate, this accomplishes the same thing as virtual damage with less rolling, and without basing mental resilience on being large and tough.

I am not convinced that con should add to hit points. I am convinced that constitution should be the thing that protects you from fireballs. I think D&D has it almost exactly wrong. People aren't "fast enough to ignore the entire room being engulfed in flames", people are tough enough. Similarly, people aren't 'tough enough to keep a spear from punturing their eye and end their life" - they are fast enough.

Sword attacks should go against your Dodge, not your Fort. Fireballs should go against your Fort, not your Dodge.

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Be that as it may. The point of getting rid of saves and putting things on a virtual damage scale is to make sure that everyone is playing the same game. Even if a mechanic is simpler, just the fact that it is different means that I don't want to do it. Every new mechanic you introduce is another mechanic you have to balance. So if you already have a mechanic for determining whether a devastating blow from a hammer will knock you down or knock you out, there's no real reason to use a fundamentally different mechanic for whether your mind blast will diorient or incapacitate you.

-Username17

It'd stop the arguments over what HP does and doesn't represent.

Frank, this is how I'm reading your idea.
Finger of Pain
School of Deception (Int)
Level 2 Might Strike
Jab the spot that causes your target to be frozen in pain.
Damage: 1d4
Effect: Stun 1 round
Wound: None

So Chris the Reaper (Black Wis/Int might) has the Finger of Pain attack at level two. He needs an Int score of [x] to use it, so he keeps up his Int. He attacks Bob the Paladin (Cha/Wis) with it, Bob has relatively low Int, since he doesn't need it for his attacks.

Attack= 1d20 + 2 (attack level) + 2 (BAB)
Defense= 5(base) + 2 (level) + 10 (Int Score)
So he hits often enough.

Chris then rolls damage.
1d4 +2 (level) +14 (Int Score)
Bob has an effect threshold of 20 at level 2, so Chris needs to roll max to stun him. Even if he does roll max, he won't give a wound. But once Bob is stunned, he can be hit by Mike the assasin for a wound more easily.

--

Breaking Attack
School of Decay (Wis)
Level 7 Might Strike
Swing for a blow which can damage your opponent greatly.
Damage: 3d6
Effect: Daze 1 round
Wounds: Two

Chris is bing stupid here by attacking a high Wis when they are both level 8.
Attack: 1d20 + 7 + 8
Defense 5 + 8 + 14
Damage: 3d6 + 8 + 14
Bob has a wound threshold of 40, so it's unlikely that he'll get the two wounds. But he has an effect threshold of 30, so it's practically a sure thing that he will be dazed (for [x] mechanical effect).

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Using ability mods instead of BAB (how I originally ran the idea) gives offense a boost in strong attribute vs weak attribute.

Also, it would probably make more sense to have defense be 10+level+ability mod instead of 5+level+ability score. But I'm too damn tired tonight.

It is also possible that some characters might have a higher effect than wound threshold. But that seems weird to me.

Note that the Tekken-juggle has a low damage die. An attack that does something simple (like one wound or minor distraction) should have a very high damage die to make it more likely to break the threshold.

A couple of I think major differences from what I'm suggesting.

Hand of Pain
Black - School of Deception - [0]
Action: Strike - Instant - Int
Target: Melee - Fortitude
Damage: d6+Dex
Effect: Stun 1 Round.
Wound: -
The hand is quicker than the nerve. Precise strikes cause little obvious damage but incomprehensible agony to the target.

So now we bust out Chris the Reaper. He's a level 2 Black Hero, and he has a good Intelligence and Wisdom. So he may well be tempted by Hand of Pain as is in a school that is largely Int based and has zero prereqs.

Action: This tells us that this uses a "strike" action, which is a lot like a standard action (I'm still using the Jyhad terminology, though that could easily change). It's Instant, which means that it resolves right now and isn't "delayed" (goes off at the end of the round) and has no duration. Also it is "Int" in the action line, which means that you add your Int modifier to the attack roll. So assuming for the moment that Chris has a +8 Int modifier, that would make him roll d20 + 2 (level) + 8 for his Int mod.

Target: This tells us that the target has to be in melee range of Cris, and also that he is trying to roll to it the Fortitude Armor Class of the target. That requires more math on my part to figure out what it should actually be, but it's some number, probably 11 + [Target's Level] + [Target's Con modifier]. Or maybe it would be better to give people base ACs which were lower and make them equipment modified? I'm a little unsure. Point is, that if this is a good attack to use, he's probably going to be up against a Fortitude AC of 18-20 from 2nd level opponents.

Damage: This tells us that he rolls a d6, adds his Dex Modifier (probably +5 or +6), and adds twice his level (+4) to see how much damage he does.

Effect: This tells us that the target is going to be stunned for a round if the attack does enough damage to exceed the target's effect threshold or drops the target to half hit points.

Wound: This tells us that nothing special happens if the target is reduced to zero Hit Points or has their wound threshold exceeded. Which means that they just get a wound, advancing them on the wound track (or roll on the specific injuries chart if you're using that optional rule). And because there is nothing interesting in this block, it can be left out entirely on all the abilities which don't have special rules.

Obviously, numbers have to be screwed around with to match how many hit points people want to deal with.

-Username17

I notice that the ability does not indicate whether it is magical or martial. Can we just ditch the distinction entirely? If you really wanted, individual schools could have [martial] or [magical] tags, but on the whole it seems unnecessary.

I don't think game mechanical tags on abilities is needed. We should however keep in mind that some of the sample classes will be for Kshatrya, and some for Brahmin.

---

The actual game mechanics of leaving your caste are:

• You get to select your own abilities rather than getting whatever your caste happens to get when you level.
  
• You have to select your own abilities rather than getting whatever your caste happens to get when you level.

There shouldn't be any game mechanical impediment to playing a Kshatrya and just taking all your Narakan powers off the Necromancer list.

Edit: I Do think that some abilities should be object dependent. That is, that they should require the use of a sword, a bow, or an orb or something. There should probably be a limited list of items that functionally matter for which abilities you can use.

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1199317640[/unixtime]]I don't think game mechanical tags on abilities is needed. We should however keep in mind that some of the sample classes will be for Kshatrya, and some for Brahmin.

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The actual game mechanics of leaving your caste are:

• You get to select your own abilities rather than getting whatever your caste happens to get when you level.
  
• You have to select your own abilities rather than getting whatever your caste happens to get when you level.

There shouldn't be any game mechanical impediment to playing a Kshatrya and just taking all your Narakan powers off the Necromancer list.

That makes sense. I've asked this already, but how many abilities per level are you thinking? With this it seems as though you would have a non-expandable set of abilities, with the martial class characters getting all martial-type abilities of their school and level. Or do you mean that every class would select a pre-defined subset of an unbounded set of abilities at each level?

At this rate I'd try to shoot for full playability at levels 1 through 5.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1199317640[/unixtime]]Edit: I Do think that some abilities should be object dependent. That is, that they should require the use of a sword, a bow, or an orb or something. There should probably be a limited list of items that functionally matter for which abilities you can use.

-Username17

And some abilities would be items (witness Artifice).

How far are you taking this? I could imagine 'demon armor' as an ability which requires that you wear armor, or creates demonic armor for you, or requires that you wear the specific single item (demon armor) granted by the ability.
In the first case you can buff yourself with 'demon armor' and 'armor of the dead', while in the second and third you can only use one (but maybe you can lend the armors to someone else).
I could certainly see a combination of the above being used, varying by ability.

For that matter, how are we doing passive abilities? Does every character have 'boost' abilities and 'strike' abilities in separate pools?

I agree with Catharz, there should be proficiency with ability-generating items much like weapon proficiency works with D&D. Like a swappable class feature... one proficiency goes a long way.
The more powerful stuff would be class abilities, but items are interchangeable and readily swapped even during battle.
Certain classes use certain items, but like the much much-failed 'legacy weapons' of D&D and the magic item rules for Tome games, the items would become more powerful according to whoever is using them.

I don't think there should be any "proficiency" in the way D&D uses the term; the situations the create that are any different from the normal are crappy in so many aspects. "Knowing how to use a weapon" should always be the knowledge of maneuvers specific to it IMO.

Well, yeah... Sorry I didn't elaborate, trying to keep it short.
But yes the whole Simple/Martial/Exotic sorting is crap. I don't mean "taking feats to negate the -4 penalty for using Longsword" as much as "Any peasant can use a Longsword, no penalty. They won't hit very well because they aren't a level 10 Fighter, and they also can't use Raging Demon Fang or whatever move a trained warrior knows."

The weapon alone deals damage and the ability does whatever status effect, but ability + item would do something even better.
Even non-casters should be able to use wands, really.
But when the class abilities synergize with the item.. that's when a character shines.

How are things looking in terms of attack resolution? I can't imagine using anything beyond 1 to 3 roll attacks (like D&D), but what is it?

Are attributes going to be paired for attack and defense? Is Dex used both to trip and to avoid being tripped? Speaking of tripping, will some attacks use only one roll or attributes and some use two or more (like D&D)?

Who rolls the dice? IMO the attacker->to hit, defender->soak setup is very nice, but for some systems it could get too complex. We're dealing with 6 attributes. If there is any variance between attack and defense that's 6 (soak) + 6 (damage) + 6 (to hit) + 6 (dodge) = 24 stats, not including type resistances (if they exist -- do they?).
The 'players roll everything' system gets around that, but then there's a big hole where PvP combat should be.
Making stats strictly for to-hit/dodge XOR damage/soak could keep this system workable, but it might lead to problems (no Cha && Str attacks).

If there are single-roll attacks, do these allow any sort of stat stacking (e.g. armor bonuses based on strength added to dodge rolls)? That can lead to total madness (36+ bonuses), but it can be kept manageable with restrictions.

An unrelated point:

Encouraging the use of strength-appropriate items
It's dumb when a cleric with a strength of 8 is going around in plate armor he can barely carry just because his dexterity is 12. It's dumb when characters are swinging weapons they have trouble picking up (for the +1 average damage).

All armors and weapons should have 'max strength bonuses'. If you have a strength under the max, you take no penalty beyond having to carry a heavier item then you need to. If you have a strength over the max, you're wasting it.

Natural armor simply means that you apply your full strength bonus while naked, and natural weapons are automatically appropriately weighted. Yeah, that's badass, but (1) we really want dragons to not wear armor and (2) not wearing armor means that you don't get extra stuff beyond the bonus.

This seems to shaft strength-based characters. You'll probably be allowed to apply half your strength bonus in all cases, but that still sucks. Look at it this way: strength is the equipment stat. The better your strength, the more gear you can carry. Sometimes bigger weapons and armor come with advantages beyond the strength bonus (reach, for example), and you're in the best position to use them.


This would get silly if everyone eventually maximized their strength scores...

[Edit]
Special techniques are special cases. EQ && Strength-based techniques would follow the same pattern but EQ-independent ones would (for obvious reasons) not.
[/Edit]

I'd rather min strength rather than max strength.

If you want max strength, make the weapon break if it does more plain (noncritical) damage than its material supports.

-Crissa

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1199765602[/unixtime]]I'd rather min strength rather than max strength.

If you want max strength, make the weapon break if it does more plain (noncritical) damage than its material supports.

-Crissa

So where's the advantage in using items with higher minimum strengths?