Our Warglblasters Are Different

[Avoraciopoctules]

Since I'm starting to introduce specific mechanics, I should probably give a summary of the combat rules. Here's an OSH page converted to JPG describing the combat sequence.

[Username17]

I am judging the philosophies and decisions you have presented in this thread. The ones I have seen look bad, and also appear to be the fruit of a poisonous tree that has produced only madness and will continue to produce only madness.

Pretty much. The moment you decide that archers can't attack off a roof, across a river, or out of a tower because it's "unfair", you go down the inevitable road to 4e or Tunnels and Trolls where everything is shitty because you dare not allow PCs access to crafting or part time jobs because that is asymmetric power as well.

Now, how can you have a system where size does not affect which class is good for you?

Obviously, you can't. For size, you actually have to try to either walk the tight rope or accept that all you defenders are big and all your strikers are small. That is, you can either make it so that available non-transferable check boxes like Small Sized or Aquatic or whatever are playable and not mandatory in several roles or those things will end up being optimal for very narrow applications.

Now it's very possible to make it so that small characters can contribute in many different roles. But then you're back to the limited numbers of races that are all given a wide number of benefits and/or drawbacks that make them passable at a wide variety of things. It's just that your "races" for those purposes are classes of races. You can play a Drow or an Orc and be equally good as a Sorcerer or an Assassin because Drow and Orc are in the same racial class and you can spend your background points however you want. If it turns out that the "Magic Blood" background is a must have for Sorcerers, then that's "OK" (at least from the perspective of whether you can play a Drow or an Orc with equal facility as a Sorcerer), because a Drow or an Orc PC has equal access to it.

But Halflings and Goblins would still be different, because they'd be in the "Small Class". And a Halfling or a Goblin would be "the same" from the standpoint of what you could spend your background points on.

Now it's tempting to just give Small Size a background point cost (which may be negative if you decide that Small Size is a net disadvantage) and claim that you still only have one racial background pool. That, however, is horse shit. While it is perfectly OK for a human character to take the Keen Senses background and elect to not have cat ears while still hearing super good, you can't be a normal human and be Small. That is not something that you can just skin away as a Human or an Orc. in order to have the effects of being small, you actually have to have a small character.

Ironically what this means is that while you're doing Kitchen Sink Fantasy and enabling hundreds or thousands of races right from the starting gun and allowing all of them to be playable in every role in the game, you still don't have Tinkerbelles or Centaurs. You have some list of racial classes for people to select from, and they have to be pretty small in number because you're going to be testing them with every single supported role. So you have Humanoid, Small Humanoid, Large Humanoid, and Shiva and that's four just to get the shit people are clamoring for out of the gate. You can do a couple more, but you're not going to be able to vet all the ones people want (Angel, Centaur, Dragon, Fairy, Harpy, Mermaid, Telekinetic Housecat, and so on).

-Username17

[K]

Pretty much. The moment you decide that archers can't attack off a roof, across a river, or out of a tower because it's "unfair", you go down the inevitable road to 4e or Tunnels and Trolls where everything is shitty because you dare not allow PCs access to crafting or part time jobs because that is asymmetric power as well.

Seriously? Caring about game balance in one case automatically leads to terrible games? Slippery slope much?

Long live the Flying Archer problem because Frank doesn't want anyone to dare to try to fix it, and he'll totally be mean to you on the internet until you stop trying.

[Username17]

Pretty much. The moment you decide that archers can't attack off a roof, across a river, or out of a tower because it's "unfair", you go down the inevitable road to 4e or Tunnels and Trolls where everything is shitty because you dare not allow PCs access to crafting or part time jobs because that is asymmetric power as well.

Seriously? Caring about game balance in one case automatically leads to terrible games? Slippery slope much?

Slippery slope? Dude, you already said that you needed to prevent archers from attacking across rivers. Holy shit, that's so far down the slippery slope that you are already a parody of yourself. If I was making a juvenile strawman of people being concerned with balance, I still wouldn't have created a position that was nearly as retarded as the one you staked out for yourself. Even Diablo II isn't that fucking stupid.

-Username17

[Parthenon]

Worked on this some more on the bus. I wonder if anyone has noticed both of the 2 big sources I am looting for ideas here.

Obviously Skies of Arcadia, the best RPG ever. The other I can't think of offhand.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Worked on this some more on the bus. I wonder if anyone has noticed both of the 2 big sources I am looting for ideas here.

Obviously Skies of Arcadia, the best RPG ever. The other I can't think of offhand.

Frank's Dead Man's Hand ( http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=23 ... c&start=25 ) races. And fantasy race reinterpretations on TGD in general. Jotuns turning into wolves is straight from DMH. Elves being hyperadaptable might be another thread. So is baseline humans having their special thing being pursuit endurance.

Dominions is sort of an inspiration, but people have talked about Dominions races on TGD enough that I'm more drawing from those discussions.

[Username17]

More generally of course, there is no Flying Archer Problem, and never has been. There is a Dumbass Melee Fighter Problem. People who think we should cater to characters who can't do anything but stand there like an idiot and punch things are a problem.

When we say that getting offended that archers can shoot people and flyers can hover above melee reach leads inevitably to 4rrie retardation, we aren't just saying that to discredit the idea. We're saying that because that's literally the rallying cry of 4rries.

When people leap in from Something Awful to herp derp all over this forum about how 4E is the one true path and we're all grognards who haven't gotten with modern times, the "Flying Archer Problem" is actually what they rally around. 4E did solve the Flying Archer Problem as they envisioned it, simply by making it so that absolutely all combats took place in stupid little 2D gridmaps and flyers just got to move over ground hazards. But the thing is: that was stupid. And it was stupid because the goal of letting people solve all problems with a literal hammer is a stupid fucking goal to have.

-Username17

[shadzar]

the DMF is countered by the TMF (tactical melee fighter). how long can this thing fly before it must land? wait it out rather than get into risk by rushing into it. the difference between DMF and TMF....

[fectin]

Halfling average height: 3'6"
Warwick Davis' height: 3'6"

Why doesn't "small" work as a human trait?

[talozin]

While it is perfectly OK for a human character to take the Keen Senses background and elect to not have cat ears while still hearing super good, you can't be a normal human and be Small. That is not something that you can just skin away as a Human or an Orc. in order to have the effects of being small, you actually have to have a small character.

Although humans actually do come in Small and Large sizes. Verne Troyer is smaller than most halflings. Robert Wadlow was roughly the size of a 3.5E Ogre. (And would have been a shitty adventurer, but fuck it -- we've already handwaved enough science that we can have 15 foot tall giants who are super strong.) If we're letting people pick their own backgrounds buffet-style anyway, I'd be hard pressed to say no to someone who came up to me and said "I want to play Mini-Me and take Small as a human."

[PoliteNewb]

K, instead of trying to address the flying archer problem by looking at the "archer" side of it, why not try to deal with the "flying" side of it.

A lot of people will yell, but you can have a fun game without flying (certainly without flight that allows easy and accurate missile fire). A fun game where you can't snipe out of towers or do other things that you can do in real life is going to cause more yelling.

[CapnTthePirateG]

the DMF is countered by the TMF (tactical melee fighter). how long can this thing fly before it must land? wait it out rather than get into risk by rushing into it. the difference between DMF and TMF....

It only needs to fly until it can strafe your melee ass to death. No reason it has to be a dumbass too.

My question is, why the hard-on for melee dumbasses? Hell, even Hercules resorted to archery to counter flying foes.

[Stubbazubba]

No DMF should be at the complete mercy of a Flying Archer; grounding needs to be something that every class has some ability to do. The Fighter needs to be able to lasso a flyer or shoot it in the wings with their own ranged attack or just leap off of a wall with a good running start and attack in melee. That's all before level 10, really. After level 10, we all know that Fighters need to grow wings, walk on air molecules, or simply propel themselves through sheer force of will. But at the very least everyone should have some grounding abilities with as much a chance to ground a flyer as a melee attack has to hit a melee opponent.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Although humans actually do come in Small and Large sizes. Verne Troyer is smaller than most halflings. Robert Wadlow was roughly the size of a 3.5E Ogre. (And would have been a shitty adventurer, but fuck it -- we've already handwaved enough science that we can have 15 foot tall giants who are super strong.) If we're letting people pick their own backgrounds buffet-style anyway, I'd be hard pressed to say no to someone who came up to me and said "I want to play Mini-Me and take Small as a human."

At some point, however, you are going to have to draw the line. What if someone wanted to play a minotaur with the 'small' trait? Or a gnome with the 'large' trait?

Basically, you have three choices at this point.

1.) Don't allow races with inherently asymmetric abilities like classic fairies and centaurs until a point in the game where their ability is meaningless. An avariel is paradigm-warping at level 1, but is rather vanilla and sad at level 7. This allows people to play frost giants and mind flayers, but it still makes us a little sad that it blocks people from playing avariels and genasi out of the gate.

2.) Just accept the fact that some specific class/race niches are going to have a combination that's inferior (or worse, superior) and just try to either minimize the gap or make such combinations as niche as possible. For example, in 4E D&D Dragonborn Lightning Weapon Push Fighters are by far and away the best of their category, but they're not that much better (if at all) than similar fighter builds that are open to a much wider array of races.

3.) Do an aggressive system of patches in place where you are constantly releasing material to fix problematic race/class combos on the fly. Because people hate errata that reduces their power level, this means that you will have to be constantly releasing new feats and magical items and background traits and other geegaw to accomplish shit like make centaur stealth experts and fairy tanks. Meaning that you will have to keep an ear to the ground and the first time someone complains that half-orc wizards chew you need to send a memo to the R&D department to have a 'buff half-orc wizards' option to be done at their earliest convenience.

[Lago PARANOIA]

No DMF should be at the complete mercy of a Flying Archer; grounding needs to be something that every class has some ability to do. The Fighter needs to be able to lasso a flyer or shoot it in the wings with their own ranged attack or just leap off of a wall with a good running start and attack in melee.

This ignores the sad fact that DMFs and people who make classes for them derp out at the idea of having to change up tactics that aren't 'run up to them in the face and hit it'.

I mean, honestly, just freaking look at your suggestions. Two of them requires the DMF to carry a ranged weapon (lasso and bow and arrow) and two of them require DM encounter-building pity in order to work (flyer has wings and is weak enough to be netted/tugged down by fighter; convenient wall that the flyer happens not to be too high away from). This ain't a workable fix for these people, because they either have to give up their DMF paradigm or need to be babied by the DM.

DMFs and their fans don't want an opportunity to excel, they want the game to be dumbed down to their level. Fuck them.

[shadzar]

the DMF is countered by the TMF (tactical melee fighter). how long can this thing fly before it must land? wait it out rather than get into risk by rushing into it. the difference between DMF and TMF....

It only needs to fly until it can strafe your melee ass to death. No reason it has to be a dumbass too.

My question is, why the hard-on for melee dumbasses? Hell, even Hercules resorted to archery to counter flying foes.

the problem is that not all fighters need be adept with ranged weapons able to take down a dragon.

this is where tactical play comes in and was a focus of the people that CREATED D&D, but the new generation designers dont understand.

DMF would imply someone who doesnt use range, or tactics. but where are his companions? is he alone against a flyer?

common villagers are in effect fighters. they would likely set a forest on fire to smoke the thing out of the air...why wouldnt a PC fighter do this?

they throw rocks and stuff, the problem is DMF isnt what is being talked about in the case of flying.. it is just trying to say "non-ranged fighter" aka MELEE, CQC, etc

melee doesnt mean dumbass, just most people think melee and think dumb because it is melee not having an option to attack at range.

sneak attack didnt really change a thief from being a DMF...cause dont you have to flank for a sneak attack? flanking a flyer means you got to fly too.

the game just isnt made for 3D combat scenarios.. it was made for dungeon crawls on a single plane or graded slope.

there is a reason you dont fight a brood of airborne dragons, you fucking hide from them.

[talozin]

At some point, however, you are going to have to draw the line. What if someone wanted to play a minotaur with the 'small' trait? Or a gnome with the 'large' trait?

I am willing to stretch a little more to accommodate humans because I know something about them and that knowledge includes facts about size. This may make me some sort of fantasy racist, I dunno. If the game wants to tell me that elves can't be Small, I am somewhat more prepared to believe that because I don't know any actual elves.

Now, taking a step beyond that -- depending on the type of game -- ... why not Small Minotaurs, I guess? If someone really has their heart set on it? There was an actual fun-sized minotaur in at least one AD&D adventure (the "mini-taur" -- ho ho). I'd allow that in a sufficiently kitchen-sink-y game.

Anything where we choose backgrounds buffet-style at all is going to end up with members of any given "race" that are unrecognizable to someone's vision of that race. No matter how minor an alteration you allow -- if you let Elves trade Low Light Vision for Acute Smell -- someone's going to think "that's not a real elf any more". The best you can hope for is to get everyone in your individual group on the same page.

Basically, you have three choices at this point.

I think option 3 is clearly shit (and I suspect we agree on this point).

I think option 1 may be appropriate for some sufficiently asymmetric abilities, but I don't think it addresses exactly the same territory as option 2. The two are related, but are not really mutually exclusive.

[wotmaniac]

I just thought of something in relation to what K has been talking about ....

The design goal is: make sure people don't lose at chargen

Who am I to argue with the CharOp culture? It's not like its the most off-putting part of RPG gaming.

Oh wait, it is.

Like someone already pointed out -- when I first read this, I, too, had visions of Stormwind dancing in my head. However, the more I think on this, the more that I realize that it's actually something else, something much more insidious, that's going on.
This is some Dr.Spock every-one-gets-a-trophy-mentality bullshit. Not only that, but your stated goal, as you have articulated it, essentially makes chargen meaningless.
Yes, K, chargen is its own mini-game; and one in which a great many (I dare say a majority) find much enjoyment.

You're also falling victim to a fallaciously-binary thought process -- just because you don't have the "most awesome" option combo does not mean that you automatically "lose" (unless you happen to buy that IP-proofing bullshit from way back). There is a wide gradient between "Genius Elf wizard" and "Retarded Orc wizard" (or whatever); and most games' designs pretty-much assume that most characters are going to fall somewhere in between (what a particular group does with that is different story). What you're saying basically boils down to the idea that if you don't take the most optimal combos at chargen that your character is necessarily non-viable .... and given that second quote, I can't imagine that you would actually believe that -- otherwise, your position seems quite internally-conflicted.

It's almost like you're trying to social-engineer through rule design. Sorry, but that kind of behavior enforcement if better suited by the individual group's social contract. Now there's something about which not nearly enough is written -- how to properly construct a gaming group's social contract and using it as an active tool in building coherent and compatible groups. Instead, we get a bunch of bullshit on how to make a group of disparate players work -- which never ever works.
I know that last bit may have seemed from way out in left field; but as I've interpreted your underlying issues, it does indeed seem relevant.

As to your "Flying Archer Problem" ..... Well, let me beat that horse just a little more.
There's a Frenzied Berzerker in my group who fucking jacks-off to his greataxe -- but he still has a fucking bow because he's not completely retarded (despite the fact that the player has strong resemblance to Forest Gump).
Besides, the only real problem with the flying archer is the paradigm through with it's viewed. An actual game isn't "arena face-off", and you do indeed have an entire group with you (for the most part). Surely somebody has a way to either ground the flyer or get everyone else up to him or something. In the words of Tenacious D, "that's fucking teamwork!"

_________________________

Size is overpowered. No one is allowed to play anything but a medium race and popular PC races that aren't 'medium' will be stealth-resized.

*sniff*
Do I smell sarcasm? I sure hope so.

At some point, however, you are going to have to draw the line. What if someone wanted to play a minotaur with the 'small' trait? Or a gnome with the 'large' trait?

Simple -- just cap it at 1 size category. Any more than that, and you're just a completely different kind of creature. Unless, of course, you're playing some crazy mutant carnival side-show thing ....

Speaking of size ....
[random, pointless story]I remember that I vehemently hated the concept of "powerful build" when I first saw it -- I saw it simply as some bullshit appeasement for those who whine and cry over not being able to have everything that they want ..... that is, until I happen to be watching THIS; at which point, I completely changed my mind. (feel free to skip to 6:30 for the part that really drove the point home). For the record, the little guy in the mask is 5'6", 175lbs ; the big guy is 7'2", 400+lbs (so both are technically "medium size")
[/random, pointless story]

[Lago PARANOIA]

Anything where we choose backgrounds buffet-style at all is going to end up with members of any given "race" that are unrecognizable to someone's vision of that race. No matter how minor an alteration you allow -- if you let Elves trade Low Light Vision for Acute Smell -- someone's going to think "that's not a real elf any more". The best you can hope for is to get everyone in your individual group on the same page.

I think you're being way too generous here. How many groups do you seriously think there will be who won't be snickering or rolling their eyes at someone claiming that their kobold is as large as an ogre or that their orc has scales and a tail? I'm sure that plenty of groups will let them get by for the sake of harmony, but a lot of groups would let space rangers or pedophiles (as long as it remained a background element) by as well.

I think option 3 is clearly shit (and I suspect we agree on this point).

Actually, I don't agree even a little bit. This technique was used to surprising success with 3E and 4E D&D in its twilight months. People like it when weak-sister character concepts that people nonetheless want to play get boosted because it makes them feel like the game designers care about individual games and complaints and because it's low-hanging fruit to fulfill a crunch quota.

I'm not going to say that it's a best solution because it requires a lot of game designer attention (and thus money), but it's definitely an option and in the long run probably takes up less money and space than trying out every possible build/race/class combination ahead of time. People were clamoring for viable half-orc wizards and halfling fighters for a good long while, no one really cared that full-blooded elves made poor warlocks or goliaths were shit wizards. But without patching in place you would have spent way too much time balancing combinations that very few people would've cared about in the first place.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Lago, what do you think about ditching the archetypical fantasy races entirely and presenting a bunch of races with bonuses mostly useful out of combat or very situationally, classes determining pretty much everything that distinguishes you from others in combat?

That's basically what I'm trying here, and though I've had to sacrifice a lot of possibilities, I think I have managed to produce a situation where no class gets much asymmetric benefit from a particular race.

[Neurosis]

Pretty much. The moment you decide that archers can't attack off a roof, across a river, or out of a tower because it's "unfair", you go down the inevitable road to 4e or Tunnels and Trolls where everything is shitty because you dare not allow PCs access to crafting or part time jobs because that is asymmetric power as well.

Seriously? Caring about game balance in one case automatically leads to terrible games? Slippery slope much?

Slippery slope? Dude, you already said that you needed to prevent archers from attacking across rivers. Holy shit, that's so far down the slippery slope that you are already a parody of yourself. If I was making a juvenile strawman of people being concerned with balance, I still wouldn't have created a position that was nearly as retarded as the one you staked out for yourself. Even Diablo II isn't that fucking stupid.

-Username17

Why can't we all just get along?

[Guyr Adamantine]

Why can't we all just get along?

Shut up, pussy.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Another iteration, with more ability detail and a new class with a number of secondary abilities >3 in order to give PCs a little more choice in what kind of tools they end up with towards the end. It’s kind of niche, though. Not sure if I can come up with 7 distinct combat-viable options for each class. Added the [Focused] tag for abilities that can get interrupted by melee attacks.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-

Here is the short version:
The design goal is: make sure people don't lose at chargen by making racial abilities equally useful to all classes. This means altering a bunch of core assumptions about how several simple abilities and conditions need to work so that they aren't completely unbalanced when used. The two we've discussed are ranged attacks and low-light vision vs. darkness, both variations of the Flying Archer problem.

Okay, let's see if we can do something with this. Because I'm infatuated with the idea of houseruling it right now and it doesn't have hyperdetailed combat, let's go with OSH ( http://www.oldschoolhack.net/ ) as a basic system to work off of.

Basically, the attributes have little bearing inside of combat except for use as "saving throws" and determining whether you can carry heavy weapons and armor. Classes give you one thing by default, and you can pick one thing off the list of secondary abilities per level.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Races:

Midgardian:
- Can go twice as long without food. You skip every other check for starvation penalties.
- You skip every other check for fatiguing out from a chase.
- For Daring, roll 3d10, keep 2 highest.

Jotunese:
- Don't take discomfort penalties in cold environments, and your blood can't be frozen. You can sleep in open snow without dying of exposure.
- You can turn into a wolf. This uses stat-block replacement, so how powerful you are personally doesn't really figure in. If the wolf dies, you appear, knocked out but unharmed.
- For Brawn, roll 3d10, keep 2 highest.

Alfar:
- Don't take penalties from poor visibility purely from darkness. Smoke and dust clouds are still a problem.
- Adapt to new environments so after 1 day, you don't take discomfort penalties. Don't keep old adaptions, you have to re-acclimatize.
- For Cunning, roll 3d10, keep 2 highest.

Bastoi:
- You are small and furry. This means you can fit into spaces an adult human could not. You are also ridiculously strong for your size, so you roll for Brawn normally.
- You can turn into a cat. Stat replacement, but unlike the Jotunese, you don't change back if you die. Instead, the can be brought back from the dead with a simple ritual if it isn't too mangled.
- Take half damage from falls.
- For Charm, roll 3d10, keep 2 highest.

Earthborn:
- You can eat stuff a human couldn't. Dirt gives you all the nutritional input you need to survive.
- You only need 2 hours of sleep a day.
- For Commitment, roll 3d10, keep 2 highest.

Vanara:
- You are a monkey person who can climb stuff easily (count as having tools whether you do or don't) and hold small things in your tail.
- You can meditate instead of sleep. Take half penalties if you get surprised while you rest. In addition, disruptions to your rest don't ruin your ability to recover daily abilities.
- For Awareness, roll 3d10, keep 2 highest.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Classes:

- Red
Basic (Produce Flame): You may evoke fire. This comes in the form of a ball about the size of what you'd see on the end of a torch. The ball dissipates if you let go of it, but you can chuck it like you were an imp from Doom. The fire counts as a Ranged weapon if you do, and you can burn or warm stuff.
Secondary Abilities:
Ruby Blessing: [Focused] You may channel Red mana into someone so it reinvigorates them with unnatural strength and energy. The Ruby Blessing gives +1 to all attacks and attribute checks. The effect can be voluntarily shaken off if the beneficiary spends an action calming down. The effect deals a point of unblockable damage to the beneficiary for every minute it is sustained after the first few, so it's generally a good idea to turn it off after combat.
Blazing Strike: You may wreathe yourself in flame as you attack with a weapon. This means your attack deals an extra point of damage, and the target is generally set on fire. In phase 4, if they don't spend their action putting the fire out, they take a point of damage.
Pyroclasmic Rift: [Focused] Once per day, you can create a myriad of tiny magical portals in the Arena you are in. The portals close in moments, but during this brief time a deluge of chaotic fire magic spills out and sets the whole Arena ablaze. As long as the Arena burns, in Phase 4, everyone in the Arena takes a point of damage. The fire may spread after it is unleashed, depending on how flammable conditions are. However, even if conditions would make normal fire implausible, the original Arena is likely to continue burning for at least a few minutes.

- Blue
Basic (Redirect Strike): You can infuse people with chaotic magical motion, creating spastic surges of speed that could throw someone off of their attack or help someone connect. This lets you force a reroll on someone's attack, but it can only be used once per Arena.
Secondary Abilities:
Wind Blast: You can evoke blasts of wind strong enough to move unattended objects like keys and bottles inside your Arena. In addition, once per Arena, you may call a powerful blast of wind that functions like a Ranged weapon attack. However, the base damage inflicted is 0, and if your attack succeeds, the target loses their next action as they are battered by the air.
Water Blast: You may invoke blasts of water. These are by default roughly equivalent to throwing a normal-sized bucket’s worth of water at somebody (and thus don’t have the force to be used effectively outside of your Arena), but once per Arena, you can call a powerful spout of water that functions like a Ranged weapon attack. However, the base damage inflicted is 0, and if your attack succeeds, the target loses their next action.
Azure Ascent: [Focused] Once per day, gain magical flight, but it starts dealing a point of unblockable damage to you every minute if you hold it for more than the first couple minutes. The flight comes from obvious glowy energy wings, so it is very difficult to be sneaky while using them.

- Green
Basic (Combat Healing): Your life magic allows you to heal people nearby, but it only works on relatively fresh injuries. Negate a bit of damage from an attack, and you can use this in arenas you aren't in. Need to recharge.
Secondary Abilities:
Overheal: [Focused] Through channeling a huge amount of life force and directing it very carefully, you can heal people even after the wounds are no longer fresh. Once per day, heal someone 5 hit points.
Grasping Vines: [Focused] Once per day, supercharge plant growth make an arena full of entangling vegetation. You can't exempt someone from getting entangled, so friendly fire is a concern.
Venom Bolt: Fire venom bolts that deal damage over time. It's a Ranged weapon, but has the special property of dealing more damage to someone hit next round if they don't do something to wipe it off.

- Purple
Basic (Touch of Winter): You can fire frost bolts, counting as a Ranged weapon. You may also freeze water and other fluids by touch. This sort of lets you slide over the surface of pools, but the ice melts pretty quickly if the area isn't cold.
Secondary Abilities:
Diamond Dust: Once per day, cover the arena in slippery ice. People fall over easily if they aren't careful, and this ice is magically charged so it won't melt for at least half an hour even in the desert.
Mind Mirror: Once per day, get the ability to read surface thoughts, but it starts dealing unblockable damage to you if you hold it for more than a couple minutes. This gives you a bonus to defence.
Rune Circle: [Focused] Once per day, create a magical ward around an arena. Entering or exiting the arena triggers a magical attack that is really noisy and flashy. The ward is made of magical runes that can be targeted and destroyed, but it is tough.

- Yellow
Basic (Call Lightning): [Focused] Once per arena, you can call damaging lighting down onto enemies. This is not an attack, and it hits automatically, but the damage is variable. Normally, the lightning deals 2 damage to the target, but if they are soaked in water or wearing lots of metal, the damage increases to 3. If they are especially nonconductive, the lightning only deals 1 damage.
Secondary Abilities:
Lightning Blade: If you attack someone you succeeded in attacking last round, your attack channels crackling electricity, increasing the damage of a hit by 1. If you attack someone you succeeding in hitting with the electricity-enhanced strike last round, you deal an extra 2 lightning damage whether the main hit succeeds or not, but you don't count the attack as a success for the purposes of this ability.
Golden Curse: [Focused] You may channel Yellow mana into someone banefully, sapping at their strength and vigor. The Golden Curse gives a -1 penalty to all attacks and attribute checks. The effect can be voluntarily shaken off if the target affects spends an action, and can also be negated by the Ruby Blessing of Red Magic. If both effects are applied to a single target at the same time, they are both negated.
Thundershock: Once per arena, use an electricity-based attack that has a chance to stunlock, but doesn't deal much damage. Can only be used on targets in the same arena or connected to you by something really conductive.

- Silver
Basic (Weaponmorph): Once per arena, transform your weapon into a weapon of another category.
Secondary Abilities:
Reapercall: Once per arena, everyone in your arena takes a point of damage. Including you, and this doesn't count as an attack.
Retaking the Shell: Once per day, come back from the dead with 1 hit point.
Dimensional Fold Once per day, teleport to another arena without using up your action. You may use this to teleport someone else, but they can resist using any Spiritual Attribute.
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- Skullseeker Templar
Basic (G Unit): As an ordained champion of the Skull Seekers, you are followed at all times by a small number of acolytes whose duty it is to help you. Unfortunately, their impact on combat is pretty minimal. They have an incredible knack for surviving as long as you are around, but unless you micromanage them heavily, they are rarely helpful even as a distraction. Once per Arena, you can spend an action giving orders to one of your acolytes. This creates a Soldier of your level who fights under your control. Unfortunately, only one of your acolytes can be directed like this at a time.
Secondary Abilities:
Bulletproof: You have an extra 3 hit points and a remarkable ability to shrug off devastating attacks. Once per Arena, you can do the equivalent of creating a Shield if you don’t already have one.
Sweet-ass ramp: One of your acolytes has a knack for finding shortcuts. Once per day, you can move to any adjacent arena without using up your action. You can take one willing person with you.
Bitch took my ____: [Focused] Once per Arena, you can spend an action recognizing that one of your enemies has something that should rightfully belong to you. You receive +2 to attacks on that enemy until you get it, but cannot reinvoke this ability until no longer in combat with the enemy. In addition, you may ret-con the object into being gaudy and covered in shiny bits.
Gimme a boost!: Sometimes you face obstacles best addressed as a team. Once per Arena, you may spend an action to have one of your acolytes help you bypass hazards and obstacles, letting you ignore the properties of the Arena on this and the next round.
That’s not OSHA-approved: One of your acolytes is studying to be a building inspector, and has a knack for noticing when environments pose hidden dangers. Once per day, you can retcon an Arena’s type into Hazardous.
That’s a lot of strawberry jam: [Focused] Every once in a while, there’s a downright cinematic moment where the whole team works together to devastating effect. Once per day, you can call every one of your acolytes in to provide fire support. This wipes out all the Mooks and Guards/Soldiers in a single Arena.
The Fiddy Zone: Once per day, you may transport yourself and an enemy you have successfully attacked twice to a pocket dimension where pain is god and you are Pope. This means that you take turns attacking each other until one is defeated, but you get 2 turns to every 1 of the target.
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[Ted the Flayer]

Seriously? Caring about game balance in one case automatically leads to terrible games? Slippery slope much?

Slippery slope? Dude, you already said that you needed to prevent archers from attacking across rivers. Holy shit, that's so far down the slippery slope that you are already a parody of yourself. If I was making a juvenile strawman of people being concerned with balance, I still wouldn't have created a position that was nearly as retarded as the one you staked out for yourself. Even Diablo II isn't that fucking stupid.

-Username17

Why can't we all just get along?

Your mom got something long last night...

[tussock]

@wotmaniac: CharOp brings problems to the game.

Mostly that people will set all their options on fire to gain another +1 to hit and damage. That leads toward game play where either all the monsters are dead in two rounds or all the PCs are, with no middle-ground. 4e's design was, in part, a response to that phenomenon.

That happens because the designers traditionally build monsters for people who aren't CharOp nutters. 4e's monsters are the other way, designed to stand up to perfect optimisation, and even with very limited options most people found it a boring slugfest because they can't quite optimise that well. Turns out +1 to hit and damage is pretty important, who knew.

Then normal people have to spend four hours making a character that doesn't suck, and that's the last time they do that because they're normal people with lives and shit. Maybe best to let the nutters win as they please and protect the interests of the casual gamers again. Can't hurt Billy's Wizard? Meh, is Billy not happy with that?


Race choice? Probably shouldn't matter. Racial limits are interesting enough, but players don't like them, so who cares? Dwarf Fighters are all awesome, but my Dwarf Fighter isn't? Yeh, that's why you're hanging with the Humans.