Winds of Fate needs to be tested in a non-D&D system.

[Swordslinger]

Now as it happens, your objection is actually worse even than that, because WoF really does handle Utility Powers better than At-Will or Charge Casting.

Spoken with a combat-centric philosophy... don't you hate 4E because of that same philosophy of lack of out combat utility powers?

Charge casting is better for utility because out of combat you may want to place limits on how many times you can use utility powers, and WoF doesn't do that unless you have a short time window to use it. As far as out of combat usage of utility powers, any utility powers in WoF is at-will. So if you have invisibility or flight, you can use that at-will outside combat because it's generally trivial to wait for it to recharge. And unless you're having these powers only last you one round, which would be sucky as far as noncombat utility, why don't you have them always active? If I can spam true sight one out of every 6 rounds, I'm going to be constantly casting it whenever I can out of combat so I have it whenever a fight breaks out.

Charge casting allows you to put some limits on the usage of those powers by making them dailies, but WoF doesn't. Out of combat, it's less versatile than the 3E/4E system.

[MGuy]

Interesting. How exactly are buffs supposed to be useful in a system like this? For that matter how are abilities you'd need to concentrate handled?

[Kaelik]

Interesting. How exactly are buffs supposed to be useful in a system like this? For that matter how are abilities you'd need to concentrate handled?

Well as part of my consistent solutions to WoF problems being to have at least part of your system not be WoF.

I would say buffs work best in either the X maintained sense, or the "You just have stuff always active" sense.

[mean_liar]

Congrats, it's a edition war for an edition that doesn't even exist.

Your pithy insight has no home here. That shit belongs in MPSIMS. IMHO is for vociferous pedantry only.

[DSMatticus]

The second set of 6 powers is going to be pretty much equivalent to the first set of 6 powers.

No. It isn't. I can give you concrete examples of how it isn't, going back to the black jack one.

{2,2,2,2,3,3}, {5,6,7,8,9,10}

Having access to only the first of those sets the entire time you're playing means you will always lose (you will draw all 6 cards and still not hit 21). Having access to both of those hands means you will occasionally get the hand that can draw 21. We can reconstruct this argument for any target number, too, so don't say, "well, the guy who gets {2,2,2,2,3,3} is poorly designed because he can't add up to 21." If you want to make that argument, we change the target number to '4' and suddenly the guy with the first hand can win and the guy with the second hand never wins. Either way, the guy with access to both hands can hit more arbitrary numbers.

The relevant mathematical argument you're making depends on the contents of each row being sufficiently equal. So I will burden you with the monumental task of proving that assumption:
For all WoF implementations, for any given matrix, show that all rows (assuming you roll by row) have sufficiently identical powers that anything that can be done in one row can be done by all other rows in that matrix.

And yes, that is what you have to prove before your argument has any weight, because that is in fact what you're claiming. So prove it (which we both know is impossible) or shut up.

[Red_Rob]

The second set of 6 powers is going to be pretty much equivalent to the first set of 6 powers. Having 6 then a different 6 is pretty much exactly like being an AW fighter, then being a slightly different AW fighter next round.

For along time I've been thinking that these arguments are only going to get settled when someone actually does the grunt work and puts together a system using WoF, but all along you had the system already planned out, right down to having worked out all the powers! Wow, you should really write this down so we can all stop arguing.

Or you could not assume that a WoF system will only have enough types of powers to make each row a palette swap of the others.

1) Those utility powers come at the direct expense of combat powers in the decision area, reducing your choices below X.

I see your point, but any other system that includes utility powers in combat will also have them "taking up the available decision area", its just WoF can handle 6 times as many without slowing down combat decision making. That's still a win for WoF.

I'm not going to sit here and argue that WoF actually makes option paralysis way way worse, because after all, if you want to plan for next round at all you have to determine how the power you choose this round will interact with 36 additional powers, so your six powers this round have to be evaluated across 216 possible outcomes in weighted sets, and by golly if you want to plan out how your choice this round effects the next two rounds, why now, we have to evaluate 7776 possible outcomes.

This is true. I have a feeling WoF may increase decision making time as players try to coordinate which of their 6 possible powers will work best with each of the other players 6 powers.

So, At Will deals with utility powers better than WoF, because WoF has the inclusion problem, where utility powers either come at the direct cost of combat powers, or they have to be doubled up as combat powers as well (True Seeing is also lazor eyes) or they create dissonance when you have them not WoF accessed, or you increase complexity a lot when you add a second matrix for utility powers.

The problem with taking utility powers out of combat is sometimes the line is blurred between utility and combat spell, and sometimes its really useful to be able to bust out a true seeing in combat to negate the Aboleth's illusions or whatever. If you want that option for every utility power then WoF is better than at-will.

Demanding everyone get on their knees and suck WoF's cock this instant, because it is unequivocally the best at everything, and if you even think about it and compare it to another system, why, that's blasphemy, and I will fucking eat your face which bowing to the meat spin of WoF. IE "WoF is clearly the best and only acceptable system for any fantasy heartbreaker, and I hate anyone who even thinks that any other system is acceptable, but because everyone is irrationally opposed to my beautiful awesome sweetheart who I love so much, clearly what needs to be done is we need to start with some other genre, like sci fi, and make the game, and then, once people have played it, they can't possibly disagree with me that WoF is the best and only system for anything ever, and they will put it in all their games!"

Yeah, reading someone gushing over something that hasn't even been tested yet as the best thing to happen to gaming since the D20 is getting tiresome.

[DSMatticus]

Yeah, reading someone gushing over something that hasn't even been tested yet as the best thing to happen to gaming since the D20 is getting tiresome.

We're all well aware Lago has a hard-on for WoF. But this, "Lago has a hard-on about WoF, and it's pissing me off, so I'm going to do my absolute best to contradict everything I possibly can about WoF, even the things that are clearly, mathematically true" is getting really fucking annoying.

Kaelik (or anyone else) doesn't have to like any of the bullshit WoF does, but there are clearly things it does actually do. Arguing that those don't happen is not lending any credibility to his, "shut the fuck up already, Lago" sentiment beyond, "I can be just as stupid about WoF as you can in the complete opposite direction."

There's not a lot of reasonable evaluation here, just a bunch of, "I hate the other dude's arrogance, so I'm going to argue with him on everything, whether it makes sense be damned."

[Orion]

Frank,

Kaelik actually has at least one cogent point you should really address. I didn't see in your post anywhere where you addressed the actual reason he thinks that AW6 is the same as WoF36. He's claiming that a player wanting to optimize their character will try to make each of his rows as similar to the others as possible. Which is true. He's also claiming that there will be enough palette-swap powers, and few enough restrictions on how you arrange your powers, that players will succeed in making each of their rows almost exactly the same as the other save for some cosmetic differences.

That's a valid and credible objection. I'm not saying I necessarily agree, but it's different from the strawman you just argued against.

PhoneLobster,

Yes, all of us who like WoF like it for different reasons and have different ideas about how to implement it. It's true that we need to be careful not to shift the goalposts by arguing that the system will work by being A and ~A. But you seem to be going further and saying that our disagreement meants it's a bad system. Adn that's crazy talk.

Everyone like WoF likes it for a different reason. Everyone who hates it hates it for different reasons. The lesson here is that people are different.

[DSMatticus]

He's claiming that a player wanting to optimize their character will try to make each of his rows as similar to the others as possible. Which is true

No, they won't. And no, it isn't.

What you're actually incentivized to do is cover as many bases possible in each row, with enough significant differences that utility situations emerges. You want an AoE in each row. You don't want the same AoE.

But this is largely implementation-dependent: I responded to this. Wall of Ice and Wall of Fire are not palette swaps, yet they fill the same roll, so a character with both of those powers in different rows has already disproven this idea.

It's as valid as saying, "Vancian magic breaks if your only spell is fireball with a hundred different names." It's not a valid complaint. It is a valid complaint to say, "with poor power design, WoF does not provide meaningful variety." But that's in conjunction with poor power design, and 4e has shown us that charge systems suck when they have poor power design too, so this isn't even anything exciting or new. This is just obvious.

Kaelik isn't posing it as a potential problem, he is stating it will in fact be a problem. And that's a very serious, meaningful difference. He's welcome to provide some sort of substantive argument why all WoF's will have this problem regardless of implementation, but until then he's just blathering annoyingly about "what-if, what-if, what-if?"

[hogarth]

He's claiming that a player wanting to optimize their character will try to make each of his rows as similar to the others as possible.

When in doubt, the answer is always: "You're not supposed to want to do that."

[Kaelik]

No. It isn't. I can give you concrete examples of how it isn't, going back to the black jack one.

{2,2,2,2,3,3}, {5,6,7,8,9,10}

Your assumption that someone who is making a class for a AW 6 game would purposefully give 6 identical powers to the class that are useless in combat is retarded. That's the whole point. Yes, if you make the Commoner class, where your at wills are "attack with a bow for shit damage" "attack with a sword for shit damage" "attack with an X for shit damage" Then your six abilities will be useless, and your class will suck. That's because you made a shitty class.

Here's an example of an actual AW6 class:

1) Icebeam, Single Target good damage.
2) Brittle, Unresistable, causes penalties to attacks and defenses, small damage.
3) Encumber, AoE weighs down, creating penalties, possibly taking away actions or movement.
4) Freeze, Single Target takes away actions
5) Wall of Ice, A wall
6) Blizzard, AoE damage over large area + BC, medium damage.

Now no situation exists in which that character cannot do several useful things, and further, in most situations, the character will do just as well as a WoF36 character, only rarely having the WoF36 character roll the "ideal" power which allows them to perform better than this character.

That's the point, if you assume the AW6 character is built like shit, then yes, they are shit, however, the solution is to not build like shit, since WoF characters can be built so their entire matrix is shit too, that's completely irrelevant to what a well designed game would look like.

The relevant mathematical argument you're making depends on the contents of each row being sufficiently equal. So I will burden you with the monumental task of proving that assumption:
For all WoF implementations, for any given matrix, show that all rows (assuming you roll by row) have sufficiently identical powers that anything that can be done in one row can be done by all other rows in that matrix.

And yes, that is what you have to prove before your argument has any weight, because that is in fact what you're claiming. So prove it (which we both know is impossible) or shut up.

If each row isn't sufficiently equivalent, then you failed as a WoF designer.

Either people feel like shit 5/6ths of the time and then only get to feel good 1/6th of the time, or they have a sufficient number of powers that they can arrange the Matrix such that they are generally competent at all tasks regardless of what they roll.

I don't understand how you think sucking 5/6ths of the time is superior to being genuinely capable with any result on WoF.

For along time I've been thinking that these arguments are only going to get settled when someone actually does the grunt work and puts together a system using WoF, but all along you had the system already planned out, right down to having worked out all the powers! Wow, you should really write this down so we can all stop arguing.

Or you could not assume that a WoF system will only have enough types of powers to make each row a palette swap of the others.

I'm not assuming that it will only have enough for palette swaps. I'm assuming the WoF designer will be competent. Now, as point of fact, it is most likely that any WoF 36 system will end up having a bunch of shitty powers, but if the designer is super competent, and only makes good powers, then every single roll on the WoF will present you with a suite of powers that are capable of dealing with the situation well. If not, then you roll WoF, and on any result but a six (or only on a six, but it's still just a matter of degree of shit) you cry and wish you had rolled anything else.

Wall of Ice, Wall of Stone, Wall of Fire, and Wall of Force are all walls. They are not palette swaps, because they do things differently, but they all serve the same general functions, and so in most situations, if you roll, and have one of those on each row, you will be able to deal with Wall related situations.

I see your point, but any other system that includes utility powers in combat will also have them "taking up the available decision area", its just WoF can handle 6 times as many without slowing down combat decision making. That's still a win for WoF.

Except that you can actually just have utility powers that don't take up as much space. For example, True Seeing. True Seeing can be an at will utility power, and it will never ever result in option paralysis, or even appreciably increase decision time. It's trivially easy to only even think about it when there are invisibles or Illusions, and then it doesn't take long.

The problem with taking utility powers out of combat is sometimes the line is blurred between utility and combat spell, and sometimes its really useful to be able to bust out a true seeing in combat to negate the Aboleth's illusions or whatever. If you want that option for every utility power then WoF is better than at-will.

Right, but like I said above, all you have to do is design utility powers so that they do not appreciably take time to consider, but you can still use them when they are obviously applicable. No one in the history of D&D has ever had difficulty making the decision to use True Seeing or not. (Yes I know that is not technically true, but the times they did have nothing to do with option paralysis.)

Wall of Stone is probably the worst hybrid power about this, and I fixed it in 30 seconds so that it's not a problem.

[Username17]

The second set of 6 powers is going to be pretty much equivalent to the first set of 6 powers.

OK, you go on ignore now.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

What you're actually incentivized to do is cover as many bases possible in each row, with enough significant differences that utility situations emerges. You want an AoE in each row. You don't want the same AoE.

But this is largely implementation-dependent: I responded to this. Wall of Ice and Wall of Fire are not palette swaps, yet they fill the same roll, so a character with both of those powers in different rows has already disproven this idea.

Yes, that's what I've been saying. You want an AoE in each row, likewise, AW6 has an AoE, and so when the AW6 character makes a decision, it has a Wall, an AoE, A strong single target attack or two targeting different things, whereas the WoF36 has a Wall, an AoE, A strong single target attack or two targeting different things, ect.

Hence, an AW6 character in combat is much the same as a WoF36, except for the differences I have layed out each time I say this (slightly better most round, WoF slightly more better less often, enforced variety vs plan ahead).

Kaelik isn't posing it as a potential problem, he is stating it will in fact be a problem. And that's a very serious, meaningful difference.

Obviously this problem is not insurmountable to a good game. But it is an issue which makes WoF utility harder to integrate than just giving AW characters as many utilities as you want, where the powers are designed to not take up space in the combat decisions of the PCs.

[Kaelik]

The second set of 6 powers is going to be pretty much equivalent to the first set of 6 powers.

OK, you go on ignore now.

-Username17

Frank, I'm only disappointed that it took you this long to argue against a strawman, and declare that if I corrected your strawman you would ignore me, then ignore me. I had frankly hoped this would happen much earlier in our relationship so we could get it over with.

[Username17]

He's claiming that a player wanting to optimize their character will try to make each of his rows as similar to the others as possible. Which is true.

As DSM pointed out, that is not necessarily true. Nor is it necessarily possible. Someone may indeed attempt to make all their rows the same, to the extent that the game makes this possible, just as someone could select the same spell for all their spell slots in a Vancian system. But it's not an optimal setup for the same reason that preparing your "best" spell into all your top level slots is poor optimization in D&D.

Over three battles that last three rounds, it is a better result to get a move that makes your team win on rounds 1, 2, and 3 of each subsequent battle and use and use a move that is OK on rounds 1 of the second battle and a move that is just OK on rounds 1 and 2 of the third battle than it is to have a move that makes you win on "every" round of the first battle and use a move that is just OK on all three rounds of the second and third battle. Having a variety of conditional "moves that make you win" is objectively superior to having all your rows containing conditional moves that make you win that trigger on the same conditions. Putting variety into your wheel is objectively superior to making your rows all the same.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Wall of Ice, Wall of Stone, Wall of Fire, and Wall of Force are all walls. They are not palette swaps, because they do things differently, but they all serve the same general functions, and so in most situations, if you roll, and have one of those on each row, you will be able to deal with Wall related situations.

I still don't see your point. So you don't let a player put a wall on every row. Your argument seems to rely on the fact there are only 6 different "types" of powers. D&D has more than that so I don't see why a WoF system can't

It's trivially easy to only even think about (True Seeing) when there are invisibles or Illusions, and then it doesn't take long.

You're being disengenuous here. When it is in your decision making process, you have to evaluate it along with all your other options. Same with all your other "utility" powers. By that logic all your options "don't take long" to evaluate, so decision paralysis doesn't exist, which isn't true for a lot of players. True Seeing may be easy for you to evaluate, but the tactical benefit of dispelling the illusion vs. attacking the sorcerer vs. webbing the minions is a difficult choice for a lot of players.

Wall of Stone is probably the worst hybrid power about this, and I fixed it in 30 seconds so that it's not a problem.

You limited a spell with clever in combat and out of combat uses to just be a 4e ritual and you count that as a win? I would rather have more utility powers also useful in combat than less.

[Kaelik]

I still don't see your point. So you don't let a player put a wall on every row. Your argument seems to rely on the fact there are only 6 different "types" of powers. D&D has more than that so I don't see why a WoF system can't

Look, you have two choices:

1) When a Player rolls a WoF, the have a bunch of general utility abilities that allow them to contribute.

2) Every power is some variation of "Kill Drogar the Barbarian no save" and on 5/6th of your WoF rolls, you hate the game.

I think it is trivially obvious that 1 is desired. If you don't let people put a wall in each column, and instead they have a column of all walls, and a column of all AoEs and a column of all single targets, then your game is ass, and they will hate it.

You're being disengenuous here. When it is in your decision making process, you have to evaluate it along with all your other options. Same with all your other "utility" powers. By that logic all your options "don't take long" to evaluate, so decision paralysis doesn't exist, which isn't true for a lot of players. True Seeing may be easy for you to evaluate, but the tactical benefit of dispelling the illusion vs. attacking the sorcerer vs. webbing the minions is a difficult choice for a lot of players.

The choice between those things is the same choice you have to make with WoF. The entire point is that utility abilities like True Seeing are not even options at all in situations with no illusions, so on any given round, only one or two of their utility abilities will even be relevant.

You limited a spell with clever in combat and out of combat uses to just be a 4e ritual and you count that as a win? I would rather have more utility powers also useful in combat than less.

You are a fucking idiot. That is not at all what I did, I explicitly left a in combat use, I just made it less titanicly awesome, so that it would only be considered when you really really need a wall, rather than as generic BC.

Frankly, I would rather have more powers in general than less, because I have never suffered from option paralysis even at very large values for X, but if you want people to only have to choose between six options a round, then that's a way to do it without boning people who need True Seeing.

[RobbyPants]

He's claiming that a player wanting to optimize their character will try to make each of his rows as similar to the others as possible.

When in doubt, the answer is always: "You're not supposed to want to do that."

Fuck, I assumed that's what you're supposed to do.

[Orion]

Kaelik, you're being dumb. Here's how it's supposed to work:

Row 1: AoE Damage, Single Target CC, Single Target Damage, Self-Buff, Conditional Attack, Mobility/CC

Row 2: AoC CC, Single Target Damage, Single Target Debuff, Team-Buff, Different Conditional Attack, Mobility/Damage

These rows aren't "the same" but they're both "a bunch of generally useful powers."

[Username17]

Don't mind hogarth's passive aggressive trolling. He is just super pissed that his ace in the hole argument that tactical situations are all really simple and you can always prefer an AoE if you have multiple opponents was shot down with genuine examples. He's just been trolling ever since.

Seriously: don't bother responding to him on this subject, he doesn't actually have anything to say.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

Yes, that's what I've been saying. You want an AoE in each row, likewise, AW6 has an AoE, and so when the AW6 character makes a decision, it has a Wall, an AoE, A strong single target attack or two targeting different things, whereas the WoF36 has a Wall, an AoE, A strong single target attack or two targeting different things, ect.

Hence, an AW6 character in combat is much the same as a WoF36, except for the differences I have layed out each time I say this (slightly better most round, WoF slightly more better less often, enforced variety vs plan ahead).

It seems that if I were filling a matrix, I'd want to have one of each "type" of power available on every roll, so I'd want to set each column (or row, I'm not sure how there are arranged) to always have the same type.

In addition, I'd want to see if I can roughly divide the creature-space (type, like undead, construct, yada yada) into a number of groups equal to the number of rows I have (distinct WoF rolls). Then, I'd try to pick a combination of powers so that each distinct possibility of power type and creature type is represented and fill the matrix in such a way that each row has one of each creature type and each column has one of each type of power.

Then, lets say I'm fighting a hoard of skeletons, I'd look for my AoE blast power and I'd look for my strong-against-undead power. Bonus points if my S-A-U power happens to be my AoE! So, 1 out of 6 times, I know exactly what I'll used because it's the best, and the other 5 of 6, I'm pretty much looking for the best type for the situation or the power that affects the creature I'm fighting the best.

I have no idea if that's what people are actually picturing though, because I haven't really seen a fleshed out matrix, yet.

[PhoneLobster]

But you seem to be going further and saying that our disagreement meants it's a bad system. Adn that's crazy talk.

I'm saying the deeply contradictory ideas and arguments presented by WoF fans doesn't mean WoF is a bad system.

It means WoF is the fucking Tooth Fairy.

[DSMatticus]

For fuck's sake, Kaelik.

You want an AoE in each row, likewise, AW6 has an AoE, and so when the AW6 character makes a decision

And all AoE's are, of course, equal.

Burning hands = fireball = lightning bolt = ice storm = cone of cold. Every single one of those powers is obviously identical, so you are in fact correct.

Oh wait, holy shit. Every single one of those powers is fundamentally different in a pretty big way, even after you discount the differences in damage! I retract what I said: this assertion is as stupid now as it was before, because you can't seem to understand that not all AoE's are going to be palette swaps of another.

But yes, if we make the assumption that 'well, if any given AoE is just a palette swap of another AoE, then all AoE's are equal and WoF is pointless.' Unfortunately, that entire whole bit hinges on the idea that all AoE's are palette swaps of another.

Yet fireball ain't lightning bolt, and we can stop looking right there because you are obviously wrong.

Your assumption that someone who is making a class for a AW 6 game would purposefully give 6 identical powers to the class that are useless in combat is retarded

You're not following the mathematical claims. As in, you are ignoring them. Pick a set of six numbers, any six numbers, and there are numbers they cannot reach that another set of six numbers can. Ergo, if you want to maximize the number of target numbers you can potentially add up, having access to multiple sets of six numbers is better than access to one.

On in terms of available powers, here's an example of an entire category of potential things your example character can't do, and his WoF could do: buff. Also, defenses.

Ice Armor: Gain a bonus to AC for a few rounds, reduces damage of next attack by half, maybe some other riders to make it worth an action.
Field of Ice: Ground around you becomes slick terrain, difficult terrain.

Not to mention, how many meaningful variations are there on the existent abilities? A blast has very significantly tactically different uses than a line (usually less targets hit, though, so it should be higher damage).

do just as well

Nobody cares about this. 'Doing well' is not a measure of how good the combat system is. If you spend your entire career fighting one goblin at a time, you will massacre every combat. It will be boring as fuck. If you spend your entire career using the same power, it will be boring as fuck.

only rarely having the WoF36 character roll the "ideal" power

No. WoF characters are not supposed to have ideal powers, they are supposed have varied powers. Puzzle monsters are bad even with WoF, but WoF handles them better even though they're dumb. But we don't care about that, we don't want puzzle monsters. We want varied powers. WoF has a lot more of that.

That's the point, if you assume the AW6 character is built like shit, then yes, they are shit

I don't have to make that assumption, I said exactly what I meant: with 36 abilities, you can cover a lot more bases than 6. This is just obvious. This doesn't mean characters with 6 abilities suck, but it does mean exactly what it says, which is that 36 is more than 6 (surprise!).

If each row isn't sufficiently equivalent, then you failed as a WoF designer.

Uhh, no.

they can arrange the Matrix such that they are generally competent at all tasks regardless of what they roll.

For fuck's sake, no.

What the fuck is your measure of equivalance? "This is roughly X units powerful and in the same general category as this, which is X units powerful, so they must be the same!" Every option on a WoF matrix should be designed as a good power. And you are getting 6 powers at a time to choose from. There are no 'bad rolls' on a matrix. There are two AoE's, which work in different ways, or maybe are only slight variations of eachother, but still serve the role of 'AoE.' Maybe one has a debuff rider. Maybe one does more damage. Maybe one is self-centering, making it much riskier, and you'll have to ignore it sometimes, but that's okay, because you have 5 other powers in that matrix row to consider. Maybe one has tactical movement. Maybe one isn't even an AoE, it's just a mulitarget leaping attack.

All of those are different. All of those will be useful in different situations. WoF doesn't let you pick the one you want, but it lets you have all of them. There are no 'shitty' rows on a WoF matrix, there are just different options.

If you're going to make the claim that, "5/6th of a WoF matrix is shitty," I'm going to ask you to prove that claim. Make an actual argument that, for every WoF implementation, and every matrix, all but one row sucks. So, here you go: show me why, everytime, 5/6th of a WoF matrix is shitty.

[PhoneLobster]

I have no idea if that's what people are actually picturing though, because I haven't really seen a fleshed out matrix, yet.

Much as your smaller snappier post suggested I too was pretty sure that's what you were SUPPOSED to do with WoF.

Right up until Frank and Lago needed to move the goal posts.

Again.

[DSMatticus]

Right up until Frank and Lago needed to move the goal posts.

You've seen quite a few goal posts. How about you describe them to us?