The Gaming Den

In any balanced game, it is necessary to establish various guidelines for power, versatility, and trade-offs that guide the structure and balance of the rules. TNE discussions seem to be veering into territory where a lot of these are going to become important, so I thought it would be worth hearing people's feeling sabout various issues.

Several questions to ponder:

1. Ability Obsolescence
It seems that characters are expected to gain new powers as they advance in level. Once you've gained several levels, what's the relative strength of the powers on your list look like?
A) Your most recently-acquired powers are the best. You might pull out older powers if the situation calls for them, but you hope to mainly use your new-and-improved thing.
B) All your powers are equally good, because you swap out older powers for newer ones.
C) All your powers are equally good, because they all scale, and thus never become obsolete.
D) All your powers are equally good, because being higher-level doesn't give you access to new powers--the new power you have at level 20 could be had by a level 1 character, you just have more of them.
E) Your oldest powers are the best, because all powers scale according to how long you've had them.
F) There's some variance in the strength of your powers, because you have your powers from the last N levels, but the scale of variation doesn't increase because each power is replaced by a new one once it is at least N levels out-of-date. Basically a compromise between A and B.

2. Specialization
Different classes are good at different things (maybe not if K has his way, but even he seems to support the general concept at least half the time). If schtick X is your class's primary thing, and another class only dabbles in it, what does that mean?
A) Favored abilities have more raw power. You hit harder, run faster, jump higher, make bigger explosions, etc. as appropriate to your schtick.
B) Favored abilities are more flexible or more widely applicable. For example, the other guy's teleport goes just as far as yours, but yours doesn't require line of sight; or your firebolt ignores fire resistance and his doesn't.
C) If it's your class's primary schtick, you've just got more total powers of that type on your class list. For example, you've got 10 ways to set things on fire, and the other class only offers 3. But if an individual character actually learns fewer than 4 of those 10 powers, he can't expect to be any better at setting things on fire than someone of another class.
D) Your favored effect is mixed in with all the other stuff you do. If your class is big on teleportation, your standard melee attack involves teleporting behind your target as part of the power; if AoE is your big thing, then your "single-target" attacks get a little bit of splash damage for free; etc.

3. Automatic Competences
What things can everyone do just for being a PC, without actually spending any charcter resources (like power slots) to do them? For each one, if a power does a similar thing, how much better can you do it if you have a "real" power for it?

• Basic melee (throw a punch? swing a sword?)
• Basic ranged (throw a rock? shoot a bow?)
• Perform special maneuvers like Grapple/Trip/Disarm/etc.
• Swim (fight while swimming?)
• Climb (fight while climbing?)
• Be stealthy
• Detect stealthy people
• Combat movement
• Overland movement
• Healing during downtime
• Healing during combat
• Others?

4. Action Efficiency
Some powers--maybe all powers--don't actually help you unless you spend an action to use them. What's the breakdown of actions you're allowed to take in a round, and which of those do abilities compete for?
A) Every power is a standard action to activate or maintain
B) Every power is a standard action to activate, but some have lingering effects after you use them
C) Some abilities are movement-related and can be used in the same round as an offensive/defensive ability
D) Some abilities can be activated (or at maybe just maintained after they're activated) with a special action (e.g. swift/minor), so you can use some "on the side," but not an unlimited number
E) Some abilities are "always-on" and don't cost actions
F) Mix-and-match the above? Something different?

5. Level Thresholds
What kinds of special things exist in the world, and which are reserved only for high level people? What order do they show up in? Does everyone get them at the same time, or do you have to specialize in a particular area to get them earlier/at all? Some effects to consider:

• Area-of-effect powers
• Bypass Barriers (e.g. pick locks, smash in walls...)
• Combat Flight
• Combat Teleportation
• Combat Stealth/Invisibility
• Incorporeality
• Resurrection
• Compulsion
• Scrying / Remote-Viewing
• Lie-Detection
• Prophecy / Predicting the Future
• Anything else?

1 C
2 A-D
3 Everyone can do all that except disarm, trip and combat healing. Note that non-combat only options aren't really applicable in a powers discussion. They should be gained seperately.
4 F There is a lot more ability-space when the activation method varies.
5 Resurrection can fuck off as a player ability. Make death less common and more meaningful then res can go to being a plot device like in most of the source material.

Manxome wrote:1. Ability Obsolescence
C) All your powers are equally good, because they all scale, and thus never become obsolete.

I like this because it's least writing. I'd suggest having the powers stagger in a slightly spiky manner, so they wouldn't be exactly even: just roughly even. It's ok that when you go from level 10 to level 11 your multishot power adds a whole extra arrow. That makes the improvement more noticeable, even if it averages out to the same thing.

Manxome wrote:2. Specialization
Different classes are good at different things (maybe not if K has his way, but even he seems to support the general concept at least half the time). If schtick X is your class's primary thing, and another class only dabbles in it, what does that mean?

Some or all of A-D, depending on the class and the schtick. I don't think we should pick one in particular.

On obsolescence:

I favor C (no obsolescence), though I think it will be harder to achieve than it might initially appear.

On Specialization:

C and D. Those who specialize in a schtick get a wider variety of powers that fulfill that function, both including more single-function powers, and more adaptable powers.

So a psychic gets a story teleport, combat teleport, telesmack, transposition, teleport-dodge, etc.

Elementalists, as a group, get *one* of those.

Primary healers get a combat heal, a regen, a several vampiric attacks, etc. But everyone gets a CLW-type effect if they want it.

Three and Four are thornier issues...

Manxome wrote: 1. Ability Obsolescence
It seems that characters are expected to gain new powers as they advance in level. Once you've gained several levels, what's the relative strength of the powers on your list look like?

(G) The earliest powers you get are the least specialized. This means that lower level characters tend to be tactically more similar, and as they advance the pick up more and more 'niche' abilities. Some powers should also be restricted to higher levels, but otherwise (C).

Manxome wrote:2. Specialization
Different classes are good at different things (maybe not if K has his way, but even he seems to support the general concept at least half the time). If schtick X is your class's primary thing, and another class only dabbles in it, what does that mean?

(E) You get more powers in your specialization on your character's power list (rather than on the class list).

Manxome wrote:3. Automatic Competences
What things can everyone do just for being a PC, without actually spending any charcter resources (like power slots) to do them? For each one, if a power does a similar thing, how much better can you do it if you have a "real" power for it?

That's really important to get right, and I don't have an answer right now. I'll try to get back to you on this one.

Manxome wrote:4. Action Efficiency
Some powers--maybe all powers--don't actually help you unless you spend an action to use them. What's the breakdown of actions you're allowed to take in a round, and which of those do abilities compete for?

C) Some abilities are movement-related and can be used in the same round as an offensive/defensive ability
D) Some abilities can be activated (or at maybe just maintained after they're activated) with a special action (e.g. swift/minor), so you can use some "on the side," but not an unlimited number
E) Some abilities are "always-on" and don't cost actions

Right now I think that there should be the basic standard + move system, as well as abilities that use both (charging in either sense). Stances are effectively (D), where you either have a special action to activate one each round. There should be abilities that are always on, but I think a good argument could be made for making those all stances (throw off your magic disguise when you get into combat, etc). I would still like the necromancer's bone armor to do something and not disappear when she changes stance. The Diablo 2 -style bone armor she has floating about should probably be a stance.

Manxome wrote:5. Level Thresholds
What kinds of special things exist in the world, and which are reserved only for high level people? What order do they show up in? Does everyone get them at the same time, or do you have to specialize in a particular area to get them earlier/at all? Some effects to consider:

Another vitally important list like 3. More thought is needed.


Anyway, thanks for tossing these questions into the air. I think that we've diverged a lot as TNE has been argued about/hashed out.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

Manxome wrote:2. Specialization
Different classes are good at different things (maybe not if K has his way, but even he seems to support the general concept at least half the time). If schtick X is your class's primary thing, and another class only dabbles in it, what does that mean?

(E) You get more powers in your specialization on your character's power list (rather than on the class list).

How does that work? Does your class say "you must spend a minimum of X ability slots on powers with the [specialty] tag or we'll kick you out"?

If your point is that the character shouldn't be considered a specialist unless they actually have the powers, that's an understandable point, but it doesn't really answer the question of what it means for a class to have something listed as its primary schtick.

Manxome wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote: (E) You get more powers in your specialization on your character's power list (rather than on the class list).

How does that work? Does your class say "you must spend a minimum of X ability slots on powers with the [specialty] tag or we'll kick you out"?

If your point is that the character shouldn't be considered a specialist unless they actually have the powers, that's an understandable point, but it doesn't really answer the question of what it means for a class to have something listed as its primary schtick.

Because this is a hypothetical example, I'll keep it simple. The system works like this:

At level n*k, you have n powers. Of those n powers, you have x primary, y secondary, and z tertiary. At minimum, x>y>z. You can also throw in a minimum for z.

So a primary 'blaster' is so because she has more blasting powers than any other type of character (and therefore more blasting versatility), as opposed to having more effective individual abilities. This keeps 'Shadow blasters' from sucking.

1-C is what I like best
2-B and D are money
3-All should be available in varying methods and level of competence based on the class
4-Mix and match based on the power of the ability vs the power of the action seems best.
5-I'm not totally qualified to judge well here.

1. I like D, though I think that some abilities do need to be delayed until you get to higher level, namely the stuff like flight or teleportation and the like, which actively change the game you're playing. But for the most part, you should be able to get abilities at minimal investment. A 3-4 chain tree isn't terrible either, but ideally you should be able to be good at something by level 3 or 4.

2. B and D.

3. Basic attacks, spotting hidden characters, basic stealth (unless you've got heavy armor), basic knowledges of the world. I can also live with a 4E style skill system where everyone is reasonably competent in a bunch of skills.

4. I like D. Have swift/minor actions in addition to the standard, so you can have minor abilities that people can maintain or what not, but it also produces a hard limit on how many things people can have up at once, and restricts their actions, which is especially helpful for buffing magic.

5. Basically "counter or die" powers need to be left to epic, where it's assumed that everyone already has the counter. This includes a things like combat invisibility. It may also include combat flight and incorporeality, depending on how they're handled. In 4E, incorporeality isn't such a big deal, it means half damage which is awesome, but it's not complete invulnerability to people that don't have magic attacks like in 3E. Combat flight either needs some means to bring fliers down to earth, or combat flight needs to be reserved for epic levels where it's assumed everyone has ranged or flight attacks.

Divinations can be just about any level, but really need to be built with care, so they don't fuck up the game. There needs to be counters to them so that murder mysteries and the like can actually exist in the world, so divinations shouldn't be foolproof, or there should be methods people take to deceive them. Like actions taken during a full moon can't be seen with divination magic, or some kind of trope like that.

The more major a divination is, the more investment it should require and the more rare it should be. If you've got for instance, a character that can detect any lie, then taking that ability should be a major part of the character's ability sets and that ability should be well known in the world, so that villains can specifically take precautions against it.

Resurrection I don't feel should exist at all, except as a rare plot device. Resurrection as an ability sucks on a variety of levels, because it means that death is meaningless.