Spycraft 2.0 - Failed Design?

[Username17]

I'll note again that that's the high limit. The other examples MS states are within 12, 12, and 10 points of variance, which, for an actually written and published game, just ain't so bad.

The thing is that while characters can in some cases vary by more than the limits of the RNG and have that be OK in some games, Spycraft does not do the requisite things necessary to make it OK. Namely: solid, immovable benchmarks that exist outside the characters against which characters can be judged and scenarios designed.

You could have some arbitrary skill like D&D's own Disable Device range between different characters by 10, 20, or even 40 and still be in the clear. Even though yes, the entire RNG is only 20 numbers long. You have one character that does not monkey with traps save to throw goblin bodies at them and hope they don't reset. You have another character who takes his time and may only be able to do it reliably when he is in no danger. And you have a third character who can do it as a combat action while monsters are breathing fire all over the work environment. And in the case of potential adventure design and character creation, that's all OK, because the players and the DM all know that. Because the DCs and the modifiers for alternate timeframes are all fixed and known quantities.

Take that away though, and you no longer have the freedom on the RNG granted by the time shifts. If the PCs don't know what the DC might be for disabling a glyph (or a land mine, same diff), the rational expectation of being able to hurry tasks ceases to be an umbrella that protects you from the golden shower of large bonus differentials. By going to an "ah fuck it!" DC system, Spycraft has abandoned the security of player skill whoring, and bonus differentials are no longer acceptable.

Finally, Frank, the game does have an objective measure of opposed checks against NPCs: NPCs are assigned values, and, despite that value depending on how many PCs there are, the math is totally doable via the charts. A PC can see how he stacks up aganst a guard dog or a security guard on an individual level or as part of a group of PCs. The numbers are there, they're just on a chart instead of hardcoded. Because this means that higher level PCs encounter more dangerous dogs, and dogs remain a threat. James Bond, no matter what his level, still has to get past guards and dogs.

I see what you did there. That's ten tonnes of 4rrie bullshit in a five pound bag. The dog becomes more dangerous the more PCs exist? Do you not see how incredibly fucking insulting that is? Like how if I was doing a solo mission, I could totally fight this dog, but because I have friends in another room, this dog has quantumly become a badass?

Fuck you.

Even if those charts generated the "perfect scaling results" you claim that they did, which they do not, it would still be so insulting on so many levels that I could not in conscience recommend the system to anyone. But seriously, they don't. You make a character. They have a crowbar and some amount of skill with beating things with said crowbar. You have no idea whether you can take a dog in a fight or how many dogs should give you pause. None whatsoever, because "guard dog" does not have a stat line or even a range of appropriate stats. It's scaled to the amount of threat it is supposed to be to the group as a whole, which means that its combat stats are based on the character sheets of player characters you did not design.

In many cases, your character can seriously contribute more to combat by being shitty at combat and then going off and doing something else. Because if you were any good at combat, the guards that your assassin compatriot is fighting would be tougher even though you're doing something else anyway.

-Username17

[Archmage]

James Bond, no matter what his level, still has to get past guards and dogs.

I wouldn't go so far as Frank and say this is "insulting," but it is really weird. If you're playing Secret Agents and you even have a level system where your characters' power is supposed to scale up over time, why should a guard dog be a serious threat no matter what level you are? What's the point in increasing in level?

[Murtak]

I apologize, Murtak. I didn't mean to be unclear (which is why I boldfaced both the 10-point and 5-point statement). You pointed out that 5 should be a conservative limit, hence my use of the word liberal in my reply, and that 10 should be the maximum. Again, I was trying to stress how close to the limits you pitched Spycraft actually gets.

I'll note again that that's the high limit. The other examples MS states are within 12, 12, and 10 points of variance, which, for an actually written and published game, just ain't so bad.

if the total difference is in the 10 to 12 range that is ok. The absolute hard cap of 10 applies to post-attribute modifiers after all. But I was under the impression that these were in fact the attribute modifiers, to which more modifiers are then added. And if two guards can have combat scores of +1 and +15 respectively your game is fucked. Because you two PCs with combat modifiers of +7 and +24 are both fucked - in half of their combats it does not matter what they do.

And on top of that Spycraft seems to propagate the DnD bullshit of having your bonus spread get larger as you level up.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

You could have some arbitrary skill like D&D's own Disable Device range between different characters by 10, 20, or even 40 and still be in the clear. Even though yes, the entire RNG is only 20 numbers long. You have one character that does not monkey with traps save to throw goblin bodies at them and hope they don't reset. You have another character who takes his time and may only be able to do it reliably when he is in no danger. And you have a third character who can do it as a combat action while monsters are breathing fire all over the work environment. And in the case of potential adventure design and character creation, that's all OK, because the players and the DM all know that. Because the DCs and the modifiers for alternate timeframes are all fixed and known quantities.

That exists. Like I said, there are 82 pages of skill checks. They're largely static (except for shit like Athletics/Jump--and even then, one can math out an average). The thing that scales to the PCs are the NPCs.

The dog becomes more dangerous the more PCs exist? Do you not see how incredibly fucking insulting that is? Like how if I was doing a solo mission, I could totally fight this dog, but because I have friends in another room, this dog has quantumly become a badass?

Then tell them to get in your room! Are you decking? Most games are predicated on team play. You understand that.

You really want a million-page Monster Manual that details every possible threat one could encounter rather than a 50-page one that scales? The guard dog's ATK varies from +0 (when you've 4 PCs who are level 1 on your team) to +12 (when you've 80 PCs who're level 1 on your team--because, sure, that totally happens). You're telling me that because that variance is a +0 (if you were soloing at 4th level) and +2 (if you were playing with three other 4th-level PCs), that that math prevents you from enjoying the game and understanding what your character can do?

You really want the million-page Monster Manual when you could just have monsters exist and be appropriate to the PCs? You want discrete monsters for each level instead of a set of scaling stats because it makes you feel better about your character? Even if you could look at a chart to see how--on a regular basis--yours compares?

If you're playing Secret Agents and you even have a level system where your characters' power is supposed to scale up over time, why should a guard dog be a serious threat no matter what level you are? What's the point in increasing in level?

To be able to do all 82 pages of the static things better. And: To have your level-granted special abilities give you more options to deal with that scaling dog.

[Utterfail]

You're missing the point, the point is that's stupid. Scaling dogs are stupid. And if you think its a good idea... well, draw a conclusion.

[Surgo]

Didn't Oblivion have scaling dogs?

[Utterfail]

Yes, it was stupid. It was in my opinion the major flaw of the game. Made you feel un-badass.

[koz]

You're missing the point, the point is that's stupid. Scaling dogs are stupid. And if you think its a good idea... well, draw a conclusion.

Throughout this thread, HICC has been nothing but an advocate for stupid.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

You're missing the point, the point is that's stupid. Scaling dogs are stupid. And if you think its a good idea... well, draw a conclusion.

D&D already supports all kinds of dog/wolf variants at many levels. You can seriously fight nothing but increasingly ridiculous such animals for a PC's 20-level career. What's the difference if they have tacked-on templates that make them a higher CR than if they just scale to the PCs?

Code: Select all

Animal                                    CR  Location
Dog                                      1/3  MM  271
Dog, Riding                                1  MM  272
Wolf                                       1  MM  283
Dog, Riding, Warbeast                      2  MM2 219
Wolf, 3 HD                                 2  MM  283
Worg                                       2  MM  256-7
Worg, 5 HD                               2-3  MM  256-7
Worg, 7 HD                               4-5  MM  256-7
Dog, Riding, Monster of Legend             3  MM2 219
Dire Wolf                                  3  MM   65
Wolf, monster of legend                    3  MM2 213-4
Wolf, 4 HD                               3-4  MM  283
Worg, 6 HD                               3-4  MM  256-7
Dog, Riding, Warbeast, Monster of Legend   4  MM2 213-4, 219
Wolf, 5 HD                               4-5  MM  283
Wolf, 6 HD                               5-6  MM  283
Wolf, 6 HD, warbeast                     6-7  MM2 219
Worg, 8 HD                               6-7  MM  256-7
Worg, 9 HD                               6-7  MM  256-7
Worg, 10 HD                              7-8  MM  256-7
Worg, 11 HD                              8-9  MM  256-7
Worg, 12 HD                             9-10  MM  256-7
Wolf, titanic                             13  MM2 217-8
Wolf, titanic warbeast                    14  MM2 217-9

And that it gaps between 11-12 and 15-20 is because I got tired of going through the motions. Seriously, what D&D puts forth is better?

And, of course, someone will say yes.

[Archmage]

A riding dog is not the same monster as a giant legendary titanic wolf the size of an elephant.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you were saying earlier is that no matter what level James Bond is, a guard dog should be a threat. They are the same rottweilers on chains, it's just that for some reason two otherwise identical dogs have totally different sets of numbers (Level 1 Dog and Level 20 Dog).

Now, if you want to explicitly say that the level 1 adventure at the tiny outpost has level 1 dogs that look like normal dogs and the level 20 adventure at Doctor Evil's lab has giant wolves that use monster trucks as chew toys, that's fine. But if you're going to say that the same dog should have an attack bonus that scales to the PCs and not say that if the PCs are uber-strong you should replace the mundane dogs with giant Cerberus clones so that you don't get the "treadmill effect" where you're doing the exact same stuff at level 1 as you are at level 20 without feeling like you're any more awesome.

[IGTN]

The D&D monsters are distinct creatures (even if they're all variations of dog) that you can imagine have their own existence out there somewhere even when they're not being a level-appropriate encounter.

A scaling guard dog is a guard dog that you never get any better at fighting.

A Dire Wolf is not a Wolf is not a Dog. They are different creatures, that the characters can tell the difference between and respond appropriately to.

A Dire Wolf-scale guard dog is just a guard dog that is inexplicably tougher than another one.

Some differences:
In the D&D system, you get to feel awesome when the Dire Wolf that had been a hard fight becomes an easy fight becomes a mook. In a scaling system, the mook guard dog is a mook guard dog and the boss guard dog is a boss guard dog, and stays that way no matter how tough you are. It doesn't even have the decency to pallet-swap the upgraded one.

In the D&D system, just knowing the monster's label (Dog, Wolf, Dire Wolf), or its size category (since the three are different sizes) tells you how hard of a fight you're in for. Without that, you can pretty much only rely on the DM telling you directly how tough the dog is supposed to be, if they decide to tell you.

[ckafrica]

One thought regarding the scaling of spycraft; the scaling doesn't take into account your added abilities. While the dog you fight at level 20 has bigger numbers it doesn't do anything cooler than a lvl1 dog. You on the other hand will have a boatload more tricks up your sleeve so that a lvl20 combat oriented character should have a much easier time defeating it than a lvl1 combat character. The non combat characters might not, but then they're not meant to have an easy time fighting them

The fact that a lvl1 and 20 team can actually run the same adventure is a bit weird to me (though not at the same time) but the idea is, I guess, that a story can be interesting at no matter what level. Higher level characters are really just those with more toys and abilities to make the job more interesting. Which makes me wonder why anyone would want to play a low level character when a high level character is doing the same job just in a cooler way.

Now would the game have benefited from just eliminating number increases? Probably, but that can be argued about any system that is not trying to represent massive variations in power. And I don't think many people would buy a d20 system that didn't do it.

Now my biggest beef is the gear system for which you have to flip back and forth incessantly to find what everything does through about 100 pages of mostly tables which are not next to the relevant descriptive text. For someone who reads most of his books on PDF that's a real bitch; but I wouldn't have much happier if I had a tree copy.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The fact that a lvl1 and 20 team can actually run the same adventure is a bit weird to me

It should be, because this design paradigm completely destroys the entire concept of levels.

There's a reason why Batman and Superman have a completely different scope of adventure beyond obvious generalities like 'track down criminal and catch them'. Hell, Wonder Woman (Flying Brick level 12) and Superman (Flying Brick level 18) go on entirely different adventures. A horde of mooks armed with the slightly space-age weaponry you can expect in the DC-verse is a threat to WW. They are not to Superman. This detail completely changes the scope of adventures.

[RandomCasualty2]

Scaling monsters is a necessity. Seriously. If you're going to have powerful PCs, then you need opposition to challenge them.

The only matter of scaling that can get insulting is when the flavor of the scaling isn't done properly. If there's no emphasis spent building up the Uruk-Hai over a standard orc, then the PCs will just feel like "Man this sucks, the orcs just spontaneously got better because we leveled."

But that's not even a mechanical issue. That's a storytelling issue and there are various techniques you can use, like throwing in an easy fight now and then in which to maintain the idea of relative advancement.

[Username17]

Scaling monsters is a necessity. Seriously. If you're going to have powerful PCs, then you need opposition to challenge them.

Scaling the challenges is a necessity. Scaling individual enemies is not.

You could have more dogs, or give the PCs less time to bypass the dogs, or require more of the PCs to do other things like pick the lock or disable the bomb while proportionately less of the characters fought the dogs.

Actually having the individual dog get more badass is the worst possible solution to needing a challenge for a higher level team.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

And given the right players they'll wildly speculate about cybernetic killer dogs, genetic mutations, or similar explanations why Kujo the Killer Schnautzer just almost one-shot the combat expert. And they'll expect that a 6M-dog doesn't protect stuff that is worth 6K. And if the other security is on a "Level 1 dog" scale - padlock and fence - they'll wonder what is going on.

[Psychic Robot]

I’m a little confused as to why people do not seem to be understanding the concept of scaling enemies vs. scaling dogs. Yes, a game needs to have scaling enemies. However, unless the game is extremely gritty, the types of enemies need to become more fantastic as the PCs level up.

A game that has dogs level up alongside PCs so that level 20 PCs are fighting level 20 dogs is somewhat absurd. That’s not to say that the PCs can’t fight level 20 canines, mind you—but, assuming traditional D&D/heroic fantasy, level 20 dogs need to be two-story high hellhounds that spit bees from their mouths when they bark.

Just giving a guard dog a +20 to attack and damage is…well, it’s pretty lame and lazy of the system. I think that having a comprehensiv e system that doesn’t require a monster manual is a good idea, but a dog itself should not be a level 20 threat. Given that dogs exist in real life alongside humans—and given that real life humans are low-level and given that real-life humans can kill dogs—dogs should not exist as a real threat to the PCs when they are of a sufficient level. (That is to say, they con grey at some point.)

[RandomCasualty2]

Scaling the challenges is a necessity. Scaling individual enemies is not.

You could have more dogs, or give the PCs less time to bypass the dogs, or require more of the PCs to do other things like pick the lock or disable the bomb while proportionately less of the characters fought the dogs.

Actually having the individual dog get more badass is the worst possible solution to needing a challenge for a higher level team.

Honestly, I've never quite been able to pull off those adventures where somehow you've got some PCs in combat and other PCs picking locks or disarming bombs. Generally the PCs kill the combat threat first, and then deal with doing whatever it is they have to do out of combat. Combat tends to happen and be resolved very quickly. Which means that pretty much the odds of getting one of these scenarios without scripting it video game style is basically nil.

As far as throwing in greater numbers, that's generally not a good solution beyond a certain point. The problem is that more enemies means that the DM has more guys to move on his turn, and that makes everything go slower, since the DM is tossing 50 dice every turn hoping to roll a natural 20. Seriously that sucks.

There is of course the option of making individual swarm monsters, but at that point you're realy just scaling the monsters. You're just making the monster "Swarm of dogs" instead of "Hellhound". And granted swarming monsters can be a decent way to keep flavor.

The only other option you've got is handicapping. The mission may require that the PCs can't use magic or can't use their guns. That can make some old enemies more difficult.

But really, most PCs don't like to be constantly handicapped, and would actually prefer to just fight tougher enemies rather than constantly getting hit with kryptonite rays.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Honestly, I've never quite been able to pull off those adventures where somehow you've got some PCs in combat and other PCs picking locks or disarming bombs.

It's not an uncommon fixture of adventures--even D&D adventures--to have some secondary threat that if it's not dealt with simultaneously or even before the combat threat it'll increase the overall difficulty of combat. Hell, the 4E DMG has a pretty extensive collection of traps that are supposed to interfere with combat and a lot of them you actually want to deal with before going on stabbing orcs or whatever.

There is of course the option of making individual swarm monsters, but at that point you're realy just scaling the monsters.

Now that's just wrong. Swarm monsters are some of the most feared subsets of monsters in D&D and it's not just because you're fighting two hundred spiders. Their attacks and your countertactics completely change. Most drakes are a joke but needlefang swarm drakes will completely ice almost all level-appropriate parties.

The tactics and most importantly feel of fighting a giant scorpion swarm is (or can be) completely different from fighting, say, a ginormous scorpion. It's just that D&D decided to implement this in a profoundly stupid way by just scaling the bonuses rather than adjusting tactics/retiring monsters. This is why the vast majority of dumb critters completely fail to be a threat to most 3rd Edition parties. That was a huge problem, but the converse of buffing the tiger/nerfing the PCs in 4E isn't any better. It's worse, in fact, because it breaks immersion.

[cthulhu]

All it really needs is what spycraft 1 did: At level 1 the guards are gangbangers, at level 10 they are special forces, and at level 20 they are ex-special forces with scifi weapons and gadgets. The guard dog goes from being a doberman to a tiger. Functionally they scale to the party.

[Parthenon]

All it really needs is what spycraft 1 did: At level 1 the guards are gangbangers, ...

Does anyone else ever have the problem that when a group is described as "gangbangers" I don't think of them as criminals, I think of them as all having sex with the same woman at once.

[Utterfail]

Yes

[TheWorid]

All it really needs is what spycraft 1 did: At level 1 the guards are gangbangers, at level 10 they are special forces, and at level 20 they are ex-special forces with scifi weapons and gadgets. The guard dog goes from being a doberman to a tiger. Functionally they scale to the party.

That makes far more sense. Why one would change that is beyond me.

[koz]

All it really needs is what spycraft 1 did: At level 1 the guards are gangbangers, at level 10 they are special forces, and at level 20 they are ex-special forces with scifi weapons and gadgets. The guard dog goes from being a doberman to a tiger. Functionally they scale to the party.

That makes far more sense. Why one would change that is beyond me.

They caught the 4E bug.

[cthulhu]

Yeah you just plastered a theme over some generic stats when you threw the mooks together. It didn't work great (I suspect the scaling system in the new one is better), but conceptually it is good.