Tiers and Levels

[Ganbare Gincun]

Question: why change the Bard's concept from "beguile enemies" to "druidic battlefield control"? Is it because the Illusionist is going to be doing all of the beguiling instead from here on out?

Here are the classes that I'd like to see implemented:

Beastmaster - Rides upon or fights alongside an animal/magical beast(s). Possibly limited battlefield control abilities like the Bard?

Elementalist - Magical ranged element based DPS. Possibly limited summoning abilities? Battlefield control like the Bard? Like the Tome Fire Mage, but can choose different elements.

Warden - Character transforms into animals/magical beasts and tears off people's faces.

Summoner - 3.X style summoner - dumps trash monsters all over the place to either block tactical movement or bolster assaults into enemy territory.

Thaumaturge? Warlock? - A Final Fantasy style summoner that summons up one big monster instead of filling the field with trash. Can make pacts with a variety of different summons (demonic, elemental, modrons, whatever). Maybe make the Warlock a subset of a larger class that is devoted to tromping around with hard-hitting extraplanar minions?

Gish - Definitely want to see warrior-mages, but how best to distinguish them from their caster and melee parents?

Monk - I'm sure everyone would like to see a Monk that doesn't suck. The same thing goes for the Hero.

Assassin - What would difference be between Rogue and Assassin?

[Crissa]

Because the Druid already does too much.

-Crissa

[Username17]

Question: why change the Bard's concept from "beguile enemies" to "druidic battlefield control"? Is it because the Illusionist is going to be doing all of the beguiling instead from here on out?

Well, the Bard and the Druid are historically convoluted classes that exist in odd space game balance and role protection wise. When people hear "druid" they expect:

• Plant and Earth based battlefield control (a protectable role).
• Leading a squad of forest friend minions (a protectable role)
• Healing (a protectable role)
• Turning into a monster and breaking shit

Of those, the first two seemed like roles we actually did want to protect. And as such, splitting them into different classes seemed the way to go. The minions one is easy - Necromancer is by far the most popular minion pusher that has ever unzipped their pants on kitchen sink fantasy. The plant controller is a bit more difficult, since most "plant" caster names also do "animals" at least in most designations. But if you go back a few decades, Bards were a prestige class that did Druid casting but without the transformation and happy tree friend army. And that seemed pretty damn viable.

As for ditching the fancy pants singing bard of recent years - that was a pretty easy decision once it came on the table. No one really likes pure cheerleader characters in games where players play only individual characters. It's hurtful to the enjoyment of the player doing it in most instances and fucks encounter balance pretty hard whether they are in play or not.

-Username17

[Crissa]

I don't see any reason why not to allow varied 'has minions' classes...

...But at the same time, there's no reason to have more than one summoner in the basic set.

-Crissa

[CatharzGodfoot]

'Has an army of _____" and 'has one or two _____ allies' can easily be two different skill sets, that can come together or apart. A horde of zombies is a lot like a wall of thorns that can get up and attack people, which is rather different than a friendly tiger (or a horde of skeleton archers).

[Koumei]

This is looking kind of cool. Still, not to add anything useful, but before I read the rest:

You get to say "You activated my trap card." a lot.

I just thought it would be worth mentioning that I met Little Kuriboh on the weekend. I'm sorry Frank, but you have been replaced. He is my new hero.

[Ganbare Gincun]

Question: why change the Bard's concept from "beguile enemies" to "druidic battlefield control"? Is it because the Illusionist is going to be doing all of the beguiling instead from here on out?

Well, the Bard and the Druid are historically convoluted classes that exist in odd space game balance and role protection wise.

This is true, but based on the conversation in the Kitchen Sink Thread, I had expected the Bard to focus more on mind control and minor illusions then kicking things old-school original Bard prestige class style. But hey, it works for me either way. No worries.

I don't see any reason why not to allow varied 'has minions' classes...

...But at the same time, there's no reason to have more than one summoner in the basic set.

Yeah, I wasn't entirely coherent whenever I typed up that post earlier. I would personally prefer to see some kind of Summoner class where there is an investment in a single powerful summoned creature, which is very different from the 3.X model where you basically spam the battlefield with trash mobs to block movement and provide flanking opportunities. But I'm willing to concede the point if it makes for a more interesting game with more distinctness between the available character classes.

[K]

I've been thinking about role protection a lot lately, and I think that we don't need to have really strong protection.

We could do weak protection so that each class is unique because of his particular combination of colors, or even his unique aspect of that color.

So the Necromancer gets both Black powers of mind control and lots of minions. The Bard is a Black/Green and he gets the mind control of Black and the thorny blushes of Green. The Druid is a Green/Green and gets the thorny bushes and transformations.

Sometimes you'll get overlap, but that's ok. I don't mind if there is an Enchantress that gets Blue illusions and Black Mind control, as long as the Necromancer is the premier Black minion mage.

------

As for the Warrior classes, I think they need a unique mechanic to offset their flavor restrictions as "nonmagical guys". I mean, while it is fine to have a mechanic where Fighters use the mechanics of the colors, people want things reskinned so a fighting guy feels like a fighting guy.

So these are the ideas I've got so far:

So a Duelist gets Blue illusion powers, We'll call them feints, and they are:

1. Better: They aren't affected by monsters/meta-effects with resistance/alteration to magic (think 2e psionics). So when you fight a Golem or something, the illusionist cries a little because his powers are getting resisted a lot, but the Duelist's fients.

2. With added effects: so the Illusionist's powers have the advantage that they work really well in low light and fog and badly in bright light and useless in darkness, while the Duelist's fients work well anywhere.

3. Circumstantially abusable: So the alchemist is Red and can stack blasting effects by using more gunpowder, but the Wizard is also Red and can auto-detonate gunpowder and set auto-set fires because magic fire is weird that way.

4. Some combination of the above three.

[Crissa]

Yeah, I wasn't entirely coherent whenever I typed up that post earlier.

So'kay. We have time.

So you'd like a single-pet class - like a Beastmaster Hunter or Demonology Warlock - instead of a minion class - like a Swarm Druid or Skeleton Necromancer.

Yeah, I can see how those might be different enough to fit into the base group. In traditional D&D you have the Ranger or Druid and Companion; the Paladin and Mount. And the Wizard with a Familiar.

We certainly have room for the Familiar or Mount (basically one extra hand or basic action), a Companion or Cohort (duplicate actions or replacement actions), and Minions or Swarms (multiple additional basic actions).

-Crissa

[Username17]

In a theoretical sort of way, pokemoning could be divided up any which way. From a powerful shadow master who drops a fragile shadow version of himself behind when he assaults to make taking territory he was just in marginally more difficult all the way up to a straight up Pokemaster who is basically a little kid who orders around a powerful monster and whose real location then becomes something that the PCs need to aggressively defend. That's a slider that could be moved left or right and that would be fine.

The deal is simply that the classes want to feel tactically different. Being a chessmaster who orders units of skeletons to go die again taking a hill feels very different from being a shadow warrior who runs around with a sword and leaves fake shadow duplicates behind him. And it feels different from a Pokemaster who sends Charizard to fight battles while he stands around and shouts cheers. Not just flavor wise, but tactically. Those three things are very different tactically. I wouldn't be happy with a character who had a bunch of wolves they sent around to take hills on their behalf, because that sounds like a flavor reskin of the Necromancer.

In general, flavor reskins should be avoided. Or at least postponed until later expansion material.

-Username17

[Ganbare Gincun]

The deal is simply that the classes want to feel tactically different. Being a chessmaster who orders units of skeletons to go die again taking a hill feels very different from being a shadow warrior who runs around with a sword and leaves fake shadow duplicates behind him. And it feels different from a Pokemaster who sends Charizard to fight battles while he stands around and shouts cheers. Not just flavor wise, but tactically. Those three things are very different tactically. I wouldn't be happy with a character who had a bunch of wolves they sent around to take hills on their behalf, because that sounds like a flavor reskin of the Necromancer.

All that being said, it might be best to simply give one of the "Druid Classes" swarms, powerful single pets to the Summoner, and squads of undead to the Necromancer. And perhaps the "warrior classes" can have the option of taking an animal or a magical beast as a weaker mount/cohort without overstepping the bounds of role protection. But if the latter option isn't viable, then it would probably be best to table Beastmaster for the time being and circle back at a later date.

[Crissa]

Hence, postponing them until expansion.

But the gamut could totally be there in the basics.

-Crissa

[Username17]

Anyway, there has been some discussion about what to do with Action Points / Plot Points / Edge Points / Fate Points / Whatever. The basic idea is that you have a purely metagame resource and you use it whenever you want to in order to do something that affects the game in a manner positive to your character. This in turn makes players less passive and more engaged with events. But you don't want to fall into the trap of Fantasy Craft (where the action dice are largely meaningless), nor do you want to end up like Star Wars (where there is a two tier system where the force points are massively more useful to Jedi than other characters).

What K and I were latching onto was the idea of using Fate Points (or whatever we end up calling them) to be able to use abilities "off wheel." That is, you could spend a point to simply do something that required a different WoF result from what you actually had, or even potentially abilities that do not occupy a space on the wheel at all. The example we were bandying about was one in which your race would totally leave you with one or more abilities that you could use as needed - by spending a point. These could readily include reactions such as a Halfling luck save retry or a Drow treachery redeployment. Because they don't need to be in the wheel, it's not important if they happen at times which are ambiguously associated with one wheel result or another.

-Username17

[Crissa]

I don't want save retries - I want a saving throw pass or result bumped up a notch. Nothing is worse than using your once-an-encounter or story ability and getting bupkis.

-Crissa

...Why is bupkis in the spelling dictionary? O-o

[Ganbare Gincun]

What K and I were latching onto was the idea of using Fate Points (or whatever we end up calling them) to be able to use abilities "off wheel." That is, you could spend a point to simply do something that required a different WoF result from what you actually had, or even potentially abilities that do not occupy a space on the wheel at all.

I know that there are a number of people that have posted here that appreciate how the WoF keeps you "engaged" but lament the fact that they have to "give up control" of their character. This mechanic seems like a good compromise; it would allow players to assume direct control of their characters in crisis situations and avoid any hard feelings about defeats caused to bad WoF rolls.

The example we were bandying about was one in which your race would totally leave you with one or more abilities that you could use as needed - by spending a point. These could readily include reactions such as a Halfling luck save retry or a Drow treachery redeployment. Because they don't need to be in the wheel, it's not important if they happen at times which are ambiguously associated with one wheel result or another.

What kind of other off-wheel abilities would be available for use when using a Fate Point? Would players have a sideboard of "class and race powers" that they would have to choose from? Would they be able to use any class power that they qualify for? Would they be able to use minor powers that belong to other classes? Do magical items add extra WoF entries, and if so, would they be consigned to the sideboard as well?

[Crissa]

Maybe.

Ganbare, the WoF abilities aren't all the options a player has - just the big ones they might want to spam. You still have at least five basic options of assault, barrage, retreat, or standard attack/defend. Along with whatever sets of WoF abilities or magic items you have.

-Crissa

[Username17]

What kind of other off-wheel abilities would be available for use when using a Fate Point? Would players have a sideboard of "class and race powers" that they would have to choose from? Would they be able to use any class power that they qualify for? Would they be able to use minor powers that belong to other classes? Do magical items add extra WoF entries, and if so, would they be consigned to the sideboard as well?

I would think that every major aspect of a character would give them something they could spend a Fate Point on. Race, Class, major life events, whatever. In total, I could see people rounding out to like five such abilities.

In any case, because each character has access to the basic five actions, characters only need a couple of options at each Wheel result. And they don't even necessarily need the same number of options at each wheel result. It's totally OK for an item to provide a "3" option while another item offers just a "5". Enemies don't even need that much. A mook could seriously just have a special move at one or two WoF results and have to rely on basics the rest of the time.

-Username17

[Ganbare Gincun]

Maybe.

Ganbare, the WoF abilities aren't all the options a player has - just the big ones they might want to spam. You still have at least five basic options of assault, barrage, retreat, or standard attack/defend. Along with whatever sets of WoF abilities or magic items you have.

-Crissa

Yeah, I read that earlier, but it didn't register - the only thing that "pinged" was what was discussed in the Kitchen Sink Thread.

[Username17]

So it becomes necessary to think about how attacks can be different one from another.

Accuracy

We all well know the fundamental tradeoff of damage for accuracy made popular in many games. In addition to being abstractly fair against the standard opponent, it becomes a genuinely positive thing to trade one way or the other against enemies whose defenses are skewed towards dodging or damage resistance. However, that sort of thing is insufficiently cool. It feels mechanical, like you're making decisions based on accounting concerns rather than in-world ones.

So here's what we're going to do: when an attack is inaccurate (or accurate, for that matter), it has a bonus or penalty in a specific category. I suggest having three such categories (Positional Modifiers, Surprise Modifiers, and something else that stands in for daze and slow). And if you have more than one modifier of the same type, only your best applies. Yes, even if one of those modifiers is positive and the other is negative. What this means is that an accurate or inaccurate attack can be clearly situationally useful since likeminded bonuses will cause penalties to vanish from the equation altogether.

So for example: your archer's "arcing shot" that is accurate on the grounds that it gives a Positional Advantage to the attack can be used on someone who has taken a defensive position that gives a Positional Penalty to the attack, and then you get to use the positional Advantage instead of the Penalty (not in addition to). Alternately, your Berserker's highly telegraphed "power attack" gives a Surprise Penalty on the attack roll. But if you happen to be unseen at the time and get a Surprise Bonus, then the penalty simply does not count at all. You coul also have situations where an attack would be clearly suboptimal. You wouldn't bother using your "feint attack" that gives a surprise bonus when your target couldn't see you and you already had a surprise bonus.

In this manner, it can feel like there is an in-game reason why you would be using these different attacks. As well as having a relatively simple to understand rubric for determining in a metagame fashion which of those different attacks are useful in whatever your circumstances happen to be.

Damage

Having a higher Save DC makes an attack more likely to inflict CAN penalties, more likely to inflict a larger CAN penalty when it does so, and more likely to drop an enemy out of combat altogether. In general this means that a higher Save DC is good while a lower Save DC is bad.

But you can also play around with it a little bit. The basic condition track is simply a -1 Injury, a -2 Injury, and an Incapacitation, but you can throw in other conditions instead. Some conditions might be temporary or removable. Indeed, some condition steps might not exist at all. There is room in the world for zaps that have a high Save DC an no Incapacitation option. Such effects would inherently be useful early in combat and be a waste of time later on. Furthermore, some condition tracks could affect future accuracy instead of damage (such as blinding flashes that gave out Surprise Bonuses instead of adjusting future Saves).

One can also have an attack with a conditional increase in Save DC. The one I'm happiest with is the attack whose Save DC is increased by the number of injury modifiers the target has (in effect, doubling the effects of already extant injuries). But the idea is simple enough, you could even have attacks whose Save DCs are affected by the feng shui of the location they were used in rather than anything about the characters in question. For example, an entangle could get a Save DC bonus for going after a vegetated location, while a water blast could get a save DC bonus for going after a location with a water source.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

I like that accuracy idea. So, rather than gaming the optimal Power Attack penalty based on your chances to hit vs the damage payout, you instead only opt to Power Attack when it doesn't matter that you have a surprise penalty.

Cool. I agree that it does feel less meta-gamy. I mean, you're still making a mechanical, rules-based decision, but it seems to be based on observations in character.

[Username17]

More ways to handle things:

DOT

The Damage Over Time rubric is fairly established in games, and its implementation in games with hit points is fairly easy: it does more damage than an attack that does damage all at once, but you have to wait like a good little boy for your damage to come in. Thus, if you expect the battle to end soon, you shy away from DOTs, and if it looks like you'll be here a while you shovel them on. This is very intuitive and feels very natural. You do not need to know what the math or game mechanics are doing to use DOTs appropriately, and it feels like an in-character decision to use them or not use them.

So we're happy with DOTs, but unfortunately we don't have hit points, which makes the tradeoffs more confusing. The implementation at least is fairly obvious, which is that we give it a somewhat lower Save DC and it generates lower wounds, but it keeps hitting the target building up more and more wounds. Off hand, if the base Save DC were 5 points lower, it would start hitting one whole wound level less, but as it kept going it would eventually become bigger, which is about what we want. Back of the envelope calculations look like it would pull ahead after about 3 rounds, which seems like it is plenty.

One of the things that I notice, is that many of the DOTs on my short list of things to include are actually areas rather than Diablo style poisonings (although the latter ones exist too). From swarms of bees to walls of fire, filling up a location with a DOT effect is probably going to be a major thing. And those kinds of DOTs can seriously just have a duration of "until destroyed" - since enemies can and will just get up and walk away from the besieged location and simply stop taking damage. The Poison Arrow ability of the Assassin is rather sketchier. It needs to end at some point, but tracking 4 rounds or more is out of the question. Some sort of "Recovery Phase" where stuff like poison or temporary conditions like dazzled and stunned have a chance of ending seems pretty reasonable.

-Username17

[Username17]

A class-derived maneuver is intentionally superior to one of the basic five. And I do mean substantially better. To the point that "Advance" simply assaults you into a new location without stabbing anyone, while "Mananso's Rampage" is an assault into a new location that also stands as a damaging attack against an entire area. This means that while players will inevitably fall back on basic actions, there is a profound incentive to use stuff out of your Wheel as often as possible.

Which means that among other things, it is preferential to brainstorm up a number of actions that are just like a basic action but better (or combinations of two actions in the case of the ever-popular Advance + Attack).

Advance

Advance moves you to your target location. You provoke attacks of opportunity from the location you are leaving, but not from the location you are entering. Some possible superior versions include:

• Assault with an attack at the end. This is going to be used a lot, and is stuff like Charges and Rampages.
• Assault without provoking from the location you are leaving. Examples include tumbling and sneaking.
• Assault into a location other than your target. Examples include teleportation and scouting.
• Assault a location and mark a location for other players, which is really exclusively a Scout thing.
• Assault a location and force mark that location for victims inside it. Example: Knight's Challenge.
• Assault a location and Poke a feature in that location. A fair number of swashbucklery maneuvers should basically do that.

Attack

The Attack action will probably see the most action in play. You simply use whatever weaponry you happen to have and attack an opponent in your location with it. It's simple and hard to improve upon.

• Ranged Attack. An Attack could be Ranged instead of Melee. Like Fireball or Poison Arrow.
• Attack combined with Poke a feature in this location. That's a good chunk of the swashbuckler stuff.
• Attack while still Marking your target location. That's an Assassin thing.
• Attack and force mark your location to your victim.
• Attack and mark your location to the other players. This is the basic Scout beachhead.

And it occurs to me that I should talk about KSF Marks. A Mark has a number on it. Next turn when you roll your target location, you can use the Mark number instead. A Force Mark is just like that, except you must use the Marked number instead of your roll.

This means that when the Knight gets in your face and starts hammering on you, you really can't escape unless an ally Marks a new location for you to run off into or you spend an action Circling (allowing you to change your target regardless of rolls or marks).

-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

The idea of Attacks and Damage is very interesting for me.

I'm currently working on a generic wargame system myself; and having 'situational' or 'types' of attacks makes a lot of sense for how to separate different types of actions a creature or unit can take.

[K]

Once we start writing up abilties, we need to make sure we keep some of them are open-ended enough for out of combat stuff. For example, the Ranger needs some out of combat Diplimacy powers, but I could see the Illusionist's illusion powers counting as both combat and non-combat powers if we define "here is what the combat effects are, and the non-combat apps are...."

[K]

I don't think we need a Recovery Phase. You can handle Poison through the existing Wound system, as well as various effects like confusion.

I can't really think of any effect I'd want ending in a Recovery Phase. Things like Walls that effect terrain can just be permanent until you create another wall and the old Wall crumbles. Other effects can just happen as actions.

Since killshot effects like sleep or mind control are going to be a product of the killshot mechanic, those don't need a recovery phase either.