Four Stat System.

[Manxome]

Accumulated Wounds = (Damage - Soak)*1.5 + Previous Wounds

I believe that's (Damage - Soak)*0.5 (rounded up), not times 1.5.

[the_taken]

Err... Yes, that's it.

But how about:

if Damage > Soak, Wounds = Previous Wounds + 1 + (Damage - Soak)*0.5

To get ahead on the programming.

[Manxome]

That's not equivalent. Your formula implies that if damage exceeds soak by 2, you receive 2 wounds, which I don't think is correct.

You could use

Wounds = Previous Wounds + (1 + Damage - Soak)/2

[the_taken]

edit-> if Damage > Soak, Wounds received = 1 + (Damage - 1 - Soak)/2

[Cielingcat]

Hey Frank, I have a question. How do you make weapons different without making some weapons objectively better? I don't want to shaft people who want to use a spear instead of a sword, but I don't want people who use a spear to be the same as people who use a sword.

Hmm, maybe the spear would give -1 to attack but +1 to wound...

[Jacob_Orlove]

You could always limit each weapon to specific energy-type enhancements. So, magic swords are always Fire weapons, or whatever, while Spears might be Lightning, or Stone.

[Cielingcat]

Eh, that could work. 'Cept I'm doing Magic SAME now, so it's Black/Blue/Green/Red/White/Colorless.

Does the system work with only 6 energy types?

[Jacob_Orlove]

Well, you have six colors, plus ten two-color pairs, plus five "color X + allies" color trios if you need them, so that should let you differentiate a whole bunch of weapons if you need to.

[Cielingcat]

That it would, but that's a bit much to keep track of.

[Username17]

If you wanted, you could throw in Slashing/Piercing/Yourmom/Bludgeoning resitances and such.

Or you could give each weapon a "Strength Range" (using a weapon smaller than your Strength does capped damage, using a weapon larger than your Strength gives penalties or might not even be possible).

You could also put in a system of reach. Having a weapon with reach on an opponent gives you bonuses until they successfully perform a "Closing" maneuver which inverts the effect.

Or you can have weapons grant effective bonuses/penalties to Strength and Agility.

Or you could just not worry about it - assuming that people shouldn't be game mechanically punished for wanting to use a shovel or a swan on a stick if it fits their character.

-Username17

[Jacob_Orlove]

1187654345[/unixtime]]That it would, but that's a bit much to keep track of.

Well, I'm thinking of the pairs and trios not as separate items, but as a half-and-half kind of thing. So if you're good with Red weapons, you do great with anything that's pure Red, well with something that's Red/Green, and normal with something that's White or Blue/Black.

But yeah, you can also not worry about it.

[Cielingcat]

Weapons probably won't actually have a type; they'll all be Colorless. Magic weapons will have colors, but they're special and difference because of magic and so don't count.

Swords are your basic weapon, and cover every type of one-handed sword. Two-handed swords give +1 to wound, but you can't use a shield (shield give +1 to dodge). In fact, every two-handed weapon does that; swords are just normal in that they don't give a bonus to anything or a penalty to anything.

Spears give +1 to wound but -1 to attack, as they're easier to knock away or something but if they hit they go in deep. Used in two hands they give +2 to wound.

Axes give +1 to wound but -1 to soak, as they overextend you or something. Whatever.

+1 attack -1 dodge
+1 attack -1 wound
+1 attack -1 soak

+1 dodge -1 attack
+1 dodge -1 wound
+1 dodge -1 soak

+1 wound -1 dodge

+1 soak -1 attack
+1 soak -1 dodge
+1 soak -1 wound

[the_taken]

That looks kinda like PkMn personalities. I guess that's proof that using SAME is the right idea.

[the_taken]

Movement?

Suggestion: Big Fat Squares! Dividing the combatants up into two or more rows, and attacking a character in a further row invokes penalties associated with accessing that character. Unlike FF, ranged attacks and magic do not normally bypass these penalties, since front row characters block/grant cover.

[echoVanguard]

Seems like the most optimal combination of elements would be:

Slashing
Piercing
Bludgeoning
Earth
Fire
Air
Water

This way you have clearly-defined and intuitive damage types for any given attack type, and a prime number of damage types to adhere to the existing paradigm without going completely to crazytown on the number of potential attack/defense types you have to manage.

I also think that the names of the ability scores are a little unintuitive, as Moxie and Elan are very nebulous in terms of what they actually define and are pretty obscure words to most English speakers - Might, Agility, Cunning, and Enthusiasm might work a little better. I admit "Willpower" probably best encapsulates the concept Elan is supposed to represent, but it ruins the acronym.

I also wonder - can a character have more than one armor type at the same time? If not, can armors have more than one element? If not, do armors count for any value at all against elements that are not the same as the armor's element?

(Sorry to necro this ancient thread, but I got linked here from another post and really liked the discussion.)

echo

[CatharzGodfoot]

When would you ever use "Earth" or "Water" damage? And is it really that intuitive to call suffocation "Air damage"?

[OgreBattle]

This was originally intended as a skillpoint system, but I'm working on a level based system based off of this and other notes.

the 7 elements already picked out work nicely, they correspond well with the 5 Chinese elements (Wood, Fire, Metal, Earth, Water) and YinYang (Light/Darkness).

[echoVanguard]

When would you ever use "Earth" or "Water" damage? And is it really that intuitive to call suffocation "Air damage"?

It jumped out at you, didn't it? It's certainly not less any intuitive than "swords do void damage, despite being made of iron, which comes from the earth".

As far as when you would use earth or water damage, 3.x has exactly seven damage types anyway - Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning, Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, and Sonic (negative and positive energy aren't exactly damage types as much as they are effect types). Here's some examples of what elements various familiar 3.x attacks would be classified as:

Element	Physical	Mental
Slashing	Sword/Axe/Claws	Daze/Ego Whip/Energy Drain
Piercing	Dagger/Spear/Arrow/Bite	Suggestion/Id Insinuation/Dominate Monster
Bludgeoning	Mace/Hammer/Fists/Shockwaves	Mind Thrust/Magic Jar
Earth	Petrification/Poison/Disease	Stun/Hold Monster/Alignment Alteration
Air	Lightning/Wind/Suffocation	Illusions/Figments/Phantasms
Fire	Dragon's Breath/Lava/Fireball	Fear/Confusion/Insanity
Water	Acid/Cold Damage	Charm Monster/Modify Memory/Memory Wipe

Obviously it doesn't map perfectly - Acid damage is now Water (since it's dissolving you) and Sonic damage is now Bludgeoning. But for the most part, it works and maps rather cleanly onto known effects.

echo

[squirrelloid]

So, on-face SAME feels really good, but I get unhappy when I try to figure out how, say, poison would work.

I mean, so you have an A vs. A test to hit, and then the creature injects poison in addition to damage. Do you have two S vs. S soaks - 1 vs. the physical damage and 1 vs. the poison?

Does basing poison on S even make sense? I mean, a viper isn't going to have a high S but its poison should be a lot more threatening than the physical damage of the bite. Not only that, but a viper having strong poison shouldn't make it good at resisting damage either...

And what do you do when a PC milks vipers for poison, lathers it on his dagger, and stabs someone with it. Surely he's not using *his* S for the poison.

Is there a good way to handle poisons which doesn't break the balance of SAME and makes any coherent sense whatsoever?

[OgreBattle]

I figure making poison work like it does in After Sundown would work.
The very nature of poison is something that is 'unfair' though, letting a little snake kill a big horse.

But basing poison on S isn't so unusual. In Warhammer tabletop, the poison Black Lotus just gives you +X strength to an attack. So you can roughly measure the debilitating power of a poison in terms of "it is like being stabbed by an ogre"

There are some notes on SAME and firearms, how if you have a game with guns that don't use your Strength to determine damage it's balanced out by the game also having situations where you can't bulletface people so you have to facepunch people.



At this point super duper absolute balance probably isn't plausible or wanted, so the imbalancing effect of poison is just something that has to be dealt with.

[squirrelloid]

It's obvious why a 4 stat system is balanced from construction, but Frank makes the stronger claim that all 2^x stat systems are balanced (or at least balanceable). Is there a constructive proof of this?

More relevantly, how does a 2^3 (8) stat system not fall prey to the same balance issues as a 6 stat system?

[sabs]

I think it depends entirely on what those 8 stats are. If you 'split' really powerful stats (dex, int, wis) and keep weaker stats as a single stat.. that balances better.

The problem you run into is when Charisma gets split into dump stat 1 and dump stat 2... or when strength and con, get split out into 4 different stats.

[jadagul]

It's obvious why a 4 stat system is balanced from construction, but Frank makes the stronger claim that all 2^x stat systems are balanced (or at least balanceable). Is there a constructive proof of this?

More relevantly, how does a 2^3 (8) stat system not fall prey to the same balance issues as a 6 stat system?

The point, I think, is that a stat system is balanceable if your stat purchases can be constructed as a series of binary choices. So in a hypothetical two-stat system you're just moving a slider--do you want high strength or high magic? In a four stat system you have two binary choices. You can put points into strength or magic, and then you can put them into accuracy or power.

As long as each doubling of stats is just adding another binary choice, then it will stay balanced. So if on top of "accuracy/power" you had a choice _among_ "strength, magic, psionic, divine" or something, it wouldn't work. But if you have one division for "mundane or magic" and another for "physical or mental" then it would balance fine, and you'd get eight stats:

1) mundane physical accuracy
2) mundane physical power
3) mundane mental accuracy
4) mundane mental power
5) magic physical accuracy
6) magic physical power
7) magic mental accuracy
8) magic mental power

You can keep doubling as long as your cosmology can keep adding in arbitrary phlebotinum distinctions into different types of attack/defense choices. "mundane physical holy chaotic western chthonic accuracy" and so on. If you actually wanted a 128-stat system. I can't imagine why.

[squirrelloid]

It's obvious why a 4 stat system is balanced from construction, but Frank makes the stronger claim that all 2^x stat systems are balanced (or at least balanceable). Is there a constructive proof of this?

More relevantly, how does a 2^3 (8) stat system not fall prey to the same balance issues as a 6 stat system?

The point, I think, is that a stat system is balanceable if your stat purchases can be constructed as a series of binary choices. So in a hypothetical two-stat system you're just moving a slider--do you want high strength or high magic? In a four stat system you have two binary choices. You can put points into strength or magic, and then you can put them into accuracy or power.

As long as each doubling of stats is just adding another binary choice, then it will stay balanced. So if on top of "accuracy/power" you had a choice _among_ "strength, magic, psionic, divine" or something, it wouldn't work. But if you have one division for "mundane or magic" and another for "physical or mental" then it would balance fine, and you'd get eight stats:

1) mundane physical accuracy
2) mundane physical power
3) mundane mental accuracy
4) mundane mental power
5) magic physical accuracy
6) magic physical power
7) magic mental accuracy
8) magic mental power

You can keep doubling as long as your cosmology can keep adding in arbitrary phlebotinum distinctions into different types of attack/defense choices. "mundane physical holy chaotic western chthonic accuracy" and so on. If you actually wanted a 128-stat system. I can't imagine why.

Except the advantage in 2 stats was investing in Mental directly traded off with Physical. So a 2200 character fighting a 0022 character is a fair fight, and a 2200 character fighting a 1111 character is a fair fight.

2200 vs. 0022, both have a +2 advantage on their optimal attack and damage against the other.

2200 vs. 1111, both have a +1 advantage on their optimal attack and damage against the other.

But now consider an 8 stat system with 4 pairs. We're going to need higher stats than 4 to demonstrate, so let's use 16. 88000000 vs. 00000088 is still fair, but how about 88000000 vs. 22222222? It's not fair at all. 88... has a +6 advantage on its optimal attack, 22... has a +2 advantage on its optimal attack.

(If we go back to 4 stat and spend 16 points, 8800 vs. 0088 is as fair as 8800 vs. 4444.)

So you can't construct balanced 8 attribute systems just by increasing pairs.

[jadagul]

It's obvious why a 4 stat system is balanced from construction, but Frank makes the stronger claim that all 2^x stat systems are balanced (or at least balanceable). Is there a constructive proof of this?

More relevantly, how does a 2^3 (8) stat system not fall prey to the same balance issues as a 6 stat system?

The point, I think, is that a stat system is balanceable if your stat purchases can be constructed as a series of binary choices. So in a hypothetical two-stat system you're just moving a slider--do you want high strength or high magic? In a four stat system you have two binary choices. You can put points into strength or magic, and then you can put them into accuracy or power.

As long as each doubling of stats is just adding another binary choice, then it will stay balanced. So if on top of "accuracy/power" you had a choice _among_ "strength, magic, psionic, divine" or something, it wouldn't work. But if you have one division for "mundane or magic" and another for "physical or mental" then it would balance fine, and you'd get eight stats:

1) mundane physical accuracy
2) mundane physical power
3) mundane mental accuracy
4) mundane mental power
5) magic physical accuracy
6) magic physical power
7) magic mental accuracy
8) magic mental power

You can keep doubling as long as your cosmology can keep adding in arbitrary phlebotinum distinctions into different types of attack/defense choices. "mundane physical holy chaotic western chthonic accuracy" and so on. If you actually wanted a 128-stat system. I can't imagine why.

Except the advantage in 2 stats was investing in Mental directly traded off with Physical. So a 2200 character fighting a 0022 character is a fair fight, and a 2200 character fighting a 1111 character is a fair fight.

2200 vs. 0022, both have a +2 advantage on their optimal attack and damage against the other.

2200 vs. 1111, both have a +1 advantage on their optimal attack and damage against the other.

But now consider an 8 stat system with 4 pairs. We're going to need higher stats than 4 to demonstrate, so let's use 16. 88000000 vs. 00000088 is still fair, but how about 88000000 vs. 22222222? It's not fair at all. 88... has a +6 advantage on its optimal attack, 22... has a +2 advantage on its optimal attack.

(If we go back to 4 stat and spend 16 points, 8800 vs. 0088 is as fair as 8800 vs. 4444.)

So you can't construct balanced 8 attribute systems just by increasing pairs.

Right, that's the point. With the system I constructed every attack uses four of the eight stats. So in the 88000000 vs 22222222 setup, the first guy is up 8 in his attacks (8+8+0+0 vs 2+2+2+2) and the second guy is also up 8 (0+0+0+0 vs 2+2+2+2).

This is why I said if you have four types of attacks--mundane and divine and magic and psionic--it doesn't work; you get exactly the situation you were worried about. But in my system if I use a mundane (not that "mundane" is a great type to use) mental attack, then I use mundane power and mental power and mundane accuracy and mental accuracy. And you defend with all four of those. But if I use a magic physical attack, then I attack with magic power and magic accuracy and physical power and physical accuracy.

But you're right that my hypothetical 128-stat system doesn't work as I described it, in part because it only had, I think, 24 stats. Depending on how you write them down.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think you can make a six stat system work--it would just have to look very different from a D&D-ish six-stat system. Every attack needs to use exactly three stats. It probably works better if these stats are paired off--so that no attack is mental/physical/holy or holy/unholy/mundane or something--but I haven't convinced myself that this is necessary yet. But if you set it up like this, so that your stats are something like mental, physical, holy, unholy, mundane, magic, and every attack uses one of the first two, one of the second two, and one of the third two, then you have 2^3 types of attacks, which I think is the important point.

And this is balanced, because moving a point from holy to magic doesn't increase your attack at the expense of your defense, but moves around both your attack and your defense in tandem.