Systematic Lobster
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 8:08 am
OK. So 4th ed pisses me off. Already.
3rd ed. Well the only reason I haven't already stopped playing it already is I wanted to give the tome material a work out.
Everything else is also dumb.
So I am wandering back into the dark wilderness of pure home brew.
So I'm making an attempt at converting my existing "its broken all to hell and I'm pretending that's just cool flavour" home brew system into something remotely balanced that I can use when I'm not running my "cool flavour" home brew by the seat of its unbalanced pants.
But I'm making some assumptions, maybe some big ones and I want to hear some opinions and analysis from anyone who could be arsed.
Big Core Assumption
I got this core mechanic for attacks that I like. Perhaps too much.
It goes a bit like this.
1d20+some kinda attack bonus= your attack result
10+some kinda defence bonus= your targets defence.
If your attack result is equal to or greater than the defence then it is "successful".
If it is greater by a certain margin it is a critical hit, and removes your target from combat.
If it does not reach that margin but is a success by some smaller margin that margin becomes a penalty to the target's defence in future.
Simple enough. I think its a mechanic that can work. (though any discussion of its implications might be of interest).
The problem probably comes in some of the particulars of the EXACT implementation I'm currently considering.
Them thar particulars, part 1, Numbers and gaps and extended stabbing duration
OK. So in my crazy system it used to be that success by 10 cops you the big critical hit and variance between poorly corralled bonuses could range anywhere up to something stupid like +11 or rarely +13, but most of the time should be more like a +3 probably in favour of the defender.
And that made for a pretty harmful fairly swift results to combats. And that was OK because it was in keeping with the "cool flavour" of high mortality rates and higher come back from the dead stronger and crazier than ever rates.
But see I'm looking to move away from the spare lives mentality of that setting for this project, not that it won't have coming back from the dead junk, just that I don't want it to happen to at least one PC EVERY fight this time round.
So I thinks to myself. OK. So the new system will have a success margin of 20 to make a critical hit.
Also it will have an iron fisted reign of various capped bonus stupidity.
So the new system can see some pretty large MAXIMUM margins between characters, between levels and other junk adding in you could have like JILLIONS of points favouring either attack or defence.
I mean seriously If you are fighting someone at the wrong end of your attribute specialty, who is the lowest level considered appropriate for you to face, and they are stark naked without any skills or enhancements, and you are fully equipped using your skills to your best benefit with every viable enhancement under the sun then you will have a margin of like +20 in your favour on attacks and will kill them real fast.
BUT. The assumed "standard" encounter says hey, you are the same level as your target and everyone should find it RELATIVELY easy to max out all their other bonuses at the hard caps set for each bonus type.
Leaving you with a situation where if everyone maxes out everything the defensive side gets a 10 point advantage (because the defensive side gets 10 more points of cap from two additional named bonus types).
So that the idea then is that an average hit in that situation sees a small margin of success and something like a 15+ on the roll will take a large chunk out of future defence.
With more than one attack expected to be coming each targets way each turn (see later details for some limits on how that works) within perhaps 3 to 4 turns in I expect to see a critical and someone drops out.
But. Thats the assumption if everyone just maxes everything out.
I'm assuming also a potential ten point variance either way as well based on the variation I expect and hope to introduce in some of the bonuses with situational junk and various minor trade offs.
So favouring the defence side that would see a situation where only a roll of a 20 would be a success on the attack at all. Having a ruling that a 20 is always a success and always deals at least 2 points of damage penalty means its not a total farce and that if you can totally get the best reasonable drop on your otherwise equal opponent they can hurt you, but only just, and it may take quite a few turns to even be in danger of being knocked out.
With the ten points swinging in favour of the offensive side if you manage to pull the best reasonable drop on your otherwise equal opponent you have a 1 in 20 chance of knocking them out first turn and will likely drop them by turn 2.
Then you can throw in additional variation based on adding a "level" bonus directly to everything and having the potential of fighting higher or lower level opponents and you can wade naked through a sea of negative leveled peasants killing them only with your little finger, or alternately fear the little finger of the mighty level 10+ GM who is compensating for something NPC.
Now I feel supporting that sort of level stupidity may be unwise. But I went ahead and did it with the proviso that really you should keep a close eye on that and its probably best to keep encounters within a range of 5 levels of the PCs leaning toward equal or just a few levels lower.
Them thar particulars, part 2, Other particulars
There are several other mechanics that play directly into this core mechanic that I am concerned about for one reason or another.
1) The attributes
I'm having two main combat attributes. One is "Fast", the other is "Hard".
The idea is Fast represents being agile and accurate of body or mind.
And Hard represents being tough and powerful, of body or mind.
So Muscle Face the barbarian and Omnipotence the Wizard are both Hard characters while Acrobatica the Assassin and the Sly Fox Demon Voodoo Witch are Fast characters.
Anyway. Any attack can be Fast or Hard. The attacker chooses when they make their attack. Fast or Hard attributes of the respective parties are then added directly to the attack and defence of the respective parties.
Fast is both the attack and defence attribute for Fast attacks and Hard is both the attack and defence attribute for Hard attacks.
You set your Fast and Hard attributes to between 0 and 5 at character creation (five points to distribute between two attributes with 0 and 5 being the minimum and maximum possible values for each) and there they stay forever.
I have two grand hopes about the Fast and Hard attributes.
I hope that they are basically fairly balanced. And they should be as far as I can puzzle out, or vaguely remember puzzling out ages ago, without committing myself to the harder math that I have blocked all memory of after my career change into horticulture.
I also hope that they will be all the raw numeric no specific special power attached differentiation that players need to represent the combat attributes of their characters and that people feel the difference between a 5 Fast, 0 Hard and a 2 Fast, 3 Hard character means something to them on some sort of vaguely descriptive level.
2) One hit rule
With attacks rapidly weakening targets against future attacks being able to attack the same target multiple times really really hurts.
So getting extra attacks on the same target is one thing the system isn't going to be giving out too easily.
But that isn't enough, you got 4 dudes fighting four dudes even with one attack each if all four on each side target the same guy each turn you are looking at losing a character turn 1 perhaps a little too often.
So I got this here 1 hit rule. And it ties in somewhat with my zany simultaneous resolution thing, which I hope not to go into right now, but maybe later.
So anyway each turn only ONE attack can deal either a critical hit or a damage penalty to a targets defence. If multiple successful attacks are made against a single target only the MOST successful has an effect.
To add to this mechanic (in fact to make it legitimate at all) and to make sense in a wider simultaneous resolution er, thing, attacks that deal a damage penalty to a targets defence do not apply that penalty to the targets defence until the END of the turn, so the full turns worth of simultaneous attacks competing to be the best attack of the turn do not benefit from the damage penalty of the prior contender for winning the single hit rule.
This means, I hope, that there are good reasons to gang up on a target, especially if your sucky side kicks are missing or landing mediocre hits. But that there are also very good reasons to spread the loving around, especially if your competent companions are dishing it out with the big round soup ladle.
3) Sneaking up on some fool
OK, so you sneak up on some fool and steal his lungs and sell them on the black market before he even sees you, with an axe.
I want this to be a pretty big fat bonus. Back in the old crazy system it was like a +5, its one thing I really haven't thought hard on for converting to the new scale yet, I'm toying with what amounts to a +10, but I dunno.
The End
So anyway, I can only hope someone with half a brain neglected it long enough to read that but not too long to understand it and think about it. Any opinions, suggestions? Where do these often sweeping assumptions fall down? What have I gotten massively wrong?
And of course what have I simple completely failed to explain that needs clarification?
3rd ed. Well the only reason I haven't already stopped playing it already is I wanted to give the tome material a work out.
Everything else is also dumb.
So I am wandering back into the dark wilderness of pure home brew.
So I'm making an attempt at converting my existing "its broken all to hell and I'm pretending that's just cool flavour" home brew system into something remotely balanced that I can use when I'm not running my "cool flavour" home brew by the seat of its unbalanced pants.
But I'm making some assumptions, maybe some big ones and I want to hear some opinions and analysis from anyone who could be arsed.
Big Core Assumption
I got this core mechanic for attacks that I like. Perhaps too much.
It goes a bit like this.
1d20+some kinda attack bonus= your attack result
10+some kinda defence bonus= your targets defence.
If your attack result is equal to or greater than the defence then it is "successful".
If it is greater by a certain margin it is a critical hit, and removes your target from combat.
If it does not reach that margin but is a success by some smaller margin that margin becomes a penalty to the target's defence in future.
Simple enough. I think its a mechanic that can work. (though any discussion of its implications might be of interest).
The problem probably comes in some of the particulars of the EXACT implementation I'm currently considering.
Them thar particulars, part 1, Numbers and gaps and extended stabbing duration
OK. So in my crazy system it used to be that success by 10 cops you the big critical hit and variance between poorly corralled bonuses could range anywhere up to something stupid like +11 or rarely +13, but most of the time should be more like a +3 probably in favour of the defender.
And that made for a pretty harmful fairly swift results to combats. And that was OK because it was in keeping with the "cool flavour" of high mortality rates and higher come back from the dead stronger and crazier than ever rates.
But see I'm looking to move away from the spare lives mentality of that setting for this project, not that it won't have coming back from the dead junk, just that I don't want it to happen to at least one PC EVERY fight this time round.
So I thinks to myself. OK. So the new system will have a success margin of 20 to make a critical hit.
Also it will have an iron fisted reign of various capped bonus stupidity.
So the new system can see some pretty large MAXIMUM margins between characters, between levels and other junk adding in you could have like JILLIONS of points favouring either attack or defence.
I mean seriously If you are fighting someone at the wrong end of your attribute specialty, who is the lowest level considered appropriate for you to face, and they are stark naked without any skills or enhancements, and you are fully equipped using your skills to your best benefit with every viable enhancement under the sun then you will have a margin of like +20 in your favour on attacks and will kill them real fast.
BUT. The assumed "standard" encounter says hey, you are the same level as your target and everyone should find it RELATIVELY easy to max out all their other bonuses at the hard caps set for each bonus type.
Leaving you with a situation where if everyone maxes out everything the defensive side gets a 10 point advantage (because the defensive side gets 10 more points of cap from two additional named bonus types).
So that the idea then is that an average hit in that situation sees a small margin of success and something like a 15+ on the roll will take a large chunk out of future defence.
With more than one attack expected to be coming each targets way each turn (see later details for some limits on how that works) within perhaps 3 to 4 turns in I expect to see a critical and someone drops out.
But. Thats the assumption if everyone just maxes everything out.
I'm assuming also a potential ten point variance either way as well based on the variation I expect and hope to introduce in some of the bonuses with situational junk and various minor trade offs.
So favouring the defence side that would see a situation where only a roll of a 20 would be a success on the attack at all. Having a ruling that a 20 is always a success and always deals at least 2 points of damage penalty means its not a total farce and that if you can totally get the best reasonable drop on your otherwise equal opponent they can hurt you, but only just, and it may take quite a few turns to even be in danger of being knocked out.
With the ten points swinging in favour of the offensive side if you manage to pull the best reasonable drop on your otherwise equal opponent you have a 1 in 20 chance of knocking them out first turn and will likely drop them by turn 2.
Then you can throw in additional variation based on adding a "level" bonus directly to everything and having the potential of fighting higher or lower level opponents and you can wade naked through a sea of negative leveled peasants killing them only with your little finger, or alternately fear the little finger of the mighty level 10+ GM who is compensating for something NPC.
Now I feel supporting that sort of level stupidity may be unwise. But I went ahead and did it with the proviso that really you should keep a close eye on that and its probably best to keep encounters within a range of 5 levels of the PCs leaning toward equal or just a few levels lower.
Them thar particulars, part 2, Other particulars
There are several other mechanics that play directly into this core mechanic that I am concerned about for one reason or another.
1) The attributes
I'm having two main combat attributes. One is "Fast", the other is "Hard".
The idea is Fast represents being agile and accurate of body or mind.
And Hard represents being tough and powerful, of body or mind.
So Muscle Face the barbarian and Omnipotence the Wizard are both Hard characters while Acrobatica the Assassin and the Sly Fox Demon Voodoo Witch are Fast characters.
Anyway. Any attack can be Fast or Hard. The attacker chooses when they make their attack. Fast or Hard attributes of the respective parties are then added directly to the attack and defence of the respective parties.
Fast is both the attack and defence attribute for Fast attacks and Hard is both the attack and defence attribute for Hard attacks.
You set your Fast and Hard attributes to between 0 and 5 at character creation (five points to distribute between two attributes with 0 and 5 being the minimum and maximum possible values for each) and there they stay forever.
I have two grand hopes about the Fast and Hard attributes.
I hope that they are basically fairly balanced. And they should be as far as I can puzzle out, or vaguely remember puzzling out ages ago, without committing myself to the harder math that I have blocked all memory of after my career change into horticulture.
I also hope that they will be all the raw numeric no specific special power attached differentiation that players need to represent the combat attributes of their characters and that people feel the difference between a 5 Fast, 0 Hard and a 2 Fast, 3 Hard character means something to them on some sort of vaguely descriptive level.
2) One hit rule
With attacks rapidly weakening targets against future attacks being able to attack the same target multiple times really really hurts.
So getting extra attacks on the same target is one thing the system isn't going to be giving out too easily.
But that isn't enough, you got 4 dudes fighting four dudes even with one attack each if all four on each side target the same guy each turn you are looking at losing a character turn 1 perhaps a little too often.
So I got this here 1 hit rule. And it ties in somewhat with my zany simultaneous resolution thing, which I hope not to go into right now, but maybe later.
So anyway each turn only ONE attack can deal either a critical hit or a damage penalty to a targets defence. If multiple successful attacks are made against a single target only the MOST successful has an effect.
To add to this mechanic (in fact to make it legitimate at all) and to make sense in a wider simultaneous resolution er, thing, attacks that deal a damage penalty to a targets defence do not apply that penalty to the targets defence until the END of the turn, so the full turns worth of simultaneous attacks competing to be the best attack of the turn do not benefit from the damage penalty of the prior contender for winning the single hit rule.
This means, I hope, that there are good reasons to gang up on a target, especially if your sucky side kicks are missing or landing mediocre hits. But that there are also very good reasons to spread the loving around, especially if your competent companions are dishing it out with the big round soup ladle.
3) Sneaking up on some fool
OK, so you sneak up on some fool and steal his lungs and sell them on the black market before he even sees you, with an axe.
I want this to be a pretty big fat bonus. Back in the old crazy system it was like a +5, its one thing I really haven't thought hard on for converting to the new scale yet, I'm toying with what amounts to a +10, but I dunno.
The End
So anyway, I can only hope someone with half a brain neglected it long enough to read that but not too long to understand it and think about it. Any opinions, suggestions? Where do these often sweeping assumptions fall down? What have I gotten massively wrong?
And of course what have I simple completely failed to explain that needs clarification?