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You may wish to clean up that coding a bit.
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Nov 24, 2014 03:14
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Covok posted:You may wish to clean up that coding a bit. Fixed, thanks.
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Nov 24, 2014 03:29
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quote:A starting PC either has one skill at +1, four at 0, and one at -1, or two at +1, one at 0, and three at -1. At each level they may raise one skill by +1 - but each skill may be only raised once for every five levels the PC has (round up). You might want to split this up into a bulleted list or something for clarity: * One skill at +1, four skills at 0, one skill at -1 * Two skills at +1, one skill at 0, three skills at -1 quote:Down: (normally due to 0HP)You can do nothing This might scan better as "you cannot do anything" === Besides that I like it - simplifying it down to d6 and especially boiling down a lot of effects to Mezzed is pretty cool. Eagerly awaiting the rest.
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Nov 24, 2014 04:09
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neonchameleon posted:And I've continued branching out and working out what the core engine does well. Sounds neat. I'd love to give the sci-fi hack a chance when it's playable. 
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Nov 26, 2014 11:13
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My decision on the unarmed combat thing is now that the Guard, like the Monk, gets the Improved Unarmed Strike "weapon" with better damage and proficiency. I had been thinking of making the Monk a defender too, but this may make them too similar now, I'm not sure. The Monk's attacks are all Wis based so that's the main difference but I'll work on making them unique. Anyway I've written up Guard powers up through Paragon (Epic may require more work since everyone says 4th runs into problems there as is, and I have a sort of vision of play at that tier- basically New Gods). Next work when I get to it may be on the Commander/Warlord type. My big change here is that they're more about ranged combat, while the default Warlord is all melee- the archetype is Princess Leia, Padme Amidala, Star Lord, so mostly shooting and yelling "go there! Shoot that!" It's a question of just how much more useful ranged combat is than melee, and if it's a lot, how to scale down powers.
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Dec 12, 2014 19:20
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Maxwell Lord posted:I had been thinking of making the Monk a defender too, but this may make them too similar now, I'm not sure. The Monk's attacks are all Wis based so that's the main difference but I'll work on making them unique. What's everything that ability scores do in your system? And are there multiple defenses?
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Dec 14, 2014 04:19
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P.d0t posted:What's everything that ability scores do in your system? And are there multiple defenses? Still the three defenses + AC, and it's pretty close to the 3/4 core here except I think basic attacks may key to a class's prime ability. For scores I'm gonna go with arrays but you get a 16 in both your class and Background's key ability, or an 18 if they're the same. Forget the exact layout but there's an 8 at the low end so there's always something you're less than good at. I'm aiming for something close to 4e proper, but in a different genre and of course OGL.
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Dec 14, 2014 05:49
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See... if you're gonna be like "fighters have to be good at STR which is rarely useful for Skills; Monks do the same thing, but they use WIS which is often usefulfor skills"... well, you see where I'm going, right? If it's just 4e-ish "put the high number where you class demands it," maybe at least divorce combat stats and/or skills from ability scores. There's also the "DEX-primary, light armor, Striker" trope.. It basically comes down to your usual DTAS stuff.
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Dec 14, 2014 10:04
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Something I'm doing for my system, which may circumvent that, is a 3-skill system. Basically you pick a profession (different from class), a hobby, and a familiarity. They are relatively vague things, like proffession may be Chemist or Bodygaurd. Hobby might be skydiver or board games, either way, they give a flat bonus to any type of skill reasonably encompassed within their bounds. A bodygaurd would be especially perceptive, but lacking in the chemist' scientific knowledge. This means skills are tied directly to your backstory, with you being best at the things you do for a living, but having some other aspects to your character as well. It also means ability scores are purely combat based now, and only represent your characters capabilities during a life-or-death situation, their abilities while panicked, if you will. EDIT: I'm telling you this so you can steal it if you want, my system is going to take a long time to develop because of all the poo poo I've got going on.
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Dec 14, 2014 15:23
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Background is where your skill selection comes in. I may, like defenses, have skills use the best of two or more abilities- or have them all tied to your background ability, but I want some variance, so you're not always just using your best ability for everything.
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Dec 14, 2014 17:11
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Maxwell Lord posted:Background is where your skill selection comes in. I may, like defenses, have skills use the best of two or more abilities- or have them all tied to your background ability, but I want some variance, so you're not always just using your best ability for everything. The solution is to make the abilities just be 'pick whatever you want man', within reason. See: FATE Atomic Robo, which just LETS YOU start with five or six capped out abilities if that's what you need (normally in FATE you're lucky to just get one) and is a much better game for it because this way your character is in fact as competent as you envision him to be.
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Dec 14, 2014 17:20
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I like 4E a lot on a conceptual level, and of course being that TG likes it a lot as well, but I've never actually run it because my god the feats are really intimidating. I took a dive into its math recently and understood what "items are essential" was: Monster attack and defense gets +1 every level, but players only get +0.5 every level, meaning you need to use a combination of your primary attribute modifier and items and the Weapon/Implement Expertise and Paragon/Robust Defense feats just to keep up (60-65% hit chance vs monsters, 40% chance to be hit by monsters). With that in mind, would some really broad changes help? 1. Instead of a "half-level bonus", give the player a whole level bonus, same as the monsters, straight up. This lets you get rid of the item treadmill and (most of) the feat taxes and focus more on items that just do cool stuff. Players will actually start pulling ahead since their primary attribute bonus will go from +3/4 to +5/6 over the course of the game, but this is easy enough to handle via some other method. 2. Combat taking too long: This is more just good DMing practice rather than an actual rule, but as far as I know 4E doesn't have a BECMI-type morale system, but even Next has it. The first time a monster dies, everyone in the group has to save or flee/surrender/just-be-defeated; when the nominal leader of the encounter is killed, another save for everyone; when more than half of the encounter has been killed, another save for everyone. Adjust the save difficulty (and frequency) up or down to fit the narrative. In a more general sense, just don't run the combat up to the very end once it's clear that one side has won. 3. Cap the number of powers a player can wield at any one time, but let them freely swap in out and of it, say between Long Rests, or even Short Rests. Granted, my inexperience with the system means I don't know what might be a good number to stop at, but 2 at-wills, and 3 each of encounter, daily and utility as of level 10. Gaining more levels will widen your selection, but you need to "equip" it before "leaving town" to be able to use it. Anyone who thinks this is too "videogamey" probably wasn't going to get on board with 4E in the first place. I guess my next question would be if I'm playing too much "armchair designer" by throwing out all of these without playing the system, and that I should just buck up, expect that the players will get it, and play the game as is before trying to "fix" it. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Dec 14, 2014 |
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Dec 14, 2014 17:27
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Point 1's solution is good but 'players hit more as they level' doesn't need fixing, since it shortens combats. Point 2 doesn't really jive with 4e because it riffs on the oldschool D&D line of 'combat is a penalty' as opposed to 'combat is fun', and the actual solution is to add ways to insert tension into fights beyond round 1 or 2 by adding more recovery methods for powers on the PC side and twist buttons for the GM (a redesigned variant of Fortune Cards is a good start for this. Not perfect but they could have been good if they hadn't been shameless cash grabs). Point 3 is like whatever and personal preference. But yes, play 4e. It is a Good Game.
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Dec 14, 2014 17:36
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Transient People posted:The solution is to make the abilities just be 'pick whatever you want man', within reason. See: FATE Atomic Robo, which just LETS YOU start with five or six capped out abilities if that's what you need (normally in FATE you're lucky to just get one) and is a much better game for it because this way your character is in fact as competent as you envision him to be. I'm trying to make a close clone of 4e, with tweaks to work in a new genre. That more or less rules out DTAS. I'm making skills and attacks more flexible to mitigate but characters having some weak spots is okay so long as I try and make sure all weak spots are equal.
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Dec 14, 2014 17:39
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Maxwell Lord posted:Background is where your skill selection comes in. I may, like defenses, have skills use the best of two or more abilities- or have them all tied to your background ability, but I want some variance, so you're not always just using your best ability for everything. Yeah, my system divorces skills from abilities and weds them directly to your background via a priority type system, for instance, you may get a +5 (number not set in stone) to all skills under the umbrella your professional background and a +3 to your hobbies.
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Dec 14, 2014 18:38
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On thinking I might just decouple them as a whole- so, a character with a good Con who's trained in Intimidate scares people by putting cigars out on their forehead, Int goes all Sherlockian on 'em, etc.
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Dec 14, 2014 18:49
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Would you be able to charm an important person/defuse a hostage situation by flexing? It is important. 
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Dec 14, 2014 19:04
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Azran posted:Would you be able to charm an important person/defuse a hostage situation by flexing? It is important. But of course! 4e is pretty close to being an effect based system, is the thing. It's not quite there RAW, but a lot of the clones already go in that direction and it doesn't take much.
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Dec 14, 2014 19:08
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When I ran Exalted, which has skills and stats decoupled like that, I gave them a standing challenge to find a way to roll Strength + Bureaucracy. Nobody came up with anything, tragically.
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Dec 14, 2014 19:09
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megane posted:When I ran Exalted, which has skills and stats decoupled like that, I gave them a standing challenge to find a way to roll Strength + Bureaucracy. All changes to the bureaucratic procedure must now be engraved in large stone blocks and placed in a prominent place. Directions on larger blocks take precedence.
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Dec 14, 2014 20:47
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gradenko_2000 posted:3. Cap the number of powers a player can wield at any one time This is already built into the game, barring magic item powers (which originally had its own cap built in but was later removed) Once you advance in tiers, you start swapping out lower level powers, rather than just getting more. But of course grognards whined because reasons.
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Dec 14, 2014 21:15
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I'm hoping to get some feedback on this. Basic concepts:
I'm not in love with everything in this, but I'm hoping to come up with a slick, lite game that you can "pick up and play." The intent is that the combat would be very very abstracted (players always roll, monsters just move around and pick targets), maybe even expand upon that to make it DM-less? Any advice is appreciated; comments here or on the Doc itself is fine.
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Dec 14, 2014 21:40
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Transient People posted:Point 1's solution is good but 'players hit more as they level' doesn't need fixing, since it shortens combats. Point 2 doesn't really jive with 4e because it riffs on the oldschool D&D line of 'combat is a penalty' as opposed to 'combat is fun', and the actual solution is to add ways to insert tension into fights beyond round 1 or 2 by adding more recovery methods for powers on the PC side and twist buttons for the GM (a redesigned variant of Fortune Cards is a good start for this. Not perfect but they could have been good if they hadn't been shameless cash grabs). Point 3 is like whatever and personal preference. But yes, play 4e. It is a Good Game. Thanks for the input, really. And yeah, I'm definitely going to give it a shot. quote:Attacks I really like this. All of yesterday I kept turning over an idea in my head that "if all the math in the game supports a 60% hit rate, why not just do away with attack/AC and just give the player a hit every time they roll a 9 or better?" because yeah it makes so that you can run a combat without even really needing to write anything down if you don't get too fancy.
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Dec 14, 2014 23:46
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Because it makes the Leaders less fun, is why. What a lot of 'solutions' to the hitrate 'problem' of 4e miss is that slapping down fuckoff huge you-only-miss-on-a-1 attack bonuses is super enjoyable, and the various benefits and features that let you help your pals and yourself out are so ubiquitous that that rule merely makes players miss more, not less. You don't want that poo poo at all, if anything you want a higher hitrate than 60%, period.
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Dec 15, 2014 01:28
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Transient People posted:Because it makes the Leaders less fun, is why. What a lot of 'solutions' to the hitrate 'problem' of 4e miss is that slapping down fuckoff huge you-only-miss-on-a-1 attack bonuses is super enjoyable, and the various benefits and features that let you help your pals and yourself out are so ubiquitous that that rule merely makes players miss more, not less. You don't want that poo poo at all, if anything you want a higher hitrate than 60%, period. See, I like Advantage for this, because as people have said before "+1 either makes all the difference or no difference." It also keeps numbers from inflating, because 1d20 vs. 2d20k1 is still only ever going to produce a result between 1 and 20. I think what gradenko is talking about (judging from conversation in the Next thread) is attacks and defenses scaling up at some obfuscated rates that appear different but aren't, with not a lot of practical benefit. If I'm adding my level to my attacks and enemies are adding their level to defenses, it only makes a differences if there is a level disparity. The "using the best of 2 mods" for defenses in 4e also only serves to bring everyone towards the middle of the curve; like, there's the targetting NADs mini-(meta-?)game but some might not see that as a feature..
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Dec 15, 2014 02:01
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I'm going to try and swap modifiers for dice. So instead of a +2 you roll 1d4, instead of a +3 you roll 1d6. Etc. Actually, I guess I could post what I'm doing here after I'm done with my finals. 4e is its base, at the very least. 
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Dec 15, 2014 02:28
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P.d0t posted:See, I like Advantage for this, because as people have said before "+1 either makes all the difference or no difference." It also keeps numbers from inflating, because 1d20 vs. 2d20k1 is still only ever going to produce a result between 1 and 20. On this I agree. The reason you get that fucky half-scaling vs full-scaling clusterfuck is something I can reduce to one reason: Magic loving Items. It's a legacy design that breaks the elegance of 4e down. Axe that poo poo and ability scores and you can just use full scaling instead of half.
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Dec 15, 2014 02:47
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Yup, I wasn't talking about keeping hit rates completely static forever; bonuses are good, but only if they actually matter.
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Dec 15, 2014 03:18
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Azran posted:I'm going to try and swap modifiers for dice. So instead of a +2 you roll 1d4, instead of a +3 you roll 1d6. Etc. I'm also onside with this, and there's some of it in 5e (Bless, Bardic Inspiration, Guidance, Resistance, just off the top of my head) My design doesn't have much of these leader-y things going on, but I might try and work on adding it in. An idea might be like, "your Bonus dicepool can only have 1 of each die" as an easy-to-use cap.
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Dec 15, 2014 05:42
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megane posted:When I ran Exalted, which has skills and stats decoupled like that, I gave them a standing challenge to find a way to roll Strength + Bureaucracy. "We know the forms you want are in cabinet 3b. Right in the far corner of this room." Open the door to the room and get buried in paper.
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Dec 15, 2014 15:06
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I always thought 4e was my favourite system. Granted, I played with it a lot more than 3.x, but I like the tactical wargame feel to it. A while back, TG ran some game making contest based on 4e that I entered with some sort of 4e/XCom/Final Fantasy Tactics mashup. I'll put it up here in case anyone wants to take a look at it.quote:Alright, Land of the Manitou is officially entered!
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Dec 19, 2014 15:37
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Would anyone reading this thread want to partake in some playtesting of this? I'm thinking of posting a recruit soon, I just wanna see if I can get a person or two lined up ahead of time.
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Dec 23, 2014 09:40
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Okay, so having written up Guard powers (the majority of which are rewritten Fighter powers and I may replace a bunch of those as I get used to the system), I'm moving on to 4000 A.D.'s Martial Leader class, the Commander, and this is where things get a little more challenging. The Commander is basically a ranged Warlord. The model is someone like Princess Leia, or Padme Amidala, or Peter Quill- you tell everyone "Fire on my target!", you inspire them to shake off wounds, etc. Uses mostly laser pistols and similar light weapons- the point isn't the damage they do but the aid they give others. All well and good, but we get into the "ranged" part of it and it's tricky. I'm modelling the powers on Warlord powers, but the Warlord is almost all melee. Ranged combat is theoretically better, so if I just find/replace "Melee" with "Ranged" for powers they become, well, better, and the class may be too good as a result. I can nerf a few of the side perks but it's tricky especially at first level. So, theoretically you get something like: quote:Indirect Attack or quote:I Fire, You Move I'm trying to shave off a few benefits here and there- for "Indirect Attack" you don't get the bonus to damage- but with the second one there I can't think of anything yet. So how much better are these than the Warlord's At-Wills? Has anyone actually sat down and worked out how much of an advantage being at range gives?
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Jan 13, 2015 06:38
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Doing 'I have to hit before you can hit' where the first hit does nothing is tough to balance. Staggering Note is probably the worst enabling at-will for a reason. Look at Direct the Strike.
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Jan 14, 2015 21:05
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I totes wrote that wrong, sorry. The Commander doesn't make a roll, just gives the other PC an attack as per Commander's Strike. Someone on RPG.net told me Martial Power 2 had a ranged Warlord build, and checking DDI the ranged equivalent of that power uses fixed ranges to limit things just a little, may go with that as much as I was looking forward to not just cloning powers for once (again the lack of an OGL means I have to guess where 'rules' end and 'expression' begins.)
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Jan 15, 2015 00:40
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If I were redesigning it I'd look at making Direct the Strike just be 'an ally within 5 of you makes a basic attack' or 'an ally makes a basic attack against an enemy within 5' - I always find the multiple ranges on it confusing to remember which is which, and they rarely matter enough to bother with. Take one of them away entirely, and balance the range with the fact that it's not giving any buffs by default.
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Jan 15, 2015 18:08
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Hey neonchameleon, I was going to print out your Trifold rules but the last line of Presence overflows onto the next page, screwing your fomatting up. I got around it by deleting the last line, but you might want to take a look at that. Beyond that, the rules look pretty neat and I'm looking forward to giving them a try! e. It looks like more places have the same problem, like the Warlord, Innate Mage, Archivest Mage (though that may just be the spellbook), and Ranger. Do you have a .doc or .pub or something I can download and print from Word? bbcisdabomb fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 21:46
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So, while I move in fits and starts on writing class powers, I was thinking about another part of 4000 A.D.: Starship combat. My major goals regarding this: 1) Everyone has something to do. This is easy enough if everyone has their own ship (a la Battle Beyond the Stars) but the typical situation for this kind of sci-fi is everyone's on board one ship, so there need to be enough stations and activities to keep a party of 4-6 occupied. 2) It's not so complex that you're layering another game on top of things. 4e as written already has a bit of a split between combat and noncombat situations- you break out the battlemat and markers and so on- but that's almost unavoidable with tactical games. The transition between space combat and not-space-combat should be about that smooth. 3) Starship combat should be something the players are interested in getting into as much as other kinds of encounters. Sometimes rules for this can be enough on the lethal side that characters are disinclined from jumping in a starfighter, whereas jumping into a starfighter should almost always be a good idea here. Basic thinking: There are three broad categories of ship. Starfighters are your one-to-two-man affairs, a cockpit strapped to some engines and guns; Cruisers are large-ish ships that can be flown by a small crew (i.e. about as many as there are in a PC party). Capital ships start at "size of a small town" and have a large crew- if PCs are in control of one of these they're giving orders to raise the shields, lock weapons on that vessel, etc. Spaceships have powers. Instead of using your own combat powers in a spaceship fight, you use the ship's. There are at-wills, per-battles, and instead of "dailies" you've got powers that recharge only after you've put in at a port (you need to load up more torpedoes or reset the afterburner, etc.) These are keyed to certain stations on the ship, and you have the PCs each take a station. Have a little simplified schematic where players can put their counters, next to the grid map showing the spaceships flying around. Obviously, though, the issue is how to have the ship have enough neat things to do so that nobody's on the sidelines. Obviously whoever's in the cockpit can fly the ship and use powers that let it do fancy maneuvers, you can have more than one gunner firing weapons, you can have someone in the engine room repairing damage or giving boosts, etc. Not sure that's enough, though. Don't want anyone trapped doing the boring stuff or just riding shotgun. There are a few other things to work on- gauging ship power vs. PC power for purposes of encounter building, potential problems in asymmetrical design (what happens when they hijack an enemy gunboat?), making battle vs. capital ships more interesting than just shooting at a slightly bigger counter, etc.- but this is getting rambly enough as is. Input? Ideas?
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Jan 27, 2015 09:10
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bbcisdabomb posted:Hey neonchameleon, I was going to print out your Trifold rules but the last line of Presence overflows onto the next page, screwing your fomatting up. I got around it by deleting the last line, but you might want to take a look at that. It's something I need to fix; UK standard A4 paper (210*297mm) isn't quite US standard letter paper (216*279mm). I forget which it works on (I'm in the UK). I possibly need two versions of the sheets to get them right which would be really irritating.
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Jan 27, 2015 17:09
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Maxwell Lord posted:Obviously, though, the issue is how to have the ship have enough neat things to do so that nobody's on the sidelines. Obviously whoever's in the cockpit can fly the ship and use powers that let it do fancy maneuvers, you can have more than one gunner firing weapons, you can have someone in the engine room repairing damage or giving boosts, etc. Not sure that's enough, though. Don't want anyone trapped doing the boring stuff or just riding shotgun. The first thought that came to my mind (and possibly yours too; this seems a little obvious) is if you're starting with 4e, try and emulate what the 4 roles would do? Maybe this would work best if like, each PC can operate the ship on their turn, here's just some spitballing:
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Jan 27, 2015 20:24
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). Then you have another that would try and do hit-and-run attacks, scooting into close range and then darting back behind cover/latching onto the hull of the enemy ship/activating the cloaking device (
). Or you can have the dude who's all "RAMMING SPEED! 
" that maybe hits like a truck, puts the ship in close proximity to danger, but has ways to soak damage (DR, temp HP, etc.)