In short: it's not for you that your WoF are tactically themed on individual numbers, it's for everyone else.
But they don't get tactical choices either, because they're also using WoF. So maybe it would be a good idea to launch a direct assault on the target you've been harrying, but if they rolled "Defensive" then they still can't do that.
Also, putting a bunch of similar abilities on the same number just increases the chance that there will be an obvious best ability at any given time, decreasing actual tactics even more.
Last edited by Ice9 on Fri Jun 25, 2010 10:12 am, edited 4 times in total.
Ice9 wrote:But they don't get tactical choices either, because they're also using WoF.
Of course they get tactical choices. They just get a theme to what the ideal tactical situation for those choices would be. You might get a set of attacks that get stronger in some manner if you don't move ahead of time (some of which might actually be full round actions). But they'll still be different kinds of attacks. Maybe a whirlwind, or a trip/smash combination, or a focused smash. And those will be tactically different. But your enemy still gets to figure that if they can back away from you in the upcoming turn, you'll be at a disadvantage. And your allies know that if they can knock an enemy into your line of fire or pin one down that you can go Mortal Kombat on their ass.
So maybe it would be a good idea to launch a direct assault on the target you've been harrying, but if they rolled "Defensive" then they still can't do that.
You can still attack people when you get a Defensive result. It's just that the attacks you have available have the side effect of increasing resilience. So if you guys want to assault a position, sending the guy who rolled up Defensive into the meat grinder might be a good idea.
I understand people's aversion to a game system where they do not have absolute and total control over their character's attacks in combat, but this seems like a system that hasn't been utilized to its full potential in RPGs before. I'm eager to see what Frank has planned for it, either within the context of the Kitchen Sink or an Avatar: The Next Airbender RPG.
Here is another question regarding WoF and spellcaster effects.
Ganbare's chart on the previous page mentions a defensive action of "inertial barrier" which seems reasonable enough. The thing I have been struggling with regarding the WoF and what we traditionally think of spellcasters is that, as Ganbare example implies, spell casters may have items on their WoF that last from round to round. At least, I assume Inertial Barrier is not something the psion must keep up (use his action for) round to round, hoping he rolls the appropriate WoF roll to maintain it. Assuming I understand this correctly, I see a couple of problems:
(1) Caster types can use an action to gain a benefit over many rounds, unlike a fighter-type that uses specials that typically only have an effect in the current round. Therefore as combat progresses, caster types stack special effect atop special effect (eg his psion could be a flying, inertial barrier and on fire) while the poor fighter is slogging it out on the ground. Is this something that is supposed to happen? Are the fighter specials going to be designed such that they effect targets (or themselves) round after round as well to balance things?
(2) What prevents a character under WoF from using an action before combat (or several actions if a roll is required on the WoF) before a door is opened or whatever, to ensure he has all the buffs he wants up before the door is kicked in?
Lich-Loved wrote:
(1) Caster types can use an action to gain a benefit over many rounds, unlike a fighter-type that uses specials that typically only have an effect in the current round. Therefore as combat progresses, caster types stack special effect atop special effect (eg his psion could be a flying, inertial barrier and on fire) while the poor fighter is slogging it out on the ground. Is this something that is supposed to happen? Are the fighter specials going to be designed such that they effect targets (or themselves) round after round as well to balance things?
Buffs are inherently problematic. Duration effects are not particularly. A curse or a DOT is just an attack that has greater total effect in exchange for having that effect divided up amongst several rounds. Battlefield control effects are functionally pretty similar.
Buffs are however problematic. You target your allies and thus they are no less good when used before combat as during combat. Therefore, they need some other set of limitations on them than simple action cost ad cool-down time (which when you think about it, is precisely what WoF is). Buffs need charges or drain cost or slot limits or drawbacks r something. About the only way buffs work with WoF alone is if those buffs are location driven. You can lay down protection circles or put up rallying flags or whatever for precisely the say reason that you would be OK with dumping a rock-to-mud out of a WoF wheel.
What if buffs worked sort of like the reverse of Ware in Shadowrun, in that the more buffs you had, the less resistant to magic you were?
The only problem I could see is that you might be able to be so buffed that pretty much any spell you were hit with would be reduced by some buff you had. Solutions might be to increase the weakness linearly or even faster with the more buffs you have on, or limit either the total number of buffs there are or the number of buffs any character can have at any individual time so that there will always be some chinks in the character's magical armor.
Out beyond the hull, mucoid strings of non-baryonic matter streamed past like Christ's blood in the firmament.
Why not have some buffs work as the "Interrupt" actions Koumei posited earlier in the thread? They work outside of the WoF roll, but only work once per encounter and are self buffs.
Or we could use that color setup from the 5th Edition thread, where you only get one positive and one negative effect targeting each color at a time, so stacking the same buff goes out the window.
Or we could have the drawback be the loss of the 6 option, forcing a reroll.
FrankTrollman wrote: Halfling women, as I'm sure you are aware, combine all the "fun" parts of pedophilia without any of the disturbing, illegal, or immoral parts.
K wrote:That being said, the usefulness of airships for society is still transporting cargo because it's an option that doesn't require a powerful wizard to show up for work on time instead of blowing the day in his harem of extraplanar sex demons/angels.
Chamomile wrote:
See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.
Whipstitch wrote:You're on a mad quest, dude. I'd sooner bet on Zeus getting bored and letting Sisyphus put down the fucking rock.
