Alternative to bonuses

The homebrew forum

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Alternative to bonuses

Post by RandomCasualty »

This thread is mostly spawned from this coment by Frank on another thread (which I didn't want to clutter up).

Frank wrote:
The core problems of classes in general in D&D mostly settle around multiclassing. Namely, that when you are a Red 4/Blue 8 you are supposed to be as powerful as a Blue 12 or a Red 12. Further, the game is supposed to be extensible, and equally balanced by the time someone is a Red 40/Blue 80. Vs. Being a Blue 80. Noone has so far made any classes that make a serious attempt to do that.

Mathematically, having any ability which is +1 to Blue at every Blue level is impossible to balance in that fashion, because the game is generated on a d20. Collecting bonuses to specific tasks is by definition non-extensible. Sooner or later the person with Mono-Blue is going to have +19 or more on the person with Red and Blue, and that means that either:

* The challenges will be set by the person who is all-blue, so there's no point in even being in the party as a multiclassed character.

or

* The challenges will be set to the guy with a splash of Red, in which case the all Blue guy has wasted a crap tonne of levels, because his additional bonuses don't do anything.


The question is. Is there anyway to actually get around this problem.

It's been long suggested by Frank that bonuses as class features don't work and that all abilities should be level dependent. Which is ok, but can we really make that work?

I've been thinking of such a system and it seems to be that it would have to end up being some kind of matrix as far as attack forms go and that eventually, you'd end up running out of abilities to hand out.

Now, one such system would be a matrix of some kind. You take an attack type (which is any random name) and you apply it to some defense statistic of the defender (not a number but rather a type, like large creature, or elemental). Note by attack type I don't necessarily mean damage type. "Flame Jet" and "Fireball" can be different attack types under this system. Fighters would be using "cross slash" or "vicious chop" and similar attack forms.

Now for every attack type it works differently depending on who you target.

This would facilitate huge tables, but anyway, a single row collumn in the table would look like this, assuming the table were by size.

"Flame Jet" damage by creature size-
Fine: 1d6
Tiny: 1d6
Diminutive: 1d8
Small: 1d8
Medium: 1d10
Large: 1d10
Huge: 2d6
Gargantuan: 2d6
Collossal: 2d8

Or something similar. And you may have some attacks specialized at killing certain sized creatures. Fireball may infact be better against small creatures, or better against medium or whatever you wanted. But the point is that you'd have lots and lots of these collumns and every level, you'd pick up one maybe two of these special attack forms.

After the roll, you'd add or subtract the difference in level (or twice the diff in level depending on how big you wanted levels to be), and get a result.

Attacks, like damage would have their own matrix detailing how accurate given things were. So it'd looks something like

Flame jet accuracy
Outsider: hits on 12+
Humanoid: Hits on 15+
Giant: Hits on 5+

And so on. Again, difference in level would be a modifier.

Finally attack forms would have range, which is the same as it is now, and they'd also have damage type, which is countered by resistance and/or DR.

So for any given attack, you'd be looking at Damage matrix, attack matrix, range and damage type.

You'd also get defenses, whcih let you do stuff like act as both an outsider and an elemental and take the best defense out of those and so on.

Now the question is, would this be enough to run a good game? And would it run well enough early when the characters don't have an extensive amount of attack forms to use.

So is this idea workable or is there something I'm missing?
Neeek
Knight-Baron
Posts: 652
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by Neeek »

If I understand you correctly, it works something like this:

I'm running Joe(a 12th level Firebolt throwing human) who is Firebolting Dan(a 8th level Swordswinging Giant). We go to the Firebolt table and look up Giant. It says 5+. I roll my D20 and get a 6. Since Joe is 4 levels higher than Dan, I effectively rolled a 10, which is more than enough to hit. Now, assuming the base damage is 2d6, I roll my damage. I roll a 7 and Dan takes 7 damage.

Just running through the single example, It seems to me that either you need to scale the damage by level, by margin of success, or keep hps way down overall, otherwise this sort of attack will become useless fairly quickly.

Interesting idea, but it looks like it would be a painful amount of bookkeeping.
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by RandomCasualty »

Neeek at [unixtime wrote:1105588381[/unixtime]]If I understand you correctly, it works something like this:

I'm running Joe(a 12th level Firebolt throwing human) who is Firebolting Dan(a 8th level Swordswinging Giant). We go to the Firebolt table and look up Giant. It says 5+. I roll my D20 and get a 6. Since Joe is 4 levels higher than Dan, I effectively rolled a 10, which is more than enough to hit. Now, assuming the base damage is 2d6, I roll my damage. I roll a 7 and Dan takes 7 damage.


Close, but you'd add 4 to the damage as well, due to the difference in level. So the total damage is 11.




Just running through the single example, It seems to me that either you need to scale the damage by level, by margin of success, or keep hps way down overall, otherwise this sort of attack will become useless fairly quickly.

Interesting idea, but it looks like it would be a painful amount of bookkeeping.


Under this system, hit points are assumed to be some amount, really any amount, depending on how deadly or long you want your combats to be. Lets assume hp 20 for now. Basically level is factored into the damage to factor in high levels being tougher. So if you're 4 levels higher than someone, all their strikes do 4 less damage (or 8 if you want to use twice level).

As for bookkeeping, yeah it'd be a pain in that you'd constantly be looking things up on a chart, however I don't see any other way to do it while maintaining some degree of tactics and reasons to gain further levels.

The way I figure it is that you'd end up with 10-20 different attack roll modes, and maybe 10-20 damage modes. And maybe 10 damage types.

To specify any given manuever for a class ability, you'd specify one of those attack roll modes, one of those damage modes and a damage type. And if they're balanced properly it shouldn't matter much which attack type people choose early on. You may for instance choose "undead bane" as your attack type and your damage mode could be best against medium creatures, your damage type could be bludgeoning.

This would create quite a few choices for people to use. Even if we got by 10 attack roll modes, 10 damage modes and 10 damage types, that's 1000 different combinations to create any given attack and that's before range even enters into it.

Basically you'd have a couple of tables you'd have to print out and give to the PCs, but you'd be saving bookkeeping on complex hit points, damage and so on.
Neeek
Knight-Baron
Posts: 652
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by Neeek »

RandomCasualty at [unixtime wrote:1105601773[/unixtime]]This would create quite a few choices for people to use. Even if we got by 10 attack roll modes, 10 damage modes and 10 damage types, that's 1000 different combinations to create any given attack and that's before range even enters into it.


One thing is a bit sketchy still. What is a damage mode?
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by RandomCasualty »

Neeek at [unixtime wrote:1105603980[/unixtime]]
One thing is a bit sketchy still. What is a damage mode?


Basically it's a damage table.

Telling you how much damage you do against various creatures. Preferably it uses some other stat than the attack table for more diversity.

Thus if your attack type is based off creature type, you can base your damage mode off of creature size for instance.

So you end up looking up your damage mode and seeing

Small - 1d6
Medium - 1d8

They'd be an entry for all the size catagories there, but you get the idea.

And so on for each size catagory. And of course you've got certain damage modes that are good against different things. And since hit points are static, and a small amount, the die type actually means quite a bit potentially.

So you could have a move like "dragonslayer swing" and it could hit a dragon type on a 5 or better and inflict big damage to large sized creatures. Which would be great agaisnt a dragon, but since the damage sucks for smaller creatures, and you may only hit a humanoid on a 15+, the manuever would be highly specialized.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by Username17 »

Things don't have to be tabular, they can be modifier-based like everything else, because that's exactly the same.

So for example, you could have "Dragon Slayer" a strike that does extra damage against dragons. It does less damage against Gnomes. There's two ways to represent that:

Tabular Method wrote:Target Damage
Giant Crabs 10
Dragons 17
Gnomes 6
...
Or:
Modifier Method wrote:Base Damage: 10
Against Dragons +7
Against Gnomes -4


The actual results are the same unless you are attacking a Gnome Dragon, in which case the Modifier Method automatically tells us that we inflcit 13 damage, and the Tabular Method tells us that we need a new rule to determine whether we are going to inflict 6 damage or 17.

---

And that is why I prefer modifier notation. I don't want Gnome dragons to avoid the righteous wrath of my Dragonslayer just because Earthshaker does no damage against flying crystaline enemies. But without modifier notation, I would have to suck it up.

---

As you've doubtless noticed, however, setting things up like this (regardless of whether you are going tabular or modifier based) absolutely requires that you go out and determine ahead of time what tags are and are not important.

You can't afford to have the Goblin King say "Summon Goblin King" or any of that shit. You have to figure out ahead of time what is going to be relevent game information and then you are going to have to write that down and stick to it.

Note also that in such a system you can drop the whole idea of crazy-assed polyhedronal dice. Seriously, just give all those d4s and d8s and crap the boot. The only thing you need is the relative damage rating after all modifiers for the attack against the target and the relative power levels. Once you have that, you can make the same damage roll every time and the game will automatically scale properly. Sweet, huh?

-Username17
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by RandomCasualty »

Well, I prefer the tabular method only because under my system, you'd have different values for all different types most of the time. So there really isn't any true "base" damage, or base attack rating. And we really don't want there to be, because then the game turns into the favored enemy game, and that's not truly the purpose.

As for the gnome dragon problem, I'd prefer to avoid that by simply limiting creatures to one creature type and going by that, as opposed to going by subtype. If you did have something that went by subtype, then it would simply use the presence or absence of that subtype. You could have something for instance whihc deals d12 damage to anything with the [fire] subtype. And regardless of what else you had, if you have the fire subtype, you're taking that upgraded damage.

Though mostly things would go by unverisal game types and not optional tags. I don't really want many things that are specific and good agaisnt only one type of creature, like gnomes or orcs only. Because that limits the usefulness of a general attack form. More or less you're going to see a bunch of mixed attack forms with varying degrees of success, and you've got to pick the right one for the situation.

So, you might run into a huge dragon, and you've got one nice ability that deals big damage to huge creatures, but is only mediocre at hitting dragons and another ability that deals weak damage to huge creatures but hits almost every time. Now depending on other stuff like the dragon's DR, your relative level to dragon HD difference and so on, different attack modes will have varying effectiveness.

On the other hand you may have one guy who has the perfect tool for the job against some monsters.

Also to mix things up, you'll run into special defense abilities that let you pick the best of two things. So for instance, you could have a defense that lets you be either a dragon or a humanoid for purposes of attack rolls, so if a guy wants to beat you, he better choose something good against both.

But whatever is chosen, there has to be enough manuevers to fill at least 20 levels, and probably we're going to need more than 1 manuever per level, not even counting defensive stuff.

The system would end up being much more strategic and ultimately pretty complicated in table lookup, however it would save all the time of adding up bonuses.

And if you wanted to get really interesting you could mix up the different attack modes for each class such that each class works off something different. Fighters attack table could be based on opponent size and damage by creature type, while clerics could use creature type for attack table and alignment for damage, or something like that. This would probably require a few new stats added, but it would add more strategic depth and class differences too.

-----

And yeah dice could be dropped, though I figure since we already have those dice, we might as well use them for something, and having somewhat randomized damage makes DR less dangerous because the number require to totally nullify all attacks is much higher.

Sma
Master
Posts: 273
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by Sma »

RC wrote:Well, I prefer the tabular method only because under my system, you'd have different values for all different types most of the time. So there really isn't any true "base" damage, or base attack rating. And we really don't want there to be, because then the game turns into the favored enemy game, and that's not truly the purpose.


But there actually is a base Damage. if you´re using dice it´ll be a d4, and if you´re using straight numbers it´ll be either zero or one, depending on how you´re going to set things up.

Having Attacks be different in effect depending on what race/size/haircolor your opponent is turns it into favored enemy form the get go.

Greetings,
Sma
EDIT: properly closed tag
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by RandomCasualty »

Sma at [unixtime wrote:1105700986[/unixtime]]
But there actually is[/] a base Damage. if you´re using dice it´ll be a d4, and if you´re using straight numbers it´ll be either zero or one, depending on how you´re going to set things up.

Having Attacks be different in effect depending on what race/size/haircolor your opponent is turns it into favored enemy form the get go.



Not really, beacuse there is no straight attack action, so there's no true base. And while you can call the lowest possible damage the base, it's different because almost nothing will use that base.

The base + modifier concept really only works well if you've got a base that happens most of the time and then modifiers which happen less frequently. Now both systems give you the same results but it's easier to simply look up one number rather than looking up a base and then adding a modifier. It's really the kind of values that belong in a table because they have no discernable mathematical pattern and are done totally arbitrarily for game balance. Basically it ensures that you also get a reasonably spread out attack/damage pattern for each attack/damage form.

As for favored enemy, while there are going to be specific counters to different things, because there isn't a base and instead separate values for each catagory, it gets away from the favored enemy idea. You dont' for instance just take an ability called "dragon killer" which raises your damage against dragons. Instead you're taking something which may hit the dragon type well, and may be useful against large creatures, but that could also be useful against giants too, or really big vermin or whatever. If designed right these techniques can be both specialzied and relatively versatile at the same time.
Sma
Master
Posts: 273
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by Sma »

While I can see that it might be easier to add up the modifiers and put them into a table from a design standpoint It would nonetheless be base damage +/- x, where x can be anything from amount of dice, size of dice, to status effects.

You might want to dress it up in the end but you´ll need some sort of starting point, and that will be the base.
It´s also probably better to start with straight numbers, and only transforming them into the random number generator of choice as one of the last steps. Easier to compare that way, and you can finetune the amount of randomness better without overhauling the complete system.

Coming back to that table thing, I dislike systems where you have to look up stuff in tables to see which die you roll, during combat. If this is done while I´m at home no problem, but when I´m on the table playing I personally prefer systems where you can just look at your character sheet once and pick the die. But thats just a personla opinion having nothingh to do woth soundness of a table based system. So I´m not really sure why I wrote that.

Greetings,
Sma
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by Username17 »

Yes. You have a base. Period. There's always a base. That's the thing you have as your game mechanical standard attack.

When you design the game, you have a mythical standar to spply things against. It might be the most common ability (standard slash: nothing special to report) or it might be one of the rarest and most sought after powers (Old Faithful: always useful attack), depending on how you set it up. But you will have a standard while designing the game, or you can't design a game.

Once you have your standard, every single attack action will be expressed in playtest terms as the differences it has between the standard attack. Once you complete the playtest cycle, you can then add up all those differences for people and then display it in tabular form, but it is equally well described as a series of modifiers.

And you are playing te favored enemy game. If Dragons have a different entry from Giant Crabs on the table, then every attack will be either "Favored Enemy: Dragons" or "Favored Enemy: Giant Crabs". The fact that different dice are supposed to be rolled doesn't make it "not favored enemy", it just makes it "a royal pain in the ass".

-Username17
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by RandomCasualty »

Sma at [unixtime wrote:1105706943[/unixtime]]
Coming back to that table thing, I dislike systems where you have to look up stuff in tables to see which die you roll, during combat. If this is done while I´m at home no problem, but when I´m on the table playing I personally prefer systems where you can just look at your character sheet once and pick the die. But thats just a personla opinion having nothingh to do woth soundness of a table based system. So I´m not really sure why I wrote that.


Well, it's a valid problem I think, because table systems are fundamentally slower usually than others. However, basically I think to have new abilities be worth something at every level, you can't have static damage. If you have an ability that deals 1d6+22 damage and another that deals 1d6+25, you're going to use the latter everytime, and basically having the prior ability is meaningless.

Without having some kind of type variance, I don't see a better way to do things than with a table.


Yes. You have a base. Period. There's always a base. That's the thing you have as your game mechanical standard attack.

Well ok, but under this system the standard weapon attack would be for chumps. Basically it's used by people with no fighter levels at all, and does crappy damage and crappy attack against everything. Say 15+ to hit anything, and 1d4 damage.

So while you could call it a base, that's like calling commoner the base for all PC classes, simply because it sucks at everything.


And you are playing te favored enemy game. If Dragons have a different entry from Giant Crabs on the table, then every attack will be either "Favored Enemy: Dragons" or "Favored Enemy: Giant Crabs". The fact that different dice are supposed to be rolled doesn't make it "not favored enemy", it just makes it "a royal pain in the ass".

Well not necessarily, beacuse your attacks also determine damage by size, and then finally have a damage type.

So yes, while an attack could be "favored enemy: gargantuan dragon" the chances of that happening won't be exceptionally high. The attack/damage is made to work in general situations as well. Very rarely will you be getting the absolute best damage you can, unless you're high enough level to really have caught a good peice of the attack modes (but by then your opponents are using defenses anyway to make your life harder).

Favored enemy is an attack you specifically take to kill a certain creature and this system isn't based around things like that. That is, you're taking one ability since it's pretty good against giants, dragons, and gargantuan or better creatures.

Basically it differes from favored enemy since you'll never see a table entry like this..

Humanoid : 15+ to hit
Dragon: 5+ to hit
Giant: 15+ to hit
Outsider: 15+ to hit
Elemental: 15+ to hit
Animal: 15+ to hit.

All the table entries will be suitably mixed up, so you'll be seeing a lot of 12s, 8s, 10s and so on.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by Username17 »

Oh sure, you're going to have tables. Tables of, for example, what the ability does every time you go up a level. Tables of what abilties you can choose from. That sort of thing is inevitable.

RC wrote:Well ok, but under this system the standard weapon attack would be for chumps. Basically it's used by people with no fighter levels at all, and does crappy damage and crappy attack against everything. Say 15+ to hit anything, and 1d4 damage.


No it isn't. The standard attack for the purposes of gamebalance sure as hell isn't the minimum at everything - it's in the middle of everything. It's the attack that everyone's attacks are mythically going to average out being equivalent to, assuming that some of them have good attacks and some don't.

You might not actually let anyone have the perfectly average attack when you publish the game - but for game balance purposes you are assuming that it's there. When people are playtesting new stuff, that's the attack form that all the placeholder entities in combat are using. And everything else that anyone ever gets is relative to that attack.

Random wrote:Basically it differes from favored enemy since you'll never see a table entry like this..


So it differes from a modifier-based system in that there ar really a lot of small modifiers to keep track of? That's not any different at all! It's just complicated.

In any tabular system like the one you've described, it will be easier to describe things as modifiers. Any system at all. Why? Because as modifiers, you can leave something unsaid. Not everything. Not even most things perhaps, but something. Consider the following table:

A Tabular System: wrote:Dragons 14+
Huge Fish 8+
Weird Elves 11+
Skin Flutes 18+
Cabbage 12+
Octagon 9+
Birthdays 6+
Boy Bands 13+


Now, consider the same information, supplied as modifiers:
A Modifier System wrote:Dragons -3
Huge Fish +3
Skin Flutes -7
Cabbage -1
Octagon +2
Birthdays +5
Boy Bands -2


Exactly the same information is supplied, but there is one less entry, because the default to-hit value is 11+, so you don't need to even mention Weird Elves. Even if things are so astoundingly disparate that only 1 in 20 entries can be left off - that's still shorter than doing it all in tables.

The modifier presentation is simpler, clearer, and shorter than your proposal.

---

Also, I take issue with keeping all those stupid types. They were an interesting idea, but they failed in D&D, and I have no confidence that anyone can make them work.

-Username17
Sma
Master
Posts: 273
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by Sma »

I´m on my way to bed so I´m just going to add one more short thing.

You might as well think in the category of average damage, because in the long run there is little difference between an attack that does 2d6 damage on a 10+ and an attack that does d20+d8+d4 on a 15+. They both add up to something around 4-5 damage per attack. Just something that came to my mind right now.

Another point you didn´t adress is defenses. Are they going to be static, as in factored into the attack ?
Or are there going to be ways to boost your defense, apart form being a seldom targeted type.

Basically I think you should try to look at this as a formula, of which you kno the solution and are making things comlplicated for everyone playing the game. The balance you´re looking foor is the point where everyone actually thinks they have a choice, but it does not matter in the long run which attack type they chose, because neither is superior to the other. So tghe worst that can happen is that people actually figure out that magic formula and realize they can play anything they want without being penalized by the rules for it.

Sma
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by RandomCasualty »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1105750572[/unixtime]]
You might not actually let anyone have the perfectly average attack when you publish the game - but for game balance purposes you are assuming that it's there. When people are playtesting new stuff, that's the attack form that all the placeholder entities in combat are using. And everything else that anyone ever gets is relative to that attack.

Well if nobody has it, then it's equivalently not there. More or less any attack should be a viable starting point. That is, if you subtract from one entry you should be able to add something to another. Now you may make exceptions, namely for stuff like "weak damage to fine creatures" or something that you expect won't ever be a big deal. But basically you should be able to transform the attack table for "Strong Swing" into the attack table for "wide slash" using these rules of give and take.

And when you have that, it seriously doesn't matter where you start or if you even have some theoretical "Average" attack or not.

Basically I want to get people away from thinking about averages and more into thinking of personal situations. Nobody has the hypothetical be-all-end-all of attacks, if they did, they wouldn't need anymore attacks and thus wouldn't need anymore levels. So you're going to have to look at what you've got every combat, and how effective your character is going to be this combat. And it may come out that you happen to suck this combat, so you've got some attacks that do stuff other than damage, perhaps healing your companions or what not. But these should be largely personal choices, not "I'm going into combat using this one standard attack unless I've got a better specialized attack".
You don't take standard attack at level 1, then take giantslayer at level 2, dragonslayer at level 3 and so on.

That's the favored enemy BS I'm trying to avoid.

All your attack forms are going to have weaknesses, and later on when you start mxiing in special defenses, which allow you to take on your type, or another type, whcihever is better, you're going to have to have quite varied attack forms to compensate.




So it differes from a modifier-based system in that there ar really a lot of small modifiers to keep track of? That's not any different at all! It's just complicated.

In any tabular system like the one you've described, it will be easier to describe things as modifiers. Any system at all. Why? Because as modifiers, you can leave something unsaid. Not everything. Not even most things perhaps, but something. Consider the following table:

Well but that's the point. Nothing is going to be left unsaid. It's why a table is simply easier here. The point of the system isn't to have a few set cases where your attack is better or worse, it's going to have a case for each and everything you run into.

And basically the thing with modifiers is that you end up with having to do math. It's simply easier to just look up the base number you want to use and that's it.

Base + modifier only really matters when you plan on using the base unmodified at least a moderate amount of the time. If your base is just as rare as all of your modifiers, then you might as well not have a base at all, because instead of looking up 14+, I now have to look up base 11 then add a +3 modifier. And the way I envision it, a table is going to end up being 2 dimensional with a list of creature types or sizes or whatever on each row and a list of attack modes for each collumn. And everything is going to have an intersection. Whether you write +0 in that box or 11+ is really just a matter of taste, personally I think there's less math to just write out the number you actually need to roll, instead of some hypothetical base that people rarely use.

Remember this isn't going to be a list of random shit. It's a list of things that everyone has ,like a creature type or a size. So your table is going to be finite, unless you plan on adding creature types alot.


Also, I take issue with keeping all those stupid types. They were an interesting idea, but they failed in D&D, and I have no confidence that anyone can make them work.


Well, I don't suggest all of them be kept. Giant for instance better just be humanoids and let the size determine if you call it a giant, a halfling or a human. And honestly the types don't even matter. I mean we could assign simple letters to them, and have them be a separate stat if we wanted.

It could say "Armor type: A" or something and then you compare your damage mode versus the entry for his armor type, and you get an amount of damage.

All that's really important is that everyone has an armor type so they can fit into the table. I really could care less how you get that armor type. it could be arbitrary or it could be based on how big the creature is or if it's an outsider, humanoid, beast or whatever. I really don't even care about that at this point.

Right now I'm just considering if a system build this way could actually work.



You might as well think in the category of average damage, because in the long run there is little difference between an attack that does 2d6 damage on a 10+ and an attack that does d20+d8+d4 on a 15+. They both add up to something around 4-5 damage per attack. Just something that came to my mind right now.

You may get some things that are equivalent as far as average damage goes, but really DR is going to be a determining factor too.


Another point you didn´t adress is defenses. Are they going to be static, as in factored into the attack ?
Or are there going to be ways to boost your defense, apart form being a seldom targeted type.

There won't be any numeric bonuses to attack or defense no, except for level. So if you're a higher level you'll get your +1 or +2 bonus per level, but that's it. Besides that you have to use more strategy for your defenses, like being able to be an outsider or a dragon, whichever is better, and stuff like that. This in turn forces the attack to try to find the right attack to efficiently breach your defense and so on. It really is designed to play more like a wargame.


Basically I think you should try to look at this as a formula, of which you kno the solution and are making things comlplicated for everyone playing the game. The balance you´re looking foor is the point where everyone actually thinks they have a choice, but it does not matter in the long run which attack type they chose, because neither is superior to the other. So tghe worst that can happen is that people actually figure out that magic formula and realize they can play anything they want without being penalized by the rules for it.


Well, it does matter, because you're increasing or decreasing your attack rolls and damage. Now you may get a couple attack forms which are roughly about as good as the other. For instance, twice the chance to hit for half the damage is equivalent.

But to get an advantageous attack form you've got to try to get your attack as efficient as possible against what you're fighting. And certainly I think the system can be set up such that everyone will have weakenesses.

And I'm really not sure if this can all work, but if we want a system that doesn't rely on bonuses, this or something similar has to be made to work.

Either every ability has to be separate or all abilities must synergize with every other ability. The latter is pretty much impossible. The former may not be, and is what I'm examining here.

The problem is however that for this to work abilities you get each level have to be worth something.

I'm trying to produce a game that works off of a counter system and not off of a combo system. That is you have to have a big box of attacks to look for the right one rather than powering up your charge attack wtih all your feats and spells such that it's totally unstoppable by anything.
Sma
Master
Posts: 273
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by Sma »

And when you have that, it seriously doesn't matter where you start or if you even have some theoretical "Average" attack or not.


No. You can obscure that average all you want, but it will still be there, or you´ll never going to be able what numbers you are going to plug into your transformation. In the finished game people will be doing some amount of damage. Really any, but if you want to figure out that amount you´ll need a starting point.


Basically I want to get people away from thinking about averages and more into thinking of personal situations. Nobody has the hypothetical be-all-end-all of attacks, if they did, they wouldn't need anymore attacks and thus wouldn't need anymore levels


Which is still possible, but has nothing to do whether or not ther will be a standard against which youßr attacks are measured during design.

You don't take standard attack at level 1, then take giantslayer at level 2, dragonslayer at level 3 and so on.

That's the favored enemy BS I'm trying to avoid.


If I am understanding your idea correctly at first level someone choosing the Adventurer(tm) class gets an attack matrix like that:

Attack:

Green blob hit on 11+
Yellow blob hit on 15+
Sad blob hit on 8+

Damage:
running target d5
walking taget d9
flying target d11

While the numbers and descriptors are just something Ipulled out of my hat, it would seem quite obvious to me that the character in question is going to fare better in combat against flying sad blobs than everything else. Seems pretty much a favored enemy to me.

You may get some things that are equivalent as far as average damage goes, but really DR is going to be a determining factor too.


Yes of course, but unless you plan to have DR high enough to soak all damage from small attacks, at which point you mihgt as well call it immunity to attacks F-N, you could plug it into the big combat formula and in the end come out even.

If you're doing 10 damage per hit a DR of 5 and a reduction of the number you hit by 50% is basically the same.

Well, it does matter, because you're increasing or decreasing your attack rolls and damage. Now you may get a couple attack forms which are roughly about as good as the other. For instance, twice the chance to hit for half the damage is equivalent.


If you plan on giving away all the attack forms at first level everyone will always have the best attack for every situation. Assuming attack/defense pairings are balanced, this means we might not need to bother with an elaborate matrix of attacks and defenses at all, because everyone always uses the best one.

If attack modes are doled out depending on what level you are, everyone is falling behind in the defense department from level 2 onwards, because the chance that an opponent of equivalent levelwill have an attack that pierces your defense rises. The opposite is true if just get some attacks and stick with them while getting more and more defenses.

Now if defenses and attacks are doled out at the same speed and you can only ever have one defense active at one time, you're still fucked, because you you don´t know how you'll be attacked, and if you change youßr defense to suit the last attack your opponent will simply cycle to the next attack mode.

If -on the other hand- you have all your defenses active all the time the attack side is falling behind as there will be less and less attacks that will able to penetrate the defense, if one is even lucky enough to have it.

Which would seemingly lead to an impassé. But then, I´m still not sure If I grasped the system correctly.

Greetings,
Sma

PS: I even made nifty attack and damage tables for the sake of seeing whether I´m getting you :)

Code: Select all

[br]Attack Table[br]	Happy	 	Bored	 	Sad	 	Hungry[br]Stick	5+		10+		15+		20+[br]Stone	10+		15+		20+		5+[br]Word	15+		20+		5+		10+[br]Stare	20+		5+		10+		15+[br][br]Damage Table[br]	Face		Hand		Foot		Groin[br]Throw	d4		d6		d8		d10[br]Slap	d6		d8		d10		d4[br]Probe	d8		d10		d4		d6[br]Jab	d10		d4		d6		d8[br]


EDIT: damn you BbCode for being so finicky !
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Alternative to bonuses

Post by RandomCasualty »

Sma at [unixtime wrote:1105971756[/unixtime]]
If I am understanding your idea correctly at first level someone choosing the Adventurer(tm) class gets an attack matrix like that:

Well, it's not a matrix per class, it's more like a matrix per level. That is instead of handing out fighter types abilities like "weapon focus" and other abilities that give out bonuses, you're instead handing out different attack forms. So as you gain levels, you end up with a pretty big bag of tricks you can choose from.

Also you can have certain attacks with other properties as well as a good attack matrix. You may have an attack form called "Spring attack" whcih when you use it lets you move during your attack and ignore AoOs. Basically the idea is that everything, every offensive spell, every ability, has its own attack form, damage form, damage type and range. Now, this isn't to say you can't reuse the attack forms or damage forms, beacuse mixing and matching them produces different types of abilities. As was stated earlier if you've got 10 attack forms, 10 damage forms and say 10 damage types, that's 1000 different choices and that doesn't even begin to include specials like a spring attack style.


Attack:
Green blob hit on 11+
Yellow blob hit on 15+
Sad blob hit on 8+

Damage:
running target d5
walking taget d9
flying target d11

Right. This is pretty much what it's going to look like, though they'll be a lot of entries, probably about 7-10, so that the attack types are varied.


While the numbers and descriptors are just something Ipulled out of my hat, it would seem quite obvious to me that the character in question is going to fare better in combat against flying sad blobs than everything else. Seems pretty much a favored enemy to me.

Well right. You do fare better agasint a certain target, but the thing is that its such a specialized subset that you generally arent' taking it to be better agaisnt that one enemy type. Yes, there's going to be something every attack type excels at, but for the most part you won't be fighting that, and that's primarily where it differs from favored enemy. You generally are going to be taking these abilities because they're good or decent against a lot of stuff you're fighting and helps fill a hole in your fighting style.

Now, I'm still not sure if this will work exactly.



Yes of course, but unless you plan to have DR high enough to soak all damage from small attacks, at which point you mihgt as well call it immunity to attacks F-N, you could plug it into the big combat formula and in the end come out even.

If you're doing 10 damage per hit a DR of 5 and a reduction of the number you hit by 50% is basically the same.

Well, my point about DR is that if you've got a damage of 2d6 for instance, you can breach DR 7, but if you've got a simple flat damage of 7, then you'll never beat it. Without random damage, DR becomes much more powerful.



Now if defenses and attacks are doled out at the same speed and you can only ever have one defense active at one time, you're still fvcked, because you you don´t know how you'll be attacked, and if you change youßr defense to suit the last attack your opponent will simply cycle to the next attack mode.

If -on the other hand- you have all your defenses active all the time the attack side is falling behind as there will be less and less attacks that will able to penetrate the defense, if one is even lucky enough to have it.

Yeah, this is one of the fundamental problems I'm trying to work out with the system, and one of the reasons I'm still questioning if the system can be created in the first place. I really don't know if there's a way to get around some of these problems and the system may turn out to be fundamentally flawed, I'm really not sure at this point.

Basically the idea is to eliminate bonuses because they totally screw up multiclassing. This basically means using Frank's paradigm of giving out an ability a level and making your abilities unrelated mechanically. So you don't have add-on abilities which modify other abilities. Now the problem with his original paradigm was that when you hand out "standard Fighter BaB attack" at fighter level 1 like he wanted to, there's really not many places to go from there except to favored enemy/situation styles, and those end up being far weaker than the original ability. Basically I want this system to have a series of attacks which are all equally specialized.

Another supplementary goal to this system is the attempt to add more tactics to the mix. Basically I'd like a system where characters get more meaningful strategic choices in the game during combat.



PS: I even made nifty attack and damage tables for the sake of seeing whether I´m getting you :)

Code: Select all

[br]Attack Table[br]	Happy	 	Bored	 	Sad	 	Hungry[br]Stick	5+		10+		15+		20+[br]Stone	10+		15+		20+		5+[br]Word	15+		20+		5+		10+[br]Stare	20+		5+		10+		15+[br][br]Damage Table[br]	Face		Hand		Foot		Groin[br]Throw	d4		d6		d8		d10[br]Slap	d6		d8		d10		d4[br]Probe	d8		d10		d4		d6[br]Jab	d10		d4		d6		d8[br]


Yeah, that's about right. Though the table would be bigger in both directions. About 10x10 for each would probably be the target.
Post Reply