I've been working on my SAME WC and I've hit a snag. There are two main abilities that I simply don't know how to handle: summoning and cohorts. I'm listing this here beacuse I'm pretty sure it's going to take a lot of tweaking to get right, but anyway...
In Warcraft, Warlocks and Hunters will just run around with a pet all the time. Warlocks will have a demon, and Hunters will have an animal. I'm planning on handling this by giving the pet a set amount of stats less than the character (for example, they might have 8 less stats to spend). The same goes with skills. Pets would have a very limited ability list to choose from, and gain abilities at a much slower rate. Would this be workable? About what would be a fair stat penalty for a pet, if it was worth one ability? 4 seems too small, and 8 seems too much, so I'm currently leaning toward 6.
As for summoning (of the temporary kind) I'm just plain clueless on. I'm thinking of having characters who would summon simply gain pets, instead. Instead of the necromancer summoning bodies from the dead, he is instead followed around by a skeleton.
SAME and Summons/Cohorts
Moderator: Moderators
-
RandomCasualty
- Prince
- Posts: 3506
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Re: SAME and Summons/Cohorts
Summoning is tough conceptually because it's a lot like a buff spell, in that you can take time before combat to cast your summon. So trying to get combat summoning to work is rather difficult.
As for stats on cohorts I have no clue. It's hard to put an extra peice on the board, because that's essentially handing out an extra attack. SAME doesn't really give out extra attacks to characters so it's tough to balance the value of an extra attack.
As for stats on cohorts I have no clue. It's hard to put an extra peice on the board, because that's essentially handing out an extra attack. SAME doesn't really give out extra attacks to characters so it's tough to balance the value of an extra attack.
Re: SAME and Summons/Cohorts
Do your combat summons actually have to summon monsters? You could just have a "summon spirits" spell that distracts your opponent, or a "summon swarm" spell that deals damage.
Murtak
-
Username17
- Serious Badass
- Posts: 29894
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Re: SAME and Summons/Cohorts
There are lots of ways to do summoning, and the way it can be balanced depends largely on which way you go with it:
[*] Blood Pact: In this summoning system, the summoner takes wounds when the monster does. This means that you are in essence trading defense for offense. In SAME, the monster is going to be specialized in SA or ME, and the caster is going to be very vulnerable to the other. But you do get an extra attack every turn, so your offensive output is insane. These guys are such a defensive liability that keeping them around outside of combat pretty nearly solves itself.
[*] Pokemon: In this summoning system, only the caster or the monster can act each round. In this system, summoning is a defensive power because the number of actions you get is unchanged, but the enemy gets an extra terrain piece/target to worry about that is entirely inconsequential if it is defeated.
[*] Call for Help: In this summoning system, the caster is not in direct control of the monster, and that reduces the entire experience to flavor text. Since the PCs are only alone against all the enemies in the most contrived of situations, the ability to have an NPC on your team is just a piece of story.
[*] Character Duplication: This is the big one, the one people immediately think of when they speak of summoning. This is problematic in several ways. If the extra characters under your control are anywhere close to your power level, it is staggeringly easy for the total possy to integrate to substantially more power than any of the other PCs. Further, the reason that SAME normally limits everyone to one action each is because anything else takes an ass long time to resolve. So not only does the summoner threaten to overshadow his fellow players, he threatens to bore them to tears. A sufficiently weak and temporary monster could be balanced against a fire dart iff its projected damage output over its lifespan was comparable to that of the firedart. In fact, this is setup as a DOT, with the additional disadvantage that if your opponent really wants to they can interupt the damage by punching it in the mouth, and the extra advantage that it takes up actual space and can be used as an extra pawn in manuvering. It's still going to threaten the patience of the other players though, I don't think there's any way around that.
-Username17
[*] Blood Pact: In this summoning system, the summoner takes wounds when the monster does. This means that you are in essence trading defense for offense. In SAME, the monster is going to be specialized in SA or ME, and the caster is going to be very vulnerable to the other. But you do get an extra attack every turn, so your offensive output is insane. These guys are such a defensive liability that keeping them around outside of combat pretty nearly solves itself.
[*] Pokemon: In this summoning system, only the caster or the monster can act each round. In this system, summoning is a defensive power because the number of actions you get is unchanged, but the enemy gets an extra terrain piece/target to worry about that is entirely inconsequential if it is defeated.
[*] Call for Help: In this summoning system, the caster is not in direct control of the monster, and that reduces the entire experience to flavor text. Since the PCs are only alone against all the enemies in the most contrived of situations, the ability to have an NPC on your team is just a piece of story.
[*] Character Duplication: This is the big one, the one people immediately think of when they speak of summoning. This is problematic in several ways. If the extra characters under your control are anywhere close to your power level, it is staggeringly easy for the total possy to integrate to substantially more power than any of the other PCs. Further, the reason that SAME normally limits everyone to one action each is because anything else takes an ass long time to resolve. So not only does the summoner threaten to overshadow his fellow players, he threatens to bore them to tears. A sufficiently weak and temporary monster could be balanced against a fire dart iff its projected damage output over its lifespan was comparable to that of the firedart. In fact, this is setup as a DOT, with the additional disadvantage that if your opponent really wants to they can interupt the damage by punching it in the mouth, and the extra advantage that it takes up actual space and can be used as an extra pawn in manuvering. It's still going to threaten the patience of the other players though, I don't think there's any way around that.
-Username17