New Edition: Wiki

[angelfromanotherpin]

Well, I wanted to leave the exact mechanics to those better suited, but I was thinking that Black Knights use lances and the Persian Immortals use spears and Kratos uses his swords on chains, and the reach thing felt like a theme. So when I said 'Reach Specialty' I was actually thinking more along the lines of Combat Reflexes or something (usable with anything but better with Reach) rather than +2 damage with long weapons or anything in that vein.

On the mounted combat thing, what are we thinking is the opportunity cost for becoming cavalry? Does it take up your stance slot?

Looking at the Malefactor template, I see Poison Resistance, which I guess is for eating the uncooked food and such; and I'd like to suggest either Tradition Resistance (to start on that Protection From White) or Fear Resistance (so Terror doesn't kill them) as alternatives.

I'm not keen on the thick 1st level, which seems to stray from the level-is-a-level-is-a-level design principle. If people want a little more choice right off the bat, why can't they just start at 2nd or something?

[Username17]

When you come down to it there are many things that a first level character can do. They have thumbs and they can open jars, climb ladders, close doors, carry objects, speak a language, move from one place to another, and so on and so forth. The differences between a first level character and a man-shaped pile of straw are massive nearly beyond reckon.

In short, there truly is not a "level is a level" design concept for this game. If you want to advance in a different direction you are free abstractly to design a new caste and start advancing down that one - but there is no multiclassing as such. You can have a class which has elements of Malefactor and Warlock, but you won't be a Malefactor 3/Warlock 2. And as such it really isn't a problem if specific levels like 1st or 11th come with a fat wad of powers and other levels don't.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

Got it. Cool.

Any inspiration for the Warlock? The Malefactor post with the picture helped a lot.

[Cielingcat]

[Username17]

Ceilingcat for the win. Although their actual caste colors are white and black. Basically the Warlock is the undead character from Looking For Group.

It's a Charisma/Constitution Brahmin caste. Similar to the Warlock in Warcraft or the Devout Warped in Chronopia or the Psykers in W40K. Blasts and Demons.

At some point they will pick up abilities with names like:

Fires of Naraka
Summon Imp
Lover's Loss
Corrupt Innocence

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

Indeed, that is a win. Pure win. I'm checking out that artist for more.
Now, why can't WOTC get that kind of art?

But that Warlock from the WoW comic is basically a stereotypical Warlock from WoW, painfully similar to the scowling Warlock guy in Complete Arcane. Steer away from the stereotype!
Do either Demons or Undead, but shamelessly mixing both is way overdone.

[Cielingcat]

WoW Warlocks don't have anything to do with Undead, except that Undead can become Warlocks.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Yeah, WoW warlocks are about demon summoning, curses, and blasting. Not a lot of undead related stuff with warlocks. (Priests have some undead related powers, but not warlocks.)

After all, in the year or so I played WoW in a desperate, failed attempt to get my wife to pay some attention to me, I did learn some things.

[angelfromanotherpin]

So, societally speaking, Warlocks are supposed to go around indulging in mass murder? That could be interesting.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Cielingcat, what is the artists name for that picture?

[JonSetanta]

Know your roots!
http://www.battle.net/war3/undead/units ... br][br]Now get back to the gold mine, Warlock.

[Manxome]

1202720767[/unixtime]]The other question is how many abilities should be resource managed and how many should just happen. That's not really a game balance question but a player enjoyment question. Saving a death blast for later because there's a more important fight coming up is fun, but going to sleep because you've already used up your death blast is not.

Here are some decent resource limitations:

• Slots - You can be in one combat stance, you can have one pair of boots, etc. If you have multiple choices and limited slots to prepare your choices in, you introduce finite and potentially interesting character choice.
  
  
• Charge-up Times - You have to get three little glowing things before you can perform your phoenix punch that makes things explode in fire. Your opponent already has to be weakened before they can be forced to say "Refresh." (And boy is that an obscure reference). If an ability can't be used effectively at the beginning of combat but can be used to great effect later on, it mixes things up.
  
  
• Per Encounter Limitations - Once you fire your gun, you aren't reloading it during the melee. A big trick that can only be used once per combat will be used at the beginning of combat in almost all cases. That makes longer fights feel fatiguing.
  
  
• Per Adventure Limitations - You can only summon the Valkyries once. It gives things a climactic feel.
  
  
• Per Day Limitations The Five Minute Workday of D&D is a real problem, so we tend to forget that these limits make real sense on quest abilities. A limit on the number of times you can teleport or the duration of the day you can spend invisible has real meaning.

Has anyone given any thought to the limitation model for hit points/wounds? Sorry if that's been discussed elsewhere; I didn't see it on the wiki.

HP can be thought of as an ability that allows you to not die when someone hits you. And any sort of healing ability should probably be limited in the same general way as HP, or else parties with healing abilities and parties without them likely aren't playing the same game.

Refreshing them per-encounter is the de facto limitation if you make out-of-combat healing cheap and easy. That means that non-incapacitating traps and attrition over multiple combats probably can't really happen, which isn't necessarily a problem, but it's an important assumption, and it will restrict the kinds of adventures you can go on.

Refreshing per-level seems dangerous, because players can potentially become trapped and unable to advance because they don't have enough HP to survive whatever they need to do to gain a level. Per-adventure might sidestep that problem, but only if you're willing to have the heroes be forced to bail on an entire adventure due to poor resource management (and heal them when they do).

You could try some sort of "per-checkpoint" approach where you can be healed only at certain points in a quest (specified by DM fiat), and if you don't make it to the next checkpoint, you need to fall back to the previous one (and lose progress) in order to recover. In Final Fantasy, if you realize you're not going to make it through the dungeon, you can cast Warp to get out and use a tent to recover your main resources, but you have to start the dungeon over from scratch. That may break immersion.

Of course, that's arguably what per-day is supposed to do, if you don't have some stupid ability that lets you rest in arbitrary locations. But there's lots of situations in which it doesn't.

I'm not entirely sure which I like.

[Username17]

Has anyone given any thought to the limitation model for hit points/wounds?

We've been tossing various models around. The one I'm currently tossing around is:

• Wounds heal only outside of combat, and only with the kind of time which may jeopardize the completion of an adventure. So Wounds last until the next adventure or cut scene. Although Trolls and other high level things may get the ability to heal up wounds between combats - that is still iffy to me.
  
  
• Hit Points are cured in the middle of combat with magic or personal healing techniques.
  
  
• As a PC you have 40 hit points. Attacks do 3d6 + Stat Mod + Level in damage and you have a DR of 4 + Level. So it'll take them about 3 hits to bring you to zero hit points in the absence of white mage help. Imps can be instant killed because they only have one wound and relatively attainable wound thresholds.

For a spectrum of 12 levels, the high level character takes very little damage from 1st level characters - probably about 3d6 - 7, which averages about 5 points. Even a 20th level character would have a small chance of taking damage from a 1st level character.

-Username17

[Username17]

http://www.eternalspires.net/wiki/pmwik ... br]Warlock is beginning to take form.

-Username17

[the_taken]

Oh gawd. That description is so funny. I can't stop laughing.

[Bigode]

Thought of the day (well, of before yesterday, but whatever): we currently have 3 classes (might/mixed/magic) per color, yet only 2 original (not imbued or extraplanar) races. Why not have one race per class, if there are iconic match-ups? The most obvious insert is harpies/sirens for White, since they're pretty much a humanoid race, with even a defined crime (which seems to have been used as a trademark of the humanoids up to this time) - I already have ideas for what the others could be (including bringing anansi, kuo-toa and tatanka up to snuff) if interest shows (of course, they also could show up as monstrous/imbued, but I hope I'm making a strong enough case for them being playable right away).

EDIT: I just noticed the tatanka were already brought in (hadn't read the monstrous folk); as the yak folk are done and have reason to be restricted, I relinquish the Green race.

[Cielingcat]

1202969144[/unixtime]]Cielingcat, what is the artists name for that picture?

No idea.

If the Warlock is supposed to be sort of like the WoW Warlock, may I suggest Curse of Agony as an ability? I always really liked that name.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I'd like to see the malefactor getting some 'filth' abilities from 'doom', based on their predilection towards unclean acts and undead, but I figured I'd ask for other opinions before I edited them in; originally that was going to be someone else's shtick.

[JonSetanta]

1203034412[/unixtime]]
No idea.

If the Warlock is supposed to be sort of like the WoW Warlock, may I suggest Curse of Agony as an ability? I always really liked that name.

/r/ turned up no results yesterday. Neither did /tg/, oddly. I didn't even ask in 'tripfag mode' which usually drives random anons away (but attracts conversation like crazy, for those that recognize me)

Where did it come from, at least?

[Username17]

1203037238[/unixtime]]I'd like to see the malefactor getting some 'filth' abilities from 'doom', based on their predilection towards unclean acts and undead, but I figured I'd ask for other opinions before I edited them in; originally that was going to be someone else's shtick.

That seems reasonable. The Assassins can get the Path of Vermin and the Path of Shadow and be relatively filthless, that would be fine.

we currently have 3 classes (might/mixed/magic) per color, yet only 2 original (not imbued or extraplanar) races. Why not have one race per class, if there are iconic match-ups?

Well, that would mean that every world would have a race which specialized in every attribute. And that's a little too much symmetry for my taste. Currently a Human is generally Smart and Strong and they are good as Gadgeteers. Gnomes are Perceptive and Healthy and make good Seers. A third race that was an iconic Bard would be nimble and impressive.

But the Yak Folk are Strong, not Nimble. And that means that they don't make especially good Bards. We could put in a third normal race that was nimble and impressive and did Pretalokan magic most of the time and was an iconic Bard. We could throw in Yuan Ti hybrids or Dark Elves or Kender. Not even a problem except where it comes to world clutter.

A third race for each of the factions would be:

• 
  
• Something associated with Naraka that was Smart and Nimble (Shades, Goblins, Catfolk)
  
• Something associated with Asuraloka that was Smart and Perceptive (Deep Ones, Nixies, Wererats)
  
• Something associated with Tiryagyoni which was Strong and Healthy (Orcs, Gnolls, Dwarves)
  
• Something associated with Yāma which was Healthy and Smart (Moth Men, Alvariel, Cambions).
  
• Something associated with Pretaloka that is Nimble and Impressive (Yuan Ti, Elves, Halflings).

And I'm not saying that couldn't be cool. I'm just saying it's a fair chunk of symmetry to introduce with a fair chunk of content. Still manageable, but pushing it.

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As for the Narakan race of monstrous humanoids, Spider People (Anansi/Drow), Frog People (Kuo-Toa/Sahuagin/Slaad), and Vampires all have obvious appeal.

-Username17

[Bigode]

As for your yak folk, they're great and stay where they are; but the tatanka were actually kicked outta my plans for Tiryagyoni, not Pretaloka - hilariously enough, they certainly would've been a good fit for Str/Con.

For Yâma, I was looking to just accept the harpies/sirens as common races, since a sin was already written for them - also, they'll really hate getting protection and health.

For Naraka and Pretaloka I see, respectively, the kuo-toa and anansi fitting perfectly.

Finally, for Asuraloka, it seems the unrepresented class is the shaman, but it had the fire school and I'm not entirely sure what whim does - what little impression I have does point to it meshing well with my idea, but we'd need to know what the fvcking hell will happen to fire. Both not knowing what whim does and not giving a substitution idea for fire right now are due to me not playing M:tG.

Of course, I'll share any ideas for the Tiryagyoni race and the Asuraloka school as I have them ...

[Username17]

Assassin is up apparently. Neat.

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On a side note: apparently if you copy in the ā with Mozilla you get an ā. But if you do it with Internet Explorer you get an â. No idea why this happens.

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Both not knowing what whim does and not giving a substitution idea for fire right now are due to me not playing M:tG.

Asuraloka has morphed a lot from the original concept of being Orcs and Fire and Minotaurs. The Minotaurs are now a collection of Uzbek and Lakota mythology and are aligned most closely with humans.

So it's looking like Asuraloka gets Emotion and Art. So Gremlins get to be a Dexterity based Gadgeteer called the Artisan and the Merfolk get to be Marshals.

And the brahmin caste would be based mostly on trickery, capriciousness, and tearing shit up. Probably get a lot of weather effects.

-Username17

[Bigode]

Perfect. Well, I hadn't thought about the delvers (yes, you heard it; details later) being Int/Wis, but it's easy to fit. As for the actual brahmin abilities, capriciousness and weather especially were what I was already thinking about.

And thanks to whoever did a good writeup of the assassins!

EDIT: further talk here got me mostly convinced that the Tiryagyoni race would be the gnolls - the crime's related either to having banded to hunt a powerful mortal, and not cared when they became a deva (for a short while, so to say), or to having "saved" a deva from an asura, only to prey on the wounded victim as well (when they were going to bless them for the first deed, BTW).

[Aktariel]

Off Topic:

Where did that picture come from, cielingcat?

[Cielingcat]

I don't remember.