Building things from scratch: Design Principles.

[User3]

1108171917[/unixtime]]
Either that or eliminate ability scores altogether. I'm still not positive that we need them at all.

Well, if you don't like calling them ability scores call them "Melee rating," "Magic rating," "Reflex," and "Willpower."

[Username17]

OTOH, a skill-based combat system with no caps and unlimited advancement just seems impossible to balance.

Oh, it is. Totally. That's why we are here embracing caps. Relative Caps. The real limit is that the RNG has a hard limit it can go before everyone is fencing with rocket launchers or playing padded sumo. You just put relative caps that PCs can't have discrepencies that go past a point that is short of that, and things stay "game like" within a few levels of yourself.

Seems to give even enough balance to all ability scores, with incentive to dump points into at least three of the abilities, and less damage to the dual-classers.

...but it doesn't. Here's why:

Physical attack: Strength.
Magical attack: Willpower.

There's no damned reason to have both of those stats. Or rather, the reason is simply insufficient to actually make people bother to take both. The stats have to count for both attack and defense, or the Magic Warrior gets screwed. The math on that's pretty simple if you want me to go through it again I can.

Of course, if you meant "attack" to mean "damage/soak" - then I apologize.

---

Sure, the skill numbers don't actually have to correspond to an actual bonus. And the skills could just be completely the whole numerical bonus altogether.

The only thing you gain from having a separate Tinker and Perception skill is the abilty to have a discrepency between your spot and your disable device if that's what you wanted to do. But assuming you wanted that, you have to ask yourself what the stats themselves grant you.

That's more complicated. Mostly it gives the game the option of having some tests be "narrower" in range. That is, a normal roll is going to be stat + skill, which means that the maximum divergence between two characters is equal to the maximum divergence allowed on skills plus the max divergence allowed on stats. If you whipped out a straight stat or straight skill roll, it would have less potential for difference because only one of the two sources of difference would be added into the mix.

In short, it allows you to have some tests which allow a difference of +/-8 and other tests that allow a difference of +/-4 instead. Or 4 and 2, whatever. Heck, you could have a max diff on stats be +/-2 and the max diff on skills be +/-4 (or vice versa), and then you could have opposed tests that were +/-2, +/-4, or +/-6 depending upon what you wanted in the way of discrepency between a character geared for the test and a character specialized in another field of endeavor.

So it's not the stats provide nothing in such a situation over having skills alone. It's that what they provide is kind of subtle and weird - it's the ability to narrow down how random you want any particular action to be.

-Username17

[Murtak]

It should work out decently if you have exactly one offensive and one defensive use for each ability. You might have the classical DnD abilities

Str: physical damage / resist maneuvres
Dex: physical to hit / dodge physical attacks
Con: special maneuvres (i.e. trip) / soak physical damage
Int: magical to hit / dodge magical damage
Wis: magical damage / resist special effects
Cha: magical special effects (i.e. charm) / soak magic damage

This way you will still get somewhat brainy wizards and big, beefy fighters but everyone has a real good incentive to want each of his stats as high as possible. If you only have offensive uses for stats you get dump stats, because you only ever need one of them (or two at most).

Look at DnD - what stats does the wizard want? His offensive stat (Int) and his defensive stats (Con, Dex, Wis). If having a high strength gave you a decent chance to not be grappled, tripped and such wizards would value strength too - but with the crappy BAB and the huge grapple and trip scores of monsters it does not really help at all. Charisma has neither an offensive nor a defensive use and thus is the ultimate dump stat for most of the base classes.

About the only non-dump stat for everyone is Con. So if every ability had a defensive use on par with having more HPs and a higher fortitude save .... then I don't think we would see dump stats in DnD, even if you only need a single ability for all your offense.

[Murtak]

1108191775[/unixtime]]The only thing you gain from having a separate Tinker and Perception skill is the abilty to have a discrepency between your spot and your disable device if that's what you wanted to do.

You may also gain the benefit of skills balanced in overall usefulness. Removing "all that open lock stuff and tinkering" from "spot, listen, search and the like" may be the best thing to do if your other skills are climb, ride and "patch up arrow wounds".

If on the other hand your skills are "all things combat related" and "diplomacy, bluff, gather info, etiquette, appraise, innuendo and slander" then you might want to collapse more narrow skillsets into skills as useful as those you already have.

No game should have both "innuendo" and "combat" as skills, not unless it is given that there will always be far more subtle plays on words then combat situations.

[Username17]

It should work out decently if you have exactly one offensive and one defensive use for each ability.

True. Compare and contrast that idea to the idea of having separate attack and defense stats:

Let's say that you have 8 bonus points to distribute between McAttack, McDefense, PhysAttack, and PhysDefense. Now let's consider that characters are roughly equally concenred with attack and defense. Let's look at three characters:

Gygja the Knight:
Magic Attack: +0
Magic Defense: +2
Physical Attack: +4
Physical Defense: +2

Harold the Wizard:
Magic Attack: +4
Magic Defense: +2
Physical Attack: +0
Physical Defense: +2

Gengis the Fire Warrior:
Magic Attack: +2
Magic Defense: +2
Physical Attack: +2
Physical Defense: +2

What do we notice? If Harold or Gygja attack any of these people, they do so at +2. If Gengis attacks any of these people, he does so at +0. So it's not balanced, definitionally. But watch what happens when we make even more specialized characters:

Kentotha the Berserker:
Magic Attack: +0
Magic Defense: +0
Physical Attack: +8
Physical Defense: +0

So when Kentotha attacks any of those other clowns, she does so at +6. When they attack her back, the best they do is +4 (+2 if they are one of those suckers who diversified their attack). So it's not balanced here either. If Magic Attack, Magic Defense, Physical Attack and Physical Defense are all transferable, the correct answer is to put all of those points into your favorite attack - because anything else you spend points on is only going to be used half the time.

But now let's make the stats be Strength (Physical Damage Resistance and Damage Infliction), Agility (Physical to-hit and Dodge), Intelligence (Mental to-hit and Dodge), and Charisma (Mental Damage Resistance and Damage Infliction). Again with 8 points to distribute:

Even Steven:
Str: +2
Agi: +2
Int: +2
Cha: +2

vs.:

Sir Edgar Aloqua:
Str: +4
Agi: +4
Int: +0
Cha: +0

Sir Aloqua is going to be +2 to-hit Even Steven and +2 to damage Even Steven. Even Steven will counter attack at +2 to hit and +2 to damage because he will use mental attacks preferentially.

Red Huffington the Magic Man:
Str: +0
Agi: +0
Int: +0
Cha: +8

Red Huffington is +0 to hit Sir Aloqua and +8 damage. Sir Aloqua is +4 to hit back and +4 damage. Even Steven Red Huffington at +2 to-hit and +2 damage. Red Huffington strikes back at a minus two to hit and +6 damage.

Assuming that you have a set-up in which scalingly superior to-hit rolls add to damage and damage is on a consistant scale, all of these characters will do roughly equally well against each other.

---

You might have the classical DnD abilities

Not just no. Hell no. With six abilities, it doesn't work any more. There's no symmetry anywhere.

Whenever the combat possibilities are divided by 3 the possibilities are... unfortunate.

Consider the situation you described, in which there is physical and mental attacks that are themselves divided into special attacks and damaging attacks.
That means that any time you invest in magical defense, you have to invest 2 points to stop any particular one point of investment in whacking you (since there are two attack categories and they are only using one).

Nope. 6 stats doesn't work. It's definitionally unbalanced.

-Username17

[Catharz_Godsfoot]

1108191775[/unixtime]]
Of course, if you meant "attack" to mean "damage/soak" - then I apologize.

Yep, that was basically it
And I realize that that is basically the system you proposed 6 pages back.

The Damage/Soak as opposed ability checks seems both logical and balanced.

But I'm not sure if it woulden't be better to force all of the dice on the defender. Sure, it takes some of the fun out of a great attack roll, but having a base attack rating that the defender rolls both dodge and soak against seems a bit more streamlined (and less random).

1108191775[/unixtime]]Sure, the skill numbers don't actually have to correspond to an actual bonus. And the skills could just be completely the whole numerical bonus altogether.

The only thing you gain from having a separate Tinker and Perception skill is the abilty to have a discrepency between your spot and your disable device if that's what you wanted to do. But assuming you wanted that, you have to ask yourself what the stats themselves grant you.

That's more complicated. Mostly it gives the game the option of having some tests be "narrower" in range. That is, a normal roll is going to be stat + skill, which means that the maximum divergence between two characters is equal to the maximum divergence allowed on skills plus the max divergence allowed on stats. If you whipped out a straight stat or straight skill roll, it would have less potential for difference because only one of the two sources of difference would be added into the mix.

In short, it allows you to have some tests which allow a difference of +/-8 and other tests that allow a difference of +/-4 instead. Or 4 and 2, whatever. Heck, you could have a max diff on stats be +/-2 and the max diff on skills be +/-4 (or vice versa), and then you could have opposed tests that were +/-2, +/-4, or +/-6 depending upon what you wanted in the way of discrepency between a character geared for the test and a character specialized in another field of endeavor.

So it's not the stats provide nothing in such a situation over having skills alone. It's that what they provide is kind of subtle and weird - it's the ability to narrow down how random you want any particular action to be.

-Username17

My intention was not that skill numbers would be removed from any numerical bonus, but that skill numbers would be removed from combat bonuses. If (counter to what you stated) a system without caps (relative or otherwise) had combat rolls based on skills, the divergence as levels increased would become stupidly huge. Like, giving a wizard the choice between BAB or spell DC stupidly huge.

So, if the knight wants to remember the name of a powerful king of old, he rolls a Knight skill check modified by Int. But if he wants to joust, he simply makes a Str roll against his enemy, using the Knight skill's 'Unhorse' attack option.

And ya, chances are that Gandalf won't dump many points into strength, and will therefore be fairly easy to unhorse. Except Gandalf still put points into dexterity, which will at least count for something against a mounted knight.

And having ability scores be anything but the bonus they provide is absurd.

If you really want to incapacitate a foe through ability damage, you lower their ability bonus until they can no longer sucessfully make such DC 0 checks as 'crawl 4 inches.'

[Murtak]

1108229541[/unixtime]]

You might have the classical DnD abilities

Not just no. Hell no. With six abilities, it doesn't work any more. There's no symmetry anywhere.

Whenever the combat possibilities are divided by 3 the possibilities are... unfortunate.

That depends on what you want your system to do. If you insist any random list of abilities being worth the same, then you will have to work with binary components. If you just want every ability to be valuable to every character then you can work with more, you just have to keep in mind that you are giving a boost to specialized characters that you will have to equalize somehow.

My point was not to use a system of 3s anyways - it was that you can avoid dump stats by giving every ability a defensive use, something you can not do by giving every ability an offensive use.

[RandomCasualty]

1108229541[/unixtime]]
Gygja the Knight:
Magic Attack: +0
Magic Defense: +2
Physical Attack: +4
Physical Defense: +2

....

If Magic Attack, Magic Defense, Physical Attack and Physical Defense are all transferable, the correct answer is to put all of those points into your favorite attack - because anything else you spend points on is only going to be used half the time.

So what would happen in this paradigm if defenses cost half of an attack, so one attack point gives you 2 points to spend on defenses. If defenses are right only half the time, does it fix anything to make them also half price?

[Username17]

So what would happen in this paradigm if defenses cost half of an attack, so one attack point gives you 2 points to spend on defenses. If defenses are right only half the time, does it fix anything to make them also half price?

Then we take all the "Magic Warriors" out in the back and shoot them right in the face.

The Berserker has a PhysAtt of +8, the Defense Lord has MagDef and PhysDef of +8 - so they are balanced against each other. But the "Even Steven" character has only attacks of +2 and Defenses of +4 - so whatever he does, he's getting kicked in the nuts. Both the Berserker and the Defender have a +4 relative bulge on him.

There's just no way that spending points on two or more kinds of attack can be fair if you only make one attack at a time. We could balance "attack vs. defense" by making "defense" cheaper by a factor equal to the number of possible attack types that can be sent against them - but fundamentally there's just no way to make investiture in magical offense a good deal when you already have axe proficiency.

Mag vs. Phys is balanced. But MagAtt vs. PhysAtt is not.

-Username17

[Murtak]

1108242336[/unixtime]]
So what would happen in this paradigm if defenses cost half of an attack, so one attack point gives you 2 points to spend on defenses. If defenses are right only half the time, does it fix anything to make them also half price?

Nope. Fast example:

Character 1
Red Attack 2
Blue Attack 2
Red Defense 4
Blue Defense 4
(total +8)

Character 2
Red Attack 8
Blue Attack 0
Red Defense 0
Blue Defense 0
(total +8)

Character 3
Red Attack 4
Blue Attack 0
Red Defense 0
Blue Defense 8
(total +8)

1 attacks 2 at +2, 2 attacks 1 at +4
1 attacks 3 at +2, 3 attacks 1 at +0
2 attacks 3 at +4, 3 attacks 2 at +8

[RandomCasualty]

1108249149[/unixtime]]
Mag vs. Phys is balanced. But MagAtt vs. PhysAtt is not.

Hmm, yeah, I see. Your way is probably the best in terms of balancing stats.

Though is there any way to end up with more damage types aside from just magical and physical? Only two types feels pretty limiting.

What about a set up with a universal "attack" stat and several defense stats. Where your character abilities simply decide how you use your universal attack stat. Like if you were a swordsman, attack would represent your sword ability, and if you were a wizard, it would be your magic attack and so on?

[Murtak]

That works as long as there is no way to transfer points from your attack stat to your defense stats or vice-versa.

[Username17]

What about a set up with a universal "attack" stat and several defense stats. Where your character abilities simply decide how you use your universal attack stat. Like if you were a swordsman, attack would represent your sword ability, and if you were a wizard, it would be your magic attack and so on?

Well, in order to be balanced, everyone would just have to have the same attack stat, which would just be your "power level". As such, you couldn't have a defensive specialist and I don't see any way to balance a charcater who had "sword and fire magic" options.

But most damningly, I think, is that everyone would distribute their defense bonuses however they wanted, so combat would always just involve using your attacks essentially at random until one of them worked pretty well. I'd much prefer a system in which you could intuit the fact that someone was weak to swording because they relied upon non-sword attacks preferentially.

Though is there any way to end up with more damage types aside from just magical and physical? Only two types feels pretty limiting.

Well, two damage modes doesn't mean that you only have two damage types. Your physical damage can still be "iron" or "fire" or "poison" - it's not really important save that your physical damage is soaked with a strength-roll. You could have a theoretically unlimited amount of elements as long as you have relatively open access to every type of damage - and the magical elements of damage come in the same number of flavors as the physical flavors.

Now as to how to set up elemental resistance, there are a couple of options:

[*] Slot Limitations: At any given time you can only have resistance/immunity to a specific and finite number of elemental types.

[*] Opposition: Getting resistance/immunity to one element specifically also gives you vulnerability to another.

You can explain it any way you want. Perhaps Fire and Cold oppose each other, or Water beats Fire while Fire beats Wood. Or maybe you can only get resistance by getting a patron element. Or maybe you can't benefit from more than 3 blessings. Or perhaps the material of your armor determines the set of elemental resistances you have. Or whatever.

---

Because it is otherwise a pain in the ass, I suggest that all the elemental types of physical damage be the same types of magical attack. That's why I am talking about having "Physical Fire" and "Mental Fire" - sure you could reclassify the Mental Fire as "Fear" that people could be separately immune to or something - the fact is that the road of too many damned damage types produces too many damned damage types to keep track of.

I find that seven elements and the physical/mental dichotomy to keep track of is pushing the limit of too many. As to whether to put it in a couple of wheels or just give explicit limits of the number of resistances you can have - it's not game mechanically important and I don't have much of a preference.

-Username17

[User3]

1108325155[/unixtime]]That's why I am talking about having "Physical Fire" and "Mental Fire" - sure you could reclassify the Mental Fire as "Fear" that people could be separately immune to or something - the fact is that the road of too many damned damage types produces too many damned damage types to keep track of.

I find that seven elements and the physical/mental dichotomy to keep track of is pushing the limit of too many. As to whether to put it in a couple of wheels or just give explicit limits of the number of resistances you can have - it's not game mechanically important and I don't have much of a preference.

-Username17

Its funny how much this sounds like my Traditional Chinese medicine class: Liver fire ascending though the heart disturbs the Shen, etc.

A system of two types of 'attacks' that are represented as Yin or Yang (The body's Fire or Water), acting upon the body as different 'elements' (which are completely metaphorical), and affecting certain "organs" (like the "Triple-burner") which are specifically vulnerable to certain elements (Yin or Yang) based on what they do.

It may seem odd to the uninitiated, but is actually a science based around balancing gameplay, and works amazingly well and accurately while remaining basically simple. No errata needed

[Username17]

So anyway, the elements that anyone has ever used are:

Fire
Water
Air
Earth
Life
Spirit
Void
Metal
Wood
Cold
Thought
Darkness
Light
Death

---

That's collectively way too fvcking many types of elements. So my method is going to cut it down to seven:

Air
Earth
Water
Fire
Life
Death
Void

And each of those are going to correspond to materials and a type of mental trickery and a type of energy damage. Void is Iron. Water is Silver. And so on and so forth. But how to assign the various elemental resistances is somewhat difficult.

Option 1:
We hand out elemental resistances like a separate set of skill points, only we don't actually require people to distribute them in any particular way. If someone wants to be damned near immune to Fire, they just put most of their resistance points into one pile. Hopefully, such characters are going to figure out enough tricks based on setting themselves on Fire to make up for the fact that enemies are going to preferentially switch off of Fire attacks after the first round, so less than 1/7th of the enemy attacks are actually going to be fire based.

Option 2:
We hand out a fixed limit of how many resistances you can have based on specific slots. For example: everyone can gain one resistance from their armor-material, and another resistance from whatever the defensive charm you have is, and another resistance from your patron element that is just on all the time. So each character would be expected to have specific resistance to 3 out of the 7 elements at any given time.

Option 3:
We put up a color wheel of sorts. If you want resistance to Wood, you automatically get vulnerability to Iron. If you want resistance to Fire, you automatically gain vulnerability to Silver. And so on and so on. In such a system there's probably no limit to the number of resistances that could be handed out.

Things to keep in mind:

I want to be able to set up Werewolves with essentially vulnerability to Silver and Claws - which means that their relative Water and Life resistance should be like way honkin low compared to their other resistances.

I want things to be relatively simple.

Obviously, those two design goals are at odds with each other. If Resistance is just a tag and provides a +5 bonus to soak (or whatever), that's way simpler than if you distribute some number of points. But it also means that the werewolf is going to be described as having 5 separate resistances. And that's more than I want PCs to be able to figure out how to get. It's a problem.

-Username17

[Dragon_Child]

Do PCs and NPC monsters really need to use the same resistance mechanic? Can't we have stuff like "If you're a werewolf, you get +5 to all resistances except Water and Life," and worry about the cost of it for a PC later? I mean, for most of the unplayable stuff (mindlessly evil, demons, etc) it really doesn't seem like it would matter.

For the options, I think you should combine all three. You gain a number of reistance points, to distribute as you see fit. Then, you'd either:

1) Get a number of weakness points to distribute (so your PC could be strong vs fire and weak vs death, for whatever reason you want)

2) Gain a weakness based on your resistance (for every 2 points in fire, you suffer -1 water defense)

3) Both (Put two into fire with an automatic -1 in water, then put another -1 wherever).


After this, you'd be able to make armors to add to your resistances relatively commonly.

Get what I mean? Too complicated?


If you do decide to go with opposites, what's the opposite of Void?

[RandomCasualty]

I kind of like combining the options too.

Your normal base innate resistances should be point based. Since your attack types are fairly arbitrary, your resistances can be arbitrary too, so there's really no need to worry why one character can't be harmed by a steel sword but dies easily to a silver one when he's a human. So just let people put their points where they want.

Slot based resistances should just apply to magic items and PCs pretty much, or the rare item using monster.

The opposition wheel should apply to buff based resistances. That is you can cast protection from fire, to increase their fire resistance but it makes them weaker to water a similar amount. That would prevent buff stacking from really doing anything that bad.

I'm not really sure how you'd end up doing werewolves well, I think you'd almost have to go wtih Dragon_Child's suggestion and just use a separate mechanic for monsters you dont' expect PCs to play.

[virgil]

What does Iron/Void do that makes people distrustful of it, only deigning to use it because it's that useful?

[Bigode]

In fact, it'd be interesting to know what the other elements represent too - I don't remember seeing it explained in full.

[virgil]

I think a friend of mine asked what element electricity would go under in this arrangement; air because of its source? void because of the possible creation through technology and its origins are inexplicable? fire because that's what happens to things that are struck by it (and Aristotle stated it's a burning wind created by thunder)? life because it's what's needed to make Frankenstein's monster? death because normally that's the only form people generally saw it in (as lightning)?

EDIT: And another thing. What does a practitioner of void magic do? It can't be swordsmanship, because knowing how to swing a sword can be done with bronze as well as iron. Is it just carrying around iron? This could be answered partially if I understood what makes iron so distrusted, except for the Scrap Heap.

[Bigode]

I think a friend of mine asked what element electricity would go under in this arrangement; air because of its source? void because of the possible creation through technology and its origins are inexplicable? fire because that's what happens to things that are struck by it (and Aristotle stated it's a burning wind created by thunder)? life because it's what's needed to make Frankenstein's monster? death because normally that's the only form people generally saw it in (as lightning)?

I'd say fire (in part due to the metal being gold).

EDIT: And another thing. What does a practitioner of void magic do? It can't be swordsmanship, because knowing how to swing a sword can be done with bronze as well as iron. Is it just carrying around iron? This could be answered partially if I understood what makes iron so distrusted, except for the Scrap Heap.

Seems like it's cursing and stealth - D&D warlock stuff.

[Blicero]

I really like a lot of the ideas that Frank put forward in this thread. I'm curious, does anyone have any experience with a skill system like the one he proposes? That is, one where there is a very limited number of skills and a much larger system or talents and proficiencies?

I'm probably going to use this setup for my second Heartbreaker, and here is what I have so far regarding skills.

I decided to have three skills per attribute instead of two, which go as follows. (Regarding attributes, Brawn is PhysDef, Agility is PhysAttk, Cunning is McAttk, and Moxie is McDef.)

Endurance (Br): lifting, dragging, going without sustenance, surviving in extreme temperatures
Athletics (Br): running, jumping, swimming, climbing
Intimidation (Br): Being scary for a purpose

Stealth (Ag): sneakysneakysneakysneaky
Combat (Ag): punching, stabbing, slicing, crushing, grappling
Precision (Ag): Ranged attacks and other precise-y things

Persuasion (Cu): Aggressive negotiations, deception, languages
Craft (Cu): Making things out of other things
Devices (Cu): Making things that have been made out of other things cease to work

Perception (Mo): both of the mental and physical variety
Expression (Mo): artsyfartsy stuff, leadership
Wild Empathy (Mo): Talking to the animals



Also, I wonder if disease and decay might be better suited to an association with Death magic, and Void could get illusions, as both iron and illusions are artificial and unnatural.

[RobG]

It looks like this this thread is being bumped every leap year.

We'll see in 2016..

[Whatever]

(Regarding attributes, Brawn is PhysDef, Agility is PhysAttk, Cunning is McAttk, and Moxie is McDef.)

Please scroll up to one of Frank's earlier posts on this page, to see the math behind why this is a terrible idea.

[Blicero]

(Regarding attributes, Brawn is PhysDef, Agility is PhysAttk, Cunning is McAttk, and Moxie is McDef.)

Please scroll up to one of Frank's earlier posts on this page, to see the math behind why this is a terrible idea.

Yeah, I honestly don't know why I used those incorrect labels for my attributes. My intention for assigning attribute associations has always been what is outlined in this thread.