RPG design flowchart:
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=31521
FrankTrollman wrote:This is in reference to the perplexing morass that the 40k design thread got to. Here's a step by step of designing a game.
Name the PCs
In D&D the characters are called a "party", which stands for "war party" and it colors the entire system. In Shadowrun it's a "Team", in Vampire it's a "coterie". If you name the PCs a "squad", a "pack", or whatever, it matters.
Step 2: Write up a Six Person Party
Seriously. Using words, not numbers, write up a six person party. Think about what each character contributes to the story, to the action, to completion of mission objectives.
- Does everyone have something to do? If not, start over.
Remember that it is entirely possible that you'll have 6 players or more at the table. If there is a structural impediment to the way you've designed the character "classes" such that you can't fit six players into a whole where each contributes, it's not going to work as an RPG.
Step 3: Write up a Three Person Party
Again, using words not numbers outline a group of potential player characters. Only now you've only got three characters to work with. Think about how the group can respond to challenges and complete mission objectives.
- Is there a talent critical to the group's success that that is missing from the group you've outlined? If so, start over.
Remember that people don't show up sometimes. Also, some games are small. If the game can't survive without a full team, it can't survive.
Step Four: Outline an Adventure
Using words, not numbers or mechanics, outline an adventure. Block it out in terms of time. Figure that you have somewhere between 2 and 6 hours. Any discussions that happen "in character" are resolved slower than real time. Any tactical combat is likewise resolved in much less than real time. Travel is handled almost instantly unless you make players describe in detail that they are "looking for traps/ambushes/their ass with both hands" - in which case it takes practically forever.
- Are there substantial blocks of time that one or more characters have nothing to add to the situation? If so, start over.
- If you use major "mini-games" such as puzzle solving or tactical combat, is every character able to contribute significantly to these mini-games? If not, are these mini-games extremely short? If the answer to both questions is no, start over.
If you have a tactical combat mini-game (or the equivalent) that takes up a significant amount of the overall game it will inevitably become the benchmark by which a character's worth is measured. Characters who don't measure up... don't measure up.
Players who don't have anything meaningful or valued for their characters to do will wander off and play computer games.
Step Five: Write out a campaign
It doesn't have to span years of epic tales or any of that crap, but it does need to have a story arc and outline a potential advancement scheme as you envision it.
- Does everyone have a roughly equivalent available advancement scheme? It's OK if noone advances during the campaign or even if negative advancement accumulates as people run out of ammunition and get injured. But if you envision some players going on to become a world dominating sorcerer lord and the other characters becoming better dog trainer - start over.
It's really frustrating when one player is flying around fighting gods and other characters are not. It really isn't better if the game ends up that way than if the players start off with that kind of disparity.
Step Six: Choose a Base System
Based on your previous work, consider what base system would best correspond to what it is that you're doing. There are a lot of game systems that you just plug numbers into (d20, HERO, SAME, BESM, etc. and whatever); there are a number of other systems which work fine for what they do and can be adapted to whatever it is that you want to do (Shadowrun, Feng Shui, WFRP, Paranoia, etc.). Consider the play dynamics and character distinctions that you want and the limitations of the system in question. If you want some characters picking up and throwing cars, d20 doesn't work. If you want all the characters at roughly human strength, HERO doesn't work.
- If you intend the game to have a high and permanent lethality rate? If so, start over if your system takes a long time to generate characters.
- Can you figure out how to model all the abilities that characters need to fulfill your concept in your system? If not, start over.
Step Seven: Do the Math
Once you've got this going, you can do the laborious, but not difficult task of actually plugging numbers in to generate the abilities you've concepted.
- Run the numbers. Have the numbers you've generated actually provided you with a reasonable chance of producing the story arcs you're looking for? If not, start over.
- Check yourself against the Random Number Generator. If high values that are achievable within the campaign can't lose to the low numbers also available in the campaign, you don't actually have a "game" at that point you just have "I win" - is that OK for the situations it comes up in? If not...
-Username17
So when 4e came down the pipe, one of the things they promised that the math would "just work". And of course, we now know that was a lie, but it was a good lie, because it turned out to be what a lot of people wanted to hear. Because frankly, doing the math to check to see whether a particular giant spider is going to eat the party or get taken down is hard. And it's also time consuming, and not really what most DMs want to do. What they really want is to be able to grab a monster from the monster book and use it as-is according to the level guidelines and know that the PCs are going to have a kind of tough time and still come out on top. And that in turn gives Mister Cavern more time to worry about shit like NPC personalities, maps, backstory, clues, and world interaction. And that's good, because that other stuff is really important and the game can't necessarily help Mister Cavern deal with it, save by freeing up their time spent on other stuff.
Now, unfortunately your system has to be used by actual humans, and humans kind of suck at arithmetic and risk assessment. The average human simply stalls out when asked to do repeated math functions - even if they are simple addition. And players will be straight up confused when their character doesn't live through something that they had a 90% chance of living through... even after attempting it ten times in a row. So with that in mind, here are some math don'ts:
But there's another thing about level appropriate challenges that is only tangentially about the math. People fucking hate it when you tell them that a Level 8 character should be climbing a DC 23 wall. They have no problem at all being told that an Ice Wall is DC 23 Wall and is appropriate for an 8th level character. The 4e difficulty system would have offended people even if it had provided usable DCs, simply because the presentation of those DCs was offensive. Difficulties need to be task oriented rather than level oriented or no tasks you compete will ever feel at all meaningful.
-Username17
Now, unfortunately your system has to be used by actual humans, and humans kind of suck at arithmetic and risk assessment. The average human simply stalls out when asked to do repeated math functions - even if they are simple addition. And players will be straight up confused when their character doesn't live through something that they had a 90% chance of living through... even after attempting it ten times in a row. So with that in mind, here are some math don'ts:
- Don't use fractions. I once had this alternate save system where people added 2/5 or 3/5 to their saves each level so that good and bad save progressions would add up - it was mathematically kind of pretty but it was a complete cluster fuck. As Mister Cavern I had to redo everyone's save bonuses every level. People just couldn't wrap their heads around adding .4s to things at all. So I don't give a fuck how nice the math comes out adding some kind of fraction to things, just don't do it. Whole numbers only unless you want players to look at you like lost lambs every time they have to interact with the numbers.
- Always use linear addition. For various reasons it is sometimes necessary to have a big bonus at the beginning of a progression and then a more measured bonus after that. It may be tempting to add these bonuses in some kind of logarithmic fashion or to have bonuses add up to arbitrary values that are then cross referenced to a table or to add half of subsequent bonuses or whatever. Do not succumb to this temptation, because that kind of shit paralyzes people. Players have enough problems adding 4 and 3, the moment you ask them to add 5 and half of 4 they are drooling vegetables.
- Don't let numbers get too large. It is a fact of mathematics that numbers raised to an exponent have the same relation as numbers that are lowered by the same exponent. That you could have perfectly identical mathematical relationships between levels by constantly raising things to the same exponent. And that shit works just fine in a computer game. But humans lose track of numbers when they get big. Dong repeated subtraction from a 3 digit number is hard for people, and doing repeated subtraction from a 4 digit number might as well be pushing Sisyphus's rock. Sometime try watching a Mister Cavern deal with an epic level Solo against a group of PCs, it's hilarious, yet also faintly sad.
- The numbers have to start large enough that they can get smaller. Player characters can't really start in the AD&D "single hit die" crowd, because it is sometimes game mechanically relevant for there to be children or cats. Basically this means that a first level character who begins life with less than 10 hit points or so feels ridiculous in the face of potential hazards that are supposed to be substantially weaker than they are (like familiars or poisonous snakes).
- Numbers actually shouldn't diverge very much as levels continue to rise. This is not to say that an 8th level character has to take shit from a 4th level character, but that two 8th level rogues need to have fairly similar abilities with lock opening for an "8th level lock" to have much meaning.
- Numbers should be pretty tight at 1st level too. The entire RNG is only 20 points long, so the days of a Halfling Rogue getting +5 for Dex, +5 for Skill Training, +2 for Racial Bonus and +3 for Skill Focus at 1st level while a Dwarven Fighter gets a -1 Dex modifier to the same task really has to end. Any task that players within the same party are expected to all perform, need to be relatively tight in total bonus one to another.
- Any ability gained at any level needs to be competitive at the level they have it. Which in turn means that abilities need to either go obsolete or stay numerically competitive in a predictable fashion.
- And finally, characters need to be different one from another. Despite the fact that them diverging much is what makes the game fall apart and the math stop "just working" - it is precisely the existence of the difference at all that makes one character feel different from another. Players seriously do want their characters to have a different Sneaking bonus than another character.
But there's another thing about level appropriate challenges that is only tangentially about the math. People fucking hate it when you tell them that a Level 8 character should be climbing a DC 23 wall. They have no problem at all being told that an Ice Wall is DC 23 Wall and is appropriate for an 8th level character. The 4e difficulty system would have offended people even if it had provided usable DCs, simply because the presentation of those DCs was offensive. Difficulties need to be task oriented rather than level oriented or no tasks you compete will ever feel at all meaningful.
-Username17
Oh, crap like True20 and E20 work like that.Koumei wrote:I'm still surprised no-one was dumb enough to make some kind of "Make a (skill) check instead of an attack roll!" (bonus points for Diplomancy) Feat/feature. I mean, we already have skills for saves (Samurai getting Concentration for Ref saves), though the impact of that tends to not be too bad, skills as spellcasting power (True Naming/Epic Spellcasting, precisely as bad as anyone should be able to predict) and the occasional weird thing like Perform checks for damage (no-one actually gives a shit in this instance).
True. In fact, let's make this math needlessly complicated so as to demonstrate how not that hard this actually is.Awesome. Because to quote the girl in that comic, Math is haaaaaard.
Besides, it involves showing up Mearls and those other useless twats. And spite is basically the driving force for 70% of all stuff produced on the Den.
OK, the first thing you have to do is figure out what stats do to your skill numbers. The obvious answer of course, is "nothing". And indeed to just jettison stats altogether as a bad job. A character who is skilled in sneaking can have the level of that skill determine what level they sneak at, and there is no compelling reason why being good at archery should change the value of your skill level. Attributes could be quite profitably dropped completely from the system to b replaced by feat-like things or they could be left only as defaults, that are completely replaced by larger skill modifiers for trained characters.
But let's say for the moment that we're going with an AD&Desque model, where attributes exist, but the bonuses they provide are in fact quite small. Maybe +1 or +2 to various tests, like the old days and disregarding great strength. Maybe this is done with attribute tags (where you would either have "strong" or you would not, but you wouldn't have an actual strength score). But you could also do it seriously old school, where having a Dexterity of 15+ gave you a +1 modifier. These days I'm honestly leaning towards the tag system because it better incorporates access to Herculean and Hulk strength levels - for fuck's sake a genuine strong man has a strength of like thirty something according to the lift rules in Essentials.
Anyway, it's not super important. Because one way or the other you're basically either getting a +1 or +2 bonus or you aren't for being strong or fast of some shit. Thereafter, you have proficiencies that negate a -4 penalty, and you have focuses, that provide a +3 bonus. Other than that, it's all your level bonus. And yes, that means that the difference between someone who is untrained and someone who is fully tweaked out in training will be nine points. And that's most of the RNG. But more importantly, it since Proficiencies are very easy to get and people will usually consider something they lack proficiency in to be something they "can't do" the real difference between someone who invested heavily in doing something and someone who is doing something because their main schticks are inoperable for whatever reason is going to be "only" 5 points. And yeah, that's still a lot. And it's going to get even worse because players are going to get their grubby hands on +2 equipment bonuses eventually, but hopefully by that time characters should have enough focused abilities to be usually doing something that their character "does" and the numbers are going to narrow to +4 for a character with super strength and a magic sword vs. a character with neither.
So anyway, mostly to show that we can, we're going to split level progressions into three categories:
- Highly level dependent stuff rises at +2/level. Athletics and Macguyvering advance like this.
- Moderately level dependent stuff rises at +1/level. Attacks and Perception advance like this.
- Minimally level dependent stuff rises at +1/ 2 levels. Diplomancy and Craft advance like this.
So we're starting with default assumptions of Defenses in the 10 range, modified for level and possibly with those stat bonuses. Meaning that at first level you swing a sword and your bonus is going to be between +1 and +6, and your target has a defense DC between 11 and 13. At 10th level, you'll likely have magic weapons and protection, and your attack bonus will be between +15 and +17, while your defense DC will be between 22 and 24. So you can't quite tell 1st level enemies to completely fuck off until the double digits of level.
So here are some Athletics DCs:
| Challenge | DC | Is Easy For Level | Is Hard For Level |
| Climb Tree | 8 | 1 | - |
| Climb Stone Wall | 18 | 6 | 1 |
| Climb Smooth Stone | 20 | 7 | 2 |
| Climb Doom Tree | 30 | 12 | 7 |
| Climb Blood Fountain | 35 | 14 | 9 |
| Climb Rain | 40 | 16 | 11 |
Meanwhile, Diplomancy is almost completely situation dependent at all levels. Being a silver tongued character with a Dipomancy Focus has you walk in with a +5, and by level 10 you have a +10. DCs basically don't really need to move, you just encounter things with the -5 to talking "Hellspawn" trait now and then at 10th level and call it a day.
Now the part where things go apeshit is damage and hit points. This shit is hard, because it's not just a level treadmill with DCs and bonuses chasing each other Red Queen style at some rate or another. Instead, you're trying to keep the damage roll relevant (rolling a d8 +25 is lame sauce, and even 2d4+1 the roll scarcely matters at all if your enemies have 10 hit points). And you're trying to keep the number of attacks per target manageable. And you're trying to keep the numbers getting bigger, and you're putting more enemies on the table and dumping bigger area attacks, and so on.
So while it's tempting to just give everyone a static pile of hit points and add your level to attack damage and subtract it from incoming damage, that's probably not what people want. It is actually desirable for the relative amount of damage that a monster "of your level" inflicts on you drops as you go up in level. Not nearly as much as in 4e of course, because we'll eventually have to go to bed and eat food and just don't have time to wait for 4e fights to finish.
So here is an example of a projection of potential PC toughness against the damage output from a level appropriate minion, skirmisher, or elite. The idea is that Skirmishers have a high damage output relative to their toughness, so players would be encouraged to engage skirmishers first. Elites would be doing the most damage, but since they would be the toughest by more, you'd still be encouraged to attack them after you took out the Minions.
| Level | Hit Points (Min/Max) | DR (Min/Max) | Minion | Skirmisher | Elite |
| 1 | 11/13 | 0/4 | 1-6 | 1-10 | 4-11 |
| 2 | 13/17 | 1/7 | 2-7 | 2-11 | 5-12 |
| 3 | 16/22 | 1/7 | 2-9 | 3-13 | 6-16 |
| 4 | 20/28 | 2/8 | 3-10 | 4-14 | 8-18 |
| 5 | 25/35 | 2/8 | 4-10 | 4-18 | 9-23 |
| 6 | 31/43 | 3/9 | 5-11 | 5-19 | 11-25 |
| 7 | 38/52 | 3/9 | 4-13 | 6-21 | 13-27 |
| 8 | 46/62 | 4/10 | 5-14 | 7-22 | 15-29 |
| 9 | 55/73 | 6/10 | 5-14 | 8-28 | 17-32 |
| 10 | 65/85 | 7/11 | 6-15 | 9-29 | 19-34 |
| 11 | 76/98 | 7/11 | 7-17 | 10-35 | 21-41 |
| 12 | 88/112 | 8/12 | 8-18 | 11-36 | 24-44 |
| 13 | 101/127 | 8/12 | 8-20 | 14-39 | 27-47 |
| 14 | 115/143 | 9/13 | 9-21 | 15-40 | 28-54 |
| 15 | 130/160 | 9/13 | 10-25 | 16-46 | 31-57 |
| 16 | 146/178 | 10/14 | 11-26 | 17-47 | 34-60 |
| 17 | 163/197 | 10/14 | 11-26 | 18-53 | 36-67 |
| 18 | 181/217 | 11/15 | 12-27 | 20-55 | 39-70 |
| 19 | 200/238 | 11/15 | 13-33 | 21-61 | 44-75 |
| 20 | 220/260 | 12/16 | 14-34 | 25-65 | 50-81 |
Now, clearly you're looking at a progression where the number of enemies on the table has to increase over time, because their damage output falls comparatively to PC defenses. A 1st level cloth wearer could seriously drop in two lucky hits from minions, but the same character could take max damage from minions nine times in a row and not fall at 20th level. So the unit of threat stops being counted in individual minions and even ends up in 10 minion packages that you might be clearing out with firestorm attacks or whatever at 20th.
All the numeric inputs are essentially arbitrary and require regression, and dare I say it - playtesting. But that's the kind of place you'd start.
-Username17
Steps of designing an RPG
Well first you need an action resolution system, then you need challenges, and then you need PCs. I'd say it's roughly that order. Sections of the PCs may be part of your writeup for action resolution (resource management, skills, action declaration, etc.), so there are definitely parts of the PC end that you can be productively working on before you get into the monsters. And many of the monster abilities are going to be PC abilities as well, which means you can get a two-for-one there.
But yeah, I think the constant consideration about whether a Barbarian should have +3 attack or +4 in the absence of minotaurs for them to be attacking is rather pointless and leads to poor decisions. This sort of methodology is what leads us to 20 level Monk classes that give all kinds of weird abilities every level but never actually get the ability to contribute meaningfully in a single level appropriate challenge at any level at all.
-Username17
But yeah, I think the constant consideration about whether a Barbarian should have +3 attack or +4 in the absence of minotaurs for them to be attacking is rather pointless and leads to poor decisions. This sort of methodology is what leads us to 20 level Monk classes that give all kinds of weird abilities every level but never actually get the ability to contribute meaningfully in a single level appropriate challenge at any level at all.
-Username17
One of the things a class based system lets you do is to have different classes have different resource management systems. This pretty much requires that the classes be segregated, because otherwise you end up like Iron Heroes where everyone has like 8 flavors of tokens and it's a giant pain in the ass. And it probably wouldn't be balanced anyway, like trying to multiclass 3e Psions and Wizards.
Different players are going to be attracted to resource management systems that are more or less complex. And that's OK. I've been thinking about how 4th edition was supposed to include a series of classes that all had different refresh mechanics and noone had spells per day and that sounds kind of awesome.
For example, you could have:
And we haven't even gotten to the "what if we also include slightly different versions for monsters?" question. I mean, if Lurkers also run tricks that have catches to activate, that's pretty much a Rogue. But presumably they'll have different actual abilities so when the it comes down to brass tacks the fact that you might want to be a Doppleganger Berserker or a Night Hag Cleric is another 34 combinations to consider. And another 34 to consider when you mix Controllers with classes because you wanted to be a Vampire Rogue or a Succubus Paladin (even if Controllers use an essentially similar cool-down mechanic to the Cleric).
Probably the best way to do it is to have the sub-class give everything on the same simple resource system no matter what the subclass actually is. And yeah, that means that if you sub-Necromancer you don't actually get to supercharge your skeletons. Because if you mix-n-match actual resource management systems for multiclass characters you're stuck with quadratic growth of fundamental resource management systems, and that's just too complicated to really playtest.
-Username17
Different players are going to be attracted to resource management systems that are more or less complex. And that's OK. I've been thinking about how 4th edition was supposed to include a series of classes that all had different refresh mechanics and noone had spells per day and that sounds kind of awesome.
For example, you could have:
Now you have 17 different resource management systems. Some are pretty similar to one another, and others are really different. But 17 is a number you could potentially give an honest playtest to. Maybe you'd skimp on it, but it's certainly possible. But if you had people pick two? Now you're talking 272 different resource management system overlaps to think about (136 if we're doing AD&D-style multiclassing and the "order" doesn't matter). There's no fucking way you're going to be able to playtest all that shit. I mean, just on first principles I would expect the Berserker to synergize really well with the Cleric's Patience (pray until the spirits don't want to hear from you and then spend the fury you've built up on beating the crap out of people until your prayers come back online) and the Hero to synergize really well with the Elementalist (gamble on a good channeling roll and if it doesn't work out, default to a guaranteed feat effect). But without playtesting I couldn't begin to tell you which is better to layer in as the "dominant" class.10KF, Classes wrote:The Assassin
"He is a man who would be greatly improved by death."
Precision
An Assassin's special maneuvers require delicate placement and precise timing. In order to gain the precision required they must spend a certain amount of time aiming, plotting, and gauging possibilities. The action is called "plotting", and can be of variable length. An Assassin may spend a minor, move, or full-round action plotting to build up precision against a single specific target they can see (or otherwise perceive), after which they may use any of their maneuvers that have that much precision minimum or less. The plotting action can be combined with drawing or loading a weapon, but not with moving. Crossbows and poison use are popular among Assassins in no small part because they can spend a move action plotting while still loading their weapon. An Assassin who targets any other creature than the target of their plot loses any built-up precision. If an Assassin has precision against a target and that target leaves their line of sight, all the precision is lost.
The Berserker
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
Fury
A Berserker fights by drawing upon deep reserves of strength, which are chaneled through pain, fear, and rage. As the Berserker takes damage or attacks foes, they gain fury. The Berserker can then spend their fury to activate their abilities. Fury is physically exhausting, and whenever a Berserker gains even one point of fury they will become fatigued five minutes later, whether they still have that fury or not.
Cleric
"I speak for powers that be. If thou resistesth me, thou resisteth them."
Patience
A Cleric's magic is drawn from sources mystical and ancient. They may be gods or vestiges of ideals and titans long forgotten. But whatever the source, it is a source that does not have limitless patience for a Cleric's requests for aid. Whenever a Clerical prayer invokes a magical effect, that prayer cannot be used for a certain amount of time afterward. The patience limit is different for different prayers, and how recently one prayer has been used does not affect how long another one will become unusable after it is next called upon.
The Druid
"When we have learned to listen to trees, to mountains, to the sky itself, we will have learned to listen to ourselves."
Spirits
Druids have special relationships with totemic spirits. Each spirit represents some totemic ideal such as "Oak" or "Thunder". When a Druid calls to the spirits as a minor action, one of them will answer. Which one answers is randomly determined from among those that the Druid has a pact with each call. Each spirit has powers that it makes available to the Druid until the beginning of the Druid's next turn. As a Druid rises in level, the powers that each totem spirit provide are enhanced.
The Elementalist
"There is not anything that returns to nothing, but all things dissolved into their elements."
Channeling
Every Elementalist draws power from two elements, but the strength of their connection to these forces ebbs and flows. The process of attempting to get as much elemental power as possible is called channeling. Each turn, an Elementalist may spend a minor action to channel, and in doing so rolls one die for each of their elements (either rolled in sequence or rolling dice of two different colors to represent the two elements). At first level, those dice are d4s, but as Elementalists become more powerful they roll larger dice. An Elementalist rolls a d6 for each element at level 3, a d8 for each element at level 5, a d10 for each element at level 7, and a d12 for each element at level 9. Powers within an element are ordered and can be activated only if the Elementalist has channeled enough power in that element on that round. If an Elementalist of Fire and Air channels a 2 for Fire and a 3 for Air, they may activate an Air power of rank 3 or less and activate a Fire power of rank 1 or 2.
If an Elementalist elects not to channel on a turn, they may still use rank 1 powers of their elements. Elementalists may channel while they are not in combat, and by taking ten rounds to channel, may guaranty a maximum result, allowing them to use any power available to them given time.
The Elements
Understanding the ways of magic and the formation of the universe is notoriously difficult and is often considered to be amongst the "big questions" that will never truly be answered. At different times in history, schools of thought have pinned the number of elements at four or five, differing markedly as to what those were. Current magical theory includes space for seven elements, merely collecting all the non-overlapping elements from the magical books of fallen empires and ancient cities. There is no reason to believe that future elementalists will not discover more.
The Enchanter
"There are those who call me..."
Discharge
An Enchanters magic is imbued into objects or people over a period of several minutes. While a spell is charged into something it provides an ongoing benefit. A charged sword might make the wielder slightly stronger or a charged belt might make the wielder slightly tougher, for example. When an enchanter sets up a charge, they choose a buff effect and a spell effect. At a later point in time, an Enchanter may discharge their spell into something in line of sight of the charged item by spending a standard action while they are within line of sight of the charge (both the Enchanter and the target must be in line of sight of the charged item, but they need not be in line of sight of each other). When the spell is discharged, it takes effect but the item is no longer charged and no longer provides any special benefit. As an Enchanter goes up in level, the number of charges they may have going simultaneously increases.
The Hero
"The people who we fight have heroes of their own. Let's hope ours are better."
Feats
A Hero's feats can be used at any time, any number of times, and in any order. Any feat the Hero has learned can be used at will.
The Illusionist
"Of course it's an illusion. What good does that knowledge do you?"
Spell Preparation
An Illusionist can prepare a number of spells into their spell slots by spending five minutes with a spell book getting their tricks ready. Each spell can be used once before the next time the Illusionist prepares spells.
The Marshal
"Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none."
Tide of Battle
A Marshal is at their best when they see an opportunity and seize it. During the swirl of melee or the clashing of arms, it is virtually impossible to predict what opportunities might arise. Maybe an ogre will stumble out of position, allowing an ally to slip behind it if the opening is called to their attention, maybe an ally will be in harm's way of the ogre's hammer unless a timely warning is called out. A Marshal could give any orders, shout any warnings, offer the most fascile of advice. But the actual battle orders that will make a difference are entirely situational. Each turn of a battle (or other perilous situation where initiative has been rolled), a Marshal's player will randomly generate which Battle Orders are potentially useful that round at the beginning of their turn. At first level, generate a Warning, one Tactic, and one War Cry each turn. A higher level Marshal has more options at their disposal each turn. Outside of combats, Marshals may not use their Battle Orders, though they may still use Strategems.
The Monk
"We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training."
Styles
Consumate martial artists, Monks practice many forms and have several fighting styles available to them. Each style a Monk knows has associated maneuvers within it that can be used once while the style is being used. At the start of battle, a Monk may begin fighting in a specific style as a free action in their first turn, but thereafter changing or adopting a style is a full round action. A Monk is free to "change" their style into the same fighting style they were already using in order to be able to reuse maneuvers in the same combat - this represents the character adjusting their fighting style to match their opponents' adapting to the moves they've already used. Monks are fully capable of using their fighting styles outside of combat if they want to use their combat maneuvers in another context.
The Necromancer
"Life flows through all things. Where it flowed in the past, it can flow again."
Essence
A Necromancer powers their magic and imbues their minions with their own life essence. Any minion or magical power has a minimum amount of essence to function at all. If insufficient essence is placed into a power it cannot be activated and its ongoing effects are nullified until sufficient essence is placed into it again. If a necromantic minion has insufficient essence to power it, it cannot act until it gets enough essence again and is helpless in the meantime. Essence beyond the minimum can be assigned to powers and minions up to a maximum total increase in any one equal to the Necromancer's level. The Necromancer's pool can be redistributed once per round as a minor action. As a Necromancer rises in level, they have a larger pool of essence to distribute. When the Necromancer is wounded (half hit points), they lose a quarter of their essence, which if they have already allocated their essence is lost from the Necromancer's powers and minions. Lost essence returns (unallocated) if they are no longer wounded. If a Necromancer is incapacitated (zero hit points) or killed, they lose another quarter of their essence. Any minions still active after a Necromancer is slain go on an uncontrolled rampage.
The Paladin
"Courage is the greatest virtue. It allows you to stand up for all the others."
Inspiration
Paladins often throw themselves into battle with nary a heed to the consequences, because they have a purpose which is larger than they are. Though a Paladin can use their abilities an unlimited number of times per day, they have a limited number of abilities that are "ready" at any given time. Further, the Paladin relies upon the flash of divine or fanatical inspiration in battle and does not have full control over what abilities can be used at any given moment. The Paladin can change what maneuvers they have readied with five minutes of prayer and planning, but each round the Paladin randomly determines which abilities are "available" from among their readied abilities. The abilities are determined randomly at the beginning of the Paladin's turn, and continue to be available until the beginning of the character's next turn.
The Psion
"In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the mind."
Power
A Psion has a number of power points which rises as they go up in level. Manifesting a psionic discipline costs a number of power points. More potent disciplines cost more and weaker disciplines cost less. Some psionic disciplines can be manifested to a greater effect in exchange for a higher psionic point cost. For example: every target past the first affected by Nightmare World increases the power point cost. A Psion regains power points over time (1/10th of their total every minute).
The Rogue
"You have taken the bait. This is already over."
Catches
A Rogue's tricks require susceptible targets. While there is no specific limit to how often a Rogue can use their abilities, each trick has a set of requirements for when it can be used at all. These requirements are collectively called catches. If a trick's catches have been fulfilled, that ability can be used. Some tricks have multiple catches connected by "and" or "or". These are importantly different! For example: the fundamental trick "Sneak Attack" that all Rogue's have has as its catches that the proposed target must be either be flanked or impaired or be unable to detect the Rogue. If any of these three conditions are met, the Rogue can use Sneak Attack against that target. On the other hand, the defensive trick "Misdirection" has as its catches that the Rogue be threatening an enemy and be being attacked by a different enemy. In order to use Misdirection, the Rogue must fulfill both catches at the same time.
Sorcerer
"All things are linked."
Backlash
When a Sorcerer casts spells they risk being hurt by backlash. Every Sorcerer spell has a backlash number, and when a Sorcerer casts it they roll their resistance. Every point their resistance roll falls short of the backlash number, the Sorcerer takes a point of damage. Some of a Sorcerer's spells can be cast for greater effect in exchange for a higher backlash number. For example: every additional target past the first adds to the risked backlash of Chain Lightning.
The Warlock
"Everyone knows that power has a price. But I know what that price is."
Price
A Warlock's most powerful magic drains their own life energy in order to use it. A Warlock can use their cantrips and minor invocations without fear, but to use their major arcana requires that they pay a price. The prices of each major arcana are listed
The Wizard
"It's only real magic if it's still magic after you've seen how it is done."
Spell Memorization
A Wizard has a number of spell slots that they can fill with individual spells by spending an hour pouring over their spellbook. Once a spell is memorized into one of their spell slots, it can be cast an unlimited number of times until the next time the Wizard memorizes spells.
And we haven't even gotten to the "what if we also include slightly different versions for monsters?" question. I mean, if Lurkers also run tricks that have catches to activate, that's pretty much a Rogue. But presumably they'll have different actual abilities so when the it comes down to brass tacks the fact that you might want to be a Doppleganger Berserker or a Night Hag Cleric is another 34 combinations to consider. And another 34 to consider when you mix Controllers with classes because you wanted to be a Vampire Rogue or a Succubus Paladin (even if Controllers use an essentially similar cool-down mechanic to the Cleric).
Probably the best way to do it is to have the sub-class give everything on the same simple resource system no matter what the subclass actually is. And yeah, that means that if you sub-Necromancer you don't actually get to supercharge your skeletons. Because if you mix-n-match actual resource management systems for multiclass characters you're stuck with quadratic growth of fundamental resource management systems, and that's just too complicated to really playtest.
-Username17
The issue where all Paladin/Warriors play exactly the same is a big issue. You would not want it to work like that. But the way to add in character differences is to put choices into the main class, not choices into the sub class. Because you're already committing yourself to choosing a subclass off a list of classes that is 10 or more options long. If you have even two or three choices per subclass, that's a huge increase in dumpster diving for what is essentially a minor part of your character.
Let's say you're a Paladin. If you have three choices to pick from for your class, that's 3 choices. And now you pick a subclass. Let's say that we're dealing with the PHB classes and there are "only" 11 classes to choose from. That means you have ten choices for subclass. But if you had three choices per subclass, that would actually be thirty options to dumpster dive through. Variations in subclass ability options are a very much worse rate of return on actual character effect for the amount of options you have to read.
Let's say you're a Paladin. If you have three choices to pick from for your class, that's 3 choices. And now you pick a subclass. Let's say that we're dealing with the PHB classes and there are "only" 11 classes to choose from. That means you have ten choices for subclass. But if you had three choices per subclass, that would actually be thirty options to dumpster dive through. Variations in subclass ability options are a very much worse rate of return on actual character effect for the amount of options you have to read.
It absolutely would. But just like the discussions about subclassing, it's a solvable problem. It actually has several additional solutions available because it happens simultaneously with a tier shift.OgreBattle wrote:If prestige classes are shared like that it seems like the "Multiclassing & power schedule" problem would come up
- No Combat Maneuvers. In this version, becoming an Archmage or an Angel Knight or a Black Doge or whatever simply doesn't give you new combat actions at all. It comes with movement, defense, investigative, and mass-battle abilities that keep you relevant in the paragonal environment, but you still use your Hero Feats or your Paladin Prayers as normal.
- Extremely Limited Use Supermoves. in this version, when you become a Thunder Lord or a Fist of Hell you get access to supermoves that are used so rarely that the underlying equation of what proportion your superior and inferior moves are used doesn't effectively change.
- Paragon Abilities Replace Heroic Tier Abilities. In this version, you absolutely don't worry about whether the Paragon Tier classes "synergize" with the Heroic Tier classes or not, because the expectation is that the abilities you get from being a Word Bearer or War Mind are so dramatically superior to anything you could buy with Fury or Psionic Power Points that the expectation is that you simply won't use the Heroic Tier abilities.
- Paragon Abilities All Use Same Resource System. In this version, whether you're a Winter Bringer or a Gaea's Avenger you still get the same resource management system for your Paragon Tier Combat abilities. And then each base class transitions the same way every time, and so becomes an incredibly tractable balance problem. If you can manage the transition of Necromancer to Demigod, you'll have managed the transition of Necromancer to Shadow Master at the same time.
-Username17
10 levels of Same Game Tests
imagine that you decided to set some basic limits (flying archers by level 5, incorporeal enemies at level 6, instant death powers at level 7). And you make characters that can deal with those things. But now you make up a Same Game Test for the first ten levels of simple combat encounters:
Let's take the mission of "go to the bowels of the Dungeon of Doom and retrieve the sword of Clan MacGuffin". Sounds reasonable enough, right? I mean, you could put something like that at pretty much any level, depending on what the Dungeon and the Sword do. But in D&D, that "mission" expires at ninth level. Literally at ninth level the Wizard knows scry and teleport, and the party can accomplish the entire mission in downtime without really dealing with any part of the Dungeon of Doom except maybe the traps or guardians that are literally in the room with the sword in it at the very end. It's not much of a "mission" at that point, it's really more of a challenge. So if you've put anything even remotely like that at level 9 or 10, the whole Scry & Teleport setup has to be jettisoned or moved up.
Or let's consider the mission "go to the bottom of the sea and stop the Sahuagin from sacrificing princess Plot Device to the hungry maw and unleashing the Kraken". If you intend to actually release the Kraken at some point, that mission presumably goes to level 10, but if you don't, or the players can reasonably expect to call on sea elf allies to fight the Kraken with them, then that mission could be placed at any level. Thing is: you have to be able to actually go to the bottom of the sea and be able to effectively fight there (meaning that you have to be able to defeat enemies after your bows and fire have been effectively removed) at whatever level it is placed. And that's going to require a much bigger set of tweaks to character capabilities than the individual battles.
-Username17
OK, so we note that things work out that after level 6 or so the PCs can just go ahead and be flying archers themselves, because encounters that can be beaten automatically by levitation kiting are gone from the second half of the list. That's good. But we also notice that we have a bunch of other breakpoints:10KF SGT wrote:
- Battles of Level 1
- 20 Giant Spiders/Giant Rats/Snakes in a pit
- 5 Orc or Elf Warriors
- 2 Gnolls
- 10 Goblin Thugs
- 10 Zombies/Skeletons
- 5 Pixies
- 2 Worgs
- 1 Ogre
- 2 Fire Imps
- 5 Enfields
- Battles of Level 2
- A single Amphitere on the wing
- 20 giant bats
- 10 claw demons
- Swarm of bees.
- One huge Scorpion
- 10 hungry Ghouls
- 20 Vampire Thralls
- 2 Dryads
- 5 Lizardfolk soldiers
- One Giant Crab
- Battles of Level 3
- A Gargoyle comes to life.
- 2 Bears.
- 2 Alphyns
- One Ergentyne
- Five Mamuna
- A Werewolf
- 10 Tengu bandits
- 20 Brownies
- 5 Wererats
- 20 Plague Zombies
- Battles of Level 4
- A Minotaur in a confined space.
- 5 Wights
- Five Hippogryphs in flight
- Two Cockatrices
- Five Calopus
- A Vampire
- A plague of Locusts
- 20 Fang Demons
- 2 Lamias
- A Mandragora
- Battles of Level 5
- 2 Cave Bears
- 5 Harpy Archers
- 20 Red Caps
- 5 Mummies
- 2 Gamelyons
- A Cerberus Hound
- A Hydra
- 5 Griffins in flight
- A Manticore in flight
- A Troll.
- Battles of Level 6
- One Wraith in a confined space
- A horde of shadows (20) come to life and attack.
- Two Basilisks
- 5 Hill Giants
- A Hellwasp Swarm
- 5 Fu Dogs
- 2 Land Sharks
- 2 Succubi
- 5 Byakhee
- A Wyvern
- Battles of Level 7
- A spectral wizard.
- 2 Gorgons
- 5 Medusa Archers
- 5 Stone Giants
- 2 Galla
- A Golem in a confined space
- 20 Will-o-Wisps
- 2 Rakshasa
- 2 Nymphs
- One Tatzlwurm
- Battles of Level 8
- One Chimera
- One Beholder
- 10 Opinicus
- 5 Nightmares
- 5 Storm Demons
- One Naga in a confined space.
- One Vampire Lord
- 2 Erinyes
- 2 Kirin
- 20 Troglodytes in the tunnels
- Battles of Level 9
- 10 Salamanders
- One Mummy Pharaoh in a confined space.
- A Phoenix
- 2 Cthonians in the tunnels
- 2 Mind Flayers
- 1 Dragon Turtle
- 2 Asura
- 1 Death Cloud
- 5 Frost Giants
- 1 Geryon
- Battles of Level 10
- A proper Dragon
- 5 Fire Giants
- One Balrog-like Demon
- One Lich
- 20 Chaos Beasts
- 10 Serpent Fiends
- 2 Catoblepas
- 10 Elder Things
- One Kraken
- 5 Nightmare Beasts
- At level 3, monsters appear which require special weaponry to kill (like, but not not exclusively the Werewolf). We also have diseases (Werewolves again, but also plague zombies).
- While actual "death" isn't being handed out until the Gorgon's death breath at level 7, we're still dealing with petrification at level 6 (basilisk), paralysis at level 4 (cockatrice), and various charms and dominates in between. While not "dead", the character is still at the very least removed from battle by these effects.
- The fucking swarm of bees is in there at level 2. Sure, it's a not-terribly impressive real-world threat and probably belongs at first or second level, but it's essentially immune to be being killed with a sword, meaning that warrior types have to be able to do something meaningful with fire and smoke at level two.
Let's take the mission of "go to the bowels of the Dungeon of Doom and retrieve the sword of Clan MacGuffin". Sounds reasonable enough, right? I mean, you could put something like that at pretty much any level, depending on what the Dungeon and the Sword do. But in D&D, that "mission" expires at ninth level. Literally at ninth level the Wizard knows scry and teleport, and the party can accomplish the entire mission in downtime without really dealing with any part of the Dungeon of Doom except maybe the traps or guardians that are literally in the room with the sword in it at the very end. It's not much of a "mission" at that point, it's really more of a challenge. So if you've put anything even remotely like that at level 9 or 10, the whole Scry & Teleport setup has to be jettisoned or moved up.
Or let's consider the mission "go to the bottom of the sea and stop the Sahuagin from sacrificing princess Plot Device to the hungry maw and unleashing the Kraken". If you intend to actually release the Kraken at some point, that mission presumably goes to level 10, but if you don't, or the players can reasonably expect to call on sea elf allies to fight the Kraken with them, then that mission could be placed at any level. Thing is: you have to be able to actually go to the bottom of the sea and be able to effectively fight there (meaning that you have to be able to defeat enemies after your bows and fire have been effectively removed) at whatever level it is placed. And that's going to require a much bigger set of tweaks to character capabilities than the individual battles.
-Username17
Just as you need to write out not only your monster fights of each supported level, you also really do need to fill in your missions and challenges for each level. You can start with the template:
And fill that out for each level. This is the part where a lot of proposed characters are revealed to be basically BMX Bandit to be honest. I mean, if your challenge involves the door being sealed by a time distortion or the way being blocked by the vastness of space, what the fucking fuck is a "swordsman" supposed to do?10KF SGT wrote:
- Challenges of Level
- Your path is blocked by a
- The trap that is vexing you is a
- You want their help, but they want a
- The information you want is known by a
- The target is obscured by a
- The treasure is behind a
- The door is sealed by a
- To undue the curse you need a
- The clue is in a
- You're trying to track a
- Missions of Level
- Destroy the
- Find the
- Explore the
- Rescue the
- Slay the
- Defeat the
- Solve the mystery of the
- Secure the aid of the
- Defend yourselves from the
- Travel to the
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=53456&view=next
Here's a summary:
Schleiermacher's likes
-Manticore
-Displacer Beast
- Phase Spider
-Chimera
-Griffon
-Wyvern
-Rakshasa
"They have a good hit die which makes their HD/CR ratios pretty sane, they tend to be intelligent enough to use tactics even if bestial, and they generally have a clear schtick without having any glaring achilles heels. They have supernatural powers which are effective and, even more importantly, distinctive, without just having a slew of spell-like abilities for every occasion."
-Fire/Frost Giant, interesting subtypes
-Ogre, sweet spot of brutishness
"Tactically versatile due to intelligence"
Schleiermacher's dislikes
-Dragon, Outsider "Good at too many things"
-Undead, Fey, "crappy racial hitdice"
-Trolls, Hill Giants "pointless at their level"
Koumei's Likes
-Wyvern: does what you want a dragon to do without being overly complicated, templates well
-Small animated objects for annoyance
-Giant Crabs " :3"
Franktrollman's Dislikes
-Phase Spiders "Always ambush you with fatal poison that often misses, feels like a coin flip, would prefer poison to immobilize to set in tension instead of instant death"
-Fire/Frost/Stone giants "not atrocious, but lacking tactical depth for their level"
-Shadows, Trolls "Fucktarded"
Franktrollman's Likes:
-Hill Giant "beefy, strong in melee, threat at ranged
-Manticore, Chimera, Wyvern
-Willowhisp, chain devil, ettin
-Many CR 6-7 monsters are well designed
-Hullathoin (CR 15, FF) It has a lot of abilities and is actually pretty much a whole combat by itself. Between its minions and its AoEs, it can challenge a whole party, but it doesn't have the kinds of titanic numbers or instant death attacks that would make it roll over individual characters. Can work as a normal challenge at 15th level or as a major villain for a party of 11th level or higher.
-Battlebriar (CR 15, MM3) It's a big dumb brute. It has abilities that allow it to attack and threaten several characters at once. It has the numbers and immunities to stand up to a round or two of late game combat. Its real problem is that it lacks a weapon that can attack an enemy at any great distance, requiring it to show up inside some sort of greenhouse set piece or something.
-Eldritch Giant (CR 15, MM3) It's a Giant, of Huge Size. It does tolerable piles of damage, and has a fuck tonne of hit points. Nothing really interesting there. But unlike lower level Giants, it's not just bigger than the ones that come earlier, it has some tricks. At-will greater dispelling and magic missile allow it to bypass a surprising number of anti-Giant tactics, and having a big Will Save lets it bypass a bunch more. It's a Giant that is an actually different tactical puzzle, which makes it totally unlike any of the Giants from Stone to Cloud. Unfortunately, "Eldritch Giant" is a stupid name.
Ancient History's Likes
-Myconids
Wotmaniac's Likes
-Bulette (with a really nice presentation: http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs39/f/2008/ ... temare.png )
-Greenvise "I've had success with all manners of plant creatures
-Swarms
Angelfromanotherpin's Likes
-Hill Giant with Tome Spheres as his frost/fire equivalents
Maxus's Likes
-Kyton
-Black Stag http://www.planewalker.com/040101/black-stag
Virgil's Likes
White dragon
Bloodseeker
Lurking Lizard
Schleiermacher's likes
-Manticore
-Displacer Beast
- Phase Spider
-Chimera
-Griffon
-Wyvern
-Rakshasa
"They have a good hit die which makes their HD/CR ratios pretty sane, they tend to be intelligent enough to use tactics even if bestial, and they generally have a clear schtick without having any glaring achilles heels. They have supernatural powers which are effective and, even more importantly, distinctive, without just having a slew of spell-like abilities for every occasion."
-Fire/Frost Giant, interesting subtypes
-Ogre, sweet spot of brutishness
"Tactically versatile due to intelligence"
Schleiermacher's dislikes
-Dragon, Outsider "Good at too many things"
-Undead, Fey, "crappy racial hitdice"
-Trolls, Hill Giants "pointless at their level"
Koumei's Likes
-Wyvern: does what you want a dragon to do without being overly complicated, templates well
-Small animated objects for annoyance
-Giant Crabs " :3"
Franktrollman's Dislikes
-Phase Spiders "Always ambush you with fatal poison that often misses, feels like a coin flip, would prefer poison to immobilize to set in tension instead of instant death"
-Fire/Frost/Stone giants "not atrocious, but lacking tactical depth for their level"
-Shadows, Trolls "Fucktarded"
Franktrollman's Likes:
-Hill Giant "beefy, strong in melee, threat at ranged
-Manticore, Chimera, Wyvern
-Willowhisp, chain devil, ettin
-Many CR 6-7 monsters are well designed
-Hullathoin (CR 15, FF) It has a lot of abilities and is actually pretty much a whole combat by itself. Between its minions and its AoEs, it can challenge a whole party, but it doesn't have the kinds of titanic numbers or instant death attacks that would make it roll over individual characters. Can work as a normal challenge at 15th level or as a major villain for a party of 11th level or higher.
-Battlebriar (CR 15, MM3) It's a big dumb brute. It has abilities that allow it to attack and threaten several characters at once. It has the numbers and immunities to stand up to a round or two of late game combat. Its real problem is that it lacks a weapon that can attack an enemy at any great distance, requiring it to show up inside some sort of greenhouse set piece or something.
-Eldritch Giant (CR 15, MM3) It's a Giant, of Huge Size. It does tolerable piles of damage, and has a fuck tonne of hit points. Nothing really interesting there. But unlike lower level Giants, it's not just bigger than the ones that come earlier, it has some tricks. At-will greater dispelling and magic missile allow it to bypass a surprising number of anti-Giant tactics, and having a big Will Save lets it bypass a bunch more. It's a Giant that is an actually different tactical puzzle, which makes it totally unlike any of the Giants from Stone to Cloud. Unfortunately, "Eldritch Giant" is a stupid name.
Ancient History's Likes
-Myconids
Wotmaniac's Likes
-Bulette (with a really nice presentation: http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs39/f/2008/ ... temare.png )
-Greenvise "I've had success with all manners of plant creatures
-Swarms
Angelfromanotherpin's Likes
-Hill Giant with Tome Spheres as his frost/fire equivalents
Maxus's Likes
-Kyton
-Black Stag http://www.planewalker.com/040101/black-stag
Virgil's Likes
White dragon
Bloodseeker
Lurking Lizard
In the conversion from AD&D to 3e D&D, the amount of hit points and energy resistance that creatures have has increased literally exponentially. And damage output from Evocations has not kept up in the slightest. And while we could plausibly attempt to push the envelope and pump up damage output to match, that would only be an arms race that no one would win.
Evocations in 3rd edition rules are primarily spells which serve to devastate low level opposition or to slowly but surely chip away at the defenses of opponents that pose reasonable threats. These are sometimes valid tactics, but they are not valid tactics to use one's highest level spells to accomplish. It takes a lot of magic missiles to bring down a Shadow, meaning that there is frankly no way that any Wizard is going to have enough spell slots to dedicate to doing that to make it a viable way to eventually beat such an opponent.
So here's the solution: reduce the spell level of these underperforming evocation spells. Since they scale in damage to your level, nothing actually bad happens if you get these spells early. Even a dozen or more levels early is perfectly fine because the damage scales to something level appropriate at low level. A polar ray cast by a 1st level character does just 1d6 of damage - half the damage that the same character could achieve by purchasing a vial of alchemist frost and throwing it at a target (same to-hit roll as well at any kind of close range).
So here's what the Evocation list should look like:
Evocation Cantrips
* Burning Hands
* Dancing Lights
* Light
* Magic Missile
* Shocking Grasp
Evocation 1st Level Spells
* Fireball
* Floating Disk
* Gust of Wind
* Lightning Bolt
* Polar Ray
* Sending
Evocation 2nd Level Spells
* Chain Lightning
* Cone of Cold
* Continual Flame
* Darkness
* Daylight
* Flaming Sphere (this spell badly needs to be better than it is, but that's another subject)
* Scorching Ray
* Shatter
Evocation 3rd Level Spells
* Delayed Blast Fireball
* Ice Storm
* Shout
* Tiny Hut
* Wall of Fire
* Wind Wall
Evocation 4th Level Spells
* Fire Shield
* Interposing Hand
* Resilient Sphere
* Wall of Ice
Evocation 5th Level Spells
* Forceful Hand
* Freezing Sphere
* Mage Sword
* Sunburst
* Wall of Force
Evocation 6th Level Spells
* Contingency
* Grasping Hand
* Shout, Greater
Evocation 7th Level Spells
* Clenched Fist
* Force Cage
* Prismatic Spray
Evocation 8th Level Spells
* Crushing Hand
* Meteor Swarm
* Telekinetic Sphere
Evocation 9th Level Spells
* 9th level Spells must be written for this discipline. Seriously, timestop? Shapechange? Wail of the Banshee? Astral Projection? Shades? Weird? Most disciplines have two game defining, god-fighting spells to choose from at 9th level. Evocation hasn't been given anything remotely decent for their top tier, so new, mountain leveling spells must be written for Evokers to have.
There. It's pretty much completely backwards compatible, but nonetheless puts Evokers in at being able to do something legitimately valuable - Killing Fools.
And no, having unlimited magic missiles or shocking grasps is not ungamebalanced at 1st level, or any level. Magic Missile tops out in damage at level 9, when it does 17.5 damage against any opponent who doesn't have concealment, cover, or spell resistance. But at level 9, a Rogue is literally inflicting 17.5 points of sneak attack damage with every single attack. And that's not total damage for the round, that's just the extra damage from a sneak attack. He still gets to do his weapon damage, and make his other attacks for that round. Shocking Grasp is very likely to hit, and it does a d8+1 damage. A Longsword in the hands of a Fighter is also very likely to hit and does a d8+4. While the shocking grasp is quite likely to have a better chance of hitting an orc warrior than the longsword is, it is also much more likely to do insufficient damage to drop the orc. Indeed, the Orc Warrior out of the SRD is more likely to drop in one attack from the 1st level Fighter than he from the 1st level Wizard - even factoring in the discrepancy in hit chances.
And no, casting fireballs at 1st level isn't unbalanced either. At 1st level it only does a d6 of fire damage, it's barely worth doing against many opponents. It certainly isn't putting color spray out of a job.
Combat/Noncombat Roles & Class Design
that there's two important things that characters need to do:
1. Be useful in combat.
2. Be useful out of combat.
All characters need that, but there's no blindingly important reason why a class based system should require that you get your usefulness in combat and out of combat from the same source.
You have your heroes who are "smiths" or "sailors" or have some other skilled position, and they go off and solve non-combat problems with their skills. And sometimes these peoples are wizards, and sometimes they are warriors, and that's OK.
When you go up in level, you should really be getting two classes instead of one. One can be your combat schtick, and the other can be your noncombat schtick. That way the number of classes which need to be in the game can go down, while the number of characters which can be represented can go up.
For example: Let's say that you have 6 basic combat schticks:
Warrior/Brawler (specializes in large damage, either reliably or explosively)
Archer/Wizard (specializes in ranged attacks, either reliably or explosively)
Brute/Dodger (specializes in defense, either reliably or explosively)
And then you had 4 non-combat schticks:
Specialist (MacGivers stuff)
Healer (fixes party members)
Diviner (gathers information)
Diplomat (achieves social results)
That's 10 classes, which is one less than the PHB currently has. But on the other hand, it actually creates 24 different 1st level character archetypes - which is more than double the current value.
Here's how the current classes fit into this conceptually:
Barbarian (Brute/diviner - the only important noncombat ability that Barbarians are allowed in D&D is their information gathering)
Bard (Archer/Diplomat - these guys don't normally get a meaningful combat schtick, but conceptually they are supposed to be able to conribute meaningfully from a distance)
Cleric (Warrior/Healer)
Druid (These guys can do everything, but conceptually they are supposed to be Wizard/Healers or Brawler/Healers)
Fighter (Warrior/ Just about anything you want - these guys aren't normally given a non-combat schtick, which is part of why they suck so bad)
Monk (Dodger/Diviner - the only vaguely useful thing I've ever seen done with a Monk was as a dedicated Scout)
Paladin (Brute/Healer)
Ranger (Warrior/Diviner - their scouting and tracking abilities are good)
Rogue (Brawler/Specialist or Brawler/Diplomat)
Sorcerer (Wizard/Anything - these guys have no non-combat schtick to begin with. Conceptually they should be Wizard/Diplomats).
Wizard (Wizard/Diviners)
And that leaves a lot of room, especially among the brutes and dodgers of the world. If I want a character who specializes in not getting hit and healing people, shouldn't there be a class for that?
And now there can be.
1. Be useful in combat.
2. Be useful out of combat.
All characters need that, but there's no blindingly important reason why a class based system should require that you get your usefulness in combat and out of combat from the same source.
You have your heroes who are "smiths" or "sailors" or have some other skilled position, and they go off and solve non-combat problems with their skills. And sometimes these peoples are wizards, and sometimes they are warriors, and that's OK.
When you go up in level, you should really be getting two classes instead of one. One can be your combat schtick, and the other can be your noncombat schtick. That way the number of classes which need to be in the game can go down, while the number of characters which can be represented can go up.
For example: Let's say that you have 6 basic combat schticks:
Warrior/Brawler (specializes in large damage, either reliably or explosively)
Archer/Wizard (specializes in ranged attacks, either reliably or explosively)
Brute/Dodger (specializes in defense, either reliably or explosively)
And then you had 4 non-combat schticks:
Specialist (MacGivers stuff)
Healer (fixes party members)
Diviner (gathers information)
Diplomat (achieves social results)
That's 10 classes, which is one less than the PHB currently has. But on the other hand, it actually creates 24 different 1st level character archetypes - which is more than double the current value.
Here's how the current classes fit into this conceptually:
Barbarian (Brute/diviner - the only important noncombat ability that Barbarians are allowed in D&D is their information gathering)
Bard (Archer/Diplomat - these guys don't normally get a meaningful combat schtick, but conceptually they are supposed to be able to conribute meaningfully from a distance)
Cleric (Warrior/Healer)
Druid (These guys can do everything, but conceptually they are supposed to be Wizard/Healers or Brawler/Healers)
Fighter (Warrior/ Just about anything you want - these guys aren't normally given a non-combat schtick, which is part of why they suck so bad)
Monk (Dodger/Diviner - the only vaguely useful thing I've ever seen done with a Monk was as a dedicated Scout)
Paladin (Brute/Healer)
Ranger (Warrior/Diviner - their scouting and tracking abilities are good)
Rogue (Brawler/Specialist or Brawler/Diplomat)
Sorcerer (Wizard/Anything - these guys have no non-combat schtick to begin with. Conceptually they should be Wizard/Diplomats).
Wizard (Wizard/Diviners)
And that leaves a lot of room, especially among the brutes and dodgers of the world. If I want a character who specializes in not getting hit and healing people, shouldn't there be a class for that?
And now there can be.
Notes on the Random Number Generator:
So one of the most important things to do is to keep things from getting pushed off the Random Number Generator. That means among other things that bonuses shouldn't scale. It alsmo means that untyped bonuses have to go. All the bonuses should be defined at the beginning.
Things like:
Bonuses
Positional Advantage
Surprise
Magic Weapon
High Morale
-----
Penalties
Positional Weakness
Light Cover
Heavy Cover
Near Total Cover
Low Morale
Difficult Targetting
Very Difficult Targetting
Medium Range
Long Range
Extreme Range[/list]
Ability Scores
A variance of 0 - +10 in modifier is too much. That's like the whole RNG. Also, the prospect of getting things to randomly generate abilities still has value. I find it generates more interesting characters than Point Buy right through the inherent unfairness.
Essentially what this means is that on 3d6, one in 54 ability scores generates the maximum bonus. That would be one out of 9 characters having max bonus on something. On 4d6, pick 3 it's one ability score in 17, on 3d6 reroll 1s it's one ability score in 31.
As to whether you should generate your ability modifiers and then only write those down or not - that depends entirely upon whether you're going to have ability damage or not.
So one of the most important things to do is to keep things from getting pushed off the Random Number Generator. That means among other things that bonuses shouldn't scale. It alsmo means that untyped bonuses have to go. All the bonuses should be defined at the beginning.
Things like:
Bonuses
Positional Advantage
Surprise
Magic Weapon
High Morale
-----
Penalties
Positional Weakness
Light Cover
Heavy Cover
Near Total Cover
Low Morale
Difficult Targetting
Very Difficult Targetting
Medium Range
Long Range
Extreme Range[/list]
Ability Scores
A variance of 0 - +10 in modifier is too much. That's like the whole RNG. Also, the prospect of getting things to randomly generate abilities still has value. I find it generates more interesting characters than Point Buy right through the inherent unfairness.
Essentially what this means is that on 3d6, one in 54 ability scores generates the maximum bonus. That would be one out of 9 characters having max bonus on something. On 4d6, pick 3 it's one ability score in 17, on 3d6 reroll 1s it's one ability score in 31.
As to whether you should generate your ability modifiers and then only write those down or not - that depends entirely upon whether you're going to have ability damage or not.
Just the fact that the Bard has an attack that dazes until the end of his next turn and a buff that lasts until the beginning of his next turn makes me say "Do Not Want". That right there is a deal breaker.
-Username17
For example, character A takes his turn in round 1. Character B then stuns character A. Since Character A has already acted in Round 1 should he be stunned in Round 2?
In a different fight, Character B goes first and stuns Character A in round 1. Since A has not yet acted, he can miss his turn in Round 1 and should be able to act normally in Round 2.
What mechanic (especially around an end-of-turn status update) would work for this situation?
- You have an "upkeep" phase (I do not care what it is called) at the end of your turn.
- The Stun condition makes the target skip all their phases except the Upkeep Phase during their turn.
- The one turn Stun ends on a 1+ during the Upkeep Phase.
-Username17
The difference between an Ogre and a Fire Giant is pretty minimal as far as actual abilities go. If you just made an Ogre Fighter and gave him some armor and a decent weapon, he'd look an awful lot like a Fire Giant both socially and game mechanically. Certainly his combat participation would follow pretty much the exact same script. They have reach, they do a lot of damage, they have a lot of hit points, and they have mediocre saves.
But it got me thinking, what actual roles should exist?
The 4e stuff has me puzzled. I honestly can't tell the difference between a Brute, a Skirmisher, and a Soldier. They all run up and hit things, it doesn't even fucking matter. The Artillery and the Lurker seem pretty similar to me as well. The Controller stands out, as does the Leader. But the Leader isn't even defined as a role, it's supposedly a template you put on other roles. Totally bizarre thought process here.
Things that I don't want to see:
So really there's 3 states of enemy:
Offensive Enemies: These are enemies which have an offensive output substantially higher than their defenses. This inherently makes them high priority targets because the amount of enemy offense you can negate per unit of player offense spent is very high.
Balanced Enemies: These enemies have offensive outs roughly balanced with their own defenses. This makes them medium priority targets because the amount of offense you spend to drop them is roughly commensurate with the offense for Team Monster that you eiminate by doing so.
Defensive Enemies: These are enemies which have an offensive and defensive output which are unbalanced in favor of the defenses. This makes them very low priority inherently because they take a long time to get rid of relative to the amount of threat they pose. Defensive enemies often will be unable to accomplish much unless and until other enemies have already come in and softened targets up for them.
Different power levels relative to the PCs push that up and down into various territories. A Defensive enemy above player level, for example, is extremely harsh since he will require positional advantage and such for the PCs to even be able to harm it at all. But a Defensive enemy below the party level is in the same position relative to the PCs - has to pretty much wait for other enemies to damage the PCs before he poses much of any threat. Todays evil fairy (glass cannon) is tomorrow's Imp.
Within those categories however, it seems to me that there is room for roles based on combat actions and depth. Here's the first division:
-Username17
But it got me thinking, what actual roles should exist?
The 4e stuff has me puzzled. I honestly can't tell the difference between a Brute, a Skirmisher, and a Soldier. They all run up and hit things, it doesn't even fucking matter. The Artillery and the Lurker seem pretty similar to me as well. The Controller stands out, as does the Leader. But the Leader isn't even defined as a role, it's supposedly a template you put on other roles. Totally bizarre thought process here.
Things that I don't want to see:
- Any role based on "getting hate" because that's totally retarded. I can see a place for monsters that get more dangerous if you leave them alone, and I can see a place for monsters whose damage output is disproportionate to their defenses, but having monsters (or characters) whose supposed contribution to the battle is that other enemies spend attacks on them is retarded.
- Any role based on Metagame concerns.
- Any monster role designed specifically to hose a player role or vice versa.
- Imp (-5/-15)
- Speed Bump (-10/+0)
- Grunt (-5/-5)
- Glass Cannon (+5/-5)
- NPC (+0/+0)
- Meat Wall (-5/+5)
- Boss (+5/+5)
So really there's 3 states of enemy:
Offensive Enemies: These are enemies which have an offensive output substantially higher than their defenses. This inherently makes them high priority targets because the amount of enemy offense you can negate per unit of player offense spent is very high.
Balanced Enemies: These enemies have offensive outs roughly balanced with their own defenses. This makes them medium priority targets because the amount of offense you spend to drop them is roughly commensurate with the offense for Team Monster that you eiminate by doing so.
Defensive Enemies: These are enemies which have an offensive and defensive output which are unbalanced in favor of the defenses. This makes them very low priority inherently because they take a long time to get rid of relative to the amount of threat they pose. Defensive enemies often will be unable to accomplish much unless and until other enemies have already come in and softened targets up for them.
Different power levels relative to the PCs push that up and down into various territories. A Defensive enemy above player level, for example, is extremely harsh since he will require positional advantage and such for the PCs to even be able to harm it at all. But a Defensive enemy below the party level is in the same position relative to the PCs - has to pretty much wait for other enemies to damage the PCs before he poses much of any threat. Todays evil fairy (glass cannon) is tomorrow's Imp.
Within those categories however, it seems to me that there is room for roles based on combat actions and depth. Here's the first division:
- One Trick Ponies: Many monsters honestly just want to have one thing they do and have them just spam that. They should have one attack tactic and one defensive vulnerability because they are expendable monsters and that's how they roll. A Cockatrice is a deadly deadly chicken (offense specced), a Salamander is a deadly and resilient lizard (balanced), but both of them basically just have one attack (death breath or fire burst) and spam it incessantly. Any monster that just runs up and hits things like a golem would fit into this category.
- Short Entry Monsters: Many monsters do about three things, and mix it up here and there. Most 4e monsters fit into this category or fall a little short. The standard would be to have two tactically different maneuvers and a use-limited super move.
- Complex Monsters: Sometimes, especially for named characters and major villains, it is nice for a enemy to have the kind of depth one would ask a player character to have. Lots of different abilities, use limitations on many of them. When facing killer clowns or major demons you should expect them to be pulling weird shit every round, and they should deliver.
-Username17
Making a balanced 40k-esque skirmish/war game
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=399380
