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Well, since combat charms last like five or ten minutes and your out of combat mote regen is measured by the hour, you couldn't actually walk around with Increasing Strength Exercise on all the time even if you tried. I certainly agree that the situation in which you're vastly stronger in fights that you have a minute's advance warning on as opposed to fights that erupt out of nowhere is a lovely one - it's just been true for the past two editions and I haven't seen any indication that it isn't true for this one.
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Oct 17, 2015 06:18
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I would assume that people can tell you're using Increasing Strength Exercise, because your muscles bulge all Super Saiyan style or something, and will start combat or flee immediately rather than waiting for you to activate your next buff.
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Oct 17, 2015 06:20
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Yeah maybe I was over-reaching a bit. There should be room for the Dawn to dramatically bulk up before leaping off the roof to Brawl down the angry mob chasing him, or for the Immaculate of Fire to enter Fire Dragon Form to intimate her opponents before engaging, because that's cool and fun. What I mainly want to prevent is people trying to cheese the system, so I'm inclined to be sort of strict with it. If that doesn't line up with past editions or the intent on this one, it'd be a houserule.
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Oct 17, 2015 06:28
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Thug Lessons posted:I'm not sure how it's supposed to work based on the rules but I think allowing characters to stack an unlimited number of Simple, scene-length charms before battle is a bad idea. If there's a good IC reason I'd allow it but if you're just going to let people walk around in Fivefold Bulwark Stance in case a fight breaks out, you might as well just get rid of scene-length charms entirely and make them all indefinite. Well, being able to activate your Simple charms ahead of combat would reward a party that lures the unprepared enemy into an ambush or otherwise gets the drop on them. So, if you want to reward that sort of behavior, you should definitely let them get off at least one of their Simple scene-long combat charms before the fight starts proper.
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Oct 17, 2015 06:34
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PurpleXVI posted:Well, being able to activate your Simple charms ahead of combat would reward a party that lures the unprepared enemy into an ambush or otherwise gets the drop on them. So, if you want to reward that sort of behavior, you should definitely let them get off at least one of their Simple scene-long combat charms before the fight starts proper. I'd probably reward that using the ambush and surprise rules.
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Oct 17, 2015 06:42
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It seems like, judging from the description of the MA form charms, they want you to activate Simple charms after you've joined combat. Like, what's the point of tacking on all those conditions where you can reflexively activate a form if you can just say "I ASSUME CRANE FORM" as battle starts?
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Oct 17, 2015 06:50
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SunAndSpring posted:It seems like, judging from the description of the MA form charms, they want you to activate Simple charms after you've joined combat. Like, what's the point of tacking on all those conditions where you can reflexively activate a form if you can just say "I ASSUME CRANE FORM" as battle starts? Also keep in mind most of these are combat stances. You don't walk around an ancient tomb in Crane Form "just in case" or hide behind a wall while you assume Fivefold Bulwark Stance, these are things you do once the fight actually starts. However, one thing that I think would be fine is, if both parties are facing off and have an equal number of Simple charms they want to activate, (like a form or stance), just let them go ahead and do it before the battle starts rather than having both of them waste a turn. Ambushes granting forms could be okay in some situations too, like a surprise attack from a Wyld Hunt in full dragon forms, but those should be special events that flow naturally rather than a constant concern.
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Oct 17, 2015 07:17
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Or you could just work out what you feel works more naturally, and justet stuff flow from there. Yeah you don't have to let them use every simple charm they have before the fight (if they did they'd be more tapped anyways) but when they know ahead of time that they are going to be walking into a fight, letting them bulk up to super Sayain and use their forms isn't some huge rule breaking thing. You should let your players do things that are fun, not lawyer rules at them like you are afraid of them. If they abuse it, fell them to cut it out, but otherwise who cares. Edit: Like, is letting Vegeta bulk up a ton to punch down the door into the royal chamber of Evil Dick Duke, then having him pick up the broken steel door and start throwing it like it weighs nothing cool? Then allow it. Don't allow them to do it every time, its not like you have to either be like 'no. No simple charms ever' or 'yeah buff up infinitely before fights'¹. You can strike balance with what fits at the time. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Oct 17, 2015 |
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Oct 17, 2015 14:48
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SunAndSpring posted:It seems like, judging from the description of the MA form charms, they want you to activate Simple charms after you've joined combat. Like, what's the point of tacking on all those conditions where you can reflexively activate a form if you can just say "I ASSUME CRANE FORM" as battle starts? Those conditions are for giving you a chance at activating your form type charms even if you were surprised, and more importantly for giving you a chance to switch from one form to another mid-combat rather than basically always using your favorite and treating the rest as blank charms. It's why that was added to 2E. Thug Lessons posted:Also keep in mind most of these are combat stances. You don't walk around an ancient tomb in Crane Form "just in case" or hide behind a wall while you assume Fivefold Bulwark Stance, these are things you do once the fight actually starts. However, one thing that I think would be fine is, if both parties are facing off and have an equal number of Simple charms they want to activate, (like a form or stance), just let them go ahead and do it before the battle starts rather than having both of them waste a turn. Ambushes granting forms could be okay in some situations too, like a surprise attack from a Wyld Hunt in full dragon forms, but those should be special events that flow naturally rather than a constant concern. You don't walk around an ancient tomb in Crane Form "just in case" because Crane Form costs like 8 motes or something to turn on and lasts for five or ten minutes, and you're only going to get 5 of those 8 motes back an hour later. If you actually tried you'd just run out of motes before anything happened. "People will just use IAS all day" isn't a balance concern. KittyEmpress posted:Or you could just work out what you feel works more naturally, and justet stuff flow from there. Yeah you don't have to let them use every simple charm they have before the fight (if they did they'd be more tapped anyways) but when they know ahead of time that they are going to be walking into a fight, letting them bulk up to super Sayain and use their forms isn't some huge rule breaking thing. This is completely horrible. Please do not encourage the lazy chiding-sidebars-instead-of-balance methodology that huge swathes of the book have been designed with.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:14
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I don't know where you're getting the 5-10 minutes thing from, the problem is specifically that these are described as scene-length. If older editions had explicit (and short) durations that headed off the problem that would actually be a great solution but it simply isn't there in the 3E rules.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:21
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They didn't. Scene Length has always been a fuzzy thing that people constantly argue over. For me "Going through the temple" would be a scene and if I kicked in a scene length at the start, it would end once we'd finished. Not five minutes in. Then again other people will decide that "The Wyld Hunt is chasing you. You get away ... they catch up five minutes later, new scene! Lose all your scene longs!" is a valid way to do it. I don't.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:24
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Thug Lessons posted:I don't know where you're getting the 5-10 minutes thing from, the problem is specifically that these are described as scene-length. If older editions had explicit (and short) durations that headed off the problem that would actually be a great solution but it simply isn't there in the 3E rules. The book specifies that a "scene", particularly a combat scene, is 5-10 minutes long.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:25
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Ferrinus posted:The book specifies that a "scene", particularly a combat scene, is 5-10 minutes long. No, it doesn't. Here's what it says: "a scene might be as short as a few minutes or as long as a few hours."
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Oct 17, 2015 16:26
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We're actually sort of saying the same thing, which is that you can't walk around in Crane Form because by the time you actually get into a battle it's a new scene. The difference is that I'm just specifying that the transition to combat usually creates a new scene unless a specific set of circumstances come up that make the new scene start very shortly before combat.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:29
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Thug Lessons posted:No, it doesn't. Here's what it says: "a scene might be as short as a few minutes or as long as a few hours." gently caress, you're right. I'd swear that I saw explicit assertion that "a scene" for combat purposes should be considered a few minutes but I couldn't find it anywhere. My bad. quote:We're actually sort of saying the same thing, which is that you can't walk around in Crane Form because by the time you actually get into a battle it's a new scene. The difference is that I'm just specifying that the transition to combat usually creates a new scene unless a specific set of circumstances come up that make the new scene start very shortly before combat. Definitely, but - if you know you're going to be fighting in the next few minutes, I think it's obviously possible to power up first. Like, if you're preparing to kick down a door or you know that the riders are about to crest the hill or whatever. Which is why IAS is even more of a problem than it looks - unless the party's constantly getting jumped, it hasn't even got the "well it takes a turn" balancing factor going for it.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:33
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Thug Lessons posted:We're actually sort of saying the same thing, which is that you can't walk around in Crane Form because by the time you actually get into a battle it's a new scene. Doesn't that go against what Scene was intended for though? A new scene for me was always a film thing. If James Bond is sneaking into a SPECTER fortress and sounds the alarm, guards rushing in from everywhere is not a new scene. A new scene is when we switch to him at MI5 explaining what happened, or when he's knocked out and wakes up half naked tied to a chair.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:34
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Still want to do that Sidereal Martial Art that can punch people out of a scene, forcing them to reactivate all their scene-long charms.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:46
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Ferrinus posted:Definitely, but - if you know you're going to be fighting in the next few minutes, I think it's obviously possible to power up first. Like, if you're preparing to kick down a door or you know that the riders are about to crest the hill or whatever. Which is why IAS is even more of a problem than it looks - unless the party's constantly getting jumped, it hasn't even got the "well it takes a turn" balancing factor going for it. Right which is why I want to houserule it. You're right that there are deeper problems here but I'd rather just nip it in the bud rather than redesigning the game. I actually got the "combat starts a new scene" idea from an offhand comment by my old GM when I asked him if I can ISE before battle. Fans posted:Doesn't that go against what Scene was intended for though? You're probably right. It's a metaphor borrowed from film and ultimately the stage. But I don't think "combat is a new scene" is a problem in that respect because there's enough background that it's understandable, like how in a James Bond film the guards rushing in would entail new music, a shift in cinematographic style, etc., or even like borrowing from JRPGs where you explicitly shift to a new perspective when a fight starts.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:51
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Thug Lessons posted:You're probably right. It's a metaphor borrowed from film and ultimately the stage. But I don't think "combat is a new scene" is a problem in that respect because there's enough background that it's understandable, like how in a James Bond film the guards rushing in would entail new music, a shift in cinematographic style, etc., or even like borrowing from JRPGs where you explicitly shift to a new perspective when a fight starts. It makes Scene long charms massive mote sinks if I have to keep reactivating them constantly. If I turn up to conquer a city, I don't expect to have to reactivate my Scene longs five times during the assault, even if we do somehow end up in the Throne Room.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:19
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If you're getting into five distinct fights on the way to the throne room you're probably running into mote problems regardless. However in that situation I'd just consider all the fights a single scene, even though they probably shouldn't be either under my houserule or common sense, (showing up in the throne room for a showdown with the Tri-Khan would definitely be a new scene in film).
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Oct 17, 2015 17:27
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I get not wanting to redesign the game, and it's real stupid to be in a position to feel like you have to, but short of doing that work I don't think anything besides a gentlemen's agreement results in a game that's actually more playable than just dealing with this bullshit RAW.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:29
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I don't think the ability to pregame fights by turning on your form-type charms or whatever is a problem that needs to be nipped in the bud - IAS is just too famn synergistic with certain other effects. I think the narrative weirdness of having your poo poo turn off in response to others' actions is more glaring than the increasing pressure to make time to power up as your experience level increases, although that COULD be my familiarity with pst editions talking.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:35
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Ferrinus posted:This is completely horrible. Please do not encourage the lazy chiding-sidebars-instead-of-balance methodology that huge swathes of the book have been designed with. No, it really isn't. Maybe you personally don't like it, but seriously, if someone is being a shitlord and abusing something, tell them to stop. You don't have to follow RAW. Games do not have to be solid unbreakable messes that prevent anyone from doing anything creative. Stop playing the game like you need to be able to bring up rules every time something you dislike happens. Players are people, and guess what? People can be talked to, without going 'no this is wrong and bad'. Generally my rule for 'scenes' is whenever the general venue changes. If you start a scene in a teahouse, and then a fight breaks out in the tea house, then that's one scene. If you start a scene in a teahouse, find out some assassins are down the street posing as prostitutes and you go after them, that's two scenes. The same for if you're invading the big bad's manse palace - as long as you're doing that, that's a scene. Sometimes I have had entire sessions that are one scene,someitmes I've had 7-8 scenes. When it comes to narrative, you do not need solid rules on 'what is what'. Go with what flows the best to you and what you as a ST feel makes for the best story. It's not that hard! Roleplaying games are at their core writing a cool story. You don't need super solid rules for every edge case, and you certainly don't need them inorder to shut down builds and abuses you can just ask people not to do.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:41
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Ferrinus posted:I don't think the ability to pregame fights by turning on your form-type charms or whatever is a problem that needs to be nipped in the bud - IAS is just too famn synergistic with certain other effects. I think the narrative weirdness of having your poo poo turn off in response to others' actions is more glaring than the increasing pressure to make time to power up as your experience level increases, although that COULD be my familiarity with pst editions talking. It's more glaring, but I don't think it's worse - the pre-combat buff time is a standard, garbage mechanic in a lot of games. It's the devil we know, which isn't actually better than the devil we don't.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:41
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I feel like in most cases you can solve the problem of whether it's okay to drop into Crane Stance (note: this involves standing on one foot and hopping around) by a simple application of common sense.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:43
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Ferrinus posted:I don't think the ability to pregame fights by turning on your form-type charms or whatever is a problem that needs to be nipped in the bud - IAS is just too famn synergistic with certain other effects. I think the narrative weirdness of having your poo poo turn off in response to others' actions is more glaring than the increasing pressure to make time to power up as your experience level increases, although that COULD be my familiarity with pst editions talking. I don't find it weird at all because I grew up playing Final Fantasy and having to cast Haste every fight. Is there something wrong with that perspective? Anyway you're right that forcing people to turn off their charms would be awful but I'm really trying to just tell people that they can't crabwalk around the ancient tomb in Fivefold Bulwark Stance just because the rules say they technically can.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:43
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Thug Lessons posted:I don't find it weird at all because I grew up playing Final Fantasy and having to cast Haste every fight. Is there something wrong with that perspective? Anyway you're right that forcing people to turn off their charms would be awful but I'm really trying to just tell people that they can't crabwalk around the ancient tomb in Fivefold Bulwark Stance just because the rules say they technically can. Then don't let them do it in your game! But it's not something that everyone has to abide by, and it's also not something you have to enforce every time! Why is everything so black and white? Give me one good reason why I can't activate Fivefold Bulwark Stance right before the Dawn kicks in the door to the ninja hideout. Or one good reason why I can't use Strength Increasing Exercise before I jump off the tower and slam into the middle of the rioting crowd? One besides 'well because then you could walk around like that for hours!' Seriously, you don't have to have every fight be a new scene, but some can be! You don't have to let every scene long be used before a fight, but you can let others be! These do not have to be computer program 'if yes ->' if no ->' things.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:47
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Thug Lessons posted:I don't find it weird at all because I grew up playing Final Fantasy and having to cast Haste every fight. Is there something wrong with that perspective? Anyway you're right that forcing people to turn off their charms would be awful but I'm really trying to just tell people that they can't crabwalk around the ancient tomb in Fivefold Bulwark Stance just because the rules say they technically can. The thing is that you're not going to write a rule that solves this specific problem without unpacking or re-evaluating any of the other system assumptions or charm mechanics that works better than just being like "don't do that" as one human being to another. The sidebars that admonish people to use common sense aren't wrong, they're just insulting.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:49
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KittyEmpress posted:No, it really isn't. Maybe you personally don't like it, but seriously, if someone is being a shitlord and abusing something, tell them to stop. See, look at your language. "Abusing". How do you tell someone to stop "abusing" Snake Form? Would only a shitlord activate Snake Form before launching a sneak attack? What about Ebon Shadow Form, whose only benefit (iirc) pertains to stealth? Is it the same way you tell them not to abuse the fact that certain traits are cheaper in chargen than in play?
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Oct 17, 2015 17:52
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KittyEmpress posted:No, it really isn't. Maybe you personally don't like it, but seriously, if someone is being a shitlord and abusing something, tell them to stop. You don't have to follow RAW. Games do not have to be solid unbreakable messes that prevent anyone from doing anything creative. Stop playing the game like you need to be able to bring up rules every time something you dislike happens. Players are people, and guess what? People can be talked to, without going 'no this is wrong and bad'.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:55
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KittyEmpress posted:Then don't let them do it in your game! But it's not something that everyone has to abide by, and it's also not something you have to enforce every time! Why is everything so black and white? Give me one good reason why I can't activate Fivefold Bulwark Stance right before the Dawn kicks in the door to the ninja hideout. Or one good reason why I can't use Strength Increasing Exercise before I jump off the tower and slam into the middle of the rioting crowd? One besides 'well because then you could walk around like that for hours!' Here is the reason why you can't do that normally: because it encourages people to game the system in a truly lazy way to avoid the (intended) restriction that Simple charms bring. If someone roleplays around that restriction in a way that's fun, interesting or dramatic then great, I'd be happy to ignore it, but the problem comes in when this becomes the rule rather than the exception. If these charms were meant to be something you could do automatically, they'd be reflexive. Attorney at Funk posted:The thing is that you're not going to write a rule that solves this specific problem without unpacking or re-evaluating any of the other system assumptions or charm mechanics that works better than just being like "don't do that" as one human being to another. The sidebars that admonish people to use common sense aren't wrong, they're just insulting. I hope it just doesn't come up but I really want something that's fair and consistent, which is hard because I'm playing Exalted.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:59
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Thug Lessons posted:I don't find it weird at all because I grew up playing Final Fantasy and having to cast Haste every fight. Is there something wrong with that perspective? Anyway you're right that forcing people to turn off their charms would be awful but I'm really trying to just tell people that they can't crabwalk around the ancient tomb in Fivefold Bulwark Stance just because the rules say they technically can. That's why my first inclination is to make it explicit that any combat relevant charm lasts ten minutes from activation and just leave it at that - that way people can't do as you say but always know what to expect. They WOULD also know what to expect if it wad just a rule that the psychic pressure of hostiles rolling Join Battle automatically turned scenelong charms off, but that creates some weird problems with stealth among other things unless you did it case by case.
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Oct 17, 2015 18:05
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Ferrinus posted:See, look at your language. "Abusing". How do you tell someone to stop "abusing" Snake Form? Would only a shitlord activate Snake Form before launching a sneak attack? What about Ebon Shadow Form, whose only benefit (iirc) pertains to stealth? Is it the same way you tell them not to abuse the fact that certain traits are cheaper in chargen than in play? Generally you tell them to stop by going 'hey, you probably shouldn't be walking around the city in snake form just because you are afraid of ambushes'. Yes, I think letting someone go into snake or whom shadow form when they're ambushing someone is fine! I do not think that ruins anything. The specific examples brought up to make it sound like using simples before a fight seem like the most unlikely and silly things. Who is going to walk around for hours in crane form just in case? No one. So if your player tries to do that, yes, say no to that It's really not that hard to say 'hey, can you not do this?' To a player.
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Oct 17, 2015 18:07
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Thug Lessons posted:I hope it just doesn't come up but I really want something that's fair and consistent, which is hard because I'm playing Exalted. It really grinds my gears when a game expects you to engage in collaborative fiction with the designers to pretend the rules of the game work.
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Oct 17, 2015 18:07
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Ferrinus posted:That's why my first inclination is to make it explicit that any combat relevant charm lasts ten minutes from activation and just leave it at that - that way people can't do as you say but always know what to expect. Maybe I'm going for the wrong approach, because the general objective of what I want out of this is "combat charms are activated in combat, not before". Maybe just saying that is enough.
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Oct 17, 2015 18:09
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Attorney at Funk posted:It really grinds my gears when a game expects you to engage in collaborative fiction with the designers to pretend the rules of the game work. It can't be helped.
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Oct 17, 2015 18:13
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KittyEmpress posted:Generally you tell them to stop by going 'hey, you probably shouldn't be walking around the city in snake form just because you are afraid of ambushes'. Why? Are they also not allowed to wear armor or carry weapons? Thug Lessons posted:Frankly it might be best to exploctly buff players and their quality of life: after rolling join battle, before anyone acts, every combatant is explicitly allowed to then on whatever buffs they want, in the same way they're explicitly allowed to draw their swords. (Or, alternatively, they're allowed to put on a Form typr charm, and most other 'buff' charms are declared reflexive in general) Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Oct 17, 2015 |
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Oct 17, 2015 18:27
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Ferrinus posted:Frankly it might be best to exploctly buff players and their quality of life: after rolling join battle, before anyone acts, every combatant is explicitly allowed to then on whatever buffs they want, in the same way they're explicitly allowed to draw their swords. (Or, alternatively, they're allowed to put on a Form typr charm, and most other 'buff' charms are declared reflexive in general) This would be fine, but I'm already planning on buffing the players the same way my old GM did: PCs stunt while NPCs don't. Since we both know how narrow the statistical margins are on to-hit this is already a massive advantage and I'm cautious about adding to it. I could see a reciprocal system where forms and other Simples activate for both sides on combat start however.
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Oct 17, 2015 18:38
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Thug Lessons posted:This would be fine, but I'm already planning on buffing the players the same way my old GM did: PCs stunt while NPCs don't. Since we both know how narrow the statistical margins are on to-hit this is already a massive advantage and I'm cautious about adding to it. I could see a reciprocal system where forms and other Simples activate for both sides on combat start however. Yeah, the same would be true for enemies with access to scenelong stuff (and simplified enemies would be statted to account for the fact that their 'full' character sheets actually feature it).
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Oct 17, 2015 18:42
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Ferrinus posted:Yeah, the same would be true for enemies with access to scenelong stuff (and simplified enemies would be statted to account for the fact that their 'full' character sheets actually feature it). This might be the best solution because I'm not convinced the system is well-designed enough that Simple charms add enough tactical depth to make up for the narrative (and for that matter in-combat) hassle they create. Unfortunately it does preempt creative tricks like Peony Blossoming out of ISE to save a turn.
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Oct 17, 2015 18:49
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