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Comrade Gorbash posted:We did find a degenerate case in a team conflict, where every round for the party our best option was to increase our defense as much as possible and have one person use Targeted Effort. Under those circumstances, there was a tiny chance of our losing if the opposition maxed their roll, and a much more likely chance that we would net a Hit each round and slowly whittle our way to victory. With 5 or more players, it gets stronger. Also if the opposition doesn't have any extra Advance or any way to make draws hurt, it is stronger than the numbers I suggest. Overall, I agree that it is too broadly useful - the number of conflicts where it is strong is too large. Maybe Targeted Effort could be tweaked a bit. If you want to test things, try adding a -1D to Targeted Effort and see if that fixes things. It might be too weak at that point, though. Ideally I think that going strong on defense with a targeted effort to take out a key enemy trait for a round is a perfectly good idea and makes sense in the fiction. The problem only arises when it gets spammed every round.
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Feb 24, 2016 02:55
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In fairness, I also used the "you can't win until the enemy takes 3 strikes" condition from the book, not realizing it encouraged a lot of attrition play. :B
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Feb 24, 2016 03:51
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Jimbozig posted:How many players? The more players, the more viable/cheesy this becomes. At 3p or 4p, assuming the enemies start with a bit of extra Advance (+1 for 3p or +2 for 4p) or some similarly-effective trait, doing it for 3 rounds gives you about a 30% chance of losing in those 3 rounds. The 70% of the time that you pull it off, you end up with an edge, certainly. But overall it's not too strong compared to other strategies. The real problem is players taking an overly cautious approach, right? Would a possible penalty for longer conflicts make sense, either in fiction or mechanics? If there's some sort of external pressure then great, but stamina will also be a problem. Something like Winded seems like it might be a suitable trait to have appear after too many failed attempts.
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Feb 24, 2016 04:01
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So, last session my players stole a car from the time police only to summarily crash it in dinosaur times. Now they're stranded in a weird prehistorical time and need to find a way to fix their time car's power source. With crystals, of course. We decided to go with the Chrono Trigger version of prehistory, so it's a weird world where dinosaur-riding lizardmen are caught in a constant war with prehistorical humans who have pretty much every brand of mammalian megafauna on their side. Anyway, it looks like I'm going to be needing a lot of dinosaurs and prehistorical animals as monsters for next session, in addition to the more traditional humanoid opponents. What would be some good ways to reskin the sample monsters as prehistorical animals? I was already thinking that the T-Rex (because of course there's going to be a T-Rex) could be an Elite or Champion Horror upgraded to 2x2 size, so they'd basically have a lot of fear-based attacks because, uh, they have a terrifying roar or something? Then of course using the Striker as normal for raptors and such, and maybe a larger Brawler for an ankylosaurus/pretty much any dinosaur that can do sweeping tail attacks. All other suggestions would be appreciated!
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Feb 24, 2016 15:27
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Ratpick posted:So, last session my players stole a car from the time police only to summarily crash it in dinosaur times. Now they're stranded in a weird prehistorical time and need to find a way to fix their time car's power source. With crystals, of course. pachycephalosaurus = charger Titanoboa = elite grappler Plenty of dinos could be brutes, e.g. stegosaurus throwing folks around with her tail Pterosaurs could pick people up and drop them as a modified flying grappler Sauropods could be more like hazards forcing you to move or get stomped rather than regular enemies A pack of smaller raptor varieties could use the Mob trait. Certainly there is room for a sneaky dinosaur - maybe a raptor variant like a dromeosaurus or something. A lizardman in charge of a pack of smaller dinos would be an obvious choice for Packmaster. If you want to take some fictional license, you could fill out some other types: You could go the Michael Crichton route and have a venom-spitting dilophosaurus for a ranged enemy. You could say that parasaurolophus' horn could be used to direct, warn and inspire other dinos and make her a leader. You could have giant mosquitos as drainers.
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Feb 24, 2016 16:18
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Jimbozig posted:pachycephalosaurus = charger These are all great ideas, thanks! I probably won't get to use all of them during the session, but at least I've got a lot of good stuff to work with. One specific question: how would you model the pterosaurs' ability to grab and drop people? Maybe a more specific version of the Crush attack that grapplers have that only works when they're flying?
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Feb 25, 2016 20:35
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So, I'm a sucker for tactical combat in games, so I picked this up, along with the Rogue. Looking at the Rogue, is it intended to be hidden often, or only occasionally? Outside the encounter powers, it seems like you could take two moves with the sneaky feat and be hidden, then pop out again to attack if needs be. Workable, but not always practical, which makes sense since you can get advantage other ways too. Just wanted to make sure there's not some obvious mechanic I'm missing. Also the Vanish encounter power at level 3 references Subtle Shot, which I don't see anywhere in the Rogue book. Is it from the main book, or was it something that got cut/renamed? Slab Squatthrust fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Feb 25, 2016 |
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Feb 25, 2016 22:02
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The Gate posted:So, I'm a sucker for tactical combat in games, so I picked this up, along with the Rogue. Looking at the Rogue, is it intended to be hidden often, or only occasionally? Outside the encounter powers, it seems like you could take two moves with the sneaky feat and be hidden, then pop out again to attack if needs be. Workable, but not always practical, which makes sense since you can get advantage other ways too. Just wanted to make sure there's not some obvious mechanic I'm missing. Yeah, Subtle Shot got rolled into Sneak Attack, so that should say Sneak Attack. There are a couple of other minor errors I mentioned a few posts up. I'll be releasing an updated PDF in a day or two - I've just been waiting for a chance to give it a solid once-over myself to make sure I've caught all the changes I want to make. As for the hiding thing, the idea is that if you pick the sneaky encounter powers, then you can often be hidden, but not always. With fights typically lasting 4 rounds or so (even in longer fights, the first 4 rounds are usually decisive), with Vanish and Creep Off, plus Sneak Attack, you can probably manage to be hidden for 2 or 3 of those rounds. On your other turns, you have other ways to try get Advantage. If you don't pick the sneaky encounter powers, then you may never even bother hiding, since you're not really much better at it than anyone else. You can very easily build a rogue who doesn't care about sneaking at all. The playtest saw all sorts of rogues, with most of them were not-sneaky varieties.
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Feb 26, 2016 03:05
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Sweet, that's kind of what I was thinking giving it a read through, but having not actually played it I wasn't sure. Backstabber seems like it needs/wants advantage the most, thanks to the bonus only being on 6's, but the other two are more generous. Is Rogue/Striker as hilarious at one-shotting things as it seems like it would be? 
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Feb 26, 2016 04:13
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The Gate posted:Sweet, that's kind of what I was thinking giving it a read through, but having not actually played it I wasn't sure. Backstabber seems like it needs/wants advantage the most, thanks to the bonus only being on 6's, but the other two are more generous. Well at level 1 a Backstabber Rogue/Striker's MBA deal 8 damage on a 6 (2 base, +2 from crit, +4 from Backstabber), which is the amount of health a level 1 enemy has. Enemies get more health faster than players deal additional damage, but Backstabbers still regularly finish off enemies from disgustingly high amounts of health, especially with the Savage Striker feat.
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Feb 26, 2016 04:50
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Jimbozig posted:The playtest saw all sorts of rogues, with most of them were not-sneaky varieties.
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Feb 26, 2016 05:11
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megane posted:I'd be quite interested to hear about the playtester characters -- like what their builds & backstories were. An entire party of one class sounds kinda cool. The playtest characters were decidedly sans background/lore, we pretty much just threw together combat characters and found token art (for instance, I didn't play a rogue, but my dude was literally King Dedede). I'll let people talk about their builds, but mine was a warlord/leader designed specifically to make the rogues as broken as possible. I think I took the at-will that grants Advantage on the next ally to hit the target as well as Hit This Guy to feed the rogues MBAs, since rogue mbas are insane much like martial artist ones. I also had The Perfect Chance for advantage-granting. I think my feats (level 3) were Huge for the survivability and to provide full cover to help stealth and Fast Reflexes to let the rogues attack + move (leader's Tactics) early.
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Feb 26, 2016 05:24
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megane posted:I'd be quite interested to hear about the playtester characters -- like what their builds & backstories were. An entire party of one class sounds kinda cool. I started out as Phil & Bill, a halfling and his werewolf. Build-wise, they were a Buddies/Striker, with Bill designed to get into melee while Phil sniped dudes. It wasn't a very effective character, mostly because I kept forgetting about a couple of my feats.  Since they died in the last battle of the first session, I switched to a Martial Artist/Striker for the second one - the horrible undead abomination known as Philenbill. All told, I think my inexperience with the system and lack of sleep didn't do me any favors, and I consistently felt like the least effective party member. (That's not a complaint, though; I still had a lot of fun!)
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Feb 26, 2016 05:51
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I played Ladysmith Black Mambazo, resident Jojos. My build was a Backstabber/Striker. I too was confused whether the Rogue was intended to Always Be Stealth and decided to forget about all that and be as mobile as possible with Sprinter. Which is real good with all the Rogue's move powers. I took Cleave because I figured I didn't want to waste the high damage potential of the Backstabber/Striker, but it didn't come up too often. If we'd kept playing I might have taken Long Reach to extend the power of Cleave or boost basic damage with Melee Shooter. I also took Savage Striker and the power of the feat only goes up as you level. Having other characters enable your attacks or grant combat advantage is incredible as Backstabber encourages crit fishing. Dealing with multiple targets was a pain because Path of Pain was my only multi-target damaging ability and being too eager gets you focused down real fast. But against single targets I felt like I could solo at least a standard while the party dealt with the rest of the pack.
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Feb 26, 2016 07:13
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megane posted:I'd be quite interested to hear about the playtester characters -- like what their builds & backstories were. An entire party of one class sounds kinda cool. I had a few ways to disengage or go Hidden/Invisible, which, combined with Sprinter, meant I could set up pretty much any flank I wanted at any time. Goddamn is Sprinter good. I didn't exploit it as much as is theoretically possible because it's bothersome to interrupt people's turns in online play, especially with English as a second language. I also had the old version of Subtle Shot which was supposed to work well with the Hidden powers, but there was never any reason to use it. I'm glad it's gone.
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Feb 26, 2016 07:50
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I played an Enabling Warlord Blaster abusing the Sprinter feat to set up flanks, get tokens for it, give people movement to get into flanks, and in the high level playtest use those tokens to give advantage on arbitrary attacks. While most of my encounter powers (apart from the one "hey you, attack with advantage one) were invested in being a pseudo-Leader, my hilarious special was doing a Blaster'd up Alley Oop to slide enemies into flanks and then have a rogue stab them, getting me two support tokens per target. This got hilarious on the titan with multiple body parts to hit with a blaster boosted attack...
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Feb 26, 2016 09:44
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megane posted:I'd be quite interested to hear about the playtester characters -- like what their builds & backstories were. An entire party of one class sounds kinda cool. I was Flint, a Poisoner Blaster water elemental with no interest in stealth whatsoever. I took the feat that let me move through walls and enemies, to better position myself for poisonous Michigan water blasting and took BAMF to be able to get better positioning more easily. I didn't roll very well and got taken out about half the time. We did uncover that a power with stacking Ongoing Damage with no save forever is really mean to members of Team Monster that get several turns per round (since they take that stacked Ongoing at the beginning of every turn).
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Feb 26, 2016 16:57
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Gharbad hasn't chimed in, but he had a ridiculous sprinter defender rogue whose mobility kept him out of trouble while using Trap and marking to put enemies in no-win situations.
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Feb 27, 2016 16:19
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KOKO MARGUILE, FUTURE SOLDIER. I really like sprinter on a rogue. I would bait people to get into charge range, then move away, and when they gave up, move forward again, granting me ranged advantage via trap. Ducking in and out of cover, constantly threatening flanks. Sprinter is one of the best feats, and it's better on a rogue with trap, because whether or not you change positions, you keep those 10 squares for later. Against melee only enemies, you literally can't be hit, and can infinitely kite. Add in a few "no, dm, that doesn't happen" moves from the defender, and you have a dick of a character.
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Feb 27, 2016 20:23
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So I'm working on the next expansion. It'll be all about items. Lots of items for various genres. Optional expanded item-crafting rules. Any requests? What else would you like to see in an expansion like this? Also, if you have cool item ideas that you used in your game (or that you imagine using in your imaginary game with your imaginary friends) and want me to use them, post them here or send them to me (covering my rear end: by doing so, you will be consenting to my publishing them - I will credit you).
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Mar 1, 2016 16:53
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Jimbozig posted:So I'm working on the next expansion. It'll be all about items. Lots of items for various genres. Optional expanded item-crafting rules. Maybe you could add some words about how Item Crafting could also be used for Base Building -- giving Bases characteristics or even Traits for Team Conflict.
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Mar 1, 2016 16:59
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Is this going to be available to Patreon supporters or is it not considered a "mini" expansion?
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Mar 1, 2016 17:30
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When I mentioned crafting to you a while back the direct inspiration was something like Monster Hunter, where you gathered ingredients from defeating enemies and then combined them in recipes to create equipment. There's a few ways to do something like this: 1) Make some different weapon "shells" (Large/Small/Fast/Otherworldly + Melee/Ranged weapons) that could work cross genre, so maybe in a fantasy world the Fighter would take a Large Melee weapon shell as a giant hammer while a roided up super mutant might take concrete boxing gloves with the same shell. These would require setting appropriate materials, primarily gained through salvaging beaten enemies (broken mechs, fallen monsters, just plain looting soldiers) and once you have the stuff you can craft the item. 2) Something more freeform, instead of making a list of finished products and recipes, make a bunch of reskinnable ingredients that add different parts to the item you're crafting. I'd probably include some sort means of randomizing drops for something like this. This option gives players more freedom to customize loot and also has more potential combinations. The big hurdle here to me is making a large number of individual parts that have interesting functions that aren't just straight upgrades* to damage or accuracy or whatever - It's easy to say "using a monster's claws in a recipe increase your damage by 1" and make a bunch of variations on that, but it's much more difficult to say "using a monster's claws in a recipe allow you to spend an action point to inflict the Panicked effect on a target," especially if you start layering these. 3) Some combination of the two, where you have finished recipes and basically slot ingredients in which modify things in some way. This has advantages of both systems, but is probably the most work to do well. So the direct mechanical benefits would come from a simple base recipe - a Poison-laced Weapon would always require your target to roll a 6 rather than a 4+ to cure your ongoing damage or whatever - but using a venomous snake's fangs rather than the tail of a giant scorpion might modify things in some way, probably related to skills or kit-esque non-combat bonuses. This all assumes that (a) the game is focused on beating things up to take their stuff, (b) the characters aren't really "crafters" so much as they visit NPCs or just sort of handwave the actual act of crafting to get the resulting item, and (c) the purpose of these items is combat. I'd be happy to talk about other ideas and alternatives though, or just flesh out ingredient lists. *I don't actually think this is necessarily a bad thing if it's clear that the crafting gear is an optional system (and one that everyone at the table uses) and there's suggestions for GMs on how to modify encounters to deal with different things. If you did this you'd definitely want some sort of gear slot system, maybe just three like "weapon, main armor, sub armor" and only Weapon can ever increase damage or whatever. e: Also unrelated but maybe include a note in the revised Rogue PDF about the 2d6 rules.
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Mar 1, 2016 22:35
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One thing I'd definitely like are items that expand options, rather than make options more powerful. Like, if I special craft a gun for an archer, I want it to give me, like, a new "Double Barrel" attack that let's me hit/push everyone in a 3x3 square adjacent to me, or "rocksalt" that's a single target prone, not "I got a gun, +1 damage" or "I have a scope, +2 range."
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Mar 1, 2016 23:09
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Gharbad the Weak posted:One thing I'd definitely like are items that expand options, rather than make options more powerful. Why settle for one or the other? You could have recipes as described above for individual weapons or armour, and small ways to modify those recipes. You crafted a gun, so you have a Double Barrel attack: the gun was modified with a scope, so it gets more range, but less damage, or whatever.
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Mar 2, 2016 13:17
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You really shouldn't be loving with the damage too much in Strike. 1 point is a massive increase or decrease.
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Mar 2, 2016 16:10
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fool_of_sound posted:You really shouldn't be loving with the damage too much in Strike. 1 point is a massive increase or decrease. This does however produce weird results from time to time . I have been practicing making characters and my Hulk ripoff, statted as a One Form (of the Mammoth) Shapeshifter does the same damage as a human than as a giant.
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Mar 2, 2016 16:16
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Lay on Hands posted:Why settle for one or the other? You could have recipes as described above for individual weapons or armour, and small ways to modify those recipes. You crafted a gun, so you have a Double Barrel attack: the gun was modified with a scope, so it gets more range, but less damage, or whatever. Well, there's a couple reasons. The first reason is "+2 range" is boring. Like, sure. Mechanically, adding +1 or +2 to whatever is one of the best things you can do. In D&D 4e, the best superior implements, 99% of the time, were "Accurate" implements. +1 damage or +1 to hit or whatever is great, but then it just becomes "Well, I could do this really cool thing that expands my options and lets me engage in battle in new, interesting ways, or I guess I could get +1 damage which is literally a 50% damage increase and is therefore probably superior." The second reason is that these kinds of things would let you make new styles of characters. For my shotgun example, be an Archer, and you could mark a couple dudes as a defender, then push them away. Have a blaster give you some cover, or move more freely behind the wall, and force them to chase you around. Blitzers would roll well with the point-blank-shotgun, and Sentinels could put their damage spots between them, forcing enemies to take damage to approach. It'd be hilarious. The third reason is that you can make certain classes more flavorful. Take a modern game story, and add magic. Illegal magic. You've got a blood mage. But, when he's not using his blood mage powers (which would be illegal), he can use the shotgun to get by. +1 damage doesn't help you make more interesting settings. (You could reflavor his at-will magics to be guns and his encounters to be Actual Spells, though, but this would be another option. Then his shotgun would be like everyone else's shotgun, and some people like that.) +[stat] also trips over various classes and roles. +1 damage makes you roll nearly as much damage as a striker for some levels. Constant regeneration and resist makes you basically a defender. You could argue my shotgun trips over blaster or controller, but I think +1 damage is a stronger example. +damage can also lead to some consequences in the monster math. What do we do if everyone has +damage? Do we increase monster health? Well, at that point, if you do it right, you may as well do nothing at all. Do we add more monsters? Well, that can rapidly complicate things, via the action economy. Does it stack with Blood Mage's damage bonus? If not, other mages are pretty much strictly superior. If it does, Blood Mages can suddenly one-shot a lot more things. I mean, we could have an item limit, but then you have issues where you can't predict WHICH items people take: if they take more offense items than you expect, fights becomes rocket tag. Too many defense items, fights become slogs. +/-[stat] is the most common type of modifier in any game, because it's super easy. It's also one of the easiest ways (next to things like multi-attacking feats and powers) to cause the game to rapidly become a headache to approach balance.
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Mar 2, 2016 17:12
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paradoxGentleman posted:This does however produce weird results from time to time . I have been practicing making characters and my Hulk ripoff, statted as a One Form (of the Mammoth) Shapeshifter does the same damage as a human than as a giant. Hmm. I'd slightly modify the Multi-Role shapechanger feat. Instead of your base form having no role, and each role having a feat, I'd say that your base form has one role and your mammoth form has another. So, you could be base (leader), and then Hulk (striker).
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Mar 2, 2016 17:14
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Single form shapeshifter probably does need something. There's not a lot to recommend it tbh.
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Mar 2, 2016 17:37
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Jimbozig posted:So I'm working on the next expansion. It'll be all about items. Lots of items for various genres. Optional expanded item-crafting rules. Some kind of framework for getting components off enemies to make items or craft upgrades/short term buffs. Now, you can fluff it as some kind of salvaging mechanic, but I know what I'll want to do with it... 
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Mar 3, 2016 02:36
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Superstring posted:Some kind of framework for getting components off enemies to make items or craft upgrades/short term buffs. Where is that from? I like it.
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Mar 3, 2016 02:58
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Dungeon Meshi
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Mar 3, 2016 03:09
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The only bad thing about Delicious Dungeon is that the author is infamous for making all of her work end quickly, so there probably isn't much more of it. Monster cooking is something of a Thing right now for whatever reason https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StKZvUC5uw8
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Mar 3, 2016 03:14
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There's a decent amount. I don't think it was ever meant as a super long series anyways. And what is there is funny and great. And, pertinent to the discussion, they've even started crafting items from monster remains! 
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Mar 3, 2016 03:50
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Hey Jim, I got the emails for Rogue and the updated Rogue, but something went a bit funky with the Rogue and it never got added to my account, so I can't actually download the updated Rogue. I'm a huge dumbo and don't know what to do from here 
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Mar 3, 2016 07:00
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NachtSieger posted:Hey Jim, I got the emails for Rogue and the updated Rogue, but something went a bit funky with the Rogue and it never got added to my account, so I can't actually download the updated Rogue. I'm a huge dumbo and don't know what to do from here Send me an email (jmcgarva@gmail.com) and I'll get you a new discount code. If that doesn't work, I can email you the PDF directly tonight.
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Mar 3, 2016 14:04
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Just curious, but how large is the softcover shipped? Live in the city and though I doubt anyone would be looking to steal this sort of thing I'd rather it fit in my mailbox. If it's roughly magazine sized I should be in good shape.
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Mar 4, 2016 17:39
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Just bought the Vehicle mini-expansion. Looks solid (and around the lines of thinking I had for my space opera 4e clone), but one question I have is, how do you handle the action economy for when multiple characters are in one vehicle? Like the typical Star Wars game, everyone piled in the Millennium Falcon or its equivalent.
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Mar 5, 2016 04:29
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wrl posted:Just curious, but how large is the softcover shipped? Live in the city and though I doubt anyone would be looking to steal this sort of thing I'd rather it fit in my mailbox. If it's roughly magazine sized I should be in good shape. The hardcover fit in my apartment mailbox fine, it's less than an inch thick and was the standard 8.5" x 11.5", I assume the SC would be slightly smaller.
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Mar 5, 2016 04:30
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