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I haven't seen the most recent incarnation of Duel, but I enjoyed what I saw of it previously. My biggest gripe was that the first round felt very arbitrary but some of that was because it was being tested in a blank white room setting and that isn't how it would be used in practice - you'd know that the brash general guy would probably attempt a more aggressive opening move than the cool and calculated fencer, and that'd allow you to make more educated opening moves.
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Aug 29, 2017 21:31
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I have to say, of those Kazzam!, Duel and Battle interest me the most. As much as I like the Tactical Combat of Strike! sometimes I wish I'd have a system for abstract skill-based combat with a bit more depth than making a single opposed roll, and I have to say I haven't really gotten into the Team Contest rules. I'm sure they're fine, but they're a bit too abstracted for my group's tastes that I haven't been able to try them out too many times. It'd be great to have a system that supports the use of Skills, Tricks and Kit Advances in the context of combat but with a bit more depth.
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Aug 31, 2017 09:45
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I'm glad things are going well with your daughter--best of wishes! Kazzam, Duel and Battle, and PvP look hella interesting. Sign me up if you can, please!
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Aug 31, 2017 11:25
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Ratpick posted:I have to say, of those Kazzam!, Duel and Battle interest me the most. As much as I like the Tactical Combat of Strike! sometimes I wish I'd have a system for abstract skill-based combat with a bit more depth than making a single opposed roll, and I have to say I haven't really gotten into the Team Contest rules. I'm sure they're fine, but they're a bit too abstracted for my group's tastes that I haven't been able to try them out too many times. It'd be great to have a system that supports the use of Skills, Tricks and Kit Advances in the context of combat but with a bit more depth. Team Conflict is neat, Chase is neat. Strike!'s minigames, since they present tactically-interesting alternatives to breaking out the battle mat, are one of my favorite things about it. They really change the texture of gaming sessions.
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Aug 31, 2017 14:58
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homullus posted:Team Conflict is neat, Chase is neat. Strike!'s minigames, since they present tactically-interesting alternatives to breaking out the battle mat, are one of my favorite things about it. They really change the texture of gaming sessions. Oh I love Chase, and none of my players have any issues with it. It's definitely one of my favorite parts of the game. As I said, my friends' dislike of Team Conflict has to do with its abstract nature, and I assume their love of the Chase rules is that the different maneuvers have clear grounding in the fiction. But yeah I don't doubt that Team Conflict is great, I just can't speak of how good it is because the couple of times I ran it my players had trouble getting into it because it was too abstract for their tastes. I'm sure they'd love the hell out of Chase-inspired rules for abstract combat.
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Aug 31, 2017 16:12
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My experience with Team Conflict is that the abstraction and narrative sides flow better when it is a generically-constrained environment, and the more constraints, the better it goes. That may be because I'm just not as good at narrowing narrative options on the fly when it's really an open-ended task. TC for a fantasy football game would be great; TC for some kind of terrorism-counterterrorism struggle would be harder for me.
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Aug 31, 2017 17:08
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Weird idea, want some opinions before I put any work into it. I was thinking about how I might handle a mount class - a dude who rides a horse or a motorcycle or whatever in combat, and I came up with a movement mechanic that may be ok or it may be crap. You get extra movement points - maybe 10 or 12 instead of 6 by default, and you can always choose the direction of the first square of movement each turn, but further moves must be in that same direction unless you spend movement points to turn. 1 point to turn 45 degrees, 3 points to turn 90 degrees, and 6 points to turn 135 degrees. So it is more efficient to turn 45 degrees, move a square, then turn another 45 degrees than it is to turn 90 degrees suddenly, encouraging you to round corners smoothly or to reduce your speed to make sharper turns. I'm also thinking this could have been an optional rule in the vehicles supplement for certain types of vehicles.
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Sep 6, 2017 01:55
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Jimbozig posted:Weird idea, want some opinions before I put any work into it. It would be awesome in direct proportion to (1) the suitability of a mount in the fiction, and (2) the ability of the GM to make maps appropriate for a mount-suitable setting. Edit: Which means you might want to give some guidance for what such a map might look like, should you release such a thing.
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Sep 6, 2017 02:24
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I think homullus' second point is the big stickler for me, combined with how it would fit into a standard adventuring party. A lot of easier-but-interesting maps use lots of damage zones or other hazards, often in shapes less simple than a handful of 2x2 boxes, and a mounted class would be sorta frustrating in those environments. I don't think this is unsolvable, I mean The Dancer is entirely based around having lovely movement options in exchange for other benefits, I guess it just depends on making sure the benefits (both balance and fun) outweigh the potential costs. I see potential for powers, for what it's worth. Stuff like transporting your allies, "keelhauling" enemies, dismounting to do... something. The mount itself also offers class feature options.
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Sep 6, 2017 02:44
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The real tricky part for mounted / centaur-like characters is what to do when the party is in a location reached through means that a mount couldn't access, such as a ladder or crawlspace , or in their bedroom / rooftop, etc. Whenever I had an idea for a character like that, I had the mental image of him watching the rest of the group climb a ladder, looking to his mount, then back to the ladder and giving a dejected sigh.
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Sep 7, 2017 14:42
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Right. It's easy enough to envision a specific character with narrative justification for being able to dismount in crawl spaces - maybe your bike transforms into a gun, or your giant panther turns back into an onyx statuette, or whatever - but it's much more challenging to bake that into a class that's supposed to cover a niche as big as "rides a thing". That said the actual mechanical side is still interesting so it might be a puzzle worth attempting to solve anyway.
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Sep 7, 2017 18:16
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I'm not really seeing the problem?
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Sep 7, 2017 19:54
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I'd really rather not have more combat abilities that, as a GM, I have to decide to allow or disallow based on the fiction. "Control Undead" on the Necromancer is enough of a headache already.
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Sep 7, 2017 19:57
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I'd really rather not have more combat abilities that, as a GM, I have to decide to allow or disallow based on the fiction. "Control Undead" on the Necromancer is enough of a headache already. My least favorite is the guy with the gang that increases his character's size. It's not clear what happens when they're in tighter spaces, and I don't love something that narratively doubles the party's size in games where the PCs are doing normal PC sneaking, diplomating, being inconspicuous. The alternative -- taking the gang away every time it doesn't make sense -- is punishing the player for his choices. If I ran the game again, that specific ability would be off limits.
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Sep 8, 2017 03:05
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I let my Summoner take that gang thing for his Elementals, but they're temporary summons anyways. He did summon a gang of Earth Elementals to help clear out a blocked tunnel that one time, reducing the time to a few hours instead of days. I allowed that because the tunnel was just an obstacle to force them to either do something about it or take a more hazardous path. EDIT: And now they're trying to catch up with a seer who is carrying an powerful bomb with the intention to do something very stupid in order to save the world. Which does need saving, because some people're doing something very stupid that will doom the world if not stopped. Kaja Rainbow fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Sep 8, 2017 |
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Sep 8, 2017 03:27
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I'd really rather not have more combat abilities that, as a GM, I have to decide to allow or disallow based on the fiction. "Control Undead" on the Necromancer is enough of a headache already. That was always something that gave me a head scratcher, what's a good rule of thumb for percentage of undead vs other enemies? 1/5th? 1/3rd? It seems a tough balance between making a class too powerful and too weak, and that would take an inordinate amount of time during a session 0.
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Sep 8, 2017 16:32
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Yeah, I'm not a big fan on that ot the Archer trick arrow balancing factor being rp based.
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Sep 8, 2017 16:40
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fool_of_sound posted:Yeah, I'm not a big fan on that ot the Archer trick arrow balancing factor being rp based. Yeah, I pretty much ignored that as a DM, especially as the Archer players didn't need any incentive to be any less creative with that power.
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Sep 8, 2017 17:19
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fool_of_sound posted:Yeah, I'm not a big fan on that ot the Archer trick arrow balancing factor being rp based. That's not a balancing factor in the sense of the power being too strong otherwise - it's not too strong. It's a mechanism to make sure that if a player keeps using the same choice over and over, they have to give it a rest at some point, but instead of getting a penalty they get a fun little side quest. Using the same effective tactics repeatedly can make the game get stale, but I don't think a player who does it should be punished for trying to play well. Letting them keep using other fun abilities and giving them a thing to do in downtime is a good way to keep powers from getting stale without it being a punishment or feeling arbitrary. If I was redesigning fom scratch, I'd probably have more powers like that, tbh. The thing that held me back from making that sort of mechanic more universal was that it doesn't really make sense in the fiction that you have multiple kinds of trick arrows (or of whatever powers) but can only use 1 per fight. Today I am more okay than I was 3 years ago with saying "Why? Because it's a game, that's why." Would it feel better if every class had some sort of mechanic tying into appropriately themed goals for downtime instead of just one class? Or do you dislike the interplay between combat and downtime stuff in general?
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Sep 9, 2017 21:22
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I think you're coming at it from the wrong side. If your players are using the exact same effective tactics in every fight, then either you have a balance problem with the abilities, or your fight / monster design is messed up. (Alternatively, just make the same old abilities have interesting choices after you decide to use them, rather than before -- if picking targets, doing order of operations tricks, and resource management are skillful enough by themselves, then it's not really a problem if players keep coming back to the same abilities.) Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Sep 9, 2017 |
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Sep 9, 2017 21:26
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Jimbozig posted:Would it feel better if every class had some sort of mechanic tying into appropriately themed goals for downtime instead of just one class? Or do you dislike the interplay between combat and downtime stuff in general? In general. I've just been houseruling it as 'can't use the same trick arrow twice in a row', like a star magician.
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Sep 9, 2017 21:36
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^^^^ Are you still turning 2s into 5s for that power?Tuxedo Catfish posted:I think you're coming at it from the wrong side. If your players are using the exact same effective tactics in every fight, then either you have a balance problem with the abilities, or your fight / monster design is messed up. Players end up using the same tactics for a variety of reasons. It's not always just that those are the best. It's sometimes just that they haven't explored the other possibilities as much. Or that they think a thing is optimal mistakenly. Or that they aren't putting much thought into it at all and just do a thing that worked before rather than engage more. You can solve any of those problems in different ways. I think that having a mechanic that simply forces players to make use of the variety of options they have is the most direct solution, but it has downsides. The main downside is that it can feel like a punishment, like taking away a toy. The Trick Arrow power mitigates that downside by giving the player a bonus when it happens - that miss just turned into a hit! That's the opposite of a punishment. Making encounter powers more reliable and more varied is all to the good. Giving players personal goals to encourage downtime is also good. With that all said, of course balancing choices against one another to prevent one thing from being truly optimal is very important. Balance is the first and most important line of defense against tactics getting stale. If I ever got feedback during playtesting saying "this thing is too strong," I always looked into it and re-ran the numbers and sometimes made new models and spreadsheets just to test certain powers, and I made changes when it turned out there was an issue. I know that the balance can never be perfect, so I'm always open to suggestions. I think I've done very well with it on the whole - I am not aware of any class-based tactical combat rpg with balance as good as Strike! (And if you know of one, point me to it so I can learn some new tricks!)
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Sep 9, 2017 21:51
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FWIW, I enjoy the idea of the Trick Arrow. I'm also a broken man who enjoys AD&D 2e, so consider this.
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Sep 9, 2017 21:55
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Jimbozig posted:(And if you know of one, point me to it so I can learn some new tricks!) Did you ever end up getting ahold of a copy of Gloomhaven? I don't know if it's "more balanced" but it's heavily 4e-inspired (by the designer's public admission) and I think there's a lot of fun stuff to look at there for ideas.
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Sep 9, 2017 21:58
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Jimbozig posted:
I really dislike classes tying into out of combat like that, honestly, for Strike. Same reason I ban the Kit advances with combat effects.
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Sep 9, 2017 21:58
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Jimbozig posted:^^^^ Are you still turning 2s into 5s for that power? No. It still seemed to work fine.
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Sep 9, 2017 22:11
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Countblanc posted:Did you ever end up getting ahold of a copy of Gloomhaven? I don't know if it's "more balanced" but it's heavily 4e-inspired (by the designer's public admission) and I think there's a lot of fun stuff to look at there for ideas. I backed the second kickstarter, so it will get to me eventually!
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Sep 9, 2017 22:59
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Thoughts on these pieces of gear?  EDIT: Characters are level 2, about to be level 3.
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Sep 20, 2017 16:07
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Moriatti posted:Thoughts on these pieces of gear? Do these break after two uses in one encounter, two uses of the Special, two uses of the Special in one encounter, or two uses total?
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Sep 20, 2017 17:04
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Two uses in one encounter. It's Gamma World's ammo rule.
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Sep 20, 2017 17:10
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Moriatti posted:Two uses in one encounter. It's Gamma World's ammo rule. They should both say that. If you're using that rule a lot, make an icon and save yourself the text space. And lose, not loose.
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Sep 20, 2017 17:36
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homullus posted:They should both say that. If you're using that rule a lot, make an icon and save yourself the text space. And lose, not loose. I'll alter it as such. I don't expect I'll be using it again, save on Inkling weapons, but I might make the icon anyways: 2 of the Inklings escaped. I've already created a battery icon for items that have X charges, so this'll be in line with that. Mechanically do these seem sound? I know that the Charger will eliminate a level 2 creature on a crit, but I figure such a creature is gonna only live 1-2 rounds anyways, so the downside of only one attack seems fine. Especially if they give that attack advantage. The Roller I'm less sure of, my party isn't especially stealthy, so I figure it's potential of 5 (8) damage at a 2 burst is unlikely, but I'm still not 100% on it.
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Sep 20, 2017 18:17
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Moriatti posted:I'll alter it as such. I don't expect I'll be using it again, save on Inkling weapons, but I might make the icon anyways: 2 of the Inklings escaped. I've already created a battery icon for items that have X charges, so this'll be in line with that. They're strong but limited. If you aren't drowning the party in things like this, the worst that happens is a fight that would have been harder is easier. If you don't already know how miserly they are with their nova powers, these are a good way to find out, so that boss fights can be satisfying without requiring these or trivializing the boss.
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Sep 20, 2017 18:34
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Right, the next boss they're likely to fight is a 2-3 stage boss (I have a week or two to tweak him) so I figure worst case is I just ignore overflow damage on his "just a dude" phase and start his "Titan" phase on full. Also, what do you guys use to represent Titans? I'm thinking so buy whatever Lego is doing for Bionicle type dudes and physically tear off the pieces as they damage them.
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Sep 20, 2017 19:07
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Moriatti posted:Thoughts on these pieces of gear? I love this and wish I could be in this game, is my thought.
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Sep 20, 2017 19:52
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homullus posted:They should both say that. If you're using that rule a lot, make an icon and save yourself the text space. And lose, not loose. So I've been giving this thoughts and I kind of want to make a reference card for all potential limiters. I'm going to list all of the ones I can think of, and I want to make this list future proof, so I'm open for suggestions. I'll also be including the icon I plan on using in parenthesis, and would appreciate feedback on this as well. Ammo (Bullet Bill in an incomplete circle) - Use once per encounter, or use twice and the item is broken. EG: Splat Weapons above. AP (Fire Flower with a number, usually 1) - Pay AP to use. Rare, more often to be a trick than a combat power. EG: Pegasus Boots that let you pay an AP to outrun someone or something. Consumable (Potion Bottle) - Use once. EG: Well, Potions and Bombs. Intelligent (Monado) - Usable based on Concordance. Will have a spot to write in Concordance on card and the effect line will mention Concordance requirements (what's a more succinct and less thesaurus-y word than Concordance?) EG: The Master Sword that requires you to defeat evil regularly in order to wield it. Battery (Battery with Cells = Charge) - Has X charges, each time it's used, cross a charge out. When no more charges remain, the item is broken.
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Sep 20, 2017 20:03
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Moriatti posted:
You could cut right to the chase: Demands: [thing demanded]. In return, [effect and its cost]. Edit: actually, you can go two different directions, if you're going with a larger number of intelligent items. Wants: [thing wanted]. In return, [effect and its cost]. Demands: [thing demanded]. Failure means [effect]. homullus fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Sep 20, 2017 |
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Sep 20, 2017 20:08
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homullus posted:You could cut right to the chase: I really like this. It's a difficult but fun space to design in. I only have one intelligent weapon in mind at this moment (The Master Sword) but now I want to put in more... Moriatti fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Sep 20, 2017 |
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Sep 20, 2017 20:12
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Jimbozig posted:If you want to playtest monsters, some of which may be crap, here is the file of ones I'd made for the upcoming monsters and loot sort of supplement. There are over 70 monsters in the file right now, spread across all levels. They are all non-human opponents (though you can always reskin). The human(oid) opponents part I hadn't gotten around to yet. The file is still very rough and I won't have time to clean it up, but they all need playtesting at some point. This still up for playtesting? Dropbox has, predictably, dropped it.
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Sep 25, 2017 10:41
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Has anyone thought about alternate uses for Miss Tokens? My players and I seem to forget about them a lot, or else fights get over before we get to use the mechanic at all. Would a role which gave or used Miss Tokens creatively work at all, do you think?
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Sep 26, 2017 21:30
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