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Splicer posted:Are the ability scores raw numbers or a 3.x+ style derived modifier? What formats are the statups in? They are the modifiers. As for the stat increases, there's very little information that I've found so far. It's a table footnote so far. I'm hoping for clarity and a mechanical restriction to keep you from just massively jacking up one stat. quote:Do monster defences etc. seem formula-scaled or a winging it situation? 
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Dec 29, 2017 15:46
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Splicer posted:I meant the level up stat ups. Do you just get 5 +1s over the course of the game? Or is it fiddlier? Four +1s (3, 5, 7, and 9).
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Dec 29, 2017 15:49
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Splicer posted:Do monster defences etc. seem formula-scaled or a winging it situation? Did a quick skim of this. Monsters have a Danger Level (DL) which takes from 1-10 just like player level. Theoretically, DL = character level for challenge purposes, so 1 DL 4 monster is a reasonable fight for a level 4 character or a significant challenge for four 1st level characters. No idea whether this actually works in play. There's a lot of discussion of tweaking the encounters to your specific party, and advice for what to tweak for a physical, melee party vice a more mage-oriented group, for example. There's a table with HP and defense numbers for each DL, but all of the numbers are a range: DL 1 HP are suggested to be in the 10-19 range, DL 2 is 14-22, etc. No consistent progression that jumped out at me but I didn't give it a deep dive. Reskinning monsters and powers is explicitly encouraged. The general advice is to start weak and scale up as you get a feel for it. There's no real guidance for power creation that I noticed, but the stats are the only things shared with PCs (no 3e monsters and PCs built the same). My immediate feel is that it will work well for reasonably experienced GMs but may be difficult for new GMs to get a handle on. The monsters themselves seem interesting and varied but again, I've just done a quick skim.
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Dec 29, 2017 16:04
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Hypnobeard posted:Did a quick skim of this. Monsters have a Danger Level (DL) which takes from 1-10 just like player level. Theoretically, DL = character level for challenge purposes, so 1 DL 4 monster is a reasonable fight for a level 4 character or a significant challenge for four 1st level characters. No idea whether this actually works in play. dwarf74 posted:They are the modifiers. Splicer posted:Thanks to you both btw
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Dec 29, 2017 16:18
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Splicer posted:Anything neat about the action economy? Nothing jumped out at me action economy wise but I didn't give it a close read so it could be buried in a side bar. I've also not played it yet so I don't have good feel--take all my comments with that grain of salt. If dwarf74 doesn't post it I'll c&p the sample character in a bit when the kids take their naps and I can get on my computer.
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Dec 29, 2017 16:25
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OK, here's the sample character:  That's all prettified and whatnot, though; here's the character sheet for comparison:  (apologies for the dropbox links, imgur was not letting me upload the pics for whatever reason)
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Dec 29, 2017 18:41
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That's the character that was made in the creation demo video: https://youtu.be/dxENHdX8YLc
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Dec 29, 2017 18:57
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Hypnobeard posted:Nothing jumped out at me action economy wise but I didn't give it a close read so it could be buried in a side bar. I've also not played it yet so I don't have good feel--take all my comments with that grain of salt. Action economy is basically 4e - move, standard, minor with different names. Out of turn actions seem less prevalent, but you can make unlimited OA's.
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Dec 29, 2017 19:27
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whydirt posted:That's the character that was made in the creation demo video: I sorta hate the Core Path example given, it sounds like you just sorta stretch your best one to fit whatever situations you can when it's even vaguely relevant. Like the whole "I remember reading a legend about an expert marksman in my library. Rolling Knowledge: History to line up my shot" thing that use to get joked about here a lot. The rest seems neat though.
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Dec 29, 2017 19:42
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for people who didn't watch the video, the example given is that the character is using her "A Warrior's Heart" bonus (her best at +3, versus +1 for the others) to augment her ability to out-drink someone, saying that when she was a kid she got into drinking contents with her brothers and lost a lot but it bolstered her tolerance
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Dec 29, 2017 19:45
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Disclaimer: I've only seen the public preview material, so KS backers can correct me if this isn't correct. I think the core paths are intentionally broad and meant to give players opportunity to add wrinkles of detail to their backstory during play. Trying to cheese the game by only using the ranked highest path all the time seems more like a player issue than a mechanics issue. The tone of things reads like out-of-combat rules are meant to be relatively loose and freeform rather than an engine to model reality, which is fine by me.
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Dec 29, 2017 20:15
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whydirt posted:Disclaimer: I've only seen the public preview material, so KS backers can correct me if this isn't correct. Yeah, it's the same thing they did in 13th Age, in the sense that there's no mechanics to stop you from being a bad player who min-maxes hard but at the same time, they do control them better in Unity by making it so you can't hit the cap at level 1. Basically, small increment better than 13th Age. Which seems to be what Unity tries to be outside of the combat stuff.
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Dec 29, 2017 20:37
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Countblanc posted:I sorta hate the Core Path example given, it sounds like you just sorta stretch your best one to fit whatever situations you can when it's even vaguely relevant. Like the whole "I remember reading a legend about an expert marksman in my library. Rolling Knowledge: History to line up my shot" thing that use to get joked about here a lot. So something like "my father taught me everything" is in the "really bad" category.
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Dec 29, 2017 20:51
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whydirt posted:Trying to cheese the game by only using the ranked highest path all the time seems more like a player issue than a mechanics issue. Are the paths from a list? If so, how much of the fluff on her sheet is common to every A Warrior's Heart? Do you get more points as you level? Is there a cap? It looks like you can go 2/2/1 in theory, but that feels like a trap option. Splicer fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Dec 29, 2017 |
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Dec 29, 2017 21:07
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IIRC, core paths are supposed to be player created, but there are examples in the core book to use as inspiration or steal if you're lazy/rushed.
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Dec 29, 2017 21:10
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Splicer posted:Are the paths from a list? If so, how much of the fluff on her sheet is common to every A Warrior's Heart? You do get more points but I'm less worried here than with stats. As long as the game isn't about stretching to use your one best path all the time, it won't be as rewarding to keep a narrow focus. You can also use points for new Core Paths. It's 2d10 resolution, so there's a reasonably strong center-weighting. If most difficulties are under 13, spreading it around makes more sense. If they congregate at the high end, it's the opposite.
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Dec 29, 2017 21:18
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Antilles posted:If your game is 100% focused on a single aspect, like combat, and if you reduce everything down to raw numbers and uncomplicated maths you might be able to just crunch the numbers and get something workable, but as soon as you start comparing apples vs oranges? How do you put a point value on "doesn't need sleep" and "cannot be poisoned" and expect them to be equally valuable in every circumstance? You buy them with completely separate point currencies so you don't have to.
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Dec 29, 2017 21:33
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dwarf74 posted:The book acknowledges this possible issue. It breaks it down like "Does it encompass a few useful skills and knowledge? Good. Too narrow? Bad. Too broad? Really bad." This is basically also my problem with FAE tbh
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Dec 29, 2017 21:39
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Has any game really managed to tackle the broad vs narrow problem with freeform skills? Heroquest technically has rules that are supposed to penalize really broad abilities, but I've always felt like they put the GM in a bad place.
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Dec 29, 2017 21:53
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Haystack posted:Has any game really managed to tackle the broad vs narrow problem with freeform skills? Heroquest technically has rules that are supposed to penalize really broad abilities, but I've always felt like they put the GM in a bad place. Freeform descriptors require good behavior from players and attention by the GM. It's like anything else - the book can give guidance, but at the end of the day there's a boundless number of possibilities.
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Dec 29, 2017 21:57
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Haystack posted:Has any game really managed to tackle the broad vs narrow problem with freeform skills? Heroquest technically has rules that are supposed to penalize really broad abilities, but I've always felt like they put the GM in a bad place. Video games solve it by only allowing you to do what is explicitly permitted. You could do this in a tabletop RPG, but I suspect most posters in this thread wouldn't go for that. Every other alternative is just some variation of "let the GM handle it" or "don't be a dick."
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Dec 29, 2017 21:58
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I don't think the skill broadness thing is a big deal in a trad game, it's designed to give characterisation and get through non-combat stuff quickly. The player gets to flesh out their backstory when fidgeting with a trap or whatever. It's not the focus of the game, so keep it quick.Tuxedo Catfish posted:Video games solve it by only allowing you to do what is explicitly permitted. You could do this in a tabletop RPG, but I suspect most posters in this thread wouldn't go for that. Every other alternative is just some variation of "let the GM handle it" or "don't be a dick." Traction Park is pretty cool
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Dec 29, 2017 22:16
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Haystack posted:Has any game really managed to tackle the broad vs narrow problem with freeform skills? Heroquest technically has rules that are supposed to penalize really broad abilities, but I've always felt like they put the GM in a bad place. Yo
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Dec 29, 2017 22:23
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dwarf74 posted:I don't think it's possible, tbh, if there's no specific list to pick from.  If there was a second information channel so you could have a trade off that didn't affect success odds they'd probably work a lot better, like escalating the difficulty dice in EotE.
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Dec 29, 2017 23:25
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Mind breaking it down for me, or at least pointing me at the relevant blog post and/or rule?
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Dec 29, 2017 23:50
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I do a lot of gaming with freeform skills/abilities and it's a big issue. Mostly the best way to handle it is not to sweat the small stuff and encourage bigger skills rather than trying to cap overlarge ones. When I say sweating the small stuff I mostly mean looking at how the traits work in play vs trying to get too nitty-gritty. For example, in a game like PDQ take Qualities like "Way of the Sword" vs "Martial Arts Master". Assuming both are at the same rank, they'll largely operate identically: martial arts master gives you a bonus when punching someone, way of the sword gives you a bonus when cutting someone. Both can be reasonably used in defense and (barring weird interpretations) both are good for some minor social/knowledge stuff outside of their combat role. Now, what's the obvious difference: one requires a weapon. Think of something like a traditional action fantasy or wandering adventurer games. In the large majority of cases, characters are going to have access to their weapons when they need it. There's still a difference, but it's a pretty small one. A good comparison is the monk vs fighter paradigm in D&D, the monk often underperforms because they're penalized for getting their combat abilities permanently attached rather than requiring equipment, but in almost all cases it doesn't make a difference because everyone has their equipment anyway (because the fighter is going to get grumpy if they get disarmed every other adventure anyway). Now, context matters...for instance if the game weren't a fantasy world or a post-apocalyptic wilderness or what have you, but rather a modern game with things like police and weapon laws, then the gap becomes much wider...because the places you can get away with toting a sword are much fewer. This leads to my second recommendation which is that I find the best way to balance freeform Traits is to bring up weaker Traits to meet the level of the stronger Traits. So, rather than coming up with some penalty to punish the martial artist in this context, I would suggest that the swordsman come up with a new Trait that is suitably bigger. Perhaps this might involve taking a Trait like "Master of the Shadow Blade" which comes 'packaged' with things like stealth skills or just plain the ability to create their own magic sword from thin air. Likewise, it's easy to get too specific when it comes to non-combat Traits and usually it's better to combine or improve those weaker traits rather than trying to set a hard cap on the power of bigger traits. Now, obviously there are problems when someone tries to pull off a trait or quality like "unbeatable" or "Jack of All Trades, Master of All of Them Too". That's why freeform traits are exclusive to what are called "high trust" games, and one reason I never suggest FATE as a go-to system for newbies without an experienced GM. They're for games where the players can trust that the GM isn't there to try and screw them over and deny them their abilities and the GM can trust the players not to be dicks and try and slide BS past them. Probably the biggest sticking point I've run into is dexterity style traits like speed or agility, for much the same reason they're kind of a god-stat in things like the story-teller system: taken literally they just cover too much stuff compared to other straightforward traits like strength or combat skill. It's not a huge problem or an insurmountable one, but it's definitely been a persistent annoyance. Of course, you will run into situations or abilities that are obviously better, especially if superhuman abilities are in the mix. Something like "really strong" compared to something like "telekinesis" is kind of obviously problematic, since by default TK can do everything you'd want to do with strength and can do it invisibly at a distance. Best approach is to have some kind of rules in place ahead of time to deal with how big supernatural traits are handled. A common solution with things like PDQ is just to start these traits off one step lower so they're always a bit behind the other traits. oriongates fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Dec 30, 2017 |
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Dec 30, 2017 00:39
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The good news here is that Core Paths are explicitly for out of combat use. So balance issues will hopefully be minor. I think the "one best skill" problem could be partially avoided by using something akin to Fate Core's skill pyramid. So you can't have a 3 without a 2, or a 2 without a 1. Something similar to this may also work for attributes. I am armchairing this though, and the game math may work better without caps. I dunno yet. Also I'd like to stress again - this is a gorgeous book with great art and solid layout.
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Dec 30, 2017 00:55
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Haystack posted:Mind breaking it down for me, or at least pointing me at the relevant blog post and/or rule? Sure - System One: I started out by giving players a few set skills based on class and background, and then letting them choose the rest. They'd get a range of +X values to match up, based on where they wanted the character's strengths to be. I discarded this system because it was total crap. System Two: Going back to the drawing board, I gave skills a complete rethink. My inspiration was the old Conan movies. "Have you ever," I thought to myself "seen a movie where Conan isn't able to do the thing he needs to do?" The answer is no - Conan might not achieve his goal the same was as the gnarled old sorcerer or sneaky rogue will, but he'll always be able to do what he needs to do. With that in mind, I decided to do away with making the focus of the skill system the names of the skills - Sneak +3 vs Smart +2 is super dull, in retrospect and especially long-term, why shouldn't my high-level hero be able to sneak or barter effectively? He's got more experience haggling for goods than anyone in the entire city! Going forward, anyone could tackle any obstacle. I took a page from the attack/counter/interrupt system I use for combat, and gave each class and background a suite of non-combat powers that can be used against any type of obstacle. I also added special features to backgrounds - now, your criminal isn't sneaky because she has "Sneak +3" written down, she's sneaky because her background feature allows her to bypass mechanical blocking zones included in non-combat challenges. Likewise, your merchant isn't a merchant because his character sheet says "Haggle +2" - literally any hero can haggle with merchants. Rather, he's effective because his background feature grants him bonuses managing party resources.
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Dec 30, 2017 01:14
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Isn't Furian what Vin Diesel was in the Riddick movies?
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Dec 30, 2017 01:23
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theironjef posted:Isn't Furian what Vin Diesel was in the Riddick movies?
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Dec 30, 2017 01:45
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Furyan and they look like normal humans but have enhanced strength and senses... Perhaps a reason why they were feared by the Necromonger Empire...!
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Dec 30, 2017 01:50
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Riddick would make a pretty good Santa.
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Dec 30, 2017 02:49
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Can anyone recommend me a virtual tabletop which has a robust engine for handling cards? Roll20 doesn't do what I need it to, and my stopgap of implementing a random card draw engine in a Google spreadsheet is kinda slow.
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Dec 30, 2017 15:19
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VASSAL is fairly powerful if you spend the time to learn its tools (I have not)
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Dec 30, 2017 15:49
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potatocubed posted:Can anyone recommend me a virtual tabletop which has a robust engine for handling cards? Roll20 doesn't do what I need it to, and my stopgap of implementing a random card draw engine in a Google spreadsheet is kinda slow. Tabletop simulator has great card deck support, though it's not the best interface for playing RPGs.
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Dec 30, 2017 17:04
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Blockhouse posted:so list of games with cool archers: To these I feel obligated to add Spellbound Kingdoms (where archers are not only allowed but expected to do cool trick shots) and Reign (that has a martial path called Eye of Death that turns your archer into a killing machine).
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Dec 30, 2017 17:06
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Didn't 13th Age's system let you decide how much of the total bonus they'd get to apply, based on how on-point it was? That seems like an easy solution.
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Dec 30, 2017 19:48
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If you're playing a freeform-skills game and your player comes up with an entertaining stretch for how their background or whatever works just let them all do it all the time. It's cool and fun. Just make sure everyone builds their starting backgrounds or paths or whatever with varied enough backgrounds they can half-rear end justify in any situation!
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Dec 30, 2017 23:51
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God help me I'm gonna try and
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Dec 31, 2017 05:24
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I'm sure God would, but God never could figure how those rules work.
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