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Jimbozig posted:Well, I promised it by today, and here I am with less than an hour to spare. Hooray for deadlines! Fantastic, thank you. I think intangible enemies like "the journey" was what I was having a hard time wrapping my head around so this is perfect.
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Oct 11, 2014 05:01
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Jimbozig posted:Well, I promised it by today, and here I am with less than an hour to spare. Hooray for deadlines! That is a good representation of my experience as well (maybe better, since my players didn't always give narrative descriptions of their action choices), and I think it highlights the fun of the Team Conflict minigame. I like it so much better than skill challenges! Conceding is valid, pressing on is valid.
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Oct 11, 2014 15:27
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I'd love to play this, but I have no one to play it with. Anyone willing to take on a straggler?
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Oct 11, 2014 16:33
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Echophonic posted:How does advancement work? I like both 4e's access to new and better powers and Mouse Guard/Torchbearer's skill advancements. It it something of a blending of the two? In short, yes. It is a blending of the two. To go into more detail, there are levels and you gain new powers or abilities at each level. Mostly combat, but also some non-combat stuff advances too. Even levels advance your Role, odd levels advance your class, and each level also has another little treat like a Feat or a Trick or something. Learning skills is more like mouse guard, but without the bookkeeping. When you roll unskilled and roll a 6*, you can learn the skill. You can also advance Tricks by spending points on them: once you have spent ten points on one, it becomes free and you get a new trick to spend points on. *The randomness is to avoid having to keep track of all the skills you are learning. There is an optional alternative that is slightly more like Mouse Guard that takes out the randomness, but I'm still working on the details as I'm not fully satisfied with it yet.
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Oct 12, 2014 05:19
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Hey Strike fans! I've been away from working on the game for a few weeks because of a family medical emergency, but now I'm back into it with some sample monsters! Please test them out and see how the balance is. Also feel free to suggest any important archetypes I'm missing that I could add. The idea is that these will provide a solid core for basing other things off. I'm hoping so much that I can wrap things up in the next couple of weeks so that I can get a Kickstarter up in December, but life is busy and it's hard to know how long something is going to take if you've never done it before.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:08
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Jimbozig posted:Hey Strike fans! The two archetypes that might be missing are a puppet master-type who primarily moves the PCs and a charge-y guy who dances through the party, doing damage (or other status effects) to all he moves past or through.
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Nov 10, 2014 19:06
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Real quick, for abilities that say "2 extra damage", that's the effect line, right? So it only adds that damage on a 6 generally?
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Nov 11, 2014 04:47
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homullus posted:The two archetypes that might be missing are a puppet master-type who primarily moves the PCs and a charge-y guy who dances through the party, doing damage (or other status effects) to all he moves past or through. The first one I had in my mind that maybe I'd want to include a controller-analog, but that second one hadn't occurred to me. I guess it'd have Opportunity-dodging traits and move-and-attack type powers. It really needs something to distinguish it from the Striker, that also has a focus on mobility and gets Dodge to let it avoid Opportunities. What makes it different from a Striker? Also, for everybody, do the icons work well for letting you read a power and understand its action type, its damage and range and so on? Does the shorthand for levels work well? If you wanted to pick one of the sample monsters and run it at level 6, would you be able to immediately see - without confusion - what traits and powers it would have? 30.5 Days posted:Real quick, for abilities that say "2 extra damage", that's the effect line, right? So it only adds that damage on a 6 generally? You're talking about the striker and sniper enemies, right? Yes, it's the effect line. But where are you getting that it only adds on a 6? On a 3, you get to pick D or E, so you get to pick 2 damage or 2 damage - not really a choice. On a 4 or 5, they deal D and E, so 2 + 2 = 4 damage. On a 6, they deal 2D + E, so that's 2x2 + 2 = 6 damage. Edit again: would it be more clear if I deleted the word extra? Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Nov 11, 2014 |
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Nov 11, 2014 04:52
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Oh I'm sorry, for some reason I got it in my head that you could only D+E on a 6. I'm not sure what'd make it more clear that it's the effect line, although the Special: no effect thing on the striker kind of helps? I kind of feel like you need to either establish it befor ethe monster blocks or just put in Effect: for each effect or something, I don't know.
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Nov 11, 2014 05:20
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Jimbozig posted:The first one I had in my mind that maybe I'd want to include a controller-analog, but that second one hadn't occurred to me. I guess it'd have Opportunity-dodging traits and move-and-attack type powers. It really needs something to distinguish it from the Striker, that also has a focus on mobility and gets Dodge to let it avoid Opportunities. What makes it different from a Striker? For me, I would want its power to differentiate it from strikers, in that there would be incentive for the PCs to do something different tactically. Such as: Chain Reaction Move your speed; during this move, you may move through enemy spaces and do not suffer Opportunity, but may not end this move in an enemy's space. Attack each enemy whose space you entered. D:1 E:Do extra damage equal to the number of adjacent enemies hit (D and/or E) so far on this attack. Stepping Stones Move your speed; during this move, you may move through enemy spaces and do not suffer Opportunity, but may not end this move in an enemy's space. Attack each enemy whose space you entered. D:2 E:Do extra damage equal to the number of non-adjacent enemies hit so far on this attack.
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Nov 11, 2014 15:12
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Hi, once again I'm really dumb and don't understand something obvious. I think it's cool that all the monsters are 2/4/8/10 (sorta) 12, but I don't really understand how to build encounters intended for odd-leveled players. Do you just use the next-higher even level? Do you have players outnumber monsters as indicated for easier encounters to counteract the next-higher level? Also how much higher level can an encounter be than the players before you start having problems? Like if the players are level 1, should I stick to a level 2 champion for a "boss" setpiece, or should I maybe even bring it up to level 4?
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Nov 12, 2014 00:37
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30.5 Days posted:Hi, once again I'm really dumb and don't understand something obvious. I think it's cool that all the monsters are 2/4/8/10 (sorta) 12, but I don't really understand how to build encounters intended for odd-leveled players. Do you just use the next-higher even level? Do you have players outnumber monsters as indicated for easier encounters to counteract the next-higher level? Also how much higher level can an encounter be than the players before you start having problems? Like if the players are level 1, should I stick to a level 2 champion for a "boss" setpiece, or should I maybe even bring it up to level 4? Thanks for asking, I'll add a sentence to make this more clear. Basically there isn't THAT much difference between monsters just one level apart. So if you're building for level 1, just use level 2 monsters. If you're building for level 5, use either level 6 or level 4 or a combination. Please please please keep asking "dumb" questions - they are signposts to me as a writer that I need to clarify slightly and are really easy to fix. Also, because of the way attack rolls work, the game doesn't break down if you use monsters that are "too high" or "too low" in level. Putting level 3 players against level 10 monsters will work fine - the monsters won't get unhittable defenses like they would D&D. It'll be a really tough fight, obviously, but presumably that's your intent. In fact, I realized the other day that there is almost no mechanical difference between a level N elite and a level 2N+3 standard outside of the "Elite" trait. Also, as I was editing in "E:" to the effect lines of all the monsters, I noticed that the Brawler's "sweep kick" power had the wrong text. Its effect line should read "E: The target is knocked prone" instead of the whole "Trigger: ..." stuff. I'll update the pdf later.
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Nov 12, 2014 15:24
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If players can fight a +6 level encounter and come out alive, should there not be the ability to scale monsters above 12 then? It seems like your options would diminish as you approach the level cap. The big problem is guidelines for me. In D&D there was always like "okay for encounters your players won't have TOO much trouble with you should use a good mix of slightly above, slightly below, and at-level encounters, if it's this much above player level then that's like a really tough fight that will both require & sap resources, and beyond that you just shouldn't do it". It's cool if there isn't a NOPE point, but understanding what's going to happen to my party if I build an encounter of a particular level is really important to me, so knowing what to expect out of an encounter 6 levels above versus 4 versus 2 versus at-level versus below level would be really good, and I imagine it'd also be important for parsing balance feedback.
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Nov 13, 2014 01:15
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Like I guess a good example is you have games that use a lot of combat where you'd expect a good amount of different combat encounters that are close to at-level. If I'm doing 3 combats per adventuring day, how far is it healthy to stray from at-level? Whereas a sort of game that has a lot of RP and only has one encounter every few adventuring days, how far above level is it appropriate to go so that my players feel like they're using their resources that are otherwise not being spent, but Frequent Party Collapse isn't a problem? I understand that there's not a real issue of "killing" your party in Strike! but it also sucks if they're racking up strikes and getting captured all the time because I'm not constructing encounters appropriately.
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Nov 13, 2014 01:21
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30.5 Days posted:If players can fight a +6 level encounter and come out alive, should there not be the ability to scale monsters above 12 then? It seems like your options would diminish as you approach the level cap. The big problem is guidelines for me. In D&D there was always like "okay for encounters your players won't have TOO much trouble with you should use a good mix of slightly above, slightly below, and at-level encounters, if it's this much above player level then that's like a really tough fight that will both require & sap resources, and beyond that you just shouldn't do it". It's cool if there isn't a NOPE point, but understanding what's going to happen to my party if I build an encounter of a particular level is really important to me, so knowing what to expect out of an encounter 6 levels above versus 4 versus 2 versus at-level versus below level would be really good, and I imagine it'd also be important for parsing balance feedback. Putting a party against a same-level encounter, you expect them to win. But you don't expect them to wipe the floor with it. They MIGHT lose, or they MIGHT get a pyrrhic victory and end up with multiple injuries, or they MIGHT wipe the floor with the monsters and come out without a single strike... but those are somewhat unlikely. My experience is that overall the variance in Strike is higher than it was in 4e, so those less likely scenarios aren't as unlikely as they were in 4e. If I had to try to pinpoint a reason, I think this is partly because getting knocked to 0 in 4e is very forgiving, while getting knocked to 0 in Strike is both more and less forgiving: more forgiving in that it's even easier to stand up and keep fighting; less forgiving in that you're already paying a steep penalty in terms of strikes just for getting taken to 0, and if you stand up with low HP you're likely to get knocked down again and take yet another strike; also less forgiving in that the DM has every incentive to go for the kill and try to take you out instead of letting you make those rolls and rejoin the fight. In 4e, attacking a downed player was basically a dick move because you'd be literally killing the character instead of just keeping her out of the fight. In Strike, it's just smart play. But you're looking for advice, so the advice is this: stick to encounters that are on-level or close to it until you've got a feel for things. Once you're comfortable with the outcomes you're getting there, then start messing around to see what happens when you change things. If your players all end up Exhausted or Injured, make sure they know that fighting while in that condition is a bad loving plan and that they should be trying to play themselves out of trouble for a while so that they can go looking for more trouble later.
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Nov 13, 2014 05:34
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Hey, terminology question: what should I call the roll that you make when you start your turn at or below 0 HP, that determines if you get back up or if you get closer to being taken out? I can't just take 4e's term because it's not about death. I wasn't calling it anything before, but now I've written a power that makes reference to it, so I need a name. Name needs to be short and transparent. I'd like it to be obvious what roll it's referring to even if you hadn't heard the term before.
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Nov 14, 2014 03:00
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Perhaps steal a different 4e term - how about "Second Wind"?
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Nov 14, 2014 04:22
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Maybe like a "Grit" roll or "Dig Deep" or "Comeback" roll.
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Nov 14, 2014 06:21
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I'm going to second Comeback. I can tell exactly what that's for.
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Nov 14, 2014 06:44
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Plus you can say, "OK Jim, roll to come back"
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Nov 14, 2014 16:59
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30.5 Days posted:"Comeback" roll. Yep. It's this. Perfect.
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Nov 15, 2014 01:52
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Just made a post in the chat thread that people following Strike and interested in PbP might find interesting. It's basically a bunch of half-baked ideas right now. Comments welcome, as always.
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Nov 17, 2014 06:28
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Down the line, in a week or two, I plan to run a Strike ~one-shot for my regular 4e/FATE group. But I couldn't wait that long, and so in addition to this, I'm also trying to graft Strike's Team Conflict ruleset into place as replacement for the clunky 4e skill challenge rules. I ran an abortive attempt at it a few days ago, which did not go well, but last night we tried again, with a little more preparation and discussion, and it went swimmingly. The party of 6 (mid-heroic in 4e terms) was to travel through a dangerous forest during the spring thaw, to get to the (potentially haunted) lake, as the first stage of their journey north-east to a plot-specific mountain-pass. I am planning to do the whole journey as a mix of Team Conflicts, "zooming in" for the really threatening combats. In this case, the Attack of the players represented their physical progress, and the Forest's attack represented wolves, goblins, leshiy, and other forest-related dangers. I made the Harassing Goblins a trait (hit on push), and the Muddy Terrain gave a +2 to the forest's Defense (this trait was set to expire if not removed within 2 rounds, due to the mud just drying up over time, but it never came up). The goblins were also Suspiciously Well-Led (+2A), which I keyed to a minor plot revelation, but again, didn't happen. With a party of 6, I immediately found myself making accommodations in the preparation stage of the encounter, because there are only 4 possible actions, and everybody wanted to have a try at one! The Hexblade went on a Scouting mission, to scope out the forest, and brought back some possible routes through the barely passable terrain, as well as alarming news of a goblin tribe having moved into the area over the winter!The Psion Stocked Up on psionic goblin countermeasures. Given the players' fiction descriptions, I allowed two separate Stock Up rolls, with the resulting bonuses only applicable to A or D, in the forest (for the A), so the Bear Shaman also Stocked Up by communing with his spirit to seek the hidden paths The Polearm Fighter attempted to Fortify the expedition by buying some travelling supplies, but (rolled poorly on Insight and) got swindled at the market. Realising his mistake, the party Rogue stole some quality supplies from the merchant, and replaced them with the dodgy ones (attempted a second Stock Up, rolled better). Finally, the Dragonborn Fighter led the local town guard's newly recruited company in a preventative raid against the goblins, both to Sieze the Advantage and to give them some combat experience, in case the town is raided in the party's absence. Post departure, things get a little hazy with individual actions.The Psion sowed discord and confusion in the goblin ranks, the Rogue turned the (crude, comically ineffective) goblin traps on the goblins themselves, the Polearm Fighter used his Gnoll senses to scout ahead, the Dragonborn Fighter used his bolstering breath to keep the party going despite the mud. The end result, though was a push, and the party chose to disable the muddy terrain, by just reaching somewhat less muddy ground, deeper in the forest, and finding creative ways (freezing, burning, mudshoes) to deal with the remaining mud. In the second round, the Polearm Fighter decided to Take One for the Team, and remained behind to hold the goblins in a natural chokepoint. Inspired by this, the Rogue set up some (proper, brutally efficient) traps for the impending goblins, and the Shaman stayed behind to watch over them (see below on Improvise). It was 2 parts Heroic Last Stand, one part Tower Defense with Goblins! In this round, the party actually won the conflict. They escaped the goblins, and made their way through the forest to the lake, where a second conflict took place (I'll write it up separately). I'm sure the remaining Suspiciously Well-Organised Harassing Goblin tribe they left behind them in close proximity to town won't come back to haunt them later in any way  Some problems we had: - More players than Preparation Actions. I allowed multiple results, but this means the first round can get badly slammed with bonus stacking sometimes. Would love to hear people's thoughts on working around this - Some people still had trouble dissociating action names from the fiction descriptions (e.g. a Bide Your Time). This is more of a player problem, of course, but I wonder if it would be easier for people if the various Attack actions were called e.g. Progress. - We also ran into some trouble with the Improvise action. The rules don't make the effect of the skill check clear. From the thread, I've gathered that success in it should produce a fiction effect, and possibly a mechanical effect next round, if it fits, but what about failure? In the case of the Shaman above, the player wanted to Improvise to stay behind and support the last stand, and if successful I was planning to let him cancel out the Fighter's personal hit. But he rolled miserably, and I was at a bit of a loss. My solution was that he didn't have the effect he wanted, and also lost one of the +1s from Improvise (his choice). I wasn't really happy with this solution, though, it was a bit of a kludge. Also, some people wanted to take Improvise for the +1/+1 mathematical effect of it, without trying to achieve anything beyond generally supporting the team's efforts. Boring as it is, perhaps there could be an action called (for example) Support which gave out the +1/+1 without a skill check? Drop Database fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Nov 26, 2014 |
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Nov 25, 2014 08:48
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Drop Database posted:
Thanks for the feedback. The first one is confusing to me because it says right there how you're supposed to handle it when more than one person picks the same prep action: count the best roll only. That way the first round shouldn't get too many bonuses. Did you miss that line in the text or is there some other reason you didn't do that? (I do like the Stock Up giving one player +1A any round, and the other player +1D any round. That's clever.) I'll think about re-naming things. To emphasize the more abstract nature. Tough to come up with good ones, sometimes. Improvise continues to be unclear, I see. I just need to rethink it entirely. Maybe remove it and replace it's function with something else. I don't have improvise in there for players who just want to hedge between attack and defense. It's supposed to be there so players can accomplish side-goals along the way - slipping into the necromancer's dungeon on the way past during the journey through the forest, or swapping out a fake artifact for the real one during a fight. Things that are not directly related to the conflict. But if it had no +1's on it, nobody would pick it because nobody wants to drag down the team that much. Maybe I should make it +1A or +1D to emphasize that you are taking time away from helping the team. And rename it "Secondary Objective" or something. Would that be better? I don't want to put in a "Support" action at +1/+1 because I want players to have to choose between working towards achieving their goal or protecting against the dangers, and sometimes to have to make hard choices. A +1/+1 action just feels too wishy-washy, vague and inactive, and I hate vague, inactive skill rolls that are just made because a player thinks he should be rolling something now. Do something worth rolling for or don't roll. In TC, do something worthy of one of the bonuses, or sit the round out. You don't get points for sitting on your rear end. (Related: You are so right about "Bide your time" being badly named. That one is getting renamed first.) As for your handling of the skill roll itself, I like your idea for what could happen on a success: taking away the personal concession is good. But I think you bungled the opportunity for a good Twist. My first instinct was to say that the goblins should capture the Shaman, giving a new Trait "Captured Shaman" that the players would have to overcome before they could get out of the woods. Other things that come to mind: maybe the goblins stole his staff (or whatever magic doodad he has), or maybe the goblin shaman has a line on his magic and can use him like a wiretap to follow the party's plans. For Twists, think narrative, not mechanical. Strikes are more mechanical than Twists. It also helps when the player is being clear and specific about what the character is doing precisely. "Watching over things" seems way too vague for me - if that's actually what your player said, I'd press him for more details before the roll.
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Nov 30, 2014 04:00
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Is there a Kickstarter for this yet/soon? I'd really like to get my hands on a full copy of the rules (even an in-progress one).
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Nov 30, 2014 19:44
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Zarick posted:Is there a Kickstarter for this yet/soon? I'd really like to get my hands on a full copy of the rules (even an in-progress one). I wish. I wanted to get that ready last week, but my stupid ISP left me without internet for a week. Hours on hold, multiple visits from Bell technicians, and a trip to the suburbs for a replacement modem, I'm back online. I'm at this very moment reading up on DriveThruRPG's Print on Demand service and trying to figure out how that would mesh with a kickstarter. I've got a podcast lined up to record this week that will promote the game during the KS, and I'm making a list of stretch goals. All of this is to say that the kickstarter wheels are in motion, but free time is in short supply. Expect something soon, but I don't want to commit to a deadline until I know all the steps I need to complete. As for an in-progress version of the full rules, I've just sent you a PM.
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Dec 1, 2014 03:16
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Jimbozig posted:The first one is confusing to me because it says right there how you're supposed to handle it when more than one person picks the same prep action: count the best roll only. That way the first round shouldn't get too many bonuses. Did you miss that line in the text or is there some other reason you didn't do that? I saw that, and it came up in play when one of the players rolled badly - another re-rolled the same action and got a better outcome. The problem I have is that when there are more players than available prep actions, players are going to double-up on prep actions every time! A re-roll to cover another player's bad roll is not always an interesting option, and it also feels like it takes away some of the consequence of attempting prep actions. I can see that the mechanical effects are limiting their number, but if there were more prep actions than players could possibly take, these would feel more like choices. Currently, the attitude the player seemed to take is that "these are the 4 boxes we need to tick before we leave". Jimbozig posted:I do like the Stock Up giving one player +1A any round, and the other player +1D any round. That's clever. Jimbozig posted:Improvise continues to be unclear, I see. I just need to rethink it entirely. Maybe remove it and replace it's function with something else. I don't have improvise in there for players who just want to hedge between attack and defense. It's supposed to be there so players can accomplish side-goals along the way - slipping into the necromancer's dungeon on the way past during the journey through the forest, or swapping out a fake artifact for the real one during a fight. Things that are not directly related to the conflict. But if it had no +1's on it, nobody would pick it because nobody wants to drag down the team that much. Maybe I should make it +1A or +1D to emphasize that you are taking time away from helping the team. And rename it "Secondary Objective" or something. Would that be better? Jimbozig posted:I don't want to put in a "Support" action at +1/+1 because I want players to have to choose between working towards achieving their goal or protecting against the dangers, and sometimes to have to make hard choices. A +1/+1 action just feels too wishy-washy, vague and inactive, and I hate vague, inactive skill rolls that are just made because a player thinks he should be rolling something now. Do something worth rolling for or don't roll.  Jimbozig posted:As for your handling of the skill roll itself, I like your idea for what could happen on a success: taking away the personal concession is good. But I think you bungled the opportunity for a good Twist. My first instinct was to say that the goblins should capture the Shaman, giving a new Trait "Captured Shaman" that the players would have to overcome before they could get out of the woods. Other things that come to mind: maybe the goblins stole his staff (or whatever magic doodad he has), or maybe the goblin shaman has a line on his magic and can use him like a wiretap to follow the party's plans. Jimbozig posted:For Twists, think narrative, not mechanical. Strikes are more mechanical than Twists. In other news, to make my impending Strike one-shot easier for players to jump into, I'm pre-rolling the characters. It's 40K themed, so I'm rolling up a Space Marine Deep Strike (  ) Team, so I'm also reflavouring the powers/features with 40K-themed fluff. So far I have a Assault Marine (Blaster Martial Artist) and a Tactical Marine Squad (Defender Buddies). Besides those, any suggestions for other combinations to model 40K tropes? I'm a little concerned that having every ranged specialist be an Archer will start to feel sameish, because the Archer is quite a complete class even before the Role is added. Also, how would the Fast Archer feat interact with swarm enemies? By the rules it's ineffective (half damage, unlikely to take out a whole swarm and get a re-fire), but by the fiction, it feels like it should work
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Dec 1, 2014 04:07
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quote:Currently, the attitude the player seemed to take is that "these are the 4 boxes we need to tick before we leave". quote:In other news, to make my impending Strike one-shot easier for players to jump into, I'm pre-rolling the characters. It's 40K themed, so I'm rolling up a Space Marine Deep Strike ( I'm not at all up-to-date on 40k stuff, so apologies if some of these ideas are no good. Bombardier comes to mind as one that's easy to reskin as some kind of space marine. A warlord for a leader-type should fit in no problem. Duelist for a melee one should work fine. A Magician would be no problem as long as you pick powers that make sense when you re-skin. (e.g. Hozrul’s Efficacious Caltrop is a mine, Soporific Decree is a toxic gas, Parvel’s Total Constriction is a net or something, The Radiant Motes of the Overworld is a bright light or dispersed laser, Horwell’s Offensive Amalgam is an offensive amalgam, Mudge’s Localized Inferno is cleansing it with fire, and The Practical Dome of Preservation is automated countermeasures.) Even a shape-changer could work, if there are any space marines that can choose between different loadouts for their power armor or dreadnought or something - form of the tortoise, mammoth, and bull all seem to work easily, and if flying around the battlefield on jet-packs is a thing one could do, form of the hawk could work, too. Since you only get 2 forms at level 1, you could give them tortoise or hawk, so they have the option in each fight whether to don their bulkiest armor or whether to spin up their jet-pack. Necromancer makes a great telepath reskin if you would consider sending a psyker along with the marines to exterminate the xeno scum. When you're reskinning pre-gens, I recommend crossing out and renaming the powers so the players get the idea right away. quote:Also, how would the Fast Archer feat interact with swarm enemies? By the rules it's ineffective (half damage, unlikely to take out a whole swarm and get a re-fire), but by the fiction, it feels like it should work Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 05:39
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Jimbozig posted:I'm not at all up-to-date on 40k stuff, so apologies if some of these ideas are no good. Bombardier comes to mind as one that's easy to reskin as some kind of space marine. A warlord for a leader-type should fit in no problem. Duelist for a melee one should work fine. Actually, I had that exact idea, with the Shapeshifter as Dreadnought, but haven't written it up! Add the Huge feat, to allow people to gain cover from it, and bam - Dreadnought. It fits really well in terms of mechanic/fiction. I was also tossing up between a Warlord/Striker and a Duelist/Leader for Force Commander and Chaplain sort of dudes. I will take a second look at the Magician for a re-skin. I initially thought the mechanic of tracking which of the 3 Encounters is off cooldown was a bit limiting... The exact difficult I have is how to do both a Devastator (heavy bolter) and a Scout (sniper) marine. Both should probably be archers, right? Archer Controller for Devastator and Striker for Scout. The problem is that the Archer's at-wills are pretty Controllerish already, and the roles may not separate the two characters enough. I could just leave off the at-wills that don't fit into the concept, but at that point, I am limiting player characters for my ~*#Character Concept Vision#*~... Thinking about it, the same thing applied to Mark of Death. Everything else about the Necromancer class is very reskinnable (I was thinking flame-based Sister of Battle for ongoing damage), but MoD implies explicitly controlling enemies... Jimbozig posted:When you're reskinning pre-gens, I recommend crossing out and renaming the powers so the players get the idea right away.
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Dec 1, 2014 06:15
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Jimbozig posted:
I think the product you've produced is very, very good, and I would hate to see any part of it suffer due to a mistaken sense of urgency. Really, it's really good. Please don't force it.
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Dec 1, 2014 17:07
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Drop Database posted:Actually, I had that exact idea, with the Shapeshifter as Dreadnought, but haven't written it up! Add the Huge feat, to allow people to gain cover from it, and bam - Dreadnought. It fits really well in terms of mechanic/fiction. I was also tossing up between a Warlord/Striker and a Duelist/Leader for Force Commander and Chaplain sort of dudes. I will take a second look at the Magician for a re-skin. I initially thought the mechanic of tracking which of the 3 Encounters is off cooldown was a bit limiting... I think that a Blaster-Archer with Trick Arrow (skinned as special ammo or something) and a Striker-Archer with Bullseye would feel pretty different. I mean, you'd be able to see the similarities too, but that's okay, I think. One would be out trying to focus damage on high-priority targets while the other would be raining indiscriminate fire across the battlefield. They can even work together, since Pin Down + Area Denial on the same target has really good synergy. If you want to do a Necromancer but without MoD, just give them the other 3 at-wills and call it good. I'm already changing the encounter powers to make it so Greater MoD isn't the only choice at level 3. I might just make "pick 3 of these at-wills" the official line for the necromancer since MoD can be tough to re-skin. As for Magicians, it wouldn't be broken to just pick an encounter spell to use as an encounter power in every combat like a normal class - it would take away some of what makes the class unique, but it wouldn't exactly break anything. What I would do is just try to think of the cooldown thing as swapping out a special weapon and decide whether the standard Magician makes more sense or the Wild Magic variant makes more sense in that context. I think that magician could be a good fit since you probably want more ranged characters for that sort of game and the effects are pretty cool. Edit: Wow, I just clicked the link to your doc there. I love those stance names for the Assault Marine! homullus posted:I think the product you've produced is very, very good, and I would hate to see any part of it suffer due to a mistaken sense of urgency. Really, it's really good. Please don't force it. Hey thanks, I appreciate that. I don't think I'm rushing anything, but I don't know how to start getting this into more people's hands and getting people playing it without moving forward on the kickstarter. I feel like there are a lot of people who are waiting to have a finished product to show their friends rather than trying to make the hard sell on playing "an incomplete game I found on a forum. But I promise it's actually good!" If I'm wrong, come out and tell me. I'm not experienced with business or publishing or marketing, so any advice is certainly welcome. Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Dec 3, 2014 |
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Dec 3, 2014 01:58
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Jimbozig posted:
Really, I just think it depends on what you need the KS money for. If the money is just to have a "product" out there, you could do a DTRPG PDF to put a finished copy in more hands (and then Kickstart a version with more art, that takes into account player feedback and testing), especially if it's inexpensive. If you need the money to actually FINISH it to a playable standard (100% of the rules and editing and layout, but not additional art), then yeah, Kickstarter. Edit: I first wrote "better art", but the art's fine. There just isn't much in it. homullus fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Dec 3, 2014 |
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Dec 3, 2014 02:47
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You might want to make sure that for the Magician part of Strike that in the final document you don't reference the spells as "Bigby's Grasping Hand" or "Melf's Acid Arrow", because I think those could be trademarked? Best to be safe even if they're not, especially since Acid Arrow or Grasping Hand could convey the message well enough.
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Dec 3, 2014 03:49
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Zarick posted:You might want to make sure that for the Magician part of Strike that in the final document you don't reference the spells as "Bigby's Grasping Hand" or "Melf's Acid Arrow", because I think those could be trademarked? Best to be safe even if they're not, especially since Acid Arrow or Grasping Hand could convey the message well enough. Thanks, that's a good point. I'll just delete those and count on people to figure it out for themselves.
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Dec 3, 2014 05:21
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Alternatively be cheeky and name them after your friends/playtesters. Ferrinus' Magical Girl Transformation, go.
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Dec 3, 2014 06:09
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Jimbozig posted:I think that a Blaster-Archer with Trick Arrow (skinned as special ammo or something) and a Striker-Archer with Bullseye would feel pretty different. I mean, you'd be able to see the similarities too, but that's okay, I think. One would be out trying to focus damage on high-priority targets while the other would be raining indiscriminate fire across the battlefield. They can even work together, since Pin Down + Area Denial on the same target has really good synergy. I'll go with this, and just hide the At-Wills that fit the concept poorly. Screw player freedom, save that for when they're rolling their own characters! Jimbozig posted:If you want to do a Necromancer but without MoD, just give them the other 3 at-wills and call it good. I'm already changing the encounter powers to make it so Greater MoD isn't the only choice at level 3. I might just make "pick 3 of these at-wills" the official line for the necromancer since MoD can be tough to re-skin. Thanks for the help and ideas! The Magician will probably end up as Tech Marine (apparently there is a such a thing), with a uber-powerful but finicky and maintenance-heavy arsenal of heavy weapons. The melee At-Will can represent the extra robot arms. In general, with things like this, how fragile is the balance? How much leeway do players and/or DM have to change the abilities to fit a concept? Okay, obviously, anybody can houserule anything, and "It's up to your DM" anyway, but the maybe the Classes/Roles sections could have a paragraph or two on how to change things in a balanced way, along the lines of the Fiction First vs Balance explanation on this, and/or a set of rules/mini point-buy system for changing class abilities, like the Monster-building guide... Jimbozig posted:Edit: Wow, I just clicked the link to your doc there. I love those stance names for the Assault Marine!
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Dec 3, 2014 06:21
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I keep hearing that this game is awesome and I want to learn it so bad because of its 4E heritage and cohesive design, but it hasn't quite clicked yet, so I'm just going to write down my understanding of it in hopes that it'll come together. Basic non-combat task resolution: roll a d6. If you're skilled, 3 to 6 means you do it, with a 3 giving you a Strike and a 6 giving you an extra bonus. A 2 gives you a Twist and a 1 gives you a Twist and a Strike If you're unskilled, a 4 to 6 means you do it, with a 4 giving you a Strike and a 6 giving you either an extra bonus OR a chance to become skilled in it. A 2 and 3 gives you a Twist and a 1 gives you a Twist and a Strike A skill is just a word to describe something that the player is competent at, and is deliberately left free-form The bonus on a 6 is chosen by the player A Twist is an extra complication, determined by the DM A Strike causes the player to suffer some kind of persistent penalty going forward, until they find some way to shake it off Basic combat: You get one Move Action You get one Attack Action You get one Role Action You get 10 HP and 6 speed (at least according to the Fantasy Module) You can convert an Attack Action into a Move Action An Opportunity causes you to take 2 damage whenever you make a ranged Basic attack (ranged Role Actions don't count) while adjacent to a hostile, or when you Move (not Shift) while adjacent to a hostile. Other special abilities may cause Opportunities under different circumstances, or cause Opportunities do something else besides 2 damage (a bunch of stuff about exactly how you can spend a Move Action) Basic Attacks: roll a d6 6 means you deal twice the damage AND you get an effect 4-5 means you deal damage AND you get an effect 3 means you deal damage OR you get an effect 2 means you miss 1 mean you miss AND you take a Strike Players are encouraged to make up effects on their own, with the DM arbitrating. The DM is encouraged to make succeeding uses of the same effect less powerful to encourage variety in turn Role Actions either come in the form of At-Will Powers, which can be used repeatedly, or Encounter Powers, which can only be used once per Encounter There's also Reactions, which are Powers that you can use based on specific triggers (can there be At-Will Reactions? I don't think I ever saw any) (some stuff about getting Taken Out and how Strikes accumulated during combat can cause post-combat penalties) Flanking a target gives Advantage Attacking a prone target gives Advantage Attacking from stealth gives Advantage Charging a target gives Advantage Being in cover gives Disadvantage (but melee attacks can't be covered against) Advantage and Disadvantage cancel each other out Action Points: Every player starts with 1 to use and 1 to give away to another player for being a cool dude Players earn more by deliberately making things harder for themselves Action Points can be used to gain Advantage, or use specific powers that need them, or automatically succeed with a Trick (a specific ability/skill linked to the player's background) [This is not in any way meant to a critique/feedback on the game or the writing, I just find that it sometimes helps to write it down to see how close I am to "getting it"]
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Dec 4, 2014 20:09
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gradenko_2000 posted:...Basic non-combat task resolution... As for the combat stuff, you've basically got it. But you didn't say anything about Classes, which are the source of most of one's Attack Actions, and are a pretty big deal. Your class defines your playstyle as much as your Role does. The preview doesn't have the full class descriptions, but if you look at the pre-gens, all their Attack powers are from their classes and you can get something of a sense for how they play. Overall, it sounds like you've basically understood the rules. Little things: quote:(can there be At-Will Reactions? I don't think I ever saw any) quote:Attacking from stealth gives Advantage
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Dec 6, 2014 05:36
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Jimbozig posted:As for the combat stuff, you've basically got it. But you didn't say anything about Classes, which are the source of most of one's Attack Actions, and are a pretty big deal. Your class defines your playstyle as much as your Role does. The preview doesn't have the full class descriptions, but if you look at the pre-gens, all their Attack powers are from their classes and you can get something of a sense for how they play. Thanks for the response! Just to be clear, when you say Class, do you mean like the Shade Fighter and Pel-Jin Summoner? So, it's not enough for someone to have Basic Attack (plus made-up effects) plus the 3-4 At-Will and Encounter powers of a Role? In which case, do Classes have explicit powers (as in the preview), or are they going to be freeform-with-guidelines? It's that there's anything wrong with them, it is a preview of course, but the pregens are rather specific in their character concepts (which is why they're pregens! again, not a bad thing at all!)
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Dec 8, 2014 20:29
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gradenko_2000 posted:Thanks for the response! Classes and Roles are two halves of a character that come together during creation to make a whole, with the Class determining playstyle and the Role determining party responsibility. So for example, a Martial Artist is a Class that gives the character a bunch of stances which modify your basic attack, generally through increased damage and secondary effects. You could then pair the Martial Artist with a Defender role to create a stance-based tanking character (and perhaps choose defense-oriented martial artist stances during chargen), or the Blaster role to make your stance-augmented basic attacks hit multiple enemies. Similarly, the Wizard is a Class that is primarily ranged (though they have options for melee I think) and has mechanics which mimic cooldowns from video games - Your abilities are powerful, and you have more of them than anyone else, but once you use an encounter power you're locked out of it for several more encounters. That mechanic is tied specifically to the Wizard powers though; It doesn't matter if you're a Wizard/Defender ranged tank, a Wizard/Striker damage dealer, or a Wizard/Blaster 4e-style controller, your Role powers operate as normal.
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Dec 9, 2014 01:11
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