Magicians stand at range and drop spells on their foes. As a magician, you have exceptional utility and deal good damage at range, but you tend to have little recourse when a foe gets into melee combat with you. As a magician, you should consider:
Arcane Bolt. This is it for a magician. You make your basic ranged attack with this ability, and you also link your spells to this ability. Most magicians are going to arcane bolt rated as high as possible; I’d recommend no lower than one rating below this. For example, as a magician built on 40 CPs, you can invest up to 20 CPs in arcane bolt (+8 rating). This is not a bad idea, and +7 (16 CPs) is a fair compromise to free up points elsewhere. If you start to drop to +6 (12 CPs) or lower, you are going to see your spells hit less often; and since many of your spells are usable only once per scene, you want to do all you can to make sure they’ll work when you use them.
Arms is where you’ll skimp. Your spell is the way you attack, so you won’t bother investing in precision or might later on, which means that having a big sword or crossbow is not going to serve any real purpose for you. Although you’d like a big suit of armor to protect yourself (who wouldn’t?), it’s hard to justify the expenditure here.
Aspect requires at least a moderate investment. Enemy casters will likely see you as a threat, and your wand or staff rating (for base spell damage) links to aspect, so this is something you have to consider. Your aspect should not be rated higher than your arcane bolt; remember that bonuses from successful attacks carry over to damage, so putting the emphasis on the active rather than resultant ability (arcane bolt over aspect in this case) is going to generally be the better choice.
Evade is VITAL for you. The whole idea is that you don’t get hit; if foes are striking you regularly, especially with physical attacks, you are going to start losing wounds quickly. Your spells don’t do you or your fellowship any good if you’re face-planted. Evade is your best defensive ability.
Intuition is similarly important. Many of your spells allow you to dictate the pace of combat; you can control enemies, stop them in their tracks, or remove them from combat altogether. You’ll want to do this early, so that the rest of your team can react accordingly; if you can stun the ogre (or bind him in place) for a few rounds, the rest of the team can focus on his pet wolf first; if you can’t, they’re going to have to wait on the wolf and take out the ogre before he starts pummeling them.
Might and precision are not worth any investment at all. Points here are effectively wasted; yes, it would be nice to be able to fight your way out of a web or shrug off the effects of the poison, but as a magician, you shouldn’t be putting yourself into positions where those things can get you anyway!
Resolve may be important as well. Resolve allows you to re-cast a spell you’ve already used, cast a spontaneous spell from your spell book, or beef up a repertoire spell that you have as an application; all three of these uses are incredibly valuable, and are well worth the investment of a few points into resolve.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Build Strategy: Disciples
Disciples give you access to magical auras, and these can give benefits to your entire group.
Disciples are tricky to build, because you have to accept one basic truth; you make sacrifices in building your character for the good of the team. With the possible exception of healing, you will never see a personal return on your investment in your auras; and, if you aren’t planning to spend points on auras, you really shouldn’t bother making a disciple. If you invest 9 character points into evade (for instance), you are going to give yourself and all of your allies a +5 character point investment into evade when you have that aura active. You are inherently weaker in order to make your team inherently stronger, and your abilities are inherently more valuable the more allies you have. However, this doesn’t mean that disciples cannot be effective and fun characters, but it does mean you have to really strategize as you build. Here are some suggestions:
• Auras. Your first aura should be healing; you are a member of the only archetype in the game that has the ability to heal, and your team is going to need that. Keeping your healing at your level is not a bad idea; this allows you to restore 10% of your team’s total wounds every turn you take; this is significant. Beyond healing, you should consider one other aura, and you need decide which aura you’re going to take, and make sure the rest of the team knows! If you invest in evade +4, you have allowed every member of your team to have 4 CPs in evade (a +3 rating to any ally with no evade at all) when your aura is up. That’s pretty solid, and will be a big help; however, if one member of your team invests in evade heavily and has evade +8 (20 CPs), your +4 bonus is completely lost on that hero; he gets no benefit at all from your aura. Conversely, if he stopped at +7 (16 CPs), he has just freed up 4 CPs to spend elsewhere, still gets a +8 rating when your aura is up, and still is superior in this ability. Don’t bother with more than two or three auras; since you can only have 1 up at a time anyway, you will either run healing (if your team needs it) or an ability-based aura (either to enhance an attack or defensive ability).
• Arms. Auras are built under the assumption that while your aura is up, you are still doing something else; that something else is probably attacking with a weapon. Where you tailor this depends (as so much does for a disciple) on the needs of your team. If you are teamed up with two fighters, it makes a great deal of sense to minimize your armor and melee weapons, putting as many points into missile weapons as you can. Conversely, if you are the fighter for your team (the other heroes are magicians and scouts), you are going to be expected to go toe-to-toe with adversaries; you’ll need melee and armor to do that.
• Aspect: As with fighters, you cannot afford to completely dismiss aspect, unless one of your auras is invulnerability, in which case you might be better off just letting that ability cover this.
• Evade falls into the same category; put points here unless this is one of your primary auras, in which case you want to strategize your investment to get maximum returns when your aura is up.
• Intuition is not a place you can skimp. Getting to activate your auras before others act, or heal others before they take their turn, can turn the tide of a battle, or allow an ally to get one more attack in. You want to be in a position to call the shots during a scene and be proactive, and winning sequence (through your high intuition) positions you to do that.
• Might and precision, unfortunately, become the place where many disciples have to make some sacrifices, and this is why many disciples end up as mediocre combatants; you simply don’t have enough points to be great here. You can connect auras to attack abilities like precision and might, but you often struggle to see huge returns here; most heroes have already made a big CP investment into precision or might as their attack ability (or just don’t need it at all), and the bump they get from your aura may be marginal. You can go from a mediocre to good combatant with auras, but your team could suffer. As with arms, pick the ability (between precision and might) that best supports your team, and invest there. Even a modest +3 rating in one of these gives you a fair chance against most foes, allowing you to strike with some consistency.
• Resolve is vital for you; being able to double up a turn to pulse healing one extra time or being able to add your precision to your whole team’s evade aura for 1 turn are incredibly valuable ways to spend resolve; furthermore, you should consider picking up leadership linked to resolve; since you are already built to support the team, it falls to you to coordinate their efforts, and this would be a small investment to really make you integral to the team’s success.
• Applications. You just aren’t going to have a ton of extra points to invest here. Disciples tend to already spread themselves thin, and putting 2 CPs into an application linked to a below-average ability just doesn’t make a lot of sense (with the possible exception of leadership, which I’ve already discussed). Applications help to round characters out, but you are already pretty well-rounded through your auras.
Disciples are tricky to build, because you have to accept one basic truth; you make sacrifices in building your character for the good of the team. With the possible exception of healing, you will never see a personal return on your investment in your auras; and, if you aren’t planning to spend points on auras, you really shouldn’t bother making a disciple. If you invest 9 character points into evade (for instance), you are going to give yourself and all of your allies a +5 character point investment into evade when you have that aura active. You are inherently weaker in order to make your team inherently stronger, and your abilities are inherently more valuable the more allies you have. However, this doesn’t mean that disciples cannot be effective and fun characters, but it does mean you have to really strategize as you build. Here are some suggestions:
• Auras. Your first aura should be healing; you are a member of the only archetype in the game that has the ability to heal, and your team is going to need that. Keeping your healing at your level is not a bad idea; this allows you to restore 10% of your team’s total wounds every turn you take; this is significant. Beyond healing, you should consider one other aura, and you need decide which aura you’re going to take, and make sure the rest of the team knows! If you invest in evade +4, you have allowed every member of your team to have 4 CPs in evade (a +3 rating to any ally with no evade at all) when your aura is up. That’s pretty solid, and will be a big help; however, if one member of your team invests in evade heavily and has evade +8 (20 CPs), your +4 bonus is completely lost on that hero; he gets no benefit at all from your aura. Conversely, if he stopped at +7 (16 CPs), he has just freed up 4 CPs to spend elsewhere, still gets a +8 rating when your aura is up, and still is superior in this ability. Don’t bother with more than two or three auras; since you can only have 1 up at a time anyway, you will either run healing (if your team needs it) or an ability-based aura (either to enhance an attack or defensive ability).
• Arms. Auras are built under the assumption that while your aura is up, you are still doing something else; that something else is probably attacking with a weapon. Where you tailor this depends (as so much does for a disciple) on the needs of your team. If you are teamed up with two fighters, it makes a great deal of sense to minimize your armor and melee weapons, putting as many points into missile weapons as you can. Conversely, if you are the fighter for your team (the other heroes are magicians and scouts), you are going to be expected to go toe-to-toe with adversaries; you’ll need melee and armor to do that.
• Aspect: As with fighters, you cannot afford to completely dismiss aspect, unless one of your auras is invulnerability, in which case you might be better off just letting that ability cover this.
• Evade falls into the same category; put points here unless this is one of your primary auras, in which case you want to strategize your investment to get maximum returns when your aura is up.
• Intuition is not a place you can skimp. Getting to activate your auras before others act, or heal others before they take their turn, can turn the tide of a battle, or allow an ally to get one more attack in. You want to be in a position to call the shots during a scene and be proactive, and winning sequence (through your high intuition) positions you to do that.
• Might and precision, unfortunately, become the place where many disciples have to make some sacrifices, and this is why many disciples end up as mediocre combatants; you simply don’t have enough points to be great here. You can connect auras to attack abilities like precision and might, but you often struggle to see huge returns here; most heroes have already made a big CP investment into precision or might as their attack ability (or just don’t need it at all), and the bump they get from your aura may be marginal. You can go from a mediocre to good combatant with auras, but your team could suffer. As with arms, pick the ability (between precision and might) that best supports your team, and invest there. Even a modest +3 rating in one of these gives you a fair chance against most foes, allowing you to strike with some consistency.
• Resolve is vital for you; being able to double up a turn to pulse healing one extra time or being able to add your precision to your whole team’s evade aura for 1 turn are incredibly valuable ways to spend resolve; furthermore, you should consider picking up leadership linked to resolve; since you are already built to support the team, it falls to you to coordinate their efforts, and this would be a small investment to really make you integral to the team’s success.
• Applications. You just aren’t going to have a ton of extra points to invest here. Disciples tend to already spread themselves thin, and putting 2 CPs into an application linked to a below-average ability just doesn’t make a lot of sense (with the possible exception of leadership, which I’ve already discussed). Applications help to round characters out, but you are already pretty well-rounded through your auras.
A Quick Reflection on Archetypes
As I’ve worked on developing notes for approaches to building heroes of each archetype, I’ve discovered something else I really like about Resolute. In other systems, there are often rules for the armor and weapons that different classes have available to them; wizards don’t get to wield heavy armor or weapons because it ‘messes up their casting’, which is a bogus justification to maintain game balance. Resolute’s point-build system and the way it ties to abilities balances itself; as a magician, you aren’t going to invest many points into arms to get armor and weapons, because then you can’t be a very effective magician. If you decide to go against conventional wisdom and build a magician who has heavy armor and decent weapons, you are going to have to make sacrifices elsewhere that are probably going to come back to bite you; in short, the rule of survival of the fittest kicks in; you don’t see many magicians in heavy armor, because they died! They weren’t effective at doing what they needed to do well, and couldn’t make the cut.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Build Strategy: Fighters
I thought I’d spend a little time discussing how to go about building the various character archetypes in Resolute. I’m not keen on developing entire guides for each archetype (although free 1-page pdfs are not outside the realm of possibility), but it seemed that I could at least start with a discussion here. Today we'll talk about fighters.
Fighters are expected to be able to go toe to toe with adversaries (in melee). The other three archetypes depend on not being in melee with foes (most of the time), so this job will likely fall to fighters. Here are the abilities to consider:
• Arms. This is really a bread and butter ability for the fighter. This sets the rating for both weapons and armor; even though it may seem counter-intuitive, it might be best to tailor your arms to maximize your armor, keep your weapon at the rating, and set missile as low as it will go; you won’t be needing it.
• Aspect. This seems like a non-ability for a fighter, but you really can’t afford to completely ignore it. If you are going to be the primary damage soaker, you also need to be able to soak it! A few points in aspect will allow you to purchase cloaks of warding, and these will be vital when enemy casters are bearing down on you or you step into the path of a breath weapon; all the shiny armor in the world isn’t going to matter in that case.
• Evade is another ability that seems like you can ignore it (especially with high armor), but you really can’t.
• Intuition is an area you may have to forfeit some points. Of course you’d LIKE to be able to respond quickly and decipher clues from your environment, but you really can’t afford to sink too many points here. The ability to go earlier or later in a round is relatively unimportant vs. the other things you have to do. Whereas a caster wants to get spells off to prevent a foe from even getting an attack or a stalker needs to get into hiding quickly, you can stand right there and take your foe’s best shot; in fact, it ALMOST serves you better to go later in the round; you know which foe is the biggest threat after your allies have had a chance to thin the herd a little bit; you are going to go after that ogre unless the magician’s stun spell takes him out of the equation for a few rounds; you’re best off waiting until you know whether the spell worked. If you’re going to elect to delay anyhow, don’t waste points here needlessly. Someone else in the group can be responsible for finding secret doors.
• Precision seems like it might be a viable option when compared with might, but it’s really not; precision allows you to wield melee weapons or missile weapons, whereas might allows you to wield melee weapons or thrown weapons. If you were a primary missile wielder, precision would be the way to go. However, you are going to be called on to do a number of things, and ranged attacking should (likely) be a minor one. By taking might, you give up the better range and unlimited ammo afforded by precision to get a useful ability in a variety of situations, the ability to soak poison, resist disease, fight your way out of constriction and basically do all of the things that your fellowship is going to expect you to do – and you can still throw weapons at a decent range in a pinch. You can’t really be a fighter in the full sense without a healthy helping of might. Since this is how you attack, you’ll want a decent might to increase your chances of striking in melee combat. Even as a primarily ‘defensive’ fighter, you need some might to do all the things you’ll be asked to do.
• Weapon Specialist. Don’t go crazy with this ability; at most, keep it one rating below your arms rating; with arms +5, you can’t really justify putting more than +4 into weapon specialist. I know that it’s guaranteed damage on a hit, but so is arms; and your bonus points from might on a successful attack carry over to damage as well, so you could argue that might gives you some ‘guaranteed’ damage too, by guaranteeing you’ll hit more often for more base damage. At low ratings, this is a comparatively cheap way to scale up weapon damage; at high ends, it’s a waste of your resources. No fighter can ever justify taking weapon specialist beyond +6, and few will increase it beyond +4.
• Applications: you will want to eventually take two weapons, two-handed or shields (or a combination of these). At higher levels, these are relatively cheap ways to pick up a slew of bonus points that can really turn the tide of a battle. Don’t get these at lower levels; 2 CPs is a huge investment at level 1 (and gives you a comparatively small return on that investment), but by level 5, you’re seeing quite a bit of bang for your buck. I’d say around level 3 is where you’d want to start thinking about picking one of these up; before that, there are far better ways to spend your 2 CPs.
• Resolve. This one is completely based on your play style. The game assumes that all heroes have at least a little resolve, and every scene is likely to require you to do something that pushes you beyond your normal limits; if you have no resolve at all, you cannot perform heroic feats when called upon, and you are completely dependent on the dice. A huge investment here means that you aren’t invested in other important abilities; a 2-CP investment early on ensures that you have at least a few chances to do something special each scene.
Fighters are expected to be able to go toe to toe with adversaries (in melee). The other three archetypes depend on not being in melee with foes (most of the time), so this job will likely fall to fighters. Here are the abilities to consider:
• Arms. This is really a bread and butter ability for the fighter. This sets the rating for both weapons and armor; even though it may seem counter-intuitive, it might be best to tailor your arms to maximize your armor, keep your weapon at the rating, and set missile as low as it will go; you won’t be needing it.
• Aspect. This seems like a non-ability for a fighter, but you really can’t afford to completely ignore it. If you are going to be the primary damage soaker, you also need to be able to soak it! A few points in aspect will allow you to purchase cloaks of warding, and these will be vital when enemy casters are bearing down on you or you step into the path of a breath weapon; all the shiny armor in the world isn’t going to matter in that case.
• Evade is another ability that seems like you can ignore it (especially with high armor), but you really can’t.
• Intuition is an area you may have to forfeit some points. Of course you’d LIKE to be able to respond quickly and decipher clues from your environment, but you really can’t afford to sink too many points here. The ability to go earlier or later in a round is relatively unimportant vs. the other things you have to do. Whereas a caster wants to get spells off to prevent a foe from even getting an attack or a stalker needs to get into hiding quickly, you can stand right there and take your foe’s best shot; in fact, it ALMOST serves you better to go later in the round; you know which foe is the biggest threat after your allies have had a chance to thin the herd a little bit; you are going to go after that ogre unless the magician’s stun spell takes him out of the equation for a few rounds; you’re best off waiting until you know whether the spell worked. If you’re going to elect to delay anyhow, don’t waste points here needlessly. Someone else in the group can be responsible for finding secret doors.
• Precision seems like it might be a viable option when compared with might, but it’s really not; precision allows you to wield melee weapons or missile weapons, whereas might allows you to wield melee weapons or thrown weapons. If you were a primary missile wielder, precision would be the way to go. However, you are going to be called on to do a number of things, and ranged attacking should (likely) be a minor one. By taking might, you give up the better range and unlimited ammo afforded by precision to get a useful ability in a variety of situations, the ability to soak poison, resist disease, fight your way out of constriction and basically do all of the things that your fellowship is going to expect you to do – and you can still throw weapons at a decent range in a pinch. You can’t really be a fighter in the full sense without a healthy helping of might. Since this is how you attack, you’ll want a decent might to increase your chances of striking in melee combat. Even as a primarily ‘defensive’ fighter, you need some might to do all the things you’ll be asked to do.
• Weapon Specialist. Don’t go crazy with this ability; at most, keep it one rating below your arms rating; with arms +5, you can’t really justify putting more than +4 into weapon specialist. I know that it’s guaranteed damage on a hit, but so is arms; and your bonus points from might on a successful attack carry over to damage as well, so you could argue that might gives you some ‘guaranteed’ damage too, by guaranteeing you’ll hit more often for more base damage. At low ratings, this is a comparatively cheap way to scale up weapon damage; at high ends, it’s a waste of your resources. No fighter can ever justify taking weapon specialist beyond +6, and few will increase it beyond +4.
• Applications: you will want to eventually take two weapons, two-handed or shields (or a combination of these). At higher levels, these are relatively cheap ways to pick up a slew of bonus points that can really turn the tide of a battle. Don’t get these at lower levels; 2 CPs is a huge investment at level 1 (and gives you a comparatively small return on that investment), but by level 5, you’re seeing quite a bit of bang for your buck. I’d say around level 3 is where you’d want to start thinking about picking one of these up; before that, there are far better ways to spend your 2 CPs.
• Resolve. This one is completely based on your play style. The game assumes that all heroes have at least a little resolve, and every scene is likely to require you to do something that pushes you beyond your normal limits; if you have no resolve at all, you cannot perform heroic feats when called upon, and you are completely dependent on the dice. A huge investment here means that you aren’t invested in other important abilities; a 2-CP investment early on ensures that you have at least a few chances to do something special each scene.
Friday, April 29, 2011
About Races
The original cut of the game includes four core races: humans, dwarves, elves and gnomes. This is pretty close to the classic red box D+D approach, and also the one that best represents the game world. However, I’ve considered a few other races for inclusion. Here are the races, what I was thinking about, and why they ultimately got the axe…
• Trolls. These are excellent fighters; big, strong and tough. This role (except for the ‘big’ part) is already filled by dwarves. In previous games, I’ve made trolls basically a better choice than dwarves in most ways; dwarves are hardier (reflected in ‘stamina’) but not as strong or fast. Since I’ve given dwarves might +1, I’d have to take this away from them to give it to trolls… or, I could just give trolls regeneration instead, making dwarves inherently stronger. This I like better, but it’s a bit askew as far as abilities go from what the other races do. Additionally, I see trolls as a dominantly evil race, and I wanted to keep away from that in the core rules. Moon elves are mysterious and enigmatic enough, and humans have sufficient capacity for evil already, and Resolute is primarily a game about heroes- so putting ‘evil’ races for the heroes in the core rules sends a message about the nucleus of the game that I don’t want to send.
• Shadow Elves. Again with the evil (see above). Furthermore, I’ve decided that, as a rule, I’m going to pare back the races so that there aren’t so many (if any) ‘subraces’ that you deal with. If you look at a human, you know that human could be good, evil, neutral, selfish, selfless, arrogant, self-conscious – the sky’s the limit. That you can look at a humanoid/demi-human and immediately know “he’s a shadow elf, so he must be evil” seems counter-intuitive for a core race. Instead, it seems best that ‘shadow elves’ be slang for a moon elf who has sided with the Unseelie Court; this wouldn’t be reflected in the elf’s skin tone or hair color; it’s about a philosophical approach and a conscious choice that an elf makes.
• Goblins. Still another evil race, so they get the axe. Goblins are one of my favorite races to play (for some strange reason), but they don’t have a niche to fill in the core rules. I suppose that their greatest asset would be how hardy they are, so they’d take a soak bonus (invulnerability +1). They are definitely a race that will make it in at some point, but not right now. I’m still tempted to increase from 4 races to 6 (if for no other reason than a random table for D6), but I don’t think they’ll make it.
• Other fay races on the whole (brownies, sprites, leprechauns) muscle in on the territory of the moon elves. Eventually many of these races could make it in, but they feel redundant with the moon elves right now. I see them getting bonuses to stealth, aspect, or even evade. Brownies would be the most stealthy (partial invisibility gives a +1 stealth shift, even if they don’t have stealth), fairies would get the evade bonus (so they’re so small and acrobatic) and leprechauns get the aspect (due to their magical natures). I see all three of these (with maybe centaurs or fauns who would get speed +1) could be a good selection for a Seelie/Unseelie Court sourcebook.
• Similarly, the ‘evil races’ (trolls, goblins, kobolds, orks maybe) end up in a humanoids sourcebook. I don’t want to get too crazy with this stuff, but I’d like to keep the options open to expand the game in new directions.
• Trolls. These are excellent fighters; big, strong and tough. This role (except for the ‘big’ part) is already filled by dwarves. In previous games, I’ve made trolls basically a better choice than dwarves in most ways; dwarves are hardier (reflected in ‘stamina’) but not as strong or fast. Since I’ve given dwarves might +1, I’d have to take this away from them to give it to trolls… or, I could just give trolls regeneration instead, making dwarves inherently stronger. This I like better, but it’s a bit askew as far as abilities go from what the other races do. Additionally, I see trolls as a dominantly evil race, and I wanted to keep away from that in the core rules. Moon elves are mysterious and enigmatic enough, and humans have sufficient capacity for evil already, and Resolute is primarily a game about heroes- so putting ‘evil’ races for the heroes in the core rules sends a message about the nucleus of the game that I don’t want to send.
• Shadow Elves. Again with the evil (see above). Furthermore, I’ve decided that, as a rule, I’m going to pare back the races so that there aren’t so many (if any) ‘subraces’ that you deal with. If you look at a human, you know that human could be good, evil, neutral, selfish, selfless, arrogant, self-conscious – the sky’s the limit. That you can look at a humanoid/demi-human and immediately know “he’s a shadow elf, so he must be evil” seems counter-intuitive for a core race. Instead, it seems best that ‘shadow elves’ be slang for a moon elf who has sided with the Unseelie Court; this wouldn’t be reflected in the elf’s skin tone or hair color; it’s about a philosophical approach and a conscious choice that an elf makes.
• Goblins. Still another evil race, so they get the axe. Goblins are one of my favorite races to play (for some strange reason), but they don’t have a niche to fill in the core rules. I suppose that their greatest asset would be how hardy they are, so they’d take a soak bonus (invulnerability +1). They are definitely a race that will make it in at some point, but not right now. I’m still tempted to increase from 4 races to 6 (if for no other reason than a random table for D6), but I don’t think they’ll make it.
• Other fay races on the whole (brownies, sprites, leprechauns) muscle in on the territory of the moon elves. Eventually many of these races could make it in, but they feel redundant with the moon elves right now. I see them getting bonuses to stealth, aspect, or even evade. Brownies would be the most stealthy (partial invisibility gives a +1 stealth shift, even if they don’t have stealth), fairies would get the evade bonus (so they’re so small and acrobatic) and leprechauns get the aspect (due to their magical natures). I see all three of these (with maybe centaurs or fauns who would get speed +1) could be a good selection for a Seelie/Unseelie Court sourcebook.
• Similarly, the ‘evil races’ (trolls, goblins, kobolds, orks maybe) end up in a humanoids sourcebook. I don’t want to get too crazy with this stuff, but I’d like to keep the options open to expand the game in new directions.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Editing Continues...
I’ve got a nearly-final draft of Resolute: The Splintered Realm done, and here are some things you might want to know about how it ended up:
- It’s 20 pages, in a very similar format to Resolute: Towers of Arvandoria; the pdf is landscape and primarily 3 columns in black and white with one accent color (lavender). However, it’s quite a bit more packed with content; Arvandoria was just over 14,000 words, whereas RTSR weighs in at over 20,000; so I increased the word count by almost 50% but the page count by only 25%. I felt at points the way I feel about writing poetry; you want to get as much mileage out of every word as you can- there’s really no room for wasted language.
- I ended up with 29 monsters in the bestiary. This feels to me like a great starter selection; it’s a little heavy on insects and humanoids, but I like insects and humanoids!
- I shelved the starter adventure that was included in the ashcan in favor of the re-working of an adventure from the Gryphon Watch Adventures I published a few years ago. It’s a classic dungeon crawl that better fits the flavor of the game as it is right now.
FYI, Although the book is ‘done’, I’m still not releasing it until June 1. I still want to hammer out some small details (today, I’m toying with the idea of making heroes never mooks; this seems pretty reasonable to me. In larger groups, the heroes are going to end up as mooks against single foes rated at their fellowship’s level; seven heroes each built on 60 CPs (a large and powerful team to be sure) is going to have a total CP value of 240 CPs (wow). A foe built on 240 CPs (pretty much the most powerful creature in the game) is going make them mooks 2x over. This I don’t really like.
One more thing I’m doing is (now that I’m close to done and I’m not worried so much about directly swiping things from others) is to go back and re-read some RPG books that influenced me. I started with the 1981 Red Box D+D book. There’s some great stuff in there, but I was amazed at the cavalier attitude taken towards the mortality of PCs… in the sample combat, the party’s dwarf is one-shotted by a hobgoblin and dies. There is no further discussion of this PC (or his poor player); it’s almost like the other players are somewhat relieved they have someone else to divvy up treasure with. The rules assume a certain level of animosity and competitiveness amongst the players that contemporary games would not necessarily assume, and in fact many (like mine) intentionally work against.
- It’s 20 pages, in a very similar format to Resolute: Towers of Arvandoria; the pdf is landscape and primarily 3 columns in black and white with one accent color (lavender). However, it’s quite a bit more packed with content; Arvandoria was just over 14,000 words, whereas RTSR weighs in at over 20,000; so I increased the word count by almost 50% but the page count by only 25%. I felt at points the way I feel about writing poetry; you want to get as much mileage out of every word as you can- there’s really no room for wasted language.
- I ended up with 29 monsters in the bestiary. This feels to me like a great starter selection; it’s a little heavy on insects and humanoids, but I like insects and humanoids!
- I shelved the starter adventure that was included in the ashcan in favor of the re-working of an adventure from the Gryphon Watch Adventures I published a few years ago. It’s a classic dungeon crawl that better fits the flavor of the game as it is right now.
FYI, Although the book is ‘done’, I’m still not releasing it until June 1. I still want to hammer out some small details (today, I’m toying with the idea of making heroes never mooks; this seems pretty reasonable to me. In larger groups, the heroes are going to end up as mooks against single foes rated at their fellowship’s level; seven heroes each built on 60 CPs (a large and powerful team to be sure) is going to have a total CP value of 240 CPs (wow). A foe built on 240 CPs (pretty much the most powerful creature in the game) is going make them mooks 2x over. This I don’t really like.
One more thing I’m doing is (now that I’m close to done and I’m not worried so much about directly swiping things from others) is to go back and re-read some RPG books that influenced me. I started with the 1981 Red Box D+D book. There’s some great stuff in there, but I was amazed at the cavalier attitude taken towards the mortality of PCs… in the sample combat, the party’s dwarf is one-shotted by a hobgoblin and dies. There is no further discussion of this PC (or his poor player); it’s almost like the other players are somewhat relieved they have someone else to divvy up treasure with. The rules assume a certain level of animosity and competitiveness amongst the players that contemporary games would not necessarily assume, and in fact many (like mine) intentionally work against.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Breaking Stealth
(Warning: LONG post ahead)
Time to see how awesome the stalker’s stealth ability is… and how to fix it because it’s probably broken. Ooh! It’s fun breaking your own game…
Before I even start, I’m going to use some of what I learned during my Judah Marakev playtest about the penalty based on your margin of failure; stealth allows you to take your margin of success against the target each turn as long as you’re stealthed; once the target sees you, you must spend 1 turn to re-establish stealth.
Tashya, Moon Elf Stalker (60 CPs); Soak physical +6; bow +8 (attack +7/damage +8/range 15)
Arms +6 (missile +8/armor +6/melee +4); Intuition +6; Precision +7; Stealth +8
Tashya is going to take on a huge threat far beyond her capabilities: a frost giant inquisitor. This foe is built on 90 CPs, so should wipe the floor with her.
Frost Giant Inquisitor (90 CPs); soaks phys +8/magic +4; two-handed sword +9 (att +12/dmg +17); throws rocks +9 (att +12/dmg +9/rng 12); treas +2
Arms +7 (armor +7/melee +9/missile +5); Immunity (cold); Evade +2; Intuition +3; Invulnerable +4; Might +12; Weapon Specialist (two-handed) +8
Towering over every adversary, the 20’ tall frost giant overseer wields a mighty sword and throws huge stones, grinding humans and other lesser foes beneath his heel.
We’ll stack the deck in her favor; she is stealthed and 15 units away from the frost giant who stands watch. She positions herself on a slope 150’ away and opens fire… we’ll use static 7 for the frost giant here, since this emulates ‘typical’ results more effectively.
She rolls stealth and gets 7+8=15 vs. the DR 10 (from his intuition +3). She gets +5 to her attack; she rolls 10+7+5=22 to hit, and the giant evades at 9. She hits by +13; for damage, she rolls 7+8+13=28 wounds. The giant’s armor soaks 7+8=15 wounds, and he suffers 13, leaving him at 77 wounds.
Sequence: Tashya goes on 4+6=10, and the giant goes on 10 as well. We’ll let Tashya go first.
Round 1
Tashya attempts to continue to stealth, rolling 8+8=16 vs. the giant’s intuition resist of 10. She gets +6 to her attack; she rolls 7+7+6=20 to hit vs. the giant’s evade of 9; she hits by +11. For damage, she rolls 8+8+11=27 wounds; after the 15 wounds its armor roll soaks, she deals 12 wounds, leaving him at 65. The giant (unable to see her), throws a rock at her; she is 15 units away, so is 3 units beyond his range (giving her +3 to evade). She also gets to add her stealth +8 to her evade. It attacks at 19, and she rolls 3+0 (she didn’t take evade) +8+3=14 to evade- and gets hit with a big rock! For damage, the giant deals 7+9+5=21 wounds; she rolls 10+6=16 to soak, and suffers 5 wounds, leaving her at 55.
Round 2
Tashya keeps her stealth going, rolling 3+8=11 vs. the giant’s static intuition result of 10… she will only lose stealth in this situation with a natural 2. My curiosity gets the best of me, and I roll for him instead of taking the static 7 on this roll; he rolls 6+3=9. Nope. She only has a margin of success of +2, so adds +2 to her attack (the giant almost sees her after the rock careens into her). She rolls 6+7+2=15 to hit; the giant evades at 9, so she hits by +6. For damage, she rolls 9+8+6=23 wounds; it soaks 15 and suffers 8, leaving him at 57. The giant throws another stone at a result of 19, and she rolls 4+0+8=12 to evade; again, she is hit - this time by +7. For damage, the giant deal 7+9+7=23 wounds. After her armor soaks 7+6=13 wounds, she suffers 10 and is now down to 45.
Round 3
She continues to use stealth, rolling 3 (again!) +8=11 to stealth. We’ll let the giant roll again to see her, and he gets 4+3=7… poor giant! She succeeds by +4, and rolls 7+7+4=18 vs. his evade of 9; she hits by +9. For damage, she rolls 9+8+9=26 wounds, which after his armor soaks 15 means that he suffers 11 wounds, leaving him at 46. She has to dodge another boulder, and rolls 10+8+3=21. This one she manages to duck.
Round 4
Still with her stealth active, Tashya rolls 5+8=13; we’ll give the giant back his 7+2=9, so she gets +4 to attack; she fires her bow, rolling 7+7+4=18 to hit vs. the giant’s evade 9; she hits by +9. For damage, she rolls 7+8+9=24; its armor soaks 15, so it suffers 9 wounds and is down to 37… I like her odds more by the second! It throws another boulder, and she rolls 6+8+3=17 to evade; it hits her by +2. She has to roll to soak the damage of 7+9+2=18 wounds; she rolls 10+6=16, and suffers only 2 wounds, leaving her at 43.
Round 5
For stealth, Tashya rolls 8+8=16 vs. his intuition of 10, so she takes +6 to attack; she rolls with her bow, getting 5+7+6=18 to hit vs. the giant’s evade of 9; she hits by +9. For damage, she rolls 6+8+9=23 wounds; after the giant’s armor soaks 15 wounds, it suffers 8 and is down to 29. It throws another boulder, and she rolls 4+0+8+3=15 to evade; it hits by +4. She has to roll to soak the damage of 7+9+4=20 wounds; she rolls 8+6=14 and suffers 6 wounds, leaving her at 37.
Round 6
Tashya rolls a natural 2, and fails her stealth roll! The giant sees her. She can use a turn to re-stealth, but it will not take effect until her next turn. She does that, but gets no evade bonus this round. Rut Roh Raggy! The giant hurls a boulder, and she rolls 3 (!) +3 (from range) =6 to evade; the giant hits by +13… ouch! She rolls to soak the damage of 7+12+13=32 wounds, and gets 5+6=14… she suffers 21 wounds, and is down to 16. One more failed roll, and she’s done.
Round 7
Tashya rolls 4+8=12 to stealth. I’ll give the giant the chance to see her; he rolls 11+2=13 to see her! She tries to duck for cover, but cannot. He’s keyed in on her now. Without stealth (and some good rolls with it), she really has little chance to do much to this guy; she’ll hit by an average of +5, so she’ll deal an average of 5 wounds with each hit without the benefits of stealth. However, it only has 29 wounds… this is a difficult strategic choice. She cannot hope it will keep missing her, so she goes for it; she rolls her attack and gets 4+7=11 vs. its evade of 9. She hits by +2. For damage, she rolls 12+8+2=22 wounds; it soaks 15 and suffers 7 wounds; it’s down to 22. She’s done a good job so far, but her luck has run out! The giant throws a boulder at her, and she rolls to evade, getting 7+3=10. It hits by +9. Its damage is 7+9+9=25 wounds; she needs a good soak roll here. She rolls 8+6=14; she suffers 11 wounds, and is down to 5.
Round 8
She looses another arrow, rolling 7+7=14 vs. the static evade of 9. She hits by +5. For damage, she rolls 6+8+5=19 wounds; this means the giant suffers only 4 wounds after factoring in his armor, so he’s down to 18. It throws a boulder, and she rolls 9+3=12 to evade, giving the giant a +7 margin of success; she rolls to soak its damage of 7+9+7=23 wounds, and gets 7+6=13; she suffers 10 wounds, taking her to -5. She has to roll might to continue, and gets 7+0=7. She’s still up- barely!
Round 9
She fires and gets 8+7=15 to hit, so her margin of success is +6. For damage, she rolls 6+8+6=22 wounds, so the giant suffers 7 wounds and is down to 11. She’s so close! She has to dodge another boulder, and rolls 4+3=7; it hits by +12. Against its damage of 7+9+12=28, she rolls 7+6=13… she suffers 15 wounds, and is now at -20. She falls. The giant strides over and delivers a final death blow with his club, and then drags her bloodied corpse inside to have for dinner…
Analysis
With the changes I made, I no longer feel that stealth is broken! It’s a great ability to be sure, but when it goes away, it leaves the hero with a big gap in his defenses, and takes away his primary combat advantage!
With some evade, Tashya would have been able to sidestep several of the giant’s attacks; even dropping her intuition to +5 would free up a few points for evade that would make a considerable difference. This 3 CPs would have been better distributed to give a few points of evade and just 1 resolve point; that would have allowed her to re-active stealth as a free turn, or take a bonus to a stealth roll that would have saved her bacon. Without it, she had to rely completely on the dice, and they REALLY let her down.
Time to see how awesome the stalker’s stealth ability is… and how to fix it because it’s probably broken. Ooh! It’s fun breaking your own game…
Before I even start, I’m going to use some of what I learned during my Judah Marakev playtest about the penalty based on your margin of failure; stealth allows you to take your margin of success against the target each turn as long as you’re stealthed; once the target sees you, you must spend 1 turn to re-establish stealth.
Tashya, Moon Elf Stalker (60 CPs); Soak physical +6; bow +8 (attack +7/damage +8/range 15)
Arms +6 (missile +8/armor +6/melee +4); Intuition +6; Precision +7; Stealth +8
Tashya is going to take on a huge threat far beyond her capabilities: a frost giant inquisitor. This foe is built on 90 CPs, so should wipe the floor with her.
Frost Giant Inquisitor (90 CPs); soaks phys +8/magic +4; two-handed sword +9 (att +12/dmg +17); throws rocks +9 (att +12/dmg +9/rng 12); treas +2
Arms +7 (armor +7/melee +9/missile +5); Immunity (cold); Evade +2; Intuition +3; Invulnerable +4; Might +12; Weapon Specialist (two-handed) +8
Towering over every adversary, the 20’ tall frost giant overseer wields a mighty sword and throws huge stones, grinding humans and other lesser foes beneath his heel.
We’ll stack the deck in her favor; she is stealthed and 15 units away from the frost giant who stands watch. She positions herself on a slope 150’ away and opens fire… we’ll use static 7 for the frost giant here, since this emulates ‘typical’ results more effectively.
She rolls stealth and gets 7+8=15 vs. the DR 10 (from his intuition +3). She gets +5 to her attack; she rolls 10+7+5=22 to hit, and the giant evades at 9. She hits by +13; for damage, she rolls 7+8+13=28 wounds. The giant’s armor soaks 7+8=15 wounds, and he suffers 13, leaving him at 77 wounds.
Sequence: Tashya goes on 4+6=10, and the giant goes on 10 as well. We’ll let Tashya go first.
Round 1
Tashya attempts to continue to stealth, rolling 8+8=16 vs. the giant’s intuition resist of 10. She gets +6 to her attack; she rolls 7+7+6=20 to hit vs. the giant’s evade of 9; she hits by +11. For damage, she rolls 8+8+11=27 wounds; after the 15 wounds its armor roll soaks, she deals 12 wounds, leaving him at 65. The giant (unable to see her), throws a rock at her; she is 15 units away, so is 3 units beyond his range (giving her +3 to evade). She also gets to add her stealth +8 to her evade. It attacks at 19, and she rolls 3+0 (she didn’t take evade) +8+3=14 to evade- and gets hit with a big rock! For damage, the giant deals 7+9+5=21 wounds; she rolls 10+6=16 to soak, and suffers 5 wounds, leaving her at 55.
Round 2
Tashya keeps her stealth going, rolling 3+8=11 vs. the giant’s static intuition result of 10… she will only lose stealth in this situation with a natural 2. My curiosity gets the best of me, and I roll for him instead of taking the static 7 on this roll; he rolls 6+3=9. Nope. She only has a margin of success of +2, so adds +2 to her attack (the giant almost sees her after the rock careens into her). She rolls 6+7+2=15 to hit; the giant evades at 9, so she hits by +6. For damage, she rolls 9+8+6=23 wounds; it soaks 15 and suffers 8, leaving him at 57. The giant throws another stone at a result of 19, and she rolls 4+0+8=12 to evade; again, she is hit - this time by +7. For damage, the giant deal 7+9+7=23 wounds. After her armor soaks 7+6=13 wounds, she suffers 10 and is now down to 45.
Round 3
She continues to use stealth, rolling 3 (again!) +8=11 to stealth. We’ll let the giant roll again to see her, and he gets 4+3=7… poor giant! She succeeds by +4, and rolls 7+7+4=18 vs. his evade of 9; she hits by +9. For damage, she rolls 9+8+9=26 wounds, which after his armor soaks 15 means that he suffers 11 wounds, leaving him at 46. She has to dodge another boulder, and rolls 10+8+3=21. This one she manages to duck.
Round 4
Still with her stealth active, Tashya rolls 5+8=13; we’ll give the giant back his 7+2=9, so she gets +4 to attack; she fires her bow, rolling 7+7+4=18 to hit vs. the giant’s evade 9; she hits by +9. For damage, she rolls 7+8+9=24; its armor soaks 15, so it suffers 9 wounds and is down to 37… I like her odds more by the second! It throws another boulder, and she rolls 6+8+3=17 to evade; it hits her by +2. She has to roll to soak the damage of 7+9+2=18 wounds; she rolls 10+6=16, and suffers only 2 wounds, leaving her at 43.
Round 5
For stealth, Tashya rolls 8+8=16 vs. his intuition of 10, so she takes +6 to attack; she rolls with her bow, getting 5+7+6=18 to hit vs. the giant’s evade of 9; she hits by +9. For damage, she rolls 6+8+9=23 wounds; after the giant’s armor soaks 15 wounds, it suffers 8 and is down to 29. It throws another boulder, and she rolls 4+0+8+3=15 to evade; it hits by +4. She has to roll to soak the damage of 7+9+4=20 wounds; she rolls 8+6=14 and suffers 6 wounds, leaving her at 37.
Round 6
Tashya rolls a natural 2, and fails her stealth roll! The giant sees her. She can use a turn to re-stealth, but it will not take effect until her next turn. She does that, but gets no evade bonus this round. Rut Roh Raggy! The giant hurls a boulder, and she rolls 3 (!) +3 (from range) =6 to evade; the giant hits by +13… ouch! She rolls to soak the damage of 7+12+13=32 wounds, and gets 5+6=14… she suffers 21 wounds, and is down to 16. One more failed roll, and she’s done.
Round 7
Tashya rolls 4+8=12 to stealth. I’ll give the giant the chance to see her; he rolls 11+2=13 to see her! She tries to duck for cover, but cannot. He’s keyed in on her now. Without stealth (and some good rolls with it), she really has little chance to do much to this guy; she’ll hit by an average of +5, so she’ll deal an average of 5 wounds with each hit without the benefits of stealth. However, it only has 29 wounds… this is a difficult strategic choice. She cannot hope it will keep missing her, so she goes for it; she rolls her attack and gets 4+7=11 vs. its evade of 9. She hits by +2. For damage, she rolls 12+8+2=22 wounds; it soaks 15 and suffers 7 wounds; it’s down to 22. She’s done a good job so far, but her luck has run out! The giant throws a boulder at her, and she rolls to evade, getting 7+3=10. It hits by +9. Its damage is 7+9+9=25 wounds; she needs a good soak roll here. She rolls 8+6=14; she suffers 11 wounds, and is down to 5.
Round 8
She looses another arrow, rolling 7+7=14 vs. the static evade of 9. She hits by +5. For damage, she rolls 6+8+5=19 wounds; this means the giant suffers only 4 wounds after factoring in his armor, so he’s down to 18. It throws a boulder, and she rolls 9+3=12 to evade, giving the giant a +7 margin of success; she rolls to soak its damage of 7+9+7=23 wounds, and gets 7+6=13; she suffers 10 wounds, taking her to -5. She has to roll might to continue, and gets 7+0=7. She’s still up- barely!
Round 9
She fires and gets 8+7=15 to hit, so her margin of success is +6. For damage, she rolls 6+8+6=22 wounds, so the giant suffers 7 wounds and is down to 11. She’s so close! She has to dodge another boulder, and rolls 4+3=7; it hits by +12. Against its damage of 7+9+12=28, she rolls 7+6=13… she suffers 15 wounds, and is now at -20. She falls. The giant strides over and delivers a final death blow with his club, and then drags her bloodied corpse inside to have for dinner…
Analysis
With the changes I made, I no longer feel that stealth is broken! It’s a great ability to be sure, but when it goes away, it leaves the hero with a big gap in his defenses, and takes away his primary combat advantage!
With some evade, Tashya would have been able to sidestep several of the giant’s attacks; even dropping her intuition to +5 would free up a few points for evade that would make a considerable difference. This 3 CPs would have been better distributed to give a few points of evade and just 1 resolve point; that would have allowed her to re-active stealth as a free turn, or take a bonus to a stealth roll that would have saved her bacon. Without it, she had to rely completely on the dice, and they REALLY let her down.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)