It occurred to me this morning that there's an easy way to add some more granularity to Stalwart; you can add modifiers to your four core traits (the basic die), but this only affects rolls with the trait, and would not change the Static Values for those dice. You could receive a modifier of up to 1 below the next tier; so, you could have D4, D4+1, D6, D6+1, D8, D8+1, D10, D10+1, D12, D12+1, D12+2, D12+3, D16, D16+1, D16+2, D16+3... so this increases the 'available' range of scores significantly. The game goes from 6 possible trait ratings to 16... this does not affect the derived abilities; so with might D12 (whether it's D12, D12+1, D12+2, or D12+3), your endure is still locked at 6, unless you purchase tags to increase them. There aren't many other ways to add bonuses (other than a die shift), so this doesn't cause much in the way of power creep. It's pretty easy to add in - you get half your tier SV in bonuses to distribute among your traits. So, as a super (D10), you have 2 points to add... you could add +1 to your might D8 and to your reflex D6, or you could put the full +2 with your power D12. This would allow for a significant upgrade to overall character customization without even remotely breaking anything. If you're using the options for stablizing dice, you just keep the modifier; so your D12+2 with stabilization becomes D8+6 (D8+4+2).
This little game keeps surprising me with what it is capable of... it might be time to start on the Stalwart Companion 2.
or...merge all your Stalwart work into one deluxe version!!!
ReplyDeleteeither way, I like this granularity rule...
that "+" could also levels of granularity to stuff like lifting too...that jump from 5 tons to 50 and 50 to 500 tons is pretty big, this bonus ads a little more wiggle room there, very nice
Deletewould this affect damage too?
DeleteAnd as for the Deluxe Edition... that's already cycling in my mind :) I could see leaving the basic rules as they are up as a 'basic introductory set', and have the deluxe edition as a 'bells and whistles' version. I figure I'm going to end up spending a lot of the summer working on adding lots of fiddly bits to this game.
DeleteGranularity is cool, but this rule messes with the probabilities in weird ways. For example, although a d16 has a higher potential value, a d12+3 will roll higher than a d16 more often than not. I learned this the hard way messing with my own game design a while back.
ReplyDeleteTrue... and I'm kind of assuming that people will end up using the dice stabilization rules as well (since these tend to be better)... so a D12+3 would actually become D8+7... vs. D16, which would actually be D10+5. Which, as you point out, still does give a little bit of favor to the lower die with the better guaranteed bonus. More thinking to do on this, obviously...
DeleteI think you're onto something with this, but I keep getting a little tripped up by possibly not understanding the full approach you're laying out here. I would suggest that maybe if you always treat a +1 as worth TWO digits of die size, the scaling might be easier to order. I might really be misreading what dice stabilization is intended to do, though.
ReplyDeleteHmm. I'm a little unsure of what you mean, too, so we're confusing each other :) My original idea what that giving (for example) a +1 between D8 and D10 (so D8+1) would give an extra 'step' of progression. However, as Aldo pointed out, that starts to create some problems with probabilities - keeping this same example, D8+1 should be less than D10, but it gives you a possible result of 2-9 with an average of 5.5... whereas D10 gives you a possible result of 1-10, with an average also of 5.5... so it's not like D10 is better (because it has an outlier at either end that you have an equal chance of getting). It's basically two ways of creating what is statistically about the same result. Conversely, dice stablization (which I proposed) would turn a D8 into D4+2 (giving a result of 3-7, with an average of 5.5)... so I'm moving numbers around but not really making any progress. It's just a statistical shell game with no real benefits. My primary motivation in even proposing the modifier system is to address what feels like a signicant gap between D12 and D16, and then between D16 and D20... if only there were D14 and D18 in existence (Googles and finds out they do)... okay, there are, but they appear less common than the D16; there's a way to emulate D18, but not D14... however, there are 'hacks'... but none of them is elegant. I am fine with what we have in place now, I'm just always looking for ways to add a little more nuance to the game without any bloat. This is dangerously close to becoming bloat-y without giving any real benefit...
ReplyDeletewhat if instead of a +1 bonus, you do a reroll and pick the best of the two rolls? it's still an improvement and it won't break the scaling between dice
DeleteRight. That would definitely give an 'upgrade' without an upgrade. Great idea. Thanks for sharing!
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