# The Gaming Den

Welcome to the Gaming Den.

Skip to content

## Magic: the Gathering

The homebrew forum

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply

- Print view

66 posts

- Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- Next

Catharz
  Knight-Baron
  Posts: 893
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Catharz » Fri Mar 16, 2007 3:33 am

> Cielingcat at [unixtime wrote:1174007059[/unixtime]]Angels aren't a good PC race, though.

Why not?
Last edited by Catharz on Mon Sep 29, 2014 12:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
Top

Neeek
  Knight-Baron
  Posts: 652
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Neeek » Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:06 am

> Catharz at [unixtime wrote:1174015987[/unixtime]]

> > Cielingcat at [unixtime wrote:1174007059[/unixtime]]Angels aren't a good PC race, though.

> Why not?

I can't think of any reason, though Angels are remarkably uncommon in Magic. Now that I've thought more, Spirits are also mostly White.
Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Fri Mar 16, 2007 11:18 am

Angels are too powerful to be a starting race. They'll hopefully be available as a monstrous character.
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top

Username17
  Serious Badass
  Posts: 29894
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Fri Mar 16, 2007 4:56 pm

Angels have the problem that thy are presented as world-class badasses. The Angel in the source matrial shows up at he level of Vampire Lords, Air Elementals, and Major Demons. It's the eological niche right between "Stone Giant" and "Major Dragon".
To add insult to that particular injury the Angel is also the single most over rated creture in all of Magic, no exceptions. This is because iit is bar none the best creature in its color (White). Other colors have a multitude of awesome pieces of awesome: Red has the Warlord, the Dragon, the Troll; Black has the Spectre, the Demon Horde, the Vampire, and the Juzam Djinn - but White really just has the Serra Angel. That's the only good White creature in the first 4 sets of cards, and that means that she got used constantly. If you saw a Plains, you knew an Angel was no far behind. So Angels have more "mystique" even than the very large amount of power they have would naturally warrant.
---

> The idea is that each of the three chassis (Magic, Skill, and War) is the best at one thing and moderate at the others. Skill is good at Skills, War at BAB, and Magic at saves.

See, that doesn't work. Skills are fungible - having less of them doesn't actually make you numerically inferior it just makes you level appropriate at less things. BAB is not fungible, having less of it means that your numerical bonuses actually aren't as good.
In short, you are offering the people a chance at having less level appropriate abilities, or abilities which are less level appropriate. That's broken.
So no, that idea doesn't fly.

> The Necromancer list would give access to the Black Magic ability set, while a Catfolk only gets Red, Green, and Colorless sets to start. Being a Necromancer (or Assassin or Death Knight) is the only way for a Catfolk (or the other 5 races that don't get starter access to Black) to get those abilities at level one, and the only way for anyone to get them at other levels.

See there's no reason to shoehorn people in like this. The Catfolk nature of the character isn't really doing anything. The Necromancer aspect isn't really doing anything either.
If all the classes and races do is juggle mana around, you seriously might as well go classless and just let people do whatever they want with whatever mana they happen to have. The idea of classes providing value by giving players access to a caertain amount of mana that they can reassign every day is not strictly required - but a class has to do something like that for it to have any place in the game at all.
"You got an extra black mana!" isn't worth anything to anyone so long as players get other sources of control on their mana intake. Defining classes as something to spend mana on for versatility or power rather than as one more tertiary mana source is necessary and sufficient to make the classes something that anyone gives a damn about.
-Username17
Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Sat Mar 17, 2007 2:21 am

> FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1174064214[/unixtime]]

> > The idea is that each of the three chassis (Magic, Skill, and War) is the best at one thing and moderate at the others. Skill is good at Skills, War at BAB, and Magic at saves.

> See, that doesn't work. Skills are fungible - having less of them doesn't actually make you numerically inferior it just makes you level appropriate at less things. BAB is not fungible, having less of it means that your numerical bonuses actually aren't as good.
> In short, you are offering the people a chance at having less level appropriate abilities, or abilities which are less level appropriate. That's broken.
> So no, that idea doesn't fly.

Would you say there was any way to give classes a different chassis without the difficult problem of making certain classes better than others, but only by a little bit?

> See there's no reason to shoehorn people in like this. The Catfolk nature of the character isn't really doing anything. The Necromancer aspect isn't really doing anything either.
> If all the classes and races do is juggle mana around, you seriously might as well go classless and just let people do whatever they want with whatever mana they happen to have. The idea of classes providing value by giving players access to a caertain amount of mana that they can reassign every day is not strictly required - but a class has to do something like that for it to have any place in the game at all.
> "You got an extra black mana!" isn't worth anything to anyone so long as players get other sources of control on their mana intake. Defining classes as something to spend mana on for versatility or power rather than as one more tertiary mana source is necessary and sufficient to make the classes something that anyone gives a damn about.
> -Username17

Could it work if there were only three classes (Magic, Skill, War), and the abilities that you had were defined by which colors of mana you accumulated during your adventurers? So if you got one mana of each color, you could select any color of ability, as long as you had enough mana to get it.
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top

Username17
  Serious Badass
  Posts: 29894
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Sat Mar 17, 2007 10:16 am

> Del Gato wrote:Would you say there was any way to give classes a different chassis without the difficult problem of making certain classes better than others, but only by a little bit?

Sure. For example, you could vary the class skills of each class. You could vary what each class can spend their mana on, or what special abilities you can choose from.
Giving more abilities or better numbers to one class over another is unbalanced. But giving different abilities is balanced if your abilities are. Heck, in SAME you can even throw down different numbers so long as they add up to the same total value (d20 does not have this luxury).

> Could it work if there were only three classes (Magic, Skill, War), and the abilities that you had were defined by which colors of mana you accumulated during your adventurers? So if you got one mana of each color, you could select any color of ability, as long as you had enough mana to get it.

Sure. Note of course that this is functionally the same thing as what I outlined above. You really could just be a "Magic Hero" who had the ability to set aside two mana that could be channeled into different stuff each day so long as it was being spent on "Magic" abilities. The thing is that this "Magic Hero" is identical to a "Necromancer" if he happens to set aside two Black Mana and identical to a "Druid" if he sets aside two Green Mana.
Thus, whether there are 3 classes or 24 is largely irrelevent. The only difference is whether you write "Cleric" on your character sheet if you happen to assign White Mana into your all important vari-slot. And of course, whether your skill list would be different if you had put Blue Mana into that slot instead.
-Username17
Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Sat Mar 17, 2007 6:32 pm

So there is no way to give the War classes a better BAB or the Skill classes more skill points without unbalancing the game?
Hit Die: d8
Class Skills:
Skills/Level: (4 or 6) +Int modifier, x4 at first level
BAB: All full?
Saves: Two Good, one Poor
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top

Username17
  Serious Badass
  Posts: 29894
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Sat Mar 17, 2007 7:40 pm

> Cielingcat at [unixtime wrote:1174156377[/unixtime]]So there is no way to give the War classes a better BAB or the Skill classes more skill points without unbalancing the game?

Right. Once you've committed yourself to ability equivalency and parity you've committed yourself to BAB, Skill, and Save parity as well.

> Hit Die: d8
> Class Skills:
> Skills/Level: (4 or 6) +Int modifier, x4 at first level
> BAB: All full?
> Saves: Two Good, one Poor

Ah... problem again. The D&D save nomenclature of "Good" and "Poor" is horrendously unbalanced when players multiclass. The bonuses you get from taking the first level in a class compared with the second and third is quite striking. So that's got to go.
D&D tries to make up for this with the concept of "capstone" abilities - but in this case abilities are purchased with Mana in a character-level limited semi-free form fashion. So the idea of the Capstone is out the door. So the fact that a class with 2 "Good" and 1 "Poor" save gives a total of +4 Saves at level 1, +2 Saves at level 2, and +1 Saves at level 3 means that you'd have to be a god damned idiot to not immediately jump ship out of whatever class you are in now and get on board with another one.
That's why I was suggesting to give out +1 to all saves at Character Level 1, 3, 5, and 7 while handing out +1 to a single save for each level of each class you take. That way each character gets a total of +5 saves every 2 levels, which is a little worse overall than if they had taken the first two levels of a class with 2 "Good" saves (+6 saves overall), but a fvcktonne better than if they'd taken the next two levels of the same class (+3 saves overall).
-Username17
Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:39 pm

If the arbitrary +2 to saves was cut from the "good" progression and simply given to all characters as an innate thing at level 1, would that work? That way, a Mage (good Ref and Will) 4/Warrior (good Fort and Will) 2 has saves of +2/+2/+3, and +4/+4/+5 with the bonus added in, compared to +3/+4/+7 with the normal system.
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top

Neeek
  Knight-Baron
  Posts: 652
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Neeek » Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:44 pm

Would you do the same for BAB?
Something like +1 every even Character level, then an additional +1 for odd War levels and Skill levels that are divisible by 3?
Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:58 pm

Hmm... What if I kept Feats in existence, but instead of being bad, they gave you upgrades to your core abilities? Say, a feat to upgrade moderate BAB to full, a feat to give you more skills per level, a feat to give you a better hit die... That way, everyone gets the same core set of abilities, and can opt to increase them (retroactively, of course) at certain levels. A Necromancer could be as good at fighting as a Death Knight, but the Death Knight gets Unholy Strength where the Necromancer gets Duress.
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top

Username17
  Serious Badass
  Posts: 29894
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Sat Mar 17, 2007 10:34 pm

Why?
Seriously: why would you do that?
Open Multiclassing is a hallowed treat that we lust for in our nether reaches. The idea that players could take classes at random or for "roleplaying" reasons and come out the other side with viable characters is highly appealing. But that idea has eluded us thus far in every walk of life.
The usual culprit that is blamed is, naturally enough, the Wizard's exponential class progression in which sticking to a single classed program is necessary and sufficient to keep one gaining level appropriate abilities and likewise required like heroin just to keep one's abilities from fading into obscurity.
And indeed, that is a reasonable and accurate summation of the problem as it pertains to Wizards. But there is another pernicious difficulty that strains below the field of our view. And it is the accumulation of numerical bonuses in a class dependent fashion. Or rather, it is the failure of those bonuses to accumulate in a manner suggestive of much of anything.
---
Level Five doesn't get you anything. Level Seven is pretty bad too. And that's hardly surprising because Six (whether the level or the abstract integer) is divisible by both Two (where good saves accumulate) and by Three (where goeth the bad saves). Conversely, five and seven are prime numbers and can go suck piglet teats if they want nutrients.
One can make a suspiciously similar statement about levels 11 and 13, or levels 17 and 19. But that hardly matters because there's really no compelling reason to take level 5 of any class in abstract - there would have to be some sort of compelling class ability available there to entice anyone to jump head first into a level that provided zero save bonuses when other classes nestled just within reach elsewhere in the player's options provide save modifiers of their own. Save modifiers which are themselves non-zero integers.
The accumulation of BAB and Saving Throws in d20 is unmitigated shit. It's a progression that has built-in breakpoints that actually break things. The only reason that you don't see people chanting in the streets about tearing them down is because the Fighter/Wizard is in a position that has been cornholed in the eye socket so much harder by yet another flaw in the system that it doesn't even matter.
So if you're serious about open multiclassing. If you're serious about ability equivalence between classes - then the numeric functions as defined in D&D have to go. You can't keep the 3/4 BAB progression, you can't keep the 1/3 Save Progression. You can't even keep the 1/2 progressions. It all has to go, because it isn't any good.
When you get a level, any level your total save modifiers have to change by the same amount. They don't have to go up uniformly, but there can't be levels of Ranger that give +1 to a save and other levels that give +1 to two saves and still other that don't give any save bonuses at all. That's broken on first principles and it doesn't add anything to the game except heartache.
It's fine actually if some characters are essentially invulnerable to Fort Saves and fairly vulnerable to Will or Reflex saves (because they just took Paladin over and over again). But having characters who otherwise have identical numbers of abilities where one of them is nearly invulnerable to Fort saves and also somewhat resistant to Will saves (because they jumped out of Paladin into Cleric at a breakpoint level) - that's crap.
---
Meanwhile, just as a character who takes Fireblast at level 6 had better have a 6th level Fireblast regardless of whether he's a Shaman/Barbarian or a Shaman/Druid - the Deathknight who comes riding in with Soulsword had better have a 6th level Soulsword attack at 6th level regardless of whether he's a Deathknight/Barbarian or a Deathknight/Druid. And that means that sacrificing BAB is completely out of the question, no matter what your class composition is.
Sorcerers shoot Psionic Blasts at people instead of Thundering Longbows, but the basic mechanics probably shouldn't be all that different. You're still going to be rolling a d20 and adding a level-dependent bonus to it. There's no reason that the Sorcerer should be adding smaller numbers than the Ranger - they both have an ability invested.
-Username17
Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Sat Mar 17, 2007 11:11 pm

Alright, with that explained I can accept +1 to all saves on odd (character) levels, and +1 to one save of your choice each level.
When I think about it, the feat idea is stupid and I regret thinking of it.
So everyone gets a d8 HD, 6+ skills, full BAB, and the same save progression. Warriors swing swords, mages throw lightning, and skill people don't play fair.
Earlier, you mentioned that the game should be about 10 levels long. This makes sense, since the numbers in Magic cap out around 10 for anything (unless you're playing Channel-Fireball or something). Even creature power has an absolute limit around 10 (the strongest I can think of is 12/12 or 11/11*, or the 20/20 token produced by some crappy land from Time Spiral.) And if I stopped at 10 I could always go back and write more levels that are extrapolations of the first 10. Maybe you could be a Planeswalker then or something.
*Fun fact-the 11 mana 11/11 Darksteel Colossus (Mirrodin) was actually played in tournament decks thanks to the wonders of Tooth and Nail, a fetch card that brings monsters straight onto the field.
Now, people probably want to go up one level for each adventure, which means the amount of mana you expect to get from taking the place over is the same as the amount you need to level up. But how much should that be? I know I'll be using a linear advancement system, since that's much easier to handle. But I don't know how much stronger people should get each level.
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top

CalibronXXX
  Knight-Baron
  Posts: 698
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by CalibronXXX » Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:28 am

> Cielingcat at [unixtime wrote:1174173116[/unixtime]]Alright, with that explained I can accept +1 to all saves on odd (character) levels, and +1 to one save of your choice each level.

That sounds nice and balanced, and customizable.

> Cielingcat at [unixtime wrote:1174173116[/unixtime]]Now, people probably want to go up one level for each adventure, which means the amount of mana you expect to get from taking the place over is the same as the amount you need to level up. But how much should that be? I know I'll be using a linear advancement system, since that's much easier to handle. But I don't know how much stronger people should get each level.

That depends if yu want the power curve to be more like Magic or more like D&D. I haven't got a clue how magic works aside from the very basics(I played a game or two about a decade ago), so I can't help you there, but in D&D you supposedly double your power every two levels.
If following the D&D power curve then if Mana is going to give more or less linear power growth then if at level one you have 5 mana then at level two you'd gain 2 mana for a total of 7, at level three you'd gain 3 for a total of 10, at four get 4, at five get 6, at six get 8, at seven get 12, at eight get 16, ect. ect. This is just off the top of my head so I could very well be wrong, I don't have Frank's expertise after all, and off-hand I don't know how you'd calculate appropriate mana per level under a more Magic-esque or non-linear scaling system since I'm unfamiliar with the game and don't want to bother coming up with an arbitrary non-linear scaling power curve.
Hope that helped a little.
Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Sun Mar 18, 2007 5:28 pm

Magic scales in an essentially linear fashion, which is definitely what I intend to use. However, in Magic, an increase of 1 mana is generally worth 1 of whatever you're paying for, and that's just a bit too small. What I'm asking for is whether I should have each level cost 1 mana, 2 mana, 3 mana, etc. Basically, should the progression be this
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
This:
5
7
9
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
Etc.
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:46 pm

This new question has less to do with mechanics and more with organization. Below is an outline of the document, broken into 11 chapters.
Chapter One: Welcome to Magic
Introduction to the setting, explanation of rules changes, etc.
Chapter Two: Races of Dominaria
The 11 races (and 5 human subraces) of Dominaria, their cultures, places in the world, blah-blah-blah.
Chapter Three: Heroes of Might and Magic
Information on the classes and basically what has been worked out here.
Chapter Four: Skills
Revision of skills.
Chapter Five: Magic, Stealth, and War
All the abilities you can get.
Chapter Six: Equipment
Nonmagical stuff, like swords and armor.
Chapter Seven: Combat
Basic combat rules, like chapter 7 or 8 of the Player's Handbook.
Chapter Eight: The World of Dominaria
World description junk, mostly flavor with minor mechanics.
Chapter Nine: The Multiverse
Like chapter eight, but about the multiverse. Again, has no more than minor mechanical stuff.
Chapter Ten: Monsters
Self explanatory.
Chapter Eleven: Artifacts
Magic stuff you can get, like powerstones or black lotuses.
So would that be enough to provide a usable setting, more than enough, or would I need more? And what do you think is vital to make this usable?
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top

cthulhu
  Duke
  Posts: 2162
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by cthulhu » Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:59 am

As I really love the idea behind this, and no-one else is commented.
You're going to need an example of play.. and whats much more important, a few examples of exactly how the seizing territory for mana works both mechanically and in a game context.
(I still don't really understand how frank is proposing it works in the context of character advancement, and I've read it several times now.)
Top

technomancer
  Journeyman
  Posts: 140
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by technomancer » Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:14 pm

The impression that I got was this:
There is a port-town, called Giza. This city-state pumps out 3 white mana (all that trade), 1 black mana (the dark underbelly), 2 green mana (the forests where they get their wood for their shipwrights), 1 red mana (its ...um fought over?), and 4 blue mana, from all that water.
So, you and your pals walk up, stab the mayor in the face, take over and split the mana. Huzza! Now you have more mana! I hope you invested wisely because you're gonna have to stab someone else in the face to get more, and try to avoid having your own face stabbed to keep what you have.
It seems to me it's mostly empire building writ in geomancy.
Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Wed Apr 04, 2007 1:46 am

> technomancer at [unixtime wrote:1175606070[/unixtime]]
> It seems to me it's mostly empire building writ in geomancy.

Yup. There will also be Moxen and other artifact gems that are valuable because they produce mana without forcing you to conquer and keep land. So the cautious adventurer can loot tombs for those and take their land with them. Moxen still make you level up though, so you don't end up any more powerful than your friends.
On another note, I need to redo the skill system, since some skills are vastly better than others even if I fold some into others. So which skills are essential for a hero to have? So far I've thought of:
Acrobatics (Roll around, do backflips, run up walls, that sort of stuff)
Artifice (Craft with a cooler name and less dumb mechanics)
Athletics (Run around, climb things, jump, etc. Like the Athletics skill in Oblivion, only with even more cool stuff.)
Knowledge
Observation
Prestidigitation (SoH with a cooler name)
Security (Disable Device by its Oblivion name, since I've been playing that game a lot)
Speechcraft
Stealth
Trickery
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top

CalibronXXX
  Knight-Baron
  Posts: 698
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by CalibronXXX » Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:23 am

Speechcraft covers forgery, decipher script, and speak language basically?
Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:32 am

I was actually going with Diplomacy and Intimidate because I've been binging on Oblivion recently, but I like your idea better. Diplomacy and Intimidate now get to be "Communication". Also, there's Intuition, which opposes Trickery and basically is Sense Motive, only it lets you do combat maneuvers or something to actually be worth taking.
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top

Username17
  Serious Badass
  Posts: 29894
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Sun Apr 08, 2007 6:44 am

Now you have to decide on a damage paradigm. I can tell you straight out that you won't wantto use the system D&D uses, so it's time to consder really what you want from a higher level character taking on several lower level characters.
In short, how many attacks from a character on level X should drop a character of level X? How many attacks from characters of level X - 2 should drop that guy? How many attacks from a level X + 2 character should drop him?
D&D does not have a static answer for that. It takes seriously 5 Magic Missiles to drop a 1st level warrior. It takes 3 hits from a scorching ray to drop a 3rd level warrior. It takes about 3 full-on hits from a meteor swarm to drop a 17th level warrior. And of course, there are all kinds of stupid breakpoints in the middle of that where it takes more or less.
But you need a desired set-up for how many times a character must call upon Dark Banishing before their enemies are gone before a game rubric can be instituted.
-Username17
Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Sun Apr 08, 2007 11:51 am

One on one, I think a combat between 2 creatures of equal level/CR should take 4 rounds, because that's around how long a game of Magic usually takes. So if you have a party of 4 against 4 monsters of equal level, it should take 4 rounds for one side to be wiped out, unless you have some guy who likes to specialize in control.
To make this easier, save or dies get to die. Things like Dark Banishing don't deal damage, they just remove hp. It just so happens that this is the exact same thing, and so you can mix Dark Banishing with Lava Axe and get the same result as two Dark Banishings, except one does fire damage and the other does health drain.
On the issue of lower level characters vs. higher, I don't want to go with Magic. Having a level 5 character be worth 5 level 1 characters isn't enough, since level 5 people (like Gerrard or whoever) should be able to wade through as many mooks as they need to. And a level 10 character would be Gix, who would be able to wave away something like a Serra Angel without trouble.
Hmm, how to do this...
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top

Username17
  Serious Badass
  Posts: 29894
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Sun Apr 08, 2007 4:17 pm

Imagine for a second that you were using the SAME system. If you set the base DC for to-hit at 7 and the base damage at 15, then on average a specialist (S4A4M0E0) attacking a generalist (S2A2M2E2) is going to be handing out an average of 4.215 wound levels a turn (which is a 4 round conflict if enemies have 15 hit points). If the defender instead got an arbitrary +4 bonus to his defence and soak (for being higher level perhaps), then the attacker would be handing out an average of 1.82 wounds per round, taking a long time to hack his way through. If the attacker got a +4 to attack and damage (from being higher level perhaps), then he'd be handing out an aerage of 7.25 damage a round and quite frequently drop the target in just two attacks (but usually do it in three).
Of course, outlying numerics do happen. The weaker guy can totally score a lucky hit (natural 19 or 20 gives a +5 damage mod), and have a por soak roll for the awesome character (against that +5 damage mod, the defender would take a total of 9 wound levels on a natural 1). Similarly, the character with arbitrary bonuses would dish out 14 wound levels to the other guy if things otally went his way.
Now personally, I think things a bit deadlier with characters having less hit points so that they can plausibly be dropped in a single attack (at least, if there are circumstance modifiers in play). However, not everyone agrees. I've seen SAME with a fairly random spread as being "like rolling dice until someone gets lucky and the battle ends" - in short being like unto a Save-or-Die universe with no tactics. On the other hand, I've seen the more assured, gradualist approack referred to as "a senseless accumulation of arbitrary numbers until one side wins" - so whatever.
You have to find a balance point you're happy with and move on from there. How often do you want attacks to fail (base attack DC), how many turns do you think combat should last (average damage vs. starting hit points), how variant do you want that number to be (total hit points vs. the differences caused by the RNG)?
-----------
.21 (13)
.245 (14)
.28 (15)
.32 (16)
.36 (17)
.405 (18)
.45 (19)
.5(20)
.55 (21)
.6 (22)
.65 (23)
.7 (24)
.75 (25)
.8 (26)
.85 (27)
.9 (28)
.95 (29)
-Username17
Top

Cielingcat
  Duke
  Posts: 1453
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: Magic: the Gathering

- Quote

Post by Cielingcat » Thu Apr 12, 2007 4:14 pm

I found a use for feats. Feats no longer contribute to character power-doing that was a total mistake, since you can't have a choice between doing cool things and getting bigger numbers. Now, feats get to do what static skills like Climb used to do. If you take Climber or whatever, you get to climb shit really well and eventually walk up walls or something. You either have these things or you don't. Skills are reserved for opposed checks, like Stealth or Knowledge (whose DC is based on the CR of your target). That'll make the whole thing easier, since I no longer have to balance static and opposed skills.
Frank, is that chart of total HP vs RNG differences?
CHICKENS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO COCAINE, SILKY HEN

> Josh_Kablack wrote:You are not a unique and precious snowflake, you are just one more fucking asshole on the internet who presumes themselves to be better than the unwashed masses.

Top
Post Reply

- Print view

Display:
Sort by:
Direction:

66 posts

- Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- Next

Return to “It's My Own Invention...”

Jump to

- Main
- ↳ About the Gaming Den
- ↳ In My Humble Opinion...
- ↳ I Gave the Mouse a Cookie...
- ↳ In The Trenches
- ↳ It's My Own Invention...
- ↳ MPSIMS