# The Gaming Den

Welcome to the Gaming Den.

Skip to content

## A classless d20

The homebrew forum

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply

- Print view

46 posts

- 1
- 2
- Next

RandomCasualty
  Prince
  Posts: 3506
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### A classless d20

- Quote

Post by RandomCasualty » Mon Feb 28, 2005 5:45 pm

Basically I'm playing around with a classless version of d20. While classes could exist as a form of classificiation for abilities under this system, they dont' formally exist as we know them.
The hit point system is going to probably be Frank's wound system discussed in the attack and damage tradeoff thread.
All checks will be based off the same scale. Thus you could pit fortitude saves against attack rolls, or hide skill versus will saves and so on. Now these won't usually be opposed rolls. Most of the time we'll be dealing with rolls versus a DC of 11 + opposing stat.
As for ability scores, they're replaced by the following 5 stats. In place of a strength check, you roll fortitude, in place of a dex check, you roll reflex.
Accuracy: attack rolls for spells or physical
Power: Spell DCs, physical damage
Fortitude: Damage Reduction
Reflex: AC
Will: Defenses against magic, also used for spellcasting.
Each of these stats will have one of the following rankings. Which the characters will assign at creation. All stats can start at average and can be tinkered with from there. Any time a character levels, or indeed anytime between sessions (pending DM approval), a character can switch around his levels with each attribute.
Good: level +2.
Average: Level
Poor: Level -2.
Abysmal: Level -4.
Abilities: All characters are going to get an ability for each level, possibly more. These will consist of two types. Proficiencies and what you now know of as feats.
Proficiencies: Proficiencies are granted by abilities, and are basically the system's way of differentiating a warrior from a wizard. If you don't have a proficiency you suffer some fairly large penalty, like a -6. In some cases, like magic spells or knowledge skills, you can't amke a check at all. All proficiencies are tied to one of the five abilities.
A few proficiences as examples.
Melee Weapon Proficiency (accuracy): Using physical melee weapons.
Physical Prowess (Power): Dealing damage with physical weapons.
Feat of Strength (Fortitude): Lifting heavy objects.
Stealth (Reflex): Hiding and moving silently. Opposed by Will.
Save or Die Spells (Power): Allows you access to save or die magic. Opposing attribute determined by the spell itself
Trip (Fortitude): Making trip checks. Opposed by Fort or Reflex, whichever is higher.
Basically your proficiences are going to determine what you are. A thief, a wizard or a barbarian or whatever. So while the wizard may have a lot of power and accuracy for power spellcasting, he won't have physical prowess or melee weapon proficiency, and thus won't be an effective sword swinger.
Now not every proficiency is going to be a full ability. The big ones like weapon proficiency and spellcasting proficiencies are probably enough to be an ability unto themselves, but something like Trip is probably something you'll get in addition to something else.
Defensive things won't require proficiencies, you automatically have proficiency with them. So for instance, you need a proficiency not to take a penalty with tripping people, but to resist trips, you don't take a nonproficiency penalty.
The rest of your abilities are going to be used on conventional feat and class abilities.
Spellcasting: I'm not sure exactly how I'll do spellcasting in the system. I was thinking of having a matrix of sorts, where you have to take an ability to gain access to a certain spell list, and another ability to gain proficiency in that sort of spellcasting.
So if you had 'fire magic' and 'Direct damage casting' you could learn a fire direct damage spell. There may also be some broad magic skill that can be used untrained, but acts much like weapon proficiency for fighters.
Rogue skills: Rogue skills are going to basically be proficiencies, some of them like stealth can be used untrained, others like disable device are going to require the proficiency. Rogue skills will probably come at two per ability or something similar.
Combat: Attack rolls are Accuracy versus Reflex to hit. And power versus Fortitude to deal damage. Occasionally magic attacks may target will as well. I'd also like to create some tactical use for will, though I'm not sure what that is. Something important that makes it a valuable offensive tool for a fighter, though I haven't decided flavor wise what that will be yet.
Top

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

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Mon Feb 28, 2005 6:42 pm

> RC wrote:As for ability scores, they're replaced by the following 5 stats. In place of a strength check, you roll fortitude, in place of a dex check, you roll reflex.
> Accuracy: attack rolls for spells or physical
> Power: Spell DCs, physical damage
> Fortitude: Damage Reduction
> Reflex: AC
> Will: Defenses against magic, also used for spellcasting.

Five stats!? Why don't you just call it "Instant Kill: The Sundering", or "I fvcking hate magicians".
4 stats is balanced. 8 stats is balanced. 16 and 32 stats are balanced (albeit horrendously overcomplicated) - but there is no way on this Earth or any other to balance 5 stats. You are better off not even trying.
Look at what you have: you've got the stat "all accuracy", you've got the stat "all damage", you've got the stat "all soak rolls", and the stat "all dodge TNs". So right off, there is no difference at all between a wizard and a warrior. It's just special effects - an offensive specialist is just rolling the same numbers against the same TNs regardless of whether it's with magic power or a spear.
But wait! Magicians have an extra stat they need for no reason. So really, they'll never hit anything, because they have to knock down their other stats to invest in Willpower.
I give it thumbs down. You can split it up into:
Phys To-hit and Dodge
Phys Damage and Soak
Mag To-hit and Dodge
Mag Damage and Soak
OR, you can split it into:
Damage (all)
Soak (all)
To-hit (all)
Dodge (all)
But you can't have five stats. That doesn't work.
-Username17
Top

Murtak
  Duke
  Posts: 1577
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Murtak » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:35 am

What Frank said. Also a minor nitpick:

> RandomCasualty at [unixtime wrote:1109612732[/unixtime]]If you don't have a proficiency you suffer some fairly large penalty, like a -6. In some cases, like magic spells or knowledge skills, you can't amke a check at all.

Why? Let the fighter make his magic check (with a lower ability modifier and a -6 or -10 penalty) and if he succeeds let him cast the spell. He has probably seen the party wizard seen it 50 times, surely it can not be that hard to mimic some gestures and words?
Murtak
Top

User3
  Prince
  Posts: 3974
  Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by User3 » Tue Mar 01, 2005 3:27 am

> FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1109616131[/unixtime]]
> But wait! Magicians have an extra stat they need for no reason. So really, they'll never hit anything, because they have to knock down their other stats to invest in Willpower.

Well, I was trying to somehow fit will as a useful fighter stat too by somehow incorporating it into common combats and such. It'd also be the base mental stat, substituting for intelligence and probably charisma as well.
Perhaps will could be used to ofset wound penalties in some way? And maybe some other minor uses or two to make it useful.
As for the 5 stat thing, I'm not sure why it's impossible to balance 5 stats. Assuming all of them are either offensive or defensive and everyone needs all 5 of them, why can't five be balanced? As I really can't see any of those stats being dump stats right now.
The other option would possibly be to just set will always to -4 and have it modified by abilities. So you could take something like Iron Will as a class ability to make your will a -2 or a +0.
Top

RandomCasualty
  Prince
  Posts: 3506
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by RandomCasualty » Tue Mar 01, 2005 3:29 am

The above was me, who the boards decided to randomly log off...
Also, as for having untrained magic checks, the problem there is that essentially you've got some spells that people don't care much if they should fail, namely the out of combat ones. A wizard isn't going to go swinging a sword at something because he cares if he fails. But a fighter can try to cast invisibility or cure light wounds several times until he succeeds.
It's problematic to allow people to use untrained actions on things that have no penalty for failure.
Also you don't want people having too many abilities. When you allow people to do anything untrained you run into problems where everyone wants a knowledge check and similar stuff that really doesn't improve the game much. Somethings need to be limited, like only blacksmiths should be able to adequately make swords and so on.
Top

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

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:25 am

> RC wrote:
> As for the 5 stat thing, I'm not sure why it's impossible to balance 5 stats. Assuming all of them are either offensive or defensive and everyone needs all 5 of them, why can't five be balanced?

For the same reason that 3 stats can't be balanced, but 2 or 4 can.
If things are in a multiple of two, the math works out really nicely - the guy who specializes is going to have a bonus against people which is equal to the bonus they have against him. But if any non-2 prime is involved in the selection process, that's not true anymore.
So for 2 stats (Red and Blue):
Red Man (R4/B0), Blue Man (R0/B4), and Purple Man (R2/B2).
Red Man attacks Blue Man with Red at +4, and Purple Man with Red at +2.
Blue Man attacks Red Man with Blue at +4, and Purple Man with Blue at +2.
Purple Man attacks Red Man with Blue at +2, and Blue Man with Red at +2.
Everything is balanced. But now consider 3 stats (Red, Blue, and Yellow):
Yellow Man (R0/B0/Y3), Red Man (R3/B0/Y0), Blue Man (R0/B3/Y0), and Brown Man (R1/B1/Y1)
Yellow Man attacks Red or Blue Man with Yellow at +3, and Bown Man with Yellow at +2.
Red Man attacks Yellow or Blue Man with Red at +3, and Brown Man with Red at +2.
Blue Man attacks Yellow or Red Man with Blue at +3, and Brown Man with Blue at +2.
Brown Man attacks Yellow Man with Red or Blue at +1, attacks Red Man with Yellow or Blue at +1, and Blue Man with Yellow or Red at +1.
See? The mixed guy attacks everyone at +1, and everyone attacks him at +2. He sucks. And ironically, when we go to four stats, that problem is gone, as has been previously been shown.
But when we go to five stats, it's back. No matter how you cut it open. I'm not really sure how you intend to make this work, but it honestly doesn't matter. As soon as you have a number of stats that are divisable by an odd prime, diversifying yourself becomes provably a shitty thing to do.
-Username17
Top

rapanui
  Knight
  Posts: 318
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by rapanui » Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:32 am

I applaud this greatly.
Also, I don't think magicians need all 5 stats... the accuracy stats is only for spells they have to aim (like rays and whatnot), so they virtually ignore the Accuracy stat.
Would that be a correct evaluation RC?
Top

RandomCasualty
  Prince
  Posts: 3506
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by RandomCasualty » Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:47 am

> FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1109651151[/unixtime]]
> For the same reason that 3 stats can't be balanced, but 2 or 4 can.
> If things are in a multiple of two, the math works out really nicely - the guy who specializes is going to have a bonus against people which is equal to the bonus they have against him. But if any non-2 prime is involved in the selection process, that's not true anymore.

Well, the problem I have is that this sort of thing tends to force people to orient themselves toward using only their best attack. Which if you want fighter mages is rather problematic. Because they're balanced if and only if the red guy always uses a red attack, and the blue guy always uses a blue attack. Only the purple guy can alternate effectively.
I'd like to have universal attack stats, regardless of which type of attack you're using, magical, physical, mental or whatever. Basically regardless of if you're damaging someone with a fireball or a greatsword, you're going to use power to determine your damage. Probably even if you try to charm someone, power is going to determine your spell power.
So you'll have two basic offensive stats, Accuracy and Power. With three defensive stats: Fort, Reflex, Will.
Now, I suppose it is somewhat going to be problematic in that the offensive character holds a slight edge over the defensive character, however I think it might be possibly to close that gap by assigning other functions to the three defenses. Such as certain attack forms, like tripping using Fort, Sleight of hand using reflex and tactics using will. Reflex could also control initiative. And of course those three will be the basis for skills. If it's a mental skill, it'll be will based, If it's a strength based, it'll be fort, and if it's speed or dex based, it'll be reflex.
And I'm thinking that when you add stuff like stealth and other tactical class abilities, that the gap between offense and defense closes quite a bit. While admittedly a five stat system isn't balanced straight up, combats in RPGs are very rarely straight up to begin with, so as long as it's reasonably close, it should be ok (I hope anyway). If that doesn't work, then possibly defenses can be cheaper to purchase than attack.
The other option is adding a 4th defense.
Then the stats look at a lot like.
Damage (all)
Soak (all)
To-hit (all)
Dodge (all)
only soak and dodge are split into two catagories each. This means that if you bought soak and dodge at half cost it should be equivalent to this 4 stat setup.
Though again, I'm really not sure we need to do this because when you start factoring in class abilities, I think the three defenses may catchup.

> rapanui wrote:
> Also, I don't think magicians need all 5 stats... the accuracy stats is only for spells they have to aim (like rays and whatnot), so they virtually ignore the Accuracy stat.
> Would that be a correct evaluation RC?

Yeah, actually this could be a pretty big problem. I'm thinking perhaps that all offensive spells should have an attack roll to fix this problem. To which your AC is either your reflex (for something like a fire bolt) or will (for something like charm person). And in theory you could mix up those defenses however.
So you may have a bunch of spell combos. A death ray (reflex/fort), a finger of death (will/fortitude), charm person (will/will) and so on.
Fighters can have some alternate attack forms too, like a tactical strike for instance that attacks thier opponents will as an AC as opposed to his reflex.
Top

Murtak
  Duke
  Posts: 1577
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Murtak » Tue Mar 01, 2005 5:09 pm

> RandomCasualty at [unixtime wrote:1109670474[/unixtime]]
> Well, the problem I have is that this sort of thing tends to force people to orient themselves toward using only their best attack. Which if you want fighter mages is rather problematic. Because they're balanced if and only if the red guy always uses a red attack, and the blue guy always uses a blue attack. Only the purple guy can alternate effectively.

BO = blue offense
BD = defense vs blue
RO = red offense
RD = defense vs red
character 1
BO 2
BD 2
RO 2
RD 2
character 2
BO 4
BD 0
RO 4
RD 0
character 3
BO 4
BD 4
RO 0
RD 0
character 4
BO 8
BD 0
RO 0
RD 0
character 1 vs 2
+2 to hit, +2 to be hit
character 1 vs 3
+2 to hit, +2 to be hit
character 1 vs 4
+2 to hit, +6 to be hit
character 2 vs 3
+4 to hit, +4 to be hit
character 2 vs 4
+4 to hit, +4 to be hit
character 3 vs 4
+4 to hit, +4 to be hit
Obviously this becomes a problem when you let people put all their points in one stat. If you do not allow to pool offense/defense or red/blue you are fine.
Alternatively
MA = magic to hit/dodge
MS = magic soak/damage
PA = physical to hit/dodge
PS = physical soak/damage
character 1
MA 2
MS 2
PA 2
PS 2
character 2
MA 4
MS 0
PA 4
PS 0
character 3
MA 4
MS 4
PA 0
PS 0
character 4
MA 8
MS 0
PA 0
PS 0
character 1 vs character 2
hits at -2, damages at +2, is hit at +2, is damaged at -2
character 1 vs character 3
hits at +2, damages at +2, is hit at +2, is damaged at +2
character 1 vs character 4
hits at +2, damages at +2, is hit at +6, is damaged at -2
character 2 vs character 3
hits at +4, damages at +0, is hit at +0, is damaged at +4
character 2 vs character 4
hits at +4, damages at +0, is hit at +4, is damaged at +0
character 3 vs character 4
hits at +0, damages at +0, is hit at +4, is damaged at -4
and these all work out fine
Murtak
Top

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

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Tue Mar 01, 2005 6:45 pm

> RC wrote:Well, the problem I have is that this sort of thing tends to force people to orient themselves toward using only their best attack. Which if you want fighter mages is rather problematic. Because they're balanced if and only if the red guy always uses a red attack, and the blue guy always uses a blue attack. Only the purple guy can alternate effectively.

That's... not exactly true. In fact, the game only continues to be balanced if the Barbarian also has some magical Fear attacks or some damn thing so that he potentially use Blue instead of Red if he wanted to.
Consider the fight against the Hill Giant:
Red 8, Blue -4
The Red Man is still going to attack in Blue, and he'll be at +4 doing it. His emphasis on Red serves to potentially keep him alive if attacked by the Hill Giant, it doesn't actually make him desire to use Red attacks against the Hill Giant.

> RC wrote:I'd like to have universal attack stats, regardless of which type of attack you're using, magical, physical, mental or whatever. Basically regardless of if you're damaging someone with a fireball or a greatsword, you're going to use power to determine your damage. Probably even if you try to charm someone, power is going to determine your spell power.

Such a system could be "balanced". It would work like this:
To-hit
Damage
Dodge
Soak
Unfortunately, now you really have shoehorned everyone. The difference between Magic and Not Magic is no difference, because it's actually the same modifiers regardless of what you are using. So now there aren't any "wizards" or "barbarians" - there are instead "dodgy guys", "tough guys", "accurate guys" and "hard hitting guys". Now a Hard Hitting guy hits hard at the expense of himself getting hit harder and round and round.
It's balanced, but I personally don't like it because there is no tactical difference in the choices you made vis a vis any particular character. The defensive characters will always be playing a defensive role in every combat and the offensive characters will always be playing an offensive role in every combat and there is absolutely never ever going to be any difference at all in what you do.
If you lump offense and defense into one stat and divide it by two categories of attack types, then the role each person plays in battle is going to change. Against the Hill Giant, the Physical Guy tries to take the hits and he uses his magic attacks (which he almost never does) against the Will-o-Wisp, the Magical Guy tries to take the hits and he hits people with his staff (again, something he almost never does) - and the Fire Warrior is switching between his bow and his magic darts all the time.

> RC wrote:With three defensive stats: Fort, Reflex, Will.

Poor poor Brown Man.

> RC wrote:Now, I suppose it is somewhat going to be problematic in that the offensive character holds a slight edge over the defensive character, however I think it might be possibly to close that gap by assigning other functions to the three defenses.

You suppose right. You think wrong. The only thing that'll do is make the occassional build of "Accuracy, Power, Reflex" that specializes in some funny tactic where it adds its Reflex. Under no circumstances would it be a good idea to spend points into defenses - putting points into just one defense would be potentially workable.
If for some reason you don't think 4 stats is enough, go to eight. Do not stop at 5.
Oddly enough, you could have six, if there were two seperate categories of 2 and 4. You have one set of points that you distribute between four stats and another separate and non-transferable set of stats that are distributed between two other stats. So you could have:
Accuracy
Power
Soak
Dodge
---
Magic
Physical
And then when you made a magic attack you would add your magic + accuracy and a physical attack physical + accuracy.
That would work too. The only way to make a three-way system work out is if the three-part works like RPS. That is, you only get to select one of the three and it automatically gives you a bonus against people who selected one of the others and a penalty against people who selected the other one.
So you could make people choose to be Mind, Body, or Spirit focused. Or Wind, Rain, or Fire focused. Or whatever. One would necessarily grant bonuses in the RPS style. At no time is it fair for people to distribute points between Scissors, Paper, and Stone, because the correct answer is always to put all of your points in one pile. Theefore the only reasonable way to do that is to make complete specialization automatic by making the selection itself non-numeric.
There's lots of statistical tricks you can do, but none of them come out with 5 choices to distribute points into.
-Username17
Top

RandomCasualty
  Prince
  Posts: 3506
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by RandomCasualty » Wed Mar 02, 2005 1:46 am

WHat's wrong with going with this:
Accuracy
Power
Physical Soak
Physical Dodge
Magical Soak
Magical Dodge
And you simply have the soaks and the dodges be at half cost compared to the accuracy and power.

> Consider the fight against the Hill Giant:
> Red 8, Blue -4

Well the problem I don't like with this system is that it ends up catering to the specialists nonetheless. You gain really little from bieng the purple man, unless you're travelling alone. Otherwise you're better off having all mono reds and mono blues travelling together. Because you need a mono red as a soaker and a mono blue as a blaster or vice versa. And if you tank with red, generally you attack with blue and vice versa. And that's basically the extent of tactics in that system.
And here's the problem. When you do ever get a red character versus blue character matchup like a wizard versus the previously stated giant, it turns into rocket launcher tag. Either the giant acts first and pulverizes the wizard, or the wizard acts first and pulverizes the giant. And while that's technically balanced, the system means that you can never have a Might based creature that has to be beaten with might or a magic based creature that has to be beaten with magic. Basically you always counter might with magic and magic with might. But obviously, it's not much of a counter at all and there isn't much tactical involvement in such a system. The determining factor in a system like this tends to either be who goes first, or who has better ranged attacks. In this system the majority of your manuevers are basically going to be for the soaker to protect the blaster, and that's pretty much it.
And if you d have them be something logical like might and magic, then it's always in your best interest to have your wizard wear a warrior costume and vice versa. The entire tactics will be simply disguising who is who, because once people figure it out, your tactics become obvious. And I can't help but think the game would be tactically too bland.
Top

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

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Wed Mar 02, 2005 2:17 am

> RC wrote: WHat's wrong with going with this:
> Accuracy
> Power
> Physical Soak
> Physical Dodge
> Magical Soak
> Magical Dodge
> And you simply have the soaks and the dodges be at half cost compared to the accuracy and power.

Well, for starters, absolutely everyone is equally good at attack in magic and physical. And that means that everyone is going to end up being equally good at Physical and Magical Defense as well. Investing in more Phys Soak without Mag Soak is a waste fo your fvcking time, since people are going to switch to whatever works best.
So if you ramp up Physical Defenses, this has a roughly 50% chance of making any difference, and the difference it makes is that it's one whole attack before they switch over to magical attacks. So really, this is just a 4 stat system in which you are giving people an extra super secret option to suck ass if they want.
That and there's no second-guessability to be had. The people with high physical defenses don't actually get anything out of it relative to having magical defenses instead. So using magic or physical against any particular enemy is pure guess-work. It's like facing a new monster from Mechanus that your DM made up - there's no damn reason for it to have any particular set of resistances instead of any other.
So every combat begins with some ass-random experimentation where you perform no better with reasoning than you do with coin flips. And then at the end it turns out that unless your opponent has the mentation of a turnip - it didn't make any difference anyway.

> RC wrote:And if you tank with red, generally you attack with blue and vice versa. And that's basically the extent of tactics in that system.

Actually, that's roughly twice the tactics you are laying out - where everyone has equal attacks and tanking in Red and Blue so it really doesn't make any differece what you do.
But in any case, you are way underselling that even so. If you assume that your opponents are also trying to attack effectively, then having Purple guys in the mix is good. It makes it harder for your opponent to successfully judge who they should be going after. If you see a blue attack pop out of someone, it's pretty logical to send your red guy after them, but if they turn out to be a Purple guy that's actually a fairly bad plan.
There's reasons for there to be Red and Blue and Purple people in the same team, and that gives tactical depth just to the stats. Which is something your proposal does not have. If there's just an "attack stat" - there's no tactical depth. There's just a number that says how good you are.
Tactical Depth can be added in with the combat manuvers, the match-ups between fighting styles, special abilities, etc. But they can also come from the core mechanics themselves. The Blue/Red dichotomy inherently has some basic tactical truths built in. The Power/Soak dichotomy, however, has nothing.

> RC wrote:And here's the problem. When you do ever get a red character versus blue character matchup like a wizard versus the previously stated giant, it turns into rocket launcher tag

No. It goes towards Rocket Launcher Tag. It does not necessarily become Rocket Launcher Tag. Similarly, when two Red people fight it does not become padded sumo, it approaches padded sumo. I mean, in your system, people who invest in Power who attack each other do not necessarily become Rocket Launcher Tag, nor do two people who invested in Soak necessarily go all the way into Padded Sumo.
It goes towards that, sure. But whether it actually goes all the way to that extreme depends upon where you set the numerics, doesn't it? So long as the different choices are still having people on the RNG, it doesn't go all the way.
Of course, you have the option of allowing it to do so. Which is the example of the Hill Giant. It's a one-use monster, so it's actually supposed to be playing Rocket Launcher Tag, and it can be given spreads so large that it actually is. And that's fine. If you don't want that sort of situation, just don't whip out hyper-specialized monsters.
But don't pretend that it's somehow unique to having Magic and Physical as separate stat lines - it's not. Having monolithic attack lines works just the same. Only that way there's only the "Offense Beast" (that plays Rocket Launcher tag with the whole party, not just the Wizard or the Barbarian), and the "Defense Beast" (who again plays Padded Sumo with the whole party).
The thing that you are complaining about is not in fact a problem and it is not meaningfully addressed or changed by your proposals.

> RC wrote:In this system the majority of your manuevers are basically going to be for the soaker to protect the blaster, and that's pretty much it.

Possibly, so don't you think that it's really cool that in my version of the four-stat system the people who are the soaker and the blaster switch places against different enemies? In your proposal, the soaker is always the soaker and the blaster is always the blaster.

> RC wrote:And if you d have them be something logical like might and magic, then it's always in your best interest to have your wizard wear a warrior costume and vice versa.

Again, quite possibly. And that, of course, is where Purple characters shine. They actually are both Wizards and Warriors and can therefore play off considerable confusion.

> RC wrote:The entire tactics will be simply disguising who is who, because once people figure it out, your tactics become obvious.

I admit, that "Use an attack that is Magic against people who have a worse Magic than you, use an attack that is physical against enemies that have a worse physical than you" is not much to begin with. It's tactics at all, which beats "attack people" which is what you seem to be operating with.
Still and again, the tactical depth probably comes from position, element types, attack templates, terrain, and deception more than it comes from the fact that people who have a high Strength and Agility have a comparatively low Intelligence and Willpower - but you have all of those things. And together it can make a richly complex tactical simulation while at the same time keeping the core mechanics balanced.
-Username17
Top

RandomCasualty
  Prince
  Posts: 3506
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by RandomCasualty » Wed Mar 02, 2005 3:09 am

> FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1109729826[/unixtime]]
> So if you ramp up Physical Defenses, this has a roughly 50% chance of making any difference, and the difference it makes is that it's one whole attack before they switch over to magical attacks. So really, this is just a 4 stat system in which you are giving people an extra super secret option to suck ass if they want.

Well, this assumes they have both kinds of attacks. Remember that not everyone necessarily is going to have something that's going to target different things. And it's not actually that simple, you may encounter some hybrids like something that targets different defenses. So perhaps it was a bad example.
It's actually a lot more like
Accuracy (all)
Damage (all)
Red Defense
Blue Defense
Green Defense
Yellow Defense
And while the colors do account for something conceptually, in terms of the game, they're not anything specific mechanically. A forcecage could be accuracy versus mental AC and damage versus physical AC. Conceptually it could be any combination of the two attacks versus any of the two defenses.
Now yes, it is true that focusing on one defense tends not to help much, but that's where manuevers come in. If you for instance focus on Blue you're good at Blue based manuevers. So in addition to being really hard to hit or damage against anything that uses Blue, you also have a good chance to move into threatened areas w/o provoking AoOs, which could be a Blue ability. You also have a good chance to use stealth which could be a Blue ability too.
So being a blue character means at low levels that you have an adventage agaisnt people who are limited in attacks and can only attack blue, and at high levels you have to rely on your blue abilities to help narrow the gap, since by then people have picked up a collection of abilities and can probably attack something other than blue.

> But in any case, you are way underselling that even so. If you assume that your opponents are also trying to attack effectively, then having Purple guys in the mix is good. It makes it harder for your opponent to successfully judge who they should be going after. If you see a blue attack pop out of someone, it's pretty logical to send your red guy after them, but if they turn out to be a Purple guy that's actually a fairly bad plan.

But there's really no reason to have a purple guy unless you somehow are able to disguise him. RPGs generally aren't about extensive misdirection. And once you know who is who, your purple guy just does nothing.
Generally in an RPG you can identify most monsters. At the very least if your colors represent something you should be able to. If might is red with magic blue, then you immediately know a giant is a red creature. And once you know that, all tactics are inherently gone.
Now, who really gets screwed are the guys who choose to mix units. You can have for instance two reds and be ok, or two blues and be ok, or even two purple. In fact, in group combat if you aren't monocolor you're getting hosed without misdirection.
But when you have two blue (Team A), against say a red and a blue (Team B), here's what happens:
Team A attacks the red guy on Team B. The blue guy on team B has to attack a blue guy on team A, but it's ineffective. So the red guy on team B dies much faster than the blue guys on team A, beacuse team A has two blasters versus one tank and one blaster. After the red is dead, then you're left with two blues on Team A, one of them wounded and one at full health, and a single full health blue on team B. Team A has a clear edge.
And this happens whenever you have mixed color pairs versus monocolor. In essence it never helps you to be a mixed group at all, unless you can somehow dress your Reds in Blue. But again, RPGs aren't really like Stratego. You pretty much know what you're getting into most of the time, usually because you fought certain creatures in the past, or in the case of the DM, he already knows what the PCs are, and it's rather hard not to actively use that knowledge on some level. Having a tactical system based on not knowing your opponents is difficult at best.
Basically instead of trying to mix up who is a blaster against what and who is a tank against what, I'm trying to let the blaster always beat the tank numerically and relying on the tank to beat the blaster using manuevers, since a tank character in my system is manuever based.
Because if you don't set up something like that, you end up just hosing mixed groups. You can't get away from the problems that occur when you mix blasters and tanks. So while the color system is balanced one on one, in a group setting it fails, since monocolor always beats mixed.
Top

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

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Wed Mar 02, 2005 4:04 am

> RC wrote:Well, this assumes they have both kinds of attacks. Remember that not everyone necessarily is going to have something that's going to target different things.

Because apparently some people are morons? The only difference that Magic and Physical make is that some monsters (and theoretically some players) will be susceptible to one or the other. But your stats apply equally whichever way you go. So there is no advantage to learning more sword fu instead of mixing it up with sword and magic. You have the option of sticking with some sort of theme whose only effect is that the DM has the option of completely boning you by bifurcating the monster defenses in a manner that hurts you.

> RC wrote:It's actually a lot more like
> Accuracy (all)
> Damage (all)
> Red Defense
> Blue Defense
> Green Defense
> Yellow Defense

set it up however you want - specializing your defense in a situation where people only have one monolithic attack system that applies to whatever color they want to squirt out is a god damned fool's crusade.

> RC wrote:Now yes, it is true that focusing on one defense tends not to help much, but that's where manuevers come in. If you for instance focus on Blue you're good at Blue based manuevers.

Here that? It's the one-shot kill paradigm close on your heals. By making specialization of defense an "option" that will necessarily get you killed, and then having it provide concrete offensive bonuses, you are basically setting up a situation in which people have largely meaningless defense and very powerful offense. That pushes the game towards one-shot kills.

> RC wrote:But there's really no reason to have a purple guy unless you somehow are able to disguise him.

What the hell is that even supposed to mean? The purple guy can respond to whatever other people appear to be throwing around with the opposite. So if one enemy throws a big blue attack, the purple guy throws a red attack. Most enemies are going to throw blue attacks at people who throw red attacks - so with no special disguising on your part the enemy's "standard tactic" (the one you were just complaining about) produces an undesirable result.
Being a Purple guy is like being an archer who also carries a sword, only it's numerically balanced instead of shitty.

> RC wrote:And once you know who is who, your purple guy just does nothing.

What? Seriously, what the hell are you talking about? The Purple Guy is always your 2nd best tank and your 2nd best blaster - he always has something to do. He never ever has to be forced into a passive role nor does he ever have to worry about being overly fragile. The Red or Blue people occassionally want to run away or go play interference while other people hog the show - the purple guy doesn't have to do either.
I seriously don't understand your objection to being purple in this case - it's a lperfectly reasonable thing to be in all cases. Mathematically, your bonuses against enemies of similar power are always equal to their bonuses against you. The place where it gets fishy is when you deal with very powerful or very weak enemies. Against pwerful enemies, you are worried about your attacks getting pushed off the RNG - so you want to be extreme (so that someone in the party can still hurt the BBEG), against weaker enemies, you are trying to push them off the RNG, so you want to be balanced.
So really, against a horde of gremlins, you want a party of 2 purple guys, against a Golem or Lich you want a party of a Magician and a Berserker. Which is an advantage over your proposal, since there are good solid reasons to want a party with dfferent stat confirmations all the way from both extremes to the middle. Meanwhile, in your proposal there's really only room for people with max offense (who get rid of enemies) and max defense (who attempt to keep the party alive) - being in between gets you nothing but pain.

> RC wrote:But when you have two blue (Team A), against say a red and a blue (Team B), here's what happens

Um... no. Your statistical analyis is flawed on numerous levels, but if we actually used your simplified math it would end in a draw, because the blue people on both sides are somehow unable to damage each other.
But in the abstract, yes, a mixed team loses to a monochrome team assuming that everyone is able to attack everyone and everyone knows who is the correct person to attack. Not to the degree you're making it out, but in general it's true.
Similarly, the all Offense Specialists or all Defense Specialists cleans up on the mixed team. The monochrome team attacks the offensive specialists first, and then they are left with more than half of their number.
That's a basic fact of this set-up. If everyone is able to attack whoever they want and knows who they are best at attacking - a monochromatic party wins. Like how if everyone i your party is cold immune in D&D you could clean up on a group of adventurers if you magically knew who the cold specialist was and concentrated fire on the other guys. But that's where tactics come in. The mixed party has people who are good at defending and people who are good at attacking, so they are attempting to get the enemy to attack who they want while still having themselves attack as they please.
If you make assumptions like "everyone attacks whoever it is best for them to attack and everyone concentrates fire" - then hellz yeah you do best when everyone has the same setup. Because then everyone has the same optimal target, so you get maximal benefit out of fire concentration. But that's just trivial math games - it doesn't actually tell you anything relevent about anything.

> RC wrote:Basically instead of trying to mix up who is a blaster against what and who is a tank against what, I'm trying to let the blaster always beat the tank numerically and relying on the tank to beat the blaster using manuevers, since a tank character in my system is manuever based.

As I said, you should just rename this proposed game "Instant Kill: The Sundering".

> RC wrote:So while the color system is balanced one on one, in a group setting it fails, since monocolor always beats mixed.

If and only if you make the assumption before hand of perfect and undefeated tactics on the part of the monochrome group. Which is what you did. Note that against the monochrome group, it doesn't especially matter who you are attacking because they are all the same - so your assumptions about fire control benefitted only one side.
In an actual battle it would depend upon whose tactics were superior, as the battle is balanced overall. The mixed group is attempting to tactically force the monochrome group to "waste" attacks on the tanks, the monochrome group is attempting to focus attacks on the blasters. If you begin with the assumption of a total tactical win for the monochromes, they win the fight. If you begin with an assumption of a total tactical win for the mixed group, they win the fight.
For example, let's assume instead that all attacks from both teams are concentrated on just one guy on the opposing side - the guy in front. So the mixed group sends forward the tank, and the enemy whittles it away while the Blaster blows chunks out of the monochrome guy, the guy on the monochrome team falls before the tanker of the mixed group and the next monochrome guy steps forward to take on a badly shaken tanker - but he's taking body hits from both a tanker and a blaster so he goes down fast.
Tactics determine the victor. Because it's fair. That's how it is supposed to be.
-Username17
Top

RandomCasualty
  Prince
  Posts: 3506
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by RandomCasualty » Wed Mar 02, 2005 4:58 am

> FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1109736272[/unixtime]]
> Here that? It's the one-shot kill paradigm close on your heals. By making specialization of defense an "option" that will necessarily get you killed, and then having it provide concrete offensive bonuses, you are basically setting up a situation in which people have largely meaningless defense and very powerful offense. That pushes the game towards one-shot kills.

I'm not sure where you're getting this. The system isnt' divergent therefore one shot kills aren't something you have to watch out for really. Your accuracy can be a max of level +2, and that's the cap. The same for everything else. So there is no way to totally whore one stat. You just can't do it.
So you never get pushed off the RNG, because the bonuses are static. So a good reflex character always remains +2 over a medium reflex character, +4 over a poor reflex character and +6 over an abysmal reflex character.

> So really, against a horde of gremlins, you want a party of 2 purple guys, against a Golem or Lich you want a party of a Magician and a Berserker. Which is an advantage over your proposal, since there are good solid reasons to want a party with dfferent stat confirmations all the way from both extremes to the middle. Meanwhile, in your proposal there's really only room for people with max offense (who get rid of enemies) and max defense (who attempt to keep the party alive) - being in between gets you nothing but pain.

Not really, against anything you want monocolor. If the lich is blue for instance, then having a blue and a red does nothing. The lich rapes the red guy, then nickel and dimes the blue guy to death (assuming the lich was a threat at all). But if you had dual blue or dual red against the lich, either way you're still going to be doing the best you can, because having monocolor denies your opponent the abiltiy to make useful tactical choices, where having multicolor allows him to maximize his potential against you.
Now, having multicolor also allows him to choose wrong, but again, this isn't really stratego and the peices aren't hidden from the start. A giant looks like a giant and a dragon tends to look like a dragon. there's a little variance of course, but generally in fantasy we want people to look similar to what they are. The objective to have fighters want to dress up in wizard clothes is not a good one. Most of the time in fantasy it should be assumed that people are going to choose the tactically right choice. WHich lends a strong advantage to monocolor teams.

> Um... no. Your statistical analyis is flawed on numerous levels, but if we actually used your simplified math it would end in a draw, because the blue people on both sides are somehow unable to damage each other.

I'm assuming that both sides can damage each other to some degree. Obviously a blue on blue does less damage than a red on blue, and that's all we need to know. How much less exactly isn't all that important, all that's important is that it is some significant amount less.

> Like how if everyone i your party is cold immune in D&D you could clean up on a group of adventurers if you magically knew who the cold specialist was and concentrated fire on the other guys. But that's where tactics come in. The mixed party has people who are good at defending and people who are good at attacking, so they are attempting to get the enemy to attack who they want while still having themselves attack as they please.

Right, and the problem is that if you can dictate who people attack, the situation reverses. Then monocolor always loses. For instance if you can direct the all blue team to must attack your blue and you've got a blue/red, then the blue/red now always wins. So whether you allow tank walls or not is actually fairly irrelevant, because either way it's unbalanced.

> If you make assumptions like "everyone attacks whoever it is best for them to attack and everyone concentrates fire" - then hellz yeah you do best when everyone has the same setup. Because then everyone has the same optimal target, so you get maximal benefit out of fire concentration. But that's just trivial math games - it doesn't actually tell you anything relevent about anything.

Well really, the blue/red one on one analysis in the first place could be viewed as "trivial math games" by the same token, simply because in a game format, there's more to it than pure basic numbers. The thing is that what's balanced at one on one is not necessarily balanced in groups.
Also, the game goes beyond just numeric stats. One can easily take a D&D rogue and compare him numerically to a fighter, taking into account only BaB, hp and saves. And the fighter is going to look damn awesome. But once you factor in sneak attack, surprise attacks, and the rest of the rogue's abilities, then the fighter now seems less as good.
Ultimately the numbers are only part of the game, which is why I'm puzzled why a 5 stat system is so awful. So long as the numbers aren't divergent I don't see how abilities in game cannot make up for any minor numerical imbalances. Because even your red/blue system has to use abilities to make up for the inherent imbalances in group combat, because in group combat it's not nearly as balanced as it is for solo.

> As I said, you should just rename this proposed game "Instant Kill: The Sundering".

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The system isnt' divergent. The blaster has perhaps a +2 or +4 edge over the tank, and simply being tripped or disarmed or whatever can easily overcome that slight numeric edge.

> In an actual battle it would depend upon whose tactics were superior, as the battle is balanced overall. The mixed group is attempting to tactically force the monochrome group to "waste" attacks on the tanks, the monochrome group is attempting to focus attacks on the blasters. If you begin with the assumption of a total tactical win for the monochromes, they win the fight. If you begin with an assumption of a total tactical win for the mixed group, they win the fight.
> For example, let's assume instead that all attacks from both teams are concentrated on just one guy on the opposing side - the guy in front. So the mixed group sends forward the tank, and the enemy whittles it away while the Blaster blows chunks out of the monochrome guy, the guy on the monochrome team falls before the tanker of the mixed group and the next monochrome guy steps forward to take on a badly shaken tanker - but he's taking body hits from both a tanker and a blaster so he goes down fast.
> Tactics determine the victor. Because it's fair. That's how it is supposed to be.

See here you're introducing other abilities to handle who controls who attacks who, and that ultimately decides a victor. So basically, the system as a whole is balanced by abilities, not really by numerics. Since I've already shown that the red/blue isn't balanced in group combat.
If you allow the defender to choose where each attack goes, then the mixed group always wins. If the attacker chooses, then the monocolor always wins. Basically the game then becomes controlling who attacks who, which is the function of abilities. So your entire balance rests on making balanced abilities.
And that being the case, who cares if you've got an unbalanced number of stats combat wise anyway? So long as abilities can make up for that imbalance, everything should be ok. The numbers don't actually have to add up all the time because there's more to battles than pure numbers. What really has to add up are the numbers + abilities. The whole point of the numeric side is just to ensure that there aren't any dump stats. That's what's really important.
Top

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

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:54 am

> RC wrote:See here you're introducing other abilities to handle who controls who attacks who, and that ultimately decides a victor.

The hell are you talking about? At its core, any battle is a set of one-on-ones. Any assumption of how multiplayer works is entirely speculation. You put forward the model where all damage accumulates on the weakest enemy and proceeds to the end - a moel where the monochrome army always wins. I pointed out that if you use the Civ3/Warlords combat engine instead then the diverse army always wins.
If, as is more likely, things don't follow any of these extremes and there is some kind of zones-of-control setup with cover and distance and movement rates and shit - then neither side is going to get their attacks to where they are most efficient all the time. Nor is either side going to be stuck making the worst available attacks all the time.
This isn't jiggery pokery on my part. When you wave your hands and say that things will always work out like we were playing "enemy picks casualties" and never playing "you pick casualties" - that's disengenuous. If I claimed that you were always goin to be able to pick casualties, that would be disengenuous as well.
Any particular match-up of one-on-ones is fair. That's all the stats can do for you, because that's as far as they go. They don't decide where your character is on a battlemap, nor do they determine how far you can move nor what moats and bushes are in between you and victory.
You are seriously suggesting that stats should provide one-on-one matchups that are unfair... and your reasoning is so convoluted that I can't even follow it. I can't argue with you anymore. You gave out your idea, and I gave my opinion on it: your idea fails simple mathematical tests of abstract fairness. And I don't see it gaining anything in terms of playability or tactics because of it.
You have objected to my system because there are not enough tactics. And then when it was shown that tactics actually determine the victor of engagements between groups of different individuals you immediately object that it is no longer fair because it has tactics. I don't understand. I honestly don't get what you are getting at.
It is fair. And there are tactics. Those are both laudable goals that people strive for. And yet you have objected to both for reasons I can't even begin to fathom.

> RC wrote:Most of the time in fantasy it should be assumed that people are going to choose the tactically right choice.

Sure. But since there are actually two people who making these choices, that's not relevent.

> WHich lends a strong advantage to monocolor teams

Um... no. It leads to a strong advantage to the people who are outmanuvering their enemies.

> RC wrote:
> Not really, against anything you want monocolor.

Let us say that Purple guy is +2/+2, Red Guy is +4/+0, and Blue Guy is +0/+4.
Now, let's say that you are a lot better than your enemies, but you are blue and they are red. If you attack them, you'll blow them away. But you'll probably blow them away anyhow, because you are a lot better than they are. Now, their +4 to attack you, on the other hand, makes a big difference - it sends them from hitting on a 20 to hitting on a 16 - they are going to do 400% more damage to you - and your jump from splatting them on a 6 to splatting them on a 2 only means that you are taking them out 26.6% faster.
But let's assume you were Purple, they are dishing out 200% more damage and you are whacking them 13.3% faster. And this, in turn, is contrasted to being Red, where you could whack them plenty fast thanks without actually being counter attacked brutally at all.
And it's even better if people get pushed off the RNG - if you get another 3 points on those people, Purple Guy is actually immune to their warriors and their wizards both. And the monochrome Red force is likewise immune to a Blue Force. And a monochrome Blue force is immune to enemy Red goons of that level - but both of them are stil vulnerable to some enemies of that level.
If your Dodge TN is 23 points past their power level - you want to be Purple, because that way there's nothing they could do to hurt you, and otherwise there would be.

> RC wrote:I'm assuming that both sides can damage each other to some degree. Obviously a blue on blue does less damage than a red on blue, and that's all we need to know. How much less exactly isn't all that important, all that's important is that it is some significant amount less.

Like your claims about how the attacker always assigns hits in every game system, this is patently false.
-Username17
Top

RandomCasualty
  Prince
  Posts: 3506
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by RandomCasualty » Wed Mar 02, 2005 1:10 pm

> FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1109753648[/unixtime]]
> This isn't jiggery pokery on my part. When you wave your hands and say that things will always work out like we were playing "enemy picks casualties" and never playing "you pick casualties" - that's disengenuous. If I claimed that you were always goin to be able to pick casualties, that would be disengenuous as well.

Rigth, that's my point, the actual game balance goes beyond the numbers. So pointing to numbers and saying "They're not balanced, therefore your game will suck" is a bit extreme. Because after all, numerically only, your game isn't numerically balanced past a 1 on 1 fight either. I'm not saying that my system is inherently superior or even better, I'm just saying that a system can still work without being numerically balanced in one on one combat. That's all I'm saying.
Basically all stats need to do is offer people reasonable reasons to take them. So long as you don't have dump stats, then the system should be more or less alright. If one guy happens to be better at one on one combat, then who cares? Yeah, the guy who took accuracy and damage over defenses is going to be the better solo character, but he's also going to be easy to sneak past too, he's going to have poor stealth skills and he's probably got a bunch of other flaws which we can't even be sure of until a full ability list has been produced.
As written a defense stat is worth slightly less than an offense stat. And really I think abilities can easily make up for that, so I just fail to see how it's so earthshakingly bad that a system based off it just couldn't work. What's wrong with having certain characters better at one on one combat? I mean so what if someone has an edge there? How often does 1v1 combat happen anyway?
I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong about anything, I'm just saying that you're probably making a bigger deal over this than it should be.
Top

Murtak
  Duke
  Posts: 1577
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Murtak » Wed Mar 02, 2005 3:19 pm

Still, isn't it better to have a system that inherently has balanced combat stats? I would rather play a system where everyone was useful in and out of combat then one where one member of my party did the combat part and the other the out of combat stuff.
Murtak
Top

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

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Wed Mar 02, 2005 5:50 pm

> RC wrote:Because after all, numerically only, your game isn't numerically balanced past a 1 on 1 fight either.

Unless you model combat like Warlords 1, in which combat between multiple people is actually just a series of 1 on 1s. in which case it is. If you assume that there are strong zones of control (threatened areas, or whatever ou want to call them), and weak ranged attacks relative to melee attacks, that's a pretty accurate model.
Completely balanced systems can be unbalanced in any of a number of ways by introducing multicombat mechanics that aren't balanced. Imagine a games system in which each side rolled initiative. Even in a game that had approached padded sumo, the team that lost initiative in the first round would lose a bunch of actual characters before they got to do anything in a large enough confrontation - reducing an otherwise fair fight to a mop-up operation.
You start with balanced numbers and then you add additional mechanics that don't unbalance those numbers and so on and so on. The idea that you should start with unbalanced core mechanics and half-heartedly attempt to bring them in line with favoritism or something is just so early seventies that it's not funny anymore.

> RC wrote:What's wrong with having certain characters better at one on one combat?

Why not let people play a 12th level Fighter and a 12th level Cleric Archer in the same party? One is better than the other, but if you weren't such a ROLLPLAYER, you wouldn't care!
What's the fvcking problem with just writing balanced mechanics? It's not like you don't know what they are, you are just deliberately refusing to use them for no good reason.

> RC wrote: How often does 1v1 combat happen anyway?

Every time any character attacks or is attacked it is inherently 1v1 combat. So I'm going to guess that it takes place 4-100 times every session of every game.
-Username17
Top

RandomCasualty
  Prince
  Posts: 3506
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by RandomCasualty » Wed Mar 02, 2005 6:42 pm

> FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1109785802[/unixtime]]
> Unless you model combat like Warlords 1, in which combat between multiple people is actually just a series of 1 on 1s. in which case it is.

Well yeah, but I don't think we're going to base a game on a batting order style of combat. Nobody wants to have to wait for the guy in front of them to die before they get a swing.
So lets be realistic here.

> If you assume that there are strong zones of control (threatened areas, or whatever ou want to call them), and weak ranged attacks relative to melee attacks, that's a pretty accurate model.

If there are strong zones of control, then quite simply the mixed groups will win. If you can set up a system where you choose who soaks, then having tanks and blasters is better than just tanks or just blasters, because your tank can do what he does best and your blaster can do what he does best, and your blaster doesn't suffer from his innate weaknesses.

> You start with balanced numbers and then you add additional mechanics that don't unbalance those numbers and so on and so on. The idea that you should start with unbalanced core mechanics and half-heartedly attempt to bring them in line with favoritism or something is just so early seventies that it's not funny anymore.

Well, I'm not saying deliberately make them unbalanced, I'm just saying it doesn't matter too much if they're slightly imbalanced. RPGs are far too open ended to fully apply wargame logic to them. And while numbers can be important, they're certainly not the only thing in the game.
What makes wizards broken in D&D isn't that their numbers are bigger than everyone else. It's that they've got abilities that don't use numbers.

> What's the fvcking problem with just writing balanced mechanics? It's not like you don't know what they are, you are just deliberately refusing to use them for no good reason.

Well, really I don't think that using that starting point will produce all that great of a game. Because if you go with the Might versus Magic paradigm, you end up with all fighters looking alike statistically, all mages looking alike statistically and all fighter/mages looking alike statistically. And that's just distasteful to me, because it leads to boring cookie cutter characters. Red, Blue or Purple isn't a very good selection of choices.
And the other paradigm with combined attack and soaking isn't great either. Because in that one, it really doesn't matter what you do.
Inherently I'd like characters to have weaknesses and strengths, and your systems don't really do that. Instead they either set up a system where "rock beats paper beats rock", or set up a decision between either tank or artillery, but in either cases it's not particularly meaningful in a game because we have difficulty actually setting up vulnerabilities.
And RPGs are really about vulnerabilities. Sometimes you've got this golem that's totally resistant to your wizard's magic and the fightre has to kill it. Sometimes you've got some physical resistant creature, and the wizard has to kill it. Sometimes it's fighter on fighter, and other times its a duel of wizards.
I like the idea of having one on ones that might be unbalanced. That's actually a good thing in an RPG, because everyone isn't supposed to be able to beat everyone. The rogue should have trouble against stuff that's difficult to sneak up on, the fighter should have difficulty against something he can't close with, and the enchanter should have trouble with strong willed stuff.
And the problem is that your system really doesn't support that. You can't create a mage killer without also becoming more vulnerable to mages, and that strikes me as counterproductive. Having the exorcist be the guy who is most vulnerable to demonic possession really defies all manner of fantasy logic.
At some point people have to be able to pull ahead in certain battles, otherwise your game is too egalitarian. The goal is to allow people to specialize somewhat, just don't let them be able to beat everything. If you want to be good against wizards you should be able to do that, in a manner that actually gives you a numerical edge over wizards. The dragonslayer has to be good against dragons otherwise the system sucks.
Top

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

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Wed Mar 02, 2005 7:01 pm

> RC wrote:If there are strong zones of control, then quite simply the mixed groups will win.

Depends upon how strong the ZOCs are, doesn't it? Seems like it's pretty easy to balance, since we demonstrated that it's balanced in one on one (or in split off into individual battles mode like it was a movie), and we've demonstrated that with no zones of control it is biased in favor of the monochrome group, and if the zones of control are too complete it is biased in favor of the mixed group.
Assuming for the moment that we don't want it to be biased in favor of a mixed group (which as an RPG, we just might), there's quite clearly a spectrum to work with to get the balance point you want.
Remember, always start game balanced and then work from there, because game balance is shit hard to add back in at the end.

> RC wrote:Because if you go with the Might versus Magic paradigm, you end up with all fighters looking alike statistically, all mages looking alike statistically and all fighter/mages looking alike statistically.

Because it's so much better when everyone looks alike statistically? You had a set up in which offense was better than defense, you were only allowed to be at a couple of static points, and you could maximize all your offensive stats. That means that absolutely everyone will have the same stats regardless of what they do.
But let's look at the four stat system, and make some ground rules:
1> You can't have any stat be more than 4 higher than any other.
2> You get 10 points to spend.
So some wizards are going to be:
S: 1
A: 1
I: 4
W: 4
some are going to be:
S: 2
A: 0
I: 4
W: 4
some are going to be:
S: 0
A: 2
I: 4
W: 4
some are going to be:
S: 1
A: 1
I: 5
W: 3
some are going to be:
S: 1
A: 1
I: 3
W: 5
And those are all valid ways to set up your character. That's five noticeably different setups for a "maxxed wizard" - we haven't even thrown in the characters who want to mix a little bit of swording into al of this, who can go all crazy in a number of ways (some choosing to be very accurate in magic and very hard hitting in physical, or vice versa).
Heck, just setting yourself up 1,2,3,4 is balanced, and there are 12 different ways to do that. Your claim that there isn't variation in this setup is provably false. There are more good Wizard builds in this system than there are in D&D or in the system you proposed.
-Username17
Top

RandomCasualty
  Prince
  Posts: 3506
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by RandomCasualty » Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:18 pm

> FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1109790066[/unixtime]]
> Assuming for the moment that we don't want it to be biased in favor of a mixed group (which as an RPG, we just might), there's quite clearly a spectrum to work with to get the balance point you want.

See here's where it actually gets tricky. Because here's where abilities come into play.
And really until you write the abilities you're not sure exactly where you want the numbers to fall. If your ability sets are separate but distinct, like well written spell lists, then the mixed groups gain an edge by having access to more potential tools and manuevers in whcih case they could be numerically inferior to the monocolor group, whose tactics are somewhat more limited.
If on the other hand your ability set stresses synergy, like you can do special manuevers if you have a bunch of red people working together, then you want to give the numerical benefit of the doubt to the diverse group.
Generally in an RPG ability diversity tends to be a good thing, but not always, and this is where it gets really tricky. A group of ninja working together are a much more formidable force than say a ninja and a guy in plate mail. That's because stealth skill becomes more valuable when everyone can do it, as opposed to something like a fighter buff spell like haste which may work best when a wizard casts it on a fighter and not on himself. And generally RPGs tend to be a mix of the two.
Really I'm convinced that the numbers aren't nearly that important as the abilities. In fact it may be best to simply write the ability set first, and then worrying about fine tuning the numbers, since in the end, it's not feats like weapon focus that make or break a fighter, but rather stuff like karmic strike.

> Because it's so much better when everyone looks alike statistically? You had a set up in which offense was better than defense, you were only allowed to be at a couple of static points, and you could maximize all your offensive stats. That means that absolutely everyone will have the same stats regardless of what they do.

Well, yes, if you're talking straight combat, but remember abilities are based off defenses, and that's where things become a bit more complex. This does mean that a pure basher fighter is going to beat a rogue if the rogue doesn't use stealth or any other ability. And yeah, I'm actually totally fine wtih that. Basically if you choose to take attack and damage, then your character is more like the hulk. If you choose to focus on defenses, then you're more like batman. And if you're batman you just can't rely on beating the hulk in a slugging match, you have to use smoke grenades and special tactics.
And basically you're allowed several different archetypes just with those stats alone.
Barbarian (high damage, high fort, low reflex, possibly low will or accuracy).
Elven Sharpshooter or a duelist (High accuracy, high reflex, low fort, low damage)
Conventional Evoker (high damage, high will, low fort)
Master of manuevers (high reflex, high will, low accuracy, low damage)
Mage Killer (High will, low damage)
Dragon Slayer (High damage, Low accuracy)
And these are just a few of the concepts you can mold from those stats.

> Heck, just setting yourself up 1,2,3,4 is balanced, and there are 12 different ways to do that. Your claim that there isn't variation in this setup is provably false. There are more good Wizard builds in this system than there are in D&D or in the system you proposed.

True,there are a lot of different ways to arrange the numbers, but conceptually those amount to the exact same as the red or blue system. You still cannot build a character skilled at killing wizards, or a character designed to really dominate melee characters. Because basically whatever you do, you're still stuck in the "rock counters paper counters rock" balance paradigm. And that paradigm, while incredibly even, doesn't really allow for much diversity at all.
Sooner or later you actually want some degree of imbalance. You want an undead hunter that's good at killing undead, you want a dragon slayer who kills dragons, and so on. And these things are really ok, so long as the dragon and undead slayers lose to something else. RPGs have to be set up that way to prevent things from getting too boring. Otherwise, the only diversity in battles becomes whether its closer to padded sumo or rocket launcher tag.
When you build stats there should be at least a foundation for some kind of counter system in place because it keeps things fun. People want to have an opportunity to be good at certain stuff, and other people want to have a well balanced hero who gives everyone an even fight. And we have to accomodate both of those people. If people want a character capable of dominating in a certain area, they should have it and dominating should really be having a numerical edge, not just being more on the extreme side of rocket launcher tag versus padded sumo.
The Red/Blue choice isn't especially meaningful in any fashion because it doesn't make a difference. Ultimately your character gains no specialty or distinction from it, In essence you gain a favored enemy that also gains favored enemy bonuses against you and that doesn't mean a hell of a lot from a game standpoint. All you are doing is setting your prefered level fo lethality. Going extreme red means your lethality level jumps around a lot. Half your combats take a long time, half are over fast. Balancing yourself means that your lethality level remains relatively constant.
You aren't gaining any ground towards actually building a character concept of any kind because you can't actually gain headway towards making a character with meaningful attacks or counters yet. If your distinctions are magic and might, then at the very least, you should be trading numerical edges against magic for numerical disadvantages against might. That actually means something.
And that actually requires three stats to set up meaningfully. ONe is your base affinity (are you might or magic) and the other two are your actual edges versus Might/magic.
So you'd have:
A. Base- Might Attacks- +1 might/ -1 magic
B. Base- Magic Attacks- +1 might/ -1 magic
C. Base- Might Attacks: -1 might/ +1 magic
D. Base- Magic Attacks: -1 might/ +1 magic
E. Base- Might Attacks: +0 all
F. Base- Magic Attacks: +0 all
Now, these characters are not all balanced one on one, however they are balanced overall. And we can see they're pretty distinct concepts each of them. I think this is the style of balance you should be going for in an RPG. Obviously much more complex, but it should end up looking like this. We can see common archetypes here. C is the magic resistant golem. A is the dumb barbarian warrior, and so on.
Stats should be about choosing what your character is good at and where his weaknesses lie. And certainly strengths should be strengths and weaknesses should be weaknesses. I find it odd how your system makes your strength the same as your weakness. Because that doesn't actually accomplish anything conceptually.
Top

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

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:42 pm

> RC wrote:You still cannot build a character skilled at killing wizards, or a character designed to really dominate melee characters. Because basically whatever you do, you're still stuck in the "rock counters paper counters rock" balance paradigm. And that paradigm, while incredibly even, doesn't really allow for much diversity at all

I'm sorry, this is your basic assertion, and it makes no god damned sense at all. The fact that you can make a game balanced character who has anywhere from a zero to a five in four different stats makes for no diversity?
The fvck? That statement doesn't even make sense. You wrote up a bunch of concepts for characters who are not supported by your game system! Low Damage and High Willpower? Ha! Even against someone who for no reason at all decided to only have Will attacks, you still lose - because they put high accuracy and damage in because they weren't stupid. The "mageslayer" in your concept is crappy at hurting the mages and decent defensive when the mages try hurting him. But he's also crappy at hurting Fighters and has no special protection against them. In short, when you wrote up a "Mage Slayer" - you actually just wrote up a "Wizard" in my version except that he was also offensively anemic against Barbarians.
As to not being able to make someone who is good at fighting Wizards - try someone with high Intelligence and Agility - you hit most of the time against everyone and are rarely hit by anyone. You don't do a huge amount of damage against anyone - but that's just like your write-up of a "Mage Slayer" except that he doesn't completely suck when fighting anyone who isn't a mage.

> RC wrote:Sooner or later you actually want some degree of imbalance.

Absolutely. But you want that part of the game to be under DM control, not Player Control. It's fine to have people get Favored Enemy Bonuses or specific Energy Types so that certain characters and teams can shine against particular enemies. But making a setup in which players themselves make good or bad characters is just a bad idea all around. When you assign your stats to fit your vision, a min/maxer should not be able to take one look at it and tell you that your build suxxorz and be right.

> RC wrote:And that actually requires three stats to set up meaningfully. ONe is your base affinity (are you might or magic) and the other two are your actual edges versus Might/magic.

No it doesn't. You just used the RPS model I outlined above. And yeah, it works fine. But you don't need an RPS model, and it isn't even a stat. It's an element tag, which is an entirely separate consideration and should probably introduce unbalance.
The problem with introducing imbalance in the stats is that they don't correct themselves. There is no magic event that happens to make Brown Man not suck later down the line. In the actual three stat system: Red, Blue, and Yellow men are all balanced. Chartreuse Man is balanced against Yellow or Blue Man, but weak against Red Man, and Brown Man is balanced against Chartreuse Man but weak to Red, Blue, and Yellow. when you bust out imbalanced stats, you don't have a situation where some people are better against some other people but balanced overall - you have a situation in which one person is at least as good as you in every way and better in some ways.
Thats what imbalance means. Not "Scissors Beats Paper" but "Scissors Beats Paper and Ties with Rock" - and that sucks.
-Username17
Top

Murtak
  Duke
  Posts: 1577
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Murtak » Wed Mar 02, 2005 9:43 pm

Rc, how is it so hard in Frank#s system to build a mage slayer? Put half of your stats in magic defenses and put the other half in some type of offense. Magic offense means you are the mage who kills other mages, physical offense means you do it like Conan.
Now you are pretty strong against what mages throw against you, probably taking minimal damage, if any. As for hurting them, there is 3 options - either he mirrored your stat assignments, in which case he has high defense against your offense and nothing much happens. Or he split his defenses, leaving you with an advantage overall. Or he put his defense in something you do not use for offense, in which case you will kick the crap out of him.
End result: against mages you at worst tie your battles and at best kick the crap out of them. Against fighters it is the other way around. Is that not exactly what you wanted?
Murtak
Top

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

### Re: A classless d20

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Wed Mar 02, 2005 10:45 pm

Remember, the answer to "enemy wizard" can't be "party wizard kills it". If you need magic to fight magic, then the party fighter is going to ask why he is even there and you won't have an answer for him.
So what could the answer be?
You could have a circular archetypes model, in which there are three basic kinds of people where A beat B, B beat C, and C beat A. The problem with this setup is that there is no way to go halvesies on that without sucking ass. The "advantage" is that you have a situation where people are able to lord it over other people without actually dominating the entire game.
You could have a RvB paradigm, in which the people who the enemy wizard excelled against offensively also excelled against him, and where the people who the enemy wizard was dominant over defensively were likewise dominant over him in the same arena.
And... that's it. Those are the only balanced paradigms, and all other setups are either special effects for or combinations of those paradigms or they are unbalanced pieces of trash.
You could combine them in some way if you want, but such asetup would by necessity be handled in a separate fashion. You could arrange your stats to be pro-might or pro-magic or some combination, and then you could select a Wind, Water, or Fire focus, for instance. At no time can you distribute points between Wind, Water, and Fire - that just doesn't work.
And why not? Because in the circular model, people who put the maximum bonus into one throw beat one other throw and lose to one other throw. People who split points have a substantially worse performance - either having a loss and two ties or a win and two losses, depending upon how it's set up. It would be like if you offered people the ability to throw "the bomb" - a special throw that lost to scissors and tied to paper and rock.
Circular models are fine, but not for stats if you want people to be even vaguely balanced.
-Username17
Top
Post Reply

- Print view

Display:
Sort by:
Direction:

46 posts

- 1
- 2
- 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