The Gaming Den

The question then is what kind of choices do we want people making?

Because if there is -any- reason to use Slash over Stab, people will use it in Slashy situations.

So what -do- we want the wizard fighting the dragon to be doing instead of "spell of pwn dragon" over and over again?

Presumably, the dragon is meant to be able to kill the wizard, so he has to at least devote -some- attention to defense.

So instead of "Pwn dragon", what should the wizard do?

What should he be doing when not able to cast a given effect for whatever reason?

Spell points - where bigger effects cost more spell points and are less "Efficient" (as in, casting a level 3 effect to do damage uses more spell points to do the same amount of damage, though it is quicker, than the level 1 or 2 effects) don't really sound like a solution.

Speaking of CAN, I liked the concept quite a lot (apart from the name - I really liked "combat advantage score" much better).

As far as resource management goes, I have to admit I *hate* the idea of the whole "Winds of Fate" thing; it sounds like a variation on the old d&d "wild magic" system, but even less amenable to planning and less fun. It might be slightly more tolerable if players were allowed to adjust their rolls a bit as they went up in level (as one version of the wild magic system allowed, IIRC), so low level characters would get lots of random effects, while high-level characters will get fewer. One might also construct powers for certain classes that, when used, allows other characters to skip their "power rolls" entirely (for a round or so) and just use whichever one they want - kind of like "random power 'aid another'." Of course, you'd want to avoid making that the schtick of any one particular class, since they might become nothing more than a kind of heal-bot variant.

I personally like the idea of resource management that is as much under the control of the user as possible - for example, having all powers be at will, but each use costing some combination of resources players actually care about, like actions, time, xp, penalties to abilities, or penalties to positioning; it'd be nice to have options for spending additional resources on powers to do things like increase a CAN score temporarily or reduce an enemy's.

The opening poster's idea - converting spent points for one type of power into unspent points of another type - also sounds interesting. I like the idea, for example, of physical attacks generating a bit of mana that can be used for magic attacks, or magic attacks generating mana that can be used for healing/defensive powers.

Anyway, interesting discussion!

IGTN wrote:If you can spend combat actions to make yourself more powerful that combat, then if you have foreknowledge you can spend noncombat actions to do the same thing, and then you're back to people pulling out superweapons on round 1.

Use the CAN system on opponents as well as the environment.

Fluff : the environment is magic resistant, the fabric of reality has to be weakened before the most powerful magic can take effect.

Rules : either through ritual or as a simple effect of spellcasting the CAN of the environment increases (with a limit on how fast it can increase per round).

You can raise the environmental CAN before combat starts so you can start combat with a high level environmental spell but this would be detectable by magic using opponents a mile off and also give them the same ability, you still couldn't start with your save or dies on round 1 since you wouldn't have enough CAN on your opponents.

The only problem is that the fluff isn't really accommodating for any levelled set of abilities you would prefer to define as specifically non magical ... but meh, I don't really feel the need for that.

That leaves buffing, various solutions ... first and foremost I'd suggest a simple limit on the number of buffs you can have, other than that you could simply decide to make all the durations either 24 hours or 1 round, or you could put something in like advanced psionic tattoos which would let people get a good set of buffs up as a swift action.

for example, having all powers be at will, but each use costing some combination of resources players actually care about, like actions, time, xp, penalties to abilities, or penalties to positioning;

That gives me an idea - what about penalties to defense? Say every attack reduces one of your defenses, moreso for more powerful attacks. Getting hit resets the defense that was hit. Combine this with something CAN-like so that hitting by a big margin once is better than hitting by a small margin several times. And for best effect, a way to restore some amount of defense at the cost of your action.

Now if you spam the same move lots, you're building up a huge penalty in one of your defenses that an opponent could capitalize on and hurt you severely. And conversely, even if Ion Sword is your best attack in general, Ego Whip starts to look pretty good as that foe's Will defense is dropping lower and lower. And there's some mind-games about when to use it as well - if you wait too long, the foe might take a recovery and you miss your chance.

Obviously the number of defenses is important, and characters need attacks that target all of them, or at least almost all.

FrankTrollman wrote:

In Chess, a Pawn can only use its double move once per game, and only on its first move. Not only is that a form of resource management, it's one in which you very specifically can't use your abilities whenever you want.

Yeah, I don't play chess so I forgot that rule. I could've called it the Checkers Masters system. Checkers has been solved though so its probably a poor example. Ignoring the pawn double move chess is complex enough that there isn't a solution to it yet all the options you have are either available at the start or emerge as a consequence of previous moves.

---

On a tangent, Dragon vs party is a poor example really. With only a single enemy attack/defense to worry about its vastly easier to choose the correct move from your options no matter how those options are granted to you.

In the fire shield example, if the wizard can use his action this round to put up a fire shield that nullifies the dragon's breath attack for the rest of the fight, then it is quite possible that he will use that on the first round and then do something else the second round--that's a change in tactics, because there's a resource difference in the second round (the fire shield is already in place). Whether the fire shield is worth using will depend on the relative decrease in the dragon's effectiveness compared to the additional damage the dragon will be able to do because the wizard didn't spend that action killing it sooner. And one can imagine a situation in which the wizard has a large collection of abilities that can alter the future flow of battle in a variety of ways and deciding which ones to use could be a very complicated decision.

Why doesn't the Wizard already have Fireshield if it persists for longer than the battle will last?

The only reason that our wizard friend wouldn't have his fireshield going all the time is if there was some resource management system preventing him from doing it. For things like Fire Shield, it probably does want to be on charges per day or rounds per hour or current defensive stance slot or something. But it must have some other restriction than just taking an action to be used, because otherwise the Wizard is just going to walk around his normal daily routine saying "Fireshield" every few minutes.

Which means that Fireshield is a prime example of something that can never ever exist in Draco or Lago's world where characters can use any of their abilities whenever they want without restriction.

-Username17

Ice9 wrote:Now if you spam the same move lots, you're building up a huge penalty in one of your defenses that an opponent could capitalize on and hurt you severely.

In other words, if you *act* like a glass cannon, you'll basically become one... I like that.

The way I see it there are several different "resources" you can use in a game. Every game has a mix of these systems.

Charges- You have a pool of awesome that has limited uses. It can be unique to each power or you have a pool that multiple powers uses. Examples are D&D's spell slot system, Exalted's essence pool, Hero's END reserve, D&D 4th edition's encounter and daily powers.

Time- It takes time to use a power and thus you have to worry about action economy. It can be as basic as attacking taking a turn or the long time it takes to charge a spirit bomb.

Character Points- More awesome powers require more "points" that can't be spent elsewhere. Examples is taking levels in fighters prevents you have being more awesome with your wizard powers. Learning Blade Storm means you can't afford Fireball. Or that a power that does something extra is weaker elsewhere. A dragon's breath hits a wider area than his claws and thus does less damage to balance this out. A ghost's armor ignoring touch does a lot less damage overall.

Conditional- You can only do stuff under certain conditions. Sometimes it can be stuff that you can control (you must be standing in water) or can't (the enemy must do X). WoF is an example of this system with the conditional being Rolling N on a WoF roll.

Rock Paper Scissors- Certain options makes you stronger/weaker to other options. Ice Barrier is awesomesauce against Dragon's breath weapon, but not so good against his claws where Fireshield shines.

Each has its issues and honestly you can make good/bad systems with any of them and in any combination. Some are better for different goals and feels.

However, it's what the characters actually do with those resources matter. You could make a WoF system where the idea strategy is to just grind using whatever that comes up until you finally roll that 12 on 2d6 and blow the opposition away. This is the same problem that 4e has now you have a nuke on a random timer. You're just making time for that bomb and it will suck for the fights where it goes off too early or too late. Sure you're casting magic missile, extraordinary missile, and special missile rather just magic missile, but it doesn't really matter since it's more or less name changes.

Just like you can make a system where everyone's actions are deterministic enough that you know the precise chances of victory running the numbers though. Or you have a game of RPS game that's really a Rock Paper Scissors match with the GM.

I don't like WoF for the games I am in, but that's it's just me. However it's not going to make a game better on its own either. It's what's built on the management framework that matters.

It's what's built on the management framework that matters.

Yes.

However it's not going to make a game better on its own either.

I absolutely disagree. The reason that Dragons are encouraged to fuck off until their fire breath recharges is because they are at a better relative advantage on the turns they can breathe flames than on the turns that they are biting or scratching. It therefore becomes advantageous for them to avoid combat altogether on turns that their firebreath is not charged up (or cooled down, whichever way your system happens to run).

The mere fact that the super move is on a known rather than unknown timer encourages people who are at relative advantage in super move fights to bugger off rather than using their intermediate moves at all.

If you're going to put things on periodic usage restrictions, putting them on random rather than predictable periods literally, on its own, makes the game better. People who are at relative advantage with super moves ca exist without turning battles into spy hunter. And more than one person can be in the party with abilities using the same usage period and still have characters getting actual 10 minutes of personal fame rather than just participating in group ultrakill explosions all the time.

That's an improvement. A measurable and significant improvement from one change all by itself. Changing things from a 5 round charge-up or 5 round cool down to a 1-in-6 per turn availability makes the game better. It's not enough to turn a shitty game into an awesome game or anything, but it is an improvement. The things about it that are different are better.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:For things like Fire Shield, it probably does want to be on charges per day or rounds per hour or current defensive stance slot or something. But it must have some other restriction than just taking an action to be used, because otherwise the Wizard is just going to walk around his normal daily routine saying "Fireshield" every few minutes.

Which means that Fireshield is a prime example of something that can never ever exist in Draco or Lago's world where characters can use any of their abilities whenever they want without restriction.

Why are concentration or stance slots fundamentally incompatible with Draco or Lago's world? They only preclude simultaneous activity, not use.

Why are concentration or stance slots fundamentally incompatible with Draco or Lago's world? They only preclude simultaneous activity, not use.

Fire shield in this case was being used as an example of an activated ability that changed the defensive parameters of the battle at the cost of an action. And used in that context, it is something that can't exist in Draco's world because people would turn it on long before battle ever happened.

If it was supposed to be a defensive slot fulfillment, such that a Wizard might indeed be expected to walk around all day with the fireshield up, then that's something completely different. Something that could exist in Lago's world, but something which has absolutely nothing to do with the fireshield example I was responding to.

Lago's world where we have one defensive stance and one attack each turn and can use them in any combination we want is one where powers that persist long after they are used in some sort of personally buffing kind of way simply can't exist without breaking the paradigm.

-Username17

Ice9 wrote:

In the absence of resource management protocols restricting choice of attacks and defenses, it just boils down to a "best" chain of attacks and defenses that you repeat until someone wins. Press the A button! Press it HARD!

Fine, if you reduce everything to a worst case scenario, this is what you get. But you know what? The same fucking thing applies to WoF! It's just playing DDR - you do a bunch of different moves, but at no point is there any more actual choice or tactics than pressing the A button.

Except no. The choices are different from round to round because you have different choices available to you.

I'm trying to understand how making the most of limited, changing resources is somehow not meaningfully different from making the most of fixed resources. I think there's a disconnect with respect to the terms choice and tactics here.

The randomness is the seasoning, not the meal itself.

How about, "The randomness is a part, not the whole, of the resource management system." Using the word seasoning has connotations that don't apply.

I don't think the running away and charging thing is as bad as you make it sound Frank. That only works if:

1. The enemy can always get away or stop combat when he desires and
2. There is nothing for players to do during these wasted turns.

If 1 is not true then the dragon can't waste time for a new firebreath. He is going to use other attacks simply because that is what is available. If 1 is true then we have a much deeper problem, because the game is going to be full of enemies running off and then choosing to attack at the most inopportune times. I don't even care that the dragon can recharge his breath, I'm worried about him waiting eight hours and then busting through the inn's walls like the kool-aid man to kill us in our sleep.

If 2 is not true then players can just bust our their cure light wounds wands or healing salves or surges or whatever. Then the fight begins again with them at full health. Of course, then the dragon can also heal up so the fight pretty much resets itself. This is another reason why I think number 1 can't be allowed to happen.

But this is a storytelling game, so 1 can happen.

And the problem with 2 is that even if the combat is essentially reset by the time the dragon breathes again, he will breathe, because other options are Not Good. And we get the ouroboros effect again.

I see no reason why there shouldn't be a chance to see if firebreath vs healing salves not be the opening salvo. I have no problems if one or the other could triumph, just that it be considered a valid solution.

If kiting is valid by the system, then the system is stronger.

-Crissa

Actually, I don't see the problem with the dragon flying away to make strafing runs. If the dragon has superior mobility, then the people it's fighting should be trying to do something about that - get into a cave, ready shots for when it appears, put up a barrier so it has to use the breath breaking through it - whatever. I think the system becomes less interesting when you can say "So the foes have superior mobility? Doesn't matter, moves are random anyway so we don't have to do anything about it."

Except no. The choices are different from round to round because you have different choices available to you.

In DDR, the button you press changes from second to second. Instead of "Press A, press it Harder!" It's "Press Up, Press Down, Press Up, Press Right!" But that doesn't add any tactics - you're just pressing the button the screen tells you to. In an RPG, if the situation is so solvable you can easily see the best move out of the ten you know, then it's even easier to see the best out of the three you have this round.

I mean, let's not forget that you "everything at-will" does not actually mean you only have one move - that's what happens to it in a degenerate case. Just as "preset sequence of doom" is the degenerate case for gem pools or encounter powers. But the degenerate case for WoF is DDR, and that's just as bad. So really, the focus should be on preventing the degenerate cases, not trying to obfuscate them.

MfA wrote:Why are concentration or stance slots fundamentally incompatible with Draco or Lago's world? They only preclude simultaneous activity, not use.

Frank is mostly right. As stated my system can't have persistent defensive stances unless you let them stack. If they didn't stack you wouldn't be able to use any ability whenever you want. Of course if they do stack you have to balance the system around people having a bunch of them up at all times. Since thats not in any way tactical I don't think thats a good plan.


Not that I have a problem with swift action defensive stances that are mutually exclusive. I don't mind action cost as a resource management strategy. It is after all what keeps an at will system sensible, if you really could use all of your powers literally at will (ie simultaneously) the game would be shit.

What if we got rid of any meaningful combat healing and had most of your abilities use up your hit points? Or even some separate pool of Fatigue points that eventually wraps over into hit points?

Sure, this will create a situation where people are evaluating abilities for their effectiveness vs. expenditure, but players already do that in the process of character building. There are too many spells and feats for anyone to know all of them, for instance. But I thought that the answer to that was to try and make those things more balanced to eliminate never takes and must takes?

Maybe only your level-appropriate abilities drain HP?

Is it possible for this to work at all?

VitM wrote: What if we got rid of any meaningful combat healing and had most of your abilities use up your hit points? Or even some separate pool of Fatigue points that eventually wraps over into hit points?

And then these fatigue points could heal up slowly over the course of battle, allowing people to train themselves for a big push now, or cycle things down and take a lesser strain on their fatigue.

We could even give people access to weaponry with ammunition that used up relatively little fatigue but would actually separately run out of charges. Then people would be confronted with the choice of long-term vs. short term combat effectiveness not only during battle but also during character creation.

Is it possible for this to work at all?

Because of the technical nature of the battlefield, what with all the accounting decisions, I suggest calling it BattleTech. I think it might work.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:I absolutely disagree. The reason that Dragons are encouraged to fuck off until their fire breath recharges is because they are at a better relative advantage on the turns they can breathe flames than on the turns that they are biting or scratching. It therefore becomes advantageous for them to avoid combat altogether on turns that their firebreath is not charged up (or cooled down, whichever way your system happens to run).

The mere fact that the super move is on a known rather than unknown timer encourages people who are at relative advantage in super move fights to bugger off rather than using their intermediate moves at all.

Why doesn't the dragon fuck off till he gets a WoF roll that makes him happy (if you're willing to metagame also one where the PCs are unlucky)? If the dragon can just leave and wait for recharge, he can wait for a WoF roll. At best it makes the interval between pass-bys random. If the dragon's lucky and gets lots of breath WoF rolls, he gets lots of breaths and burninates the players. If he's unlucky and gets few breathes, he just flies around and around and nothing happens and you get the fight that never ends.

Also the PCs could try to stop this tactic by holding actions or going to ambush spots or charge themselves. In WoF, they can't really do these things. They could try to ready an action to cast anti-breath or something, but they're unlikey to have it up.

The issue with this dragon vs PCs combat is that everyone is waiting around for a specific supermove that the other party can't do anything about. WoF adds another roll to this that makes the fight longer or shorter. That's different, but not better since there are advantages and disadvantages of extending and shorting the fight.

The issue is that it's a badly made fight. There's one tactic (fly around until the dragon can breath who flies over and uses it and then leaves). This fight comes down to can the PCs roll better on their to-hit and damage rolls than the dragon can on his. WoF adds another roll. Rolling more dice for the sake of more dice rolls doesn't make anything better on its own. If the PCs can do stuff to mess up the Dragon's plan (slows and anti-breath counters), that's what will make this fight worthwhile and that will work with charging or WoF. If I was doing a high-roller RPG where the theme was big gambles and big payoffs and it's more about the odds than any plans you could make, WoF would be a good idea. That doesn't mean it's good for all games.

Tsuzua wrote: Why doesn't the dragon fuck off till he gets a WoF roll that makes him happy (if you're willing to metagame also one where the PCs are unlucky)? If the dragon can just leave and wait for recharge, he can wait for a WoF roll. At best it makes the interval between pass-bys random. If the dragon's lucky and gets lots of breath WoF rolls, he gets lots of breaths and burninates the players. If he's unlucky and gets few breathes, he just flies around and around and nothing happens and you get the fight that never ends.

Yeah, I think the system needs some built in effects to try to discourage kiting tactics, because kiting just isn't very heroic and probably has no place in a heroic combat system. Even with random moves, it's still possible to kite enemies because you can just fly around and wait for your favorite tactic to become available. Especially flight based kiting has to be strictly controlled, because otherwise everyone needs to fly. And once that happens, well terrain variety is out the window, making combats less tactical and more uniform.

And you want a variety of scenarios for PCs to adapt to. Different terrain, different foes and combinations of those things. Once you start removing those from the equation, then your combat system is going to become very boring fast.

Really, breath weapon strafing runs should probably be limited to like maybe 2/encounter max. Maybe doing that strafing run really tires the dragon out and forces it to land.

Generally you want to keep battles on the ground anyway. You can do the strafing run as your initial intro to the fight, but eventually you should have to stop.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Yeah, I think the system needs some built in effects to try to discourage kiting tactics, because kiting just isn't very heroic and probably has no place in a heroic combat system. Even with random moves, it's still possible to kite enemies because you can just fly around and wait for your favorite tactic to become available. Especially flight based kiting has to be strictly controlled, because otherwise everyone needs to fly.

Is a heroic combat system supposed to be two foes standing there and hitting each other until one falls down? If you disallow kiting, should you disallow sneak attacks? How much should the inability to kite be controlled by the game system itself versus actions that players are supposed to take within it? Should a dragon simply be unable to continuously strafe, or should an adventurer have to ready an action to use his Wingclipper or Earthbinding technique to bring the fight down to ground level?

RandomCasualty2 wrote:] think the system needs some built in effects to try to discourage kiting tactics, because kiting just isn't very heroic and probably has no place in a heroic combat system.

The bad guys aren't heroes, so they can kite. Also, you do see heroes playing defensively and running away while they wait for something to recharge, or for an opportunity to strike back. On the other hand, risk-free kiting is dull.

violence in the media wrote: Is a heroic combat system supposed to be two foes standing there and hitting each other until one falls down? If you disallow kiting, should you disallow sneak attacks? How much should the inability to kite be controlled by the game system itself versus actions that players are supposed to take within it? Should a dragon simply be unable to continuously strafe, or should an adventurer have to ready an action to use his Wingclipper or Earthbinding technique to bring the fight down to ground level?

How you prevent kiting is something that can be done in a variety of ways. Either there are abilities that counter kiting, or kiting just flat out is not allowed. The former one works well for monster kiting, but doesn't work quite so well to prevent PC kiting.

Sneak attacks are fine, so long as there's some risk involved. If you sneak up on someone and stab them in the kidneys with a dagger, that works. If it's some sniper firing a bow from miles away with no risk, then that's not very heroic.

Ideally you want a fantasy battle to be mobile, not just two guys hacking at each other. You want people getting thrown back into pits or possible even through walls. What you don't want is some guy anticlimactically circling a melee only enemy on a pegasus and firing arrows into it.

Martin wrote: The bad guys aren't heroes, so they can kite. Also, you do see heroes playing defensively and running away while they wait for something to recharge, or for an opportunity to strike back. On the other hand, risk-free kiting is dull.

Yeah, there's no problem with the PCs retreating or pulling back. You just don't want it to the point where all they do is stay out of range by running and pelting the monster with arrows.

Problem is, if you have good ranged weapons exist, and it is possible to move faster than an opponent, and the terrain permits - you do the math.

So one possibility, though it severely limits what people can play, is to flat out not have ranged weapons that are effective enough to make much of an impact on well armored targets.

I suppose that goes under "not allowed", but its a not allowed by not being possible, rather than arbitrary fiat when good ranged attacks and mobility could be combined.