I last left off talking about working on abilities. And really, this is quite a sticking point for me. I for some reason shut down when I get to them. So, tonight I feel inspired to sit down for a short deconstruction of abilities.
DEFINITION
I guess the first step is to analyze what an ability is when compared to other player capabilities. In my previous considerations, it seems to me there are actually three kinds of capabilities. I'll refer to them based on combat terminology, but there are variants that extend outside that as well. I'll call them Maneuvers, Skills and Abilities.
Maneuvers are things every character can do, and for the most part, with the same level of capability. Bob can walk a unit of movement, he can speak a few words, he can bleed, eat and draw a weapon. These generally speaking would be maneuvers. Their distinction and definition isn't to significant without the other two being defined however.
Skills are actions any character can do, but with training and specialization certain characters will do it better than others. These might be jumping, swinging a sword, performing a speech or making a hammer. It's very important to recognize that for the most part these actions ANYONE can do. A wizard can pick up a sword and wave it around, with luck he will hit someone. The village idiot can wrack his mind for the closest water source, and has a chance to locate it. A warrior and a survivalist might do better than those first examples, but the first examples have a chance to succeed.
Abilities are different from the prior two in that not anyone can do them. A wizard may cast a spell, but a warrior cannot. A shadowdancer may hide in plain sight, but a regular thief may not. These are abilities.
With these examples, there are some grey areas that arise, and mostly with the medium being the deciding factor. My favorite example is aiming.
In a MMORPG, more likely than not aim will be an ability. You do not specifically call out that you are aiming unless you are the type of character that does that. You may not see NPCs doing it, you may require a specific class or gear item (when you have limited slots) and so on.
In a FPS video game, likely it is a skill, those taking recoil and sway reducers being better, those with scopes being even better.
However, commonly in pen and paper RPGs, specific mentions of aiming are listed as maneuvers. I think likely this has to do with another important factor, cost.
COSTS
Player actions generally have some form of cost. All actions do. What is very important is considering what those costs are. This is something you'll see is a common theme throughout sports, video games, board games and pen and paper games. Some of the costs I consider prevalent are the following; specialization, actions, time, energy and wealth.
Specialization is probably the most obscure. Specialization deals with class choice, advancement allocation and ability choice.
Class choice is generally the most defining cost. The value of this choice, is completely determined by the creator of the game. You can find games with little or no cost upon choice (usually single player games with full respec processes) or some that can completely close you off from any other actions. This cost is mainly determined by the amount of abilities to skills to maneuvers.
At first one may say that MMOs might be the best examples of a high cost choice, but if you look at the underlying systems you may discover that each class has similar abilities with similar cost to result ratios.
Advancement allocation generally is a less costly choice to make. Generally speaking advancement allocation is small increases that can be chosen later if you prioritize something else. They make the character slightly more accurate, increase their speed or durability slightly or even upgrade particular abilities a little. Many games even offer the ability to undo some of these choices and switch paths.
Ability choice is a less often offered option. Many times this is covered with class and specialization choice. However, some games offer this as an option. For instance spellcasters in some games must choose an ability and keep it for the rest of the game, never to be undone. These are choices over a specific ability and not an increase like advancement allocation and class choice.
Specialization costs are generally opportunity costs to be viewed at a 'party scale'. Not all games operate at a party level, but if you receive NPC assistance later (or right away) and are not set on one choice ahead of time, it is generally considered best to set these choices based on your companions for optimum efficiency. If a party has someone who will distract the enemy, you can lean further away from defense and optimize things like healing or damage. If everyone focuses on distracting, nothing may ever get done. If nobody knows how to pick a lock, the group may never get past the door and so on. Pen and paper RPGs have a strength here in that they can be GMed by a dynamic entity that can adapt to the players, meaning should the players be lacking in an area, they can present less challenge there, or artificially augment the players ability in that field.
Actions are another cost involved in abilities, maneuvers and skills. Actions are commonly used to offset the power of a desired effect. I have distinguished this from time for a very important reason. Actions can be simultaneous, they can exist away from chronological time, and can take place within a single turn. Actions limit other initiations of abilities, maneuvers and skills within the period the character is given to create more effects. This ability or that ability, but not both. Actions are a cost that occur before or simultaneous with an ability, maneuver or skill.
Different types of action currency can be used. In recent DnD this is literally actions, standard, move, minor and free. A greater action can be sacrificed for a lesser, but a lesser or series of lessers generally can not be substituted for a greater. The player must choose whether they shall move twice, move and attack or just attack multiple times. In White Wolf systems these are ticks. In board games and card games these may be plays, rolls, purchases, bids and what have you. The important thing is, that a choice must be made whether to use one or the other but not both (or two but not the third and so on.)
Time is a cost that extends after actions. Commonly this is used as a way to offer a choice between lesser gains now and greater gains later. These are generally buffs, debuffs and effects that occur over time.
An ability that consumes an action, but offers no immediate benefit, only granting their benefits on later actions or even other actors turns is an action with a time cost.
For instance, a bless spell does no damage, it will never kill an opponent or increase ones own health, however it will make ones companions and ones self more capable of harming an opponent later. In many cases a +1 bonus granting a 5% boost in efficiency to the receiving targets. If there are twenty characters with equal damage capacity gaining this benefit for one action including the caster then the benefit has tied. However, if this effect is drawn out over 40 actions (about twenty turns) it need only be applied to one person to gain full effect.
One of the important drawbacks to consider for the time cost however is premature conclusion. Should an encounter conclude 5 turns in and the effect was applied for a 5% benefit to two people of equivalent capability, the turn was wasted. It was only a net benefit of 50% that could have been spent creating greater short term effect. That is the essence of time cost, and one of the reasons why a time cost ability usually has greater total effect than an ability with no time cost (all other costs equal.) Also these particular costs do not restrict later actions, they should not require concentration or other sacrifice of actions.
Energy costs are costs that should the player's character only rest, and neither succeed, nor fail, nor instigate effect in the world, will be recovered. In many games this would be mana, spell uses, health, ability uses and in some cases cash. It is very important to remember, that energy costs are temporary costs, they WILL be returned and the player can and should expect that such should happen. Should the player fail a quest, these will be returned so that the player can still attempt another venture and have an opportunity to recover their losses. These could be once a day abilities, mana using spells, taking a hit from a sword and tapping a land unit.
The difference between actions and energy is that actions cannot be saved. Inaction does not preserve an action for an unlimited time, a player cannot do nothing for five rounds of combat then perform five rounds of actions simultaneously. A player can however preserve their mana while performing actions such as basic attacks. Energy costs can be sneaky, for instance, in games where thrown weapons can always be recovered, they are energy costs and not wealth costs as the player can expect to recover those that cost at a later time.
Finally wealth costs. Wealth costs are costs the player cannot expect to ever recover. This is gold pieces spent on a nice room, purchasing a sword. They are used to receive a bonus or avoid a penalty in either the short or long term. These could be single use potions or scrolls, or cards that are removed from play after use. Wealth rewards are commonly rewards granted via the player's success, and commonly used to increase the odds of greater success. All games do not necessarily use currency as a wealth cost. For instance, some games grant the character a consistent wage. These games would allow the character to accumulate currency for no action whatsoever.
EFFECTS
Costs however are not the only important part about abilities, maneuvers and skills. The part most people see, and what I touched on a few times are effects. They are easily the most visible and followed part, while to those who truly wish to optimize, build or tactically choose pay attention to the costs as well. Generally effects fulfill four categories; Currency reduction, Currency increasing, Buffs and Debuffs.
Currency reduction is one of the most widely used effect. Ideally against opponents. Currency reduction could be picking a pocket, stabbing someone with a sword or causing an opponent to lose an action. Currency is very closely tied to costs, as costs are the willing reduction of currency, currency reduction is an unwilling effect.
Ideally Currency reduction reduces the opponent's currencies greater than the cost to create the effect. A basic sword strike generally sacrifices an action to reduce an opponent's health. Generally speaking this is sacrificing something gained in 6 seconds what may take a day or more to recover normally. It is also used to hurry an opponent to the point at which they cannot reduce ones own currencies. This could be killing, incapacitating or forcing an opponent to flee.
Examples of this are, stuns to attack actions, dispelling of buffs or debuffs to attack time, damage to attack energy costs, stealing to attack wealth costs and rarely level drains to attack specialization costs. Specialization costs are generally considered a very harsh target for a currency drain and are generally recommended to be avoided.
When choosing which currency reduction to pursue not only are the normal costs good to be considered, but also the value of the currency targeted. For instance, against opponents you will be fighting only once, specialization currencies may not be as ideal as energy currencies. For long battles attacking time currencies might be viable. For recurring villains, wealth and specialization currencies are prime targets.
Currency increasing is an effect that is less focused on, but also very straightforwards. Usually these effects are less numerous, but are generally effective. These could be healing spells, abilities that renew time cost effects and perhaps even abilities that recover specialization or actions lost to negative effects. Generally these are used to recover from currency reduction up to a maximum deemed 'normal'. The most ubiquitous is the healing spell, a boost to health to recover from damage done by an opponent. There are also stun breaks commonly used in MMOs and debuff removers.
The important thing to remember is that these only recover currencies lost by currency decreases. They should be measured according to both the character's capacity to reduce the opponent's currency and to the opponent's ability to reduce the character's capacity. Frequently this measurement is performed on a party level. One character focusing on currency increasing at great skill so the others may decrease currency at great skill.
Buffs are the increasing of effectiveness of abilities and skills. For the most part maneuvers by definition to not receive buffs. Maneuvers however CAN grant buffs. Aim is a classic example of a buff, the player sacrifices an action or series of actions to receive a bonus to accuracy. All costs can be sacrificed for buffs. For instance, some buffs may last 30 minutes in most MMOs but offer a small bonus, while actions and a 30s span may offer a much greater bonus that may or may not stack with the 30 minute bonus. Wealth is commonly used to offer buffs, a bonus for a night in a nice inn, or a specialization or class choice granting a permanent bonus. Generally buffs used within combat have an action and or energy cost associated.
Buff costs need to be carefully measured. It can be very easy to grant ones self a 20% bonus to a single action one could perform twice instead. However, such buffs could also prohibit an opponent from creating an effect by incapacitating them before they could act. It may also overcome a resistance buff on an opponent or a debuff placed on the one using the buff. It is also important to consider who in a party may receive the greatest benefit to a buff. A classic example is the haste spell in DnD. It grants extra attacks, but is cast by a wizard, one who does not specialize in melee, however if cast on a warrior it can be used to devastating effect.
Debuffs are effects that reduce an opponent's effectiveness per ability, maneuver or skill. Maneuvers generally are not exempt from this as they are from buffs, and are commonly targeted. These could be speed reductions, accuracy reductions or even effect reductions. Usually for effect reductions debuffs target currency reducers and increasers rather than debuffs or buffs.
As with buffs, debuffs need to be carefully measured. And generally they are harder to do so with as the capacity of the opponent is not commonly known. Generally one must guess whether the cost will be worth the result. However, if used properly, debuffs can be devastating. Reducing some opponents to complete ineffectiveness or reducing an opponent's currency reducers to a degree that ones currency increasers overcome the deficit.
Finally there's one last topic I wish to cover, but am not entirely certain where it should be placed.
Choices. Choices are a currency that cannot be forgotten. It is usually a sum of many other currencies and effects and is always in flux. Ideally you wish to reduce and eliminate your opponent's choices and increase ones own. But reducing them is done by both debuffs and currency reducers. Furthermore it is also reduced and increased by their own spending AND availability of currency. I feel like it might be well suited to the costs section, but it just doesn't seem to fit well there.
An expert in manipulating choices will use all available effects to make some choices less desirable than others, in effect reducing that currency and guiding the opponent to their own ideal conclusion. However commonly not all choices are known or controllable. So their own goal is to just reduce it to the least possible number.
A WORKING EXAMPLE
One of the most commonly seen working example in games is that of the party. Commonly this is one or two tanks, a healer or two and the rest damage dealers, usually at least twice as many as tanks and healers combined. Some games also allow for another role, the controller, there may be about as many of these as tanks or healers if such occurs, but commonly this is a role each character has the ability to touch on.
Each role is specialized in implementing their own particular manipulation of effects, variations within each role usually defined by the costs associated with their abilities or the long term buffs to skills. The tank specializes in buffing their ability to reduce damage, and reducing the opponent's choices to attacking the tank, usually through threat of currency reduction or debuffs. The healer specializes in buffs and currency increases and has buffs to increase their currency increases. The damage usually has buffs to increase their currency reductions that lead towards the opponent's incapacitation, they also have debuffs to help weaken the opponent against such currency reductions. The controller usually focuses on reducing the opponent's choices and actions through debuffs and currency decreases, and has long term buffs that increase those debuffs and currency decreases.
Working together well, the opponent is forced to target the tank to little effect. This effect is eliminated by the healer, while the damage dealers clean up the enemy, usually by focusing on one at a time so that they opponent gets as few actions and opportunity to create effects as possible.
In case you read it all
That came out longer than I expected, and I guess its not really just ability deconstruction, but a deconstruction of Maneuvers, Skills AND Abilities and their common systems on a generic level. I don't know if I taught you anything, but I'm glad I got all that out of my head. Maybe I'll get some inspiration. I don't know. But, this is the kind of thing that goes in circles in my head.
Showing posts with label Abilities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abilities. Show all posts
Monday, February 13, 2012
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Abstract System in Application
I'm considering using the Abstract system in application towards my earlier project. However, it seems lacking in a couple areas. Foremost in advancement to the level 100s.
Once the characters reach level 100, their specializations would likely be around 102 and their average and upper limit for even the highest attributes would be around 17.5 to 30. Is this too little? Is it too much? Do attributes then become meaningless? What does a 102 mean in the long run? If I had smithing 102 and the average NPC level was 5 that makes their smithing at 7. What does that mean?
Should I scale the skills slower? Should I increase the effect of attributes to make an average attribute have more dramatic effect? Should I implement the pay to succeed? Or maybe I should consider adding a scaling attribute system for my game. Perhaps every ten levels an attribute can be increased?
Of coarse then we would have rank 13 attributes which would be a problem, every twenty could result in at most a rank 10, and furthermore if I were to limit each attribute to one increase before 50 and one after then it would max out at 7. I think 7 is tolerable. With an average range of 24.5 and an upper limit of 42 it has up to a 40ish% boost to your rank 102 specialization. Not too shabby. Furthermore it can be another point of separation from non-heroic NPCs by not granting them statistic bonuses. This regular numerical increase, does however bring the game a few more steps away from a role playing game and towards a roll playing game, however I wonder if this would be another reward players could be granted to help encourage them to grow and develop.
So the highest roll possible without 'other bonuses' would be 144. I'm fairly certain that there will be other bonuses. Environment probably ranging from 5-30, tools ranging 5-30, perhaps bonuses bringing it up 10-30 and finally a 5-20 oversight bonus. All told, the upper limit becomes 254. With the only random numbers being attributes, setting the range as 7 to 42 making the range 219 to 252. Just short of 1/5 variance.
Not shabby I think. Not shabby at all.
The question becomes, what will the target numbers be? Should we be looking at two master fighters, both specializing in their respective fields to the maximum, (striking and dodging) The dodger would be looking at armor 30, bonuses 30, skill 102 and attribute 21, for a total of 183 and the master striker would be getting 162 + 7d6 with an average of 186.5. This means at the highest levels of combat we notice the attacker has a 3.5 edge against the defender. This edge is the .5 edge gained per die when using a +3 per die for static numbers while there is a 3.5 average per die.
Using http://anydice.com/ this means the attacker has about a 75% chance to hit the defender. Technically I could lean either way in this matter. I could bring the bonus up to a more average number, granting +3 OR 4 per rank of attribute, alternating between and narrowing the advantage, I could increase it to 4 per rank of attribute, and turning the advantage, or leaving it as is. It all depends on my personal agenda.
Alternating between 3 and 4 would make it 'equal' and narrow the odds closer to 50%. It would however complicate setting numbers for each attribute and balance combat times.
Raising the bonus to 4 would make it biased strongly to the defender. This would extend combat times and drop hit rate. It also would make getting the first strike less valuable.
Leaving it as is would make combats faster, give the first strike an advantage, and have generally a higher hit rate.
Having these high numbers would require figuring out the high results anyhow, so I think perhaps that would make a good topic to consider. When the players have received an indication of notable advancement every level. Does this, and SHOULD this still allow lower level application? What variance should even be considered, and can it even be considered? Once again I think that this should be examined with cross sections using extremes and averages. Perhaps it will uncover some form of major flaw.
First, lets look at starting levels, 1, 3, 5. Then I think 40, 43, 45 should be examined, followed by a stretch range of 20 vs 40. Or even 20 vs 100.
Lows will be untrained and minimum attribute at start. Likely a constant number will be used for all levels.
Ave will be a point every other level and two at start for specializations. It will also have average starting stats.
High will be a specialized starting stat and max points every level.
1
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6 +2, 11
High 4d6 +3, 15
3
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6, +3, 12
High 4d6 +5, 17
5
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6 +4, 13
High 4d6 +7, 19
Looking at this, we can go ahead and start comparing well go with the notation of instigator, level and specialization rate, vs reacting level and specialization rate.
3L vs 3A: Unable to win as defender wins and the defender has 1 rating higher than attacker. Had they invested at least two points, they would have had a chance.
3A vs 3L: Cant lose, their bonus and minimum rolls are 1 higher than the defender.
3A vs 3H: Small chance of attacker winning. There are three possible rolls for success.
3H vs 3A: Small chance of failing. There are three possible rolls for failure.
Alright with this quick comparison it appears that not taking an applicable specialization can put you in hot water very quickly. Looking at this I wonder if maybe a mitigating factor is necessary. But this may be a bit of a quick knee jerk reaction. If players recognize this on their own, they may be mitigating the problem quickly, or accentuate it with some very situational glass cannons. Of coarse this will result in some of the above pairings. I personally am thinking the problem will continue on to accentuate itself in the future....
40
Ave 3d6 +21, 30
High 4d6 +42, 52
43
Ave 3d6 +22, 31
High 4d6 +44, 54
45
Ave 3d6 +24, 32
High 4d6 +46, 56
And here it is. The problem has become evident. Now anyone who hasn't placed full points into the ability has become unable to compete in a direct trait check. Now this will only become worse in the future and assuming we didn't want to gear the game towards specialists, or allow the strong players to always dominate should we gear the game towards the average players we need to seek to mitigate these numbers.
My first thought is to compare how some of these numbers are mitigated in other games.
DnD 3rd either uses a asymmetrical target number or keeps the numbers far from reaching the large scaling problem we just encountered. In the skill system the characters are generally limited to level 20 (we'll ignore epic levels for now) which means additive skill points will reach an upper limit of 23. Assuming average and high once again the expert would have a bonus of 27 (ability bonus of +4) and the average would have a bonus of 11. Given that 3rd edition uses a d20 for skill that means there is an overlap of three possible results (18-20) assuming ties go to defender and defender is the high number.
Their asymmetrical system is their skill vs DC, attack vs AC, save vs Spell DC system. The ability to boost spell saves is limited to only the base ability and level of spell (A couple feats altering this). The AC is basically based on only money and base statistic. The DC for a skill being a static number based on whatever the hell the GM wants. Furthermore these checks use an always fail or always succeed condition in the upper and lower 5% ranges. Meaning only 90% of the rolls even need the bonuses.
DnD 4th implements a similar skill system, but they widthdrew points and ranks. In fact, you are simply trained in a skill or not, meaning you get +4 in that skill or not. Furthermore the remainder of the bonus is gained simply by your level (half in this case) meaning a direct trait comparison between trained and specialized and untrained and unspecialized will at best have a 8 difference at first level. (This expands at later levels with their increasing base attributes later. Without items probably peaking near 11 or 12)
This also uses the asymmetrical system of AC/DC and so on. (I had to, don't hate me.)
White Wolf systems incorporate always having a chance to fail. The range is ALWAYS zero to rating+ successes. If you include rerolls or double counts (depend on which system you use when you roll a 10 on the d10) you can also get higher than skill results. With ratings varying from at least 1 to 10, there isn't even that much of a difference. A person with one die can succeed against someone with 10.
Savage Worlds is much like the white wolf system, except they also use the asymmetrical system of target numbers like DnD's AC, and have small maximums like White Wolf's ten dice max (I know it can go higher, but just going of base stuff here.)
Heroes Unlimited (based on the Palladium system which I likely may not be completely accurate in the following description due to some variances between games) appears to follow a comparative system, but the bonuses crawl forwards slowly. Possibly gaining one every few levels and with only small bonuses for specializing that MAY add up in the end to be a large number, but probably will not breach 20 in combat very far. This system rolls a d20 just like DnD skills and therefore is looking a lot like comparative DnD skills.
The reason I bring this system up however is that it uses percentile skills. It has the player start out with 20-60% ability within a skill then slowly crawl upwards at a few percent per level. Comparative skill checks would be about distance from your percent, trying to succeed at an action alone would just be aiming below said percent. There's also a hard cap for all skills at 98% for most classes. Any penalties to the skill are cut down from there. The mitigations implemented are a hard cap, competing against your own score and static increase.
So from my experience, the mitigation implemented by systems is generally broken down into some of the following.
Asymmetrical Competitions: Creating a non-specialization based target for rolls that merely grows with the character and may be increased or decreased somewhat based on wealth, preference or other method that can allow boosting past creation. I feel like this will draw away from some of the simplicity of the base system, forcing charts and a number of other advancements.
Soft Difference Limits: Indirect caps such as level that prevent specialization from going too far and creating no-win situations. Apparently such soft difference limits seem to hit around the variance of the die with a 10% chance of success. This means I would have to calculate the variance of the average die to calculate my max level. Somewhat restrictive, it would prevent the broad scale I had in mind.
Hard Difference Limits: I've already implemented one, but going further I could implement a hard limit like the maximum of 98%. For instance, the bonus can never exceed 50, or 100. This makes for an abrupt and artificial feeling cap for additive bonuses, but if the system were a percent one it would naturally flow in. This could be achieved using the current system by ensuring that the leveling process is simply slowed to ensure this cap is reached late game and not half way through. Currently I have it reaching 102 with my current hard difference limit, but it appears that it is necessary to either reduce the hard level cap or the points increased per level. This will require finding the breaking point where specialization creates no-win situations. Which appears to occur somewhere likely in the level 10 region.
Always Conditions: Implementing an always condition like the DnD Asymmetrical system or the bonuses and botching in White Wolf and Savage Worlds would allow for comparisons to become more likely to suddenly fail or succeed. The question becomes how to implement them. With our random range changing per rating of Attribute, the odds would be difficult to set as static results. However, since the dice are added not as success per die, they become more difficult to implement using the White Wolf style.
Forced Advancement: Looking at DnD in 3rd edition saves were forced progression. Everyone got them, and they always increased eventually at a steady rate. They could be increased or decreased by other modifiers, but onwards they trudged. More obviously as brought up the skill system in 4th edition. These ensure the character remains relevant. This system could implement it, a forced advancement in certain relevant skills, possibly as a class system. It will not solve the problem for other skills, but could be a way to force the player to at least be average in some key categories. I don't like the idea as it goes against my initial concept of customization, but seeing some of the mess encountered in GURPS skills, it might be useful.
My first impression is to consider a system of forced advancement, always conditions, the current hard limits and asymmetrical comparison and considering some soft limits.
Forced Advancement would be implemented with classes and possibly races. Combined with the general and specific specializations mentioned in the specializations post. A class would likely have major and minor skills. Major would increase constantly at max or two at start and one every other (not sure which yet.) Minor would have one at start and one every other or third. Similarly with races. Players could increase the specializations on their own above this (as long as it is not a generic one, then they would probably grab a sub category and increase that.)
Always Conditions I am considering implementing as follows. If half or more dice are sixes, then reroll and add the second total as well. If half or more are ones, then no dice are added. Should this be 50/50, bias towards the sixes. Only reroll once. This means if you have one die, you can get from 0 to 12, if you have three 0 to 32, five 0 to 60. It also means the odds of getting an always condition changes as the dice change, but not so impossibly as to require all sixes or all ones.
I didn't cover asymmetrical comparisons previously. That is because asymmetrical comparisons will only apply to player vs task. Such as crafting a sword. Your target number will change depending on the qualities of said sword.
As for the soft limits, I want to see what the results of the above do before considering how that applies to the soft limit balance.
So lets review the earlier comparative checks with the idea of Always Conditions.
1
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6 +2, 11
High 4d6 +3, 15
3
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6, +3, 12
High 4d6 +5, 17
5
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6 +4, 13
High 4d6 +7, 19
3L vs 3A: Low is able to win assuming they get at least one six.
3A vs 3L: Low is able to fail if they get 2 ones.
3L vs 3H: Low is able to succeed if they get some good rolls.
3H vs 3L: High cannot fail against low.
1A vs 3A: Definite chance for success.
1A vs 5A: Still fair chance for success.
1A vs 5H: Continuing chance for success.
I like the look of this much better than previously. There is benefit to getting high specializations, but a low specialization does not mean it is impossible to succeed. Let's see how this plays out in later level pairings.
40
Ave 3d6 +21, 30
High 4d6 +42, 52
43
Ave 3d6 +22, 31
High 4d6 +44, 54
45
Ave 3d6 +24, 32
High 4d6 +46, 56
40A vs 40H: There is a chance to succeed. Exactly one. This doesn't appear to work too well still, especially considering the odds of getting two 18s in a row is pretty low to put it lightly.
40A vs 43A: This looks almost identical to the low level similar investment scenarios. Probably doesn't need further investigation.
So we've managed to reduce the difference greatly. But probably not enough. Not enough if I want those who have invested only some to still have a chance to compete with those who invested a lot. Some of the other solutions that could be implemented I'm considering include...
Increasing the variance: Every 20 levels giving the player the option to increase an attribute one die, with a maximum of one increase per stat up to 60 and 80 and 100 allowing a second. That would add a potential 12 to the variance for both, and make the game a bit more high powered. I was also considering the potential of increasing attributes by class and race. This means that should the player be a mage, human let's say, they will get two to INT bringing their variance up to rank 6 dice, at 100 this could be 8 dice. For D6 this isn't that bad as far as number of dice, and at 100 assuming the player assigned one rank and chose a class somewhat relevant brings the variance up a total of 24 for the average rated stat. The specialist gets a total of 48. However, since both can be 0, this makes for a wider potential range of results.
Cutting the Levels: I really don't like this idea. The main reason is that the 100 level system allows for a slow progression of abilities and bonuses in the other half that I wish to develop. With all 100 levels divided for 5 scales of play, and 20 levels within a scale to develop and gain abilities, it grants a decent progression rate allowing players to learn about the abilities they took, then grow.
Alright, let us take a look at the problematic 40 range adapting for attribute increases.
40
Ave 5d6 +21, 36
High 7d6 +42, 63
40A vs 40H: peaks at 81, target 63. That gives us a bit of variance.
40H vs 40A: Still no chance of failure
This is a bit better, it shows the attacker advantage that has been playing into previous concepts, and the higher skill still benefits. The question I'm now asking, is how often should the static number be used? Personally I like having the static number as an option to accelerate tests, but we'll see. For giggles, I'd like to see what happens at 100.
100
Ave 5d6 +51, 66
High 7d6 +102, 123
100A vs 100H: With a peak of 111, there's no chance of success. Odds are there hasn't been for what appears to be about 30 levels or so. Of coarse, after level 70 we've probably reached a high powered point where the characters have probably gained enough tricks to work around such walls. I'll have to be sure to build them in.
I think now I've finally reached the point where I'm willing to settle and move on. So in summary here's what we've got.
Attributes can be increased by class and race by one rating.
An attribute can be increased once every 20 levels, but a specific one cannot be raised more than once before 80 and no more than twice after that.
Critical fails and successes are when the dice rolled have at least half ones, or at least half sixes. With a bias towards successes.
At first level specializations can be bought up to rank 3, after that one point can be allocated per level.
Some specializations will be automatically granted, and can be raised beyond the base allotment up to the same cap as if bought manually.
I need to build work arounds to prevent unbeatable opponents.
Once the characters reach level 100, their specializations would likely be around 102 and their average and upper limit for even the highest attributes would be around 17.5 to 30. Is this too little? Is it too much? Do attributes then become meaningless? What does a 102 mean in the long run? If I had smithing 102 and the average NPC level was 5 that makes their smithing at 7. What does that mean?
Should I scale the skills slower? Should I increase the effect of attributes to make an average attribute have more dramatic effect? Should I implement the pay to succeed? Or maybe I should consider adding a scaling attribute system for my game. Perhaps every ten levels an attribute can be increased?
Of coarse then we would have rank 13 attributes which would be a problem, every twenty could result in at most a rank 10, and furthermore if I were to limit each attribute to one increase before 50 and one after then it would max out at 7. I think 7 is tolerable. With an average range of 24.5 and an upper limit of 42 it has up to a 40ish% boost to your rank 102 specialization. Not too shabby. Furthermore it can be another point of separation from non-heroic NPCs by not granting them statistic bonuses. This regular numerical increase, does however bring the game a few more steps away from a role playing game and towards a roll playing game, however I wonder if this would be another reward players could be granted to help encourage them to grow and develop.
So the highest roll possible without 'other bonuses' would be 144. I'm fairly certain that there will be other bonuses. Environment probably ranging from 5-30, tools ranging 5-30, perhaps bonuses bringing it up 10-30 and finally a 5-20 oversight bonus. All told, the upper limit becomes 254. With the only random numbers being attributes, setting the range as 7 to 42 making the range 219 to 252. Just short of 1/5 variance.
Not shabby I think. Not shabby at all.
The question becomes, what will the target numbers be? Should we be looking at two master fighters, both specializing in their respective fields to the maximum, (striking and dodging) The dodger would be looking at armor 30, bonuses 30, skill 102 and attribute 21, for a total of 183 and the master striker would be getting 162 + 7d6 with an average of 186.5. This means at the highest levels of combat we notice the attacker has a 3.5 edge against the defender. This edge is the .5 edge gained per die when using a +3 per die for static numbers while there is a 3.5 average per die.
Using http://anydice.com/ this means the attacker has about a 75% chance to hit the defender. Technically I could lean either way in this matter. I could bring the bonus up to a more average number, granting +3 OR 4 per rank of attribute, alternating between and narrowing the advantage, I could increase it to 4 per rank of attribute, and turning the advantage, or leaving it as is. It all depends on my personal agenda.
Alternating between 3 and 4 would make it 'equal' and narrow the odds closer to 50%. It would however complicate setting numbers for each attribute and balance combat times.
Raising the bonus to 4 would make it biased strongly to the defender. This would extend combat times and drop hit rate. It also would make getting the first strike less valuable.
Leaving it as is would make combats faster, give the first strike an advantage, and have generally a higher hit rate.
Having these high numbers would require figuring out the high results anyhow, so I think perhaps that would make a good topic to consider. When the players have received an indication of notable advancement every level. Does this, and SHOULD this still allow lower level application? What variance should even be considered, and can it even be considered? Once again I think that this should be examined with cross sections using extremes and averages. Perhaps it will uncover some form of major flaw.
First, lets look at starting levels, 1, 3, 5. Then I think 40, 43, 45 should be examined, followed by a stretch range of 20 vs 40. Or even 20 vs 100.
Lows will be untrained and minimum attribute at start. Likely a constant number will be used for all levels.
Ave will be a point every other level and two at start for specializations. It will also have average starting stats.
High will be a specialized starting stat and max points every level.
1
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6 +2, 11
High 4d6 +3, 15
3
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6, +3, 12
High 4d6 +5, 17
5
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6 +4, 13
High 4d6 +7, 19
Looking at this, we can go ahead and start comparing well go with the notation of instigator, level and specialization rate, vs reacting level and specialization rate.
3L vs 3A: Unable to win as defender wins and the defender has 1 rating higher than attacker. Had they invested at least two points, they would have had a chance.
3A vs 3L: Cant lose, their bonus and minimum rolls are 1 higher than the defender.
3A vs 3H: Small chance of attacker winning. There are three possible rolls for success.
3H vs 3A: Small chance of failing. There are three possible rolls for failure.
Alright with this quick comparison it appears that not taking an applicable specialization can put you in hot water very quickly. Looking at this I wonder if maybe a mitigating factor is necessary. But this may be a bit of a quick knee jerk reaction. If players recognize this on their own, they may be mitigating the problem quickly, or accentuate it with some very situational glass cannons. Of coarse this will result in some of the above pairings. I personally am thinking the problem will continue on to accentuate itself in the future....
40
Ave 3d6 +21, 30
High 4d6 +42, 52
43
Ave 3d6 +22, 31
High 4d6 +44, 54
45
Ave 3d6 +24, 32
High 4d6 +46, 56
And here it is. The problem has become evident. Now anyone who hasn't placed full points into the ability has become unable to compete in a direct trait check. Now this will only become worse in the future and assuming we didn't want to gear the game towards specialists, or allow the strong players to always dominate should we gear the game towards the average players we need to seek to mitigate these numbers.
My first thought is to compare how some of these numbers are mitigated in other games.
DnD 3rd either uses a asymmetrical target number or keeps the numbers far from reaching the large scaling problem we just encountered. In the skill system the characters are generally limited to level 20 (we'll ignore epic levels for now) which means additive skill points will reach an upper limit of 23. Assuming average and high once again the expert would have a bonus of 27 (ability bonus of +4) and the average would have a bonus of 11. Given that 3rd edition uses a d20 for skill that means there is an overlap of three possible results (18-20) assuming ties go to defender and defender is the high number.
Their asymmetrical system is their skill vs DC, attack vs AC, save vs Spell DC system. The ability to boost spell saves is limited to only the base ability and level of spell (A couple feats altering this). The AC is basically based on only money and base statistic. The DC for a skill being a static number based on whatever the hell the GM wants. Furthermore these checks use an always fail or always succeed condition in the upper and lower 5% ranges. Meaning only 90% of the rolls even need the bonuses.
DnD 4th implements a similar skill system, but they widthdrew points and ranks. In fact, you are simply trained in a skill or not, meaning you get +4 in that skill or not. Furthermore the remainder of the bonus is gained simply by your level (half in this case) meaning a direct trait comparison between trained and specialized and untrained and unspecialized will at best have a 8 difference at first level. (This expands at later levels with their increasing base attributes later. Without items probably peaking near 11 or 12)
This also uses the asymmetrical system of AC/DC and so on. (I had to, don't hate me.)
White Wolf systems incorporate always having a chance to fail. The range is ALWAYS zero to rating+ successes. If you include rerolls or double counts (depend on which system you use when you roll a 10 on the d10) you can also get higher than skill results. With ratings varying from at least 1 to 10, there isn't even that much of a difference. A person with one die can succeed against someone with 10.
Savage Worlds is much like the white wolf system, except they also use the asymmetrical system of target numbers like DnD's AC, and have small maximums like White Wolf's ten dice max (I know it can go higher, but just going of base stuff here.)
Heroes Unlimited (based on the Palladium system which I likely may not be completely accurate in the following description due to some variances between games) appears to follow a comparative system, but the bonuses crawl forwards slowly. Possibly gaining one every few levels and with only small bonuses for specializing that MAY add up in the end to be a large number, but probably will not breach 20 in combat very far. This system rolls a d20 just like DnD skills and therefore is looking a lot like comparative DnD skills.
The reason I bring this system up however is that it uses percentile skills. It has the player start out with 20-60% ability within a skill then slowly crawl upwards at a few percent per level. Comparative skill checks would be about distance from your percent, trying to succeed at an action alone would just be aiming below said percent. There's also a hard cap for all skills at 98% for most classes. Any penalties to the skill are cut down from there. The mitigations implemented are a hard cap, competing against your own score and static increase.
So from my experience, the mitigation implemented by systems is generally broken down into some of the following.
Asymmetrical Competitions: Creating a non-specialization based target for rolls that merely grows with the character and may be increased or decreased somewhat based on wealth, preference or other method that can allow boosting past creation. I feel like this will draw away from some of the simplicity of the base system, forcing charts and a number of other advancements.
Soft Difference Limits: Indirect caps such as level that prevent specialization from going too far and creating no-win situations. Apparently such soft difference limits seem to hit around the variance of the die with a 10% chance of success. This means I would have to calculate the variance of the average die to calculate my max level. Somewhat restrictive, it would prevent the broad scale I had in mind.
Hard Difference Limits: I've already implemented one, but going further I could implement a hard limit like the maximum of 98%. For instance, the bonus can never exceed 50, or 100. This makes for an abrupt and artificial feeling cap for additive bonuses, but if the system were a percent one it would naturally flow in. This could be achieved using the current system by ensuring that the leveling process is simply slowed to ensure this cap is reached late game and not half way through. Currently I have it reaching 102 with my current hard difference limit, but it appears that it is necessary to either reduce the hard level cap or the points increased per level. This will require finding the breaking point where specialization creates no-win situations. Which appears to occur somewhere likely in the level 10 region.
Always Conditions: Implementing an always condition like the DnD Asymmetrical system or the bonuses and botching in White Wolf and Savage Worlds would allow for comparisons to become more likely to suddenly fail or succeed. The question becomes how to implement them. With our random range changing per rating of Attribute, the odds would be difficult to set as static results. However, since the dice are added not as success per die, they become more difficult to implement using the White Wolf style.
Forced Advancement: Looking at DnD in 3rd edition saves were forced progression. Everyone got them, and they always increased eventually at a steady rate. They could be increased or decreased by other modifiers, but onwards they trudged. More obviously as brought up the skill system in 4th edition. These ensure the character remains relevant. This system could implement it, a forced advancement in certain relevant skills, possibly as a class system. It will not solve the problem for other skills, but could be a way to force the player to at least be average in some key categories. I don't like the idea as it goes against my initial concept of customization, but seeing some of the mess encountered in GURPS skills, it might be useful.
My first impression is to consider a system of forced advancement, always conditions, the current hard limits and asymmetrical comparison and considering some soft limits.
Forced Advancement would be implemented with classes and possibly races. Combined with the general and specific specializations mentioned in the specializations post. A class would likely have major and minor skills. Major would increase constantly at max or two at start and one every other (not sure which yet.) Minor would have one at start and one every other or third. Similarly with races. Players could increase the specializations on their own above this (as long as it is not a generic one, then they would probably grab a sub category and increase that.)
Always Conditions I am considering implementing as follows. If half or more dice are sixes, then reroll and add the second total as well. If half or more are ones, then no dice are added. Should this be 50/50, bias towards the sixes. Only reroll once. This means if you have one die, you can get from 0 to 12, if you have three 0 to 32, five 0 to 60. It also means the odds of getting an always condition changes as the dice change, but not so impossibly as to require all sixes or all ones.
I didn't cover asymmetrical comparisons previously. That is because asymmetrical comparisons will only apply to player vs task. Such as crafting a sword. Your target number will change depending on the qualities of said sword.
As for the soft limits, I want to see what the results of the above do before considering how that applies to the soft limit balance.
So lets review the earlier comparative checks with the idea of Always Conditions.
1
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6 +2, 11
High 4d6 +3, 15
3
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6, +3, 12
High 4d6 +5, 17
5
Low 2d6, 6
Ave 3d6 +4, 13
High 4d6 +7, 19
3L vs 3A: Low is able to win assuming they get at least one six.
3A vs 3L: Low is able to fail if they get 2 ones.
3L vs 3H: Low is able to succeed if they get some good rolls.
3H vs 3L: High cannot fail against low.
1A vs 3A: Definite chance for success.
1A vs 5A: Still fair chance for success.
1A vs 5H: Continuing chance for success.
I like the look of this much better than previously. There is benefit to getting high specializations, but a low specialization does not mean it is impossible to succeed. Let's see how this plays out in later level pairings.
40
Ave 3d6 +21, 30
High 4d6 +42, 52
43
Ave 3d6 +22, 31
High 4d6 +44, 54
45
Ave 3d6 +24, 32
High 4d6 +46, 56
40A vs 40H: There is a chance to succeed. Exactly one. This doesn't appear to work too well still, especially considering the odds of getting two 18s in a row is pretty low to put it lightly.
40A vs 43A: This looks almost identical to the low level similar investment scenarios. Probably doesn't need further investigation.
So we've managed to reduce the difference greatly. But probably not enough. Not enough if I want those who have invested only some to still have a chance to compete with those who invested a lot. Some of the other solutions that could be implemented I'm considering include...
Increasing the variance: Every 20 levels giving the player the option to increase an attribute one die, with a maximum of one increase per stat up to 60 and 80 and 100 allowing a second. That would add a potential 12 to the variance for both, and make the game a bit more high powered. I was also considering the potential of increasing attributes by class and race. This means that should the player be a mage, human let's say, they will get two to INT bringing their variance up to rank 6 dice, at 100 this could be 8 dice. For D6 this isn't that bad as far as number of dice, and at 100 assuming the player assigned one rank and chose a class somewhat relevant brings the variance up a total of 24 for the average rated stat. The specialist gets a total of 48. However, since both can be 0, this makes for a wider potential range of results.
Cutting the Levels: I really don't like this idea. The main reason is that the 100 level system allows for a slow progression of abilities and bonuses in the other half that I wish to develop. With all 100 levels divided for 5 scales of play, and 20 levels within a scale to develop and gain abilities, it grants a decent progression rate allowing players to learn about the abilities they took, then grow.
Alright, let us take a look at the problematic 40 range adapting for attribute increases.
40
Ave 5d6 +21, 36
High 7d6 +42, 63
40A vs 40H: peaks at 81, target 63. That gives us a bit of variance.
40H vs 40A: Still no chance of failure
This is a bit better, it shows the attacker advantage that has been playing into previous concepts, and the higher skill still benefits. The question I'm now asking, is how often should the static number be used? Personally I like having the static number as an option to accelerate tests, but we'll see. For giggles, I'd like to see what happens at 100.
100
Ave 5d6 +51, 66
High 7d6 +102, 123
100A vs 100H: With a peak of 111, there's no chance of success. Odds are there hasn't been for what appears to be about 30 levels or so. Of coarse, after level 70 we've probably reached a high powered point where the characters have probably gained enough tricks to work around such walls. I'll have to be sure to build them in.
I think now I've finally reached the point where I'm willing to settle and move on. So in summary here's what we've got.
Attributes can be increased by class and race by one rating.
An attribute can be increased once every 20 levels, but a specific one cannot be raised more than once before 80 and no more than twice after that.
Critical fails and successes are when the dice rolled have at least half ones, or at least half sixes. With a bias towards successes.
At first level specializations can be bought up to rank 3, after that one point can be allocated per level.
Some specializations will be automatically granted, and can be raised beyond the base allotment up to the same cap as if bought manually.
I need to build work arounds to prevent unbeatable opponents.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Abilites
Abilities, I think for the time being, I will define the basic statistics as traits, passive boosts from 'level points' bonus' and special actions one must buy abilities.
So in our case an ability could be cleave, a fireball, a heal spell, a berzerker rage, a protective aura and so on. But some things become a bit unclear. What moves should be abilities? What is special and unique? Would Aiming be a special ability? How about diving for cover? Weapon proficiency?
The answer that comes to mind is, can the weakest nobody do it? Can a wizard spend time to aim a bow and noticeably increase their accuracy? Can they effectively feint in combat? Can the rogue take a moment to catch their breath?
The choice of what an ability is can really decide the feel for a game. If running is a skill you have to take to receive any benefit, odds are you're playing a roll playing game. If it's assumed natural actions such as running, climbing and catching your breath are something you can do with their natural effects, then you are playing a role playing game.
So breaking it down for just an ability; It has to be something that not just anybody can do, and for classes it has to be something a person of a particular branch of training can use. As mentioned before, there will also be racial abilities, however, these will likely just be representative of greater ability with particular actions, this wont mean that the entire race is able to perform those abilities, just that they are capable of such actions.
Abilities will be bought and upgraded with points accrued at each level. I'm not quite sure how many points I'll grant each level, but I'm considering 5ish. These would be applied to abilities and bonus'. Bonus' are rather simple, I think I shall throw them into this post after covering abilities.
A breakdown of each abilities information. In example form.
Mage Abilites
Fireball
Cost: 10 Energy
Base Range: 10 units.
Base Effect: Shoots a fireball at an enemy hitting the target for Stat +3d roll Fire Damage.
Levels: 5
Requirements: lvl 0, lvl 20, lvl 40, lvl 60, lvl 80
Effect: Increase Area Scale and cost increases by Level x 100%
Modifiers
Cost Decrease
Req: lvl 5, lvl 10, lvl 20
Ranks: 3
Effect: Decrease the cost by 1 energy per point per level.
Damage Increase
Req: lvl 10, lvl 20, lvl 30
Ranks: 3
Effect: Increase the damage effected by 1 unit per point and the cost by 2 energy per point
Range Increase
Req: lvl 1, lvl 5, lvl 10
Ranks: 3
Effect: Increase the range by 2 units per point.
So lets talk about what you are seeing there.
At first, this is a subsection of Mage Abilities. The title is Fireball. The cost in energy (the ability currency) is 10, this is an arbitrary number currently. As opposed to a preparation system, I think with my more organic ability system it would be better to use energy.
Base effect, the stat +3d currently implies that whatever the spellcasting/damage statistic will be will effect the final damage. I am unsure of exactly how many stats there will be, but as the concepts of the mechanics solidify into a usable form I think that information will finalize.
Levels: 5. This means there are five levels to the ability including the initial one. The level for the ability is one when first acquired, this is described in the effect section before it. It can be bought at level 1 for 1 point. Each level costs a point and requires that you meet the requirements. They are below that, character levels 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 are the requirements for each of the levels. The idea is, that as the character grows, so can the spell, in the case of this spell 4 times it can grow and at each of the landmark levels in scale (in my head anyways.) The effect of the leveling up of the ability is below that in very opaque non-descript terms that I will now explain.
Increase Area Scale is one of the important ideas in the system I'm building. Notice the keyword there, scale. In this case area scale is pretty simple. In it's earliest incarnation it targets a single opponent. This would be at an interpersonal scale where all combat units are signified as a single character. A level 2 version would target an entire party at the party scale (the second scale level intended for lvl 20 - 39 characters) or would have an area effect at the interpersonal scale, probably an area of 2 units (target plus two rings around them on a hex grid if hex is used.) If a level 1 version is used at the party scale, it would likely do a fraction of the damage, If d10s, I would say only 1 point of damage per d10 and 1 extra damage for every 10 bonus damage. However, I'm considering an assassination bonus or ability type that simply targets one opponent (at most 1/10th a unit's health), but can eliminate leaders due to the enhanced damage for the ability being at such high a level. (still targets only one opponent but can do 10x the damage, more than enough for a non-heroic unit)
Alright, so now that we understand how scale applies, let us continue on... Now we see modifications. Another nifty little trick I'm considering. Instead of buying a new ability, or leveling one up, you can put a point into a modification. These modifications allow your ability to perform better at their current level, while not as powerful an upgrade as a level, the bonus will persist through into higher levels and may have a lower requirement than buying the next level, allowing you to be the ultimate fireball throwing machine with all the modifications. This would allow someone to really be superior in their casting of fireballs as compared to someone who didn't modify and just leveled up. Sort of like having a fiery +1 longsword instead of just a +1 longsword. As with levels it has a requirement for each rank, a maximum number of ranks, and an effect. However, some of the modifications have additional costs on the spell, all modifications are optional during casting, but this helps balance out the power a bit for stronger effects.
Not all abilities will be so clear and concise. For instance, considering a resurrection spell...
Priest Abilities
Resurrection
Cost: 50 (some prohibitive number, likely all the mana a character has when first gotten)
Range: Touch
Cast Time: 1 day
Base Effect: Resurrects a single person. The target of the resurrection suffers from Exhaustion for 1 week.
Levels: 3
Requirements: level 40, 70, 100
Effect: (1) Single person target and Cost 50, (2) party target and cost 100, (3) scale 3 target and cost 200.
Modifiers
Reduced Cast Time
Req: 50, 80
Ranks: 2
Effect: Cast time is reduced to 1 hour cost is increased 100%, Cast time is reduced to 1 turn cost is increased 200%
Reduced Exhaustion Penalty
Req: 60, 90
Ranks: 2
Effect: Exhaustion penalty reduced to 1 day and cost is increased 100%, Exhaustion penalty is reduced to 1 turn and cost is increased 200%
This requires more description as to the effect and has more complicated math when doing costs. I'm thinking multiplicative costs, so if you wanted to cast the most powerful version...
Level 3 Resurrection 200pts
1 turn cast time = 600pts
1 turn exhaustion = 1800 energy.
This will resurrect approximately 100 men in one turn who will be weakened only for the next turn.
A more likely example would be a character resurrecting another one during a heated battle...
Level 1 resurrection 50pts
1 turn cast time = 150
1 turn exhaustion = 450
At a really high level this is probably more possible, but would wipe a priests mana in my mind. The other ability is parallel to a god, but could salvage troops after the victor completes a battle.
The exhaustion in my mind would basically halve the unit's effectiveness, including health and energy, meaning you don't want to be made vulnerable in a fight, as if you are in an at-level encounter, you would probably die again very quickly. Perhaps I should make a rule about stacking exhaustion...
Bonuses
Imagine a generic passive modification that applies to a generic action. Done. Each point put into a bonus after you've met the requirement grants you that bonus.
Aaaaand now you've got an idea of what I'm thinking for abilities. Give each subclass at least 20 abilities and 15 bonus' and were looking at 180 abilities with 135 bonuses for classes alone. Not intimidating at all... no never... But I've started on the path and so I shall continue.
So in our case an ability could be cleave, a fireball, a heal spell, a berzerker rage, a protective aura and so on. But some things become a bit unclear. What moves should be abilities? What is special and unique? Would Aiming be a special ability? How about diving for cover? Weapon proficiency?
The answer that comes to mind is, can the weakest nobody do it? Can a wizard spend time to aim a bow and noticeably increase their accuracy? Can they effectively feint in combat? Can the rogue take a moment to catch their breath?
The choice of what an ability is can really decide the feel for a game. If running is a skill you have to take to receive any benefit, odds are you're playing a roll playing game. If it's assumed natural actions such as running, climbing and catching your breath are something you can do with their natural effects, then you are playing a role playing game.
So breaking it down for just an ability; It has to be something that not just anybody can do, and for classes it has to be something a person of a particular branch of training can use. As mentioned before, there will also be racial abilities, however, these will likely just be representative of greater ability with particular actions, this wont mean that the entire race is able to perform those abilities, just that they are capable of such actions.
Abilities will be bought and upgraded with points accrued at each level. I'm not quite sure how many points I'll grant each level, but I'm considering 5ish. These would be applied to abilities and bonus'. Bonus' are rather simple, I think I shall throw them into this post after covering abilities.
A breakdown of each abilities information. In example form.
Mage Abilites
Fireball
Cost: 10 Energy
Base Range: 10 units.
Base Effect: Shoots a fireball at an enemy hitting the target for Stat +3d roll Fire Damage.
Levels: 5
Requirements: lvl 0, lvl 20, lvl 40, lvl 60, lvl 80
Effect: Increase Area Scale and cost increases by Level x 100%
Modifiers
Cost Decrease
Req: lvl 5, lvl 10, lvl 20
Ranks: 3
Effect: Decrease the cost by 1 energy per point per level.
Damage Increase
Req: lvl 10, lvl 20, lvl 30
Ranks: 3
Effect: Increase the damage effected by 1 unit per point and the cost by 2 energy per point
Range Increase
Req: lvl 1, lvl 5, lvl 10
Ranks: 3
Effect: Increase the range by 2 units per point.
So lets talk about what you are seeing there.
At first, this is a subsection of Mage Abilities. The title is Fireball. The cost in energy (the ability currency) is 10, this is an arbitrary number currently. As opposed to a preparation system, I think with my more organic ability system it would be better to use energy.
Base effect, the stat +3d currently implies that whatever the spellcasting/damage statistic will be will effect the final damage. I am unsure of exactly how many stats there will be, but as the concepts of the mechanics solidify into a usable form I think that information will finalize.
Levels: 5. This means there are five levels to the ability including the initial one. The level for the ability is one when first acquired, this is described in the effect section before it. It can be bought at level 1 for 1 point. Each level costs a point and requires that you meet the requirements. They are below that, character levels 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 are the requirements for each of the levels. The idea is, that as the character grows, so can the spell, in the case of this spell 4 times it can grow and at each of the landmark levels in scale (in my head anyways.) The effect of the leveling up of the ability is below that in very opaque non-descript terms that I will now explain.
Increase Area Scale is one of the important ideas in the system I'm building. Notice the keyword there, scale. In this case area scale is pretty simple. In it's earliest incarnation it targets a single opponent. This would be at an interpersonal scale where all combat units are signified as a single character. A level 2 version would target an entire party at the party scale (the second scale level intended for lvl 20 - 39 characters) or would have an area effect at the interpersonal scale, probably an area of 2 units (target plus two rings around them on a hex grid if hex is used.) If a level 1 version is used at the party scale, it would likely do a fraction of the damage, If d10s, I would say only 1 point of damage per d10 and 1 extra damage for every 10 bonus damage. However, I'm considering an assassination bonus or ability type that simply targets one opponent (at most 1/10th a unit's health), but can eliminate leaders due to the enhanced damage for the ability being at such high a level. (still targets only one opponent but can do 10x the damage, more than enough for a non-heroic unit)
Alright, so now that we understand how scale applies, let us continue on... Now we see modifications. Another nifty little trick I'm considering. Instead of buying a new ability, or leveling one up, you can put a point into a modification. These modifications allow your ability to perform better at their current level, while not as powerful an upgrade as a level, the bonus will persist through into higher levels and may have a lower requirement than buying the next level, allowing you to be the ultimate fireball throwing machine with all the modifications. This would allow someone to really be superior in their casting of fireballs as compared to someone who didn't modify and just leveled up. Sort of like having a fiery +1 longsword instead of just a +1 longsword. As with levels it has a requirement for each rank, a maximum number of ranks, and an effect. However, some of the modifications have additional costs on the spell, all modifications are optional during casting, but this helps balance out the power a bit for stronger effects.
Not all abilities will be so clear and concise. For instance, considering a resurrection spell...
Priest Abilities
Resurrection
Cost: 50 (some prohibitive number, likely all the mana a character has when first gotten)
Range: Touch
Cast Time: 1 day
Base Effect: Resurrects a single person. The target of the resurrection suffers from Exhaustion for 1 week.
Levels: 3
Requirements: level 40, 70, 100
Effect: (1) Single person target and Cost 50, (2) party target and cost 100, (3) scale 3 target and cost 200.
Modifiers
Reduced Cast Time
Req: 50, 80
Ranks: 2
Effect: Cast time is reduced to 1 hour cost is increased 100%, Cast time is reduced to 1 turn cost is increased 200%
Reduced Exhaustion Penalty
Req: 60, 90
Ranks: 2
Effect: Exhaustion penalty reduced to 1 day and cost is increased 100%, Exhaustion penalty is reduced to 1 turn and cost is increased 200%
This requires more description as to the effect and has more complicated math when doing costs. I'm thinking multiplicative costs, so if you wanted to cast the most powerful version...
Level 3 Resurrection 200pts
1 turn cast time = 600pts
1 turn exhaustion = 1800 energy.
This will resurrect approximately 100 men in one turn who will be weakened only for the next turn.
A more likely example would be a character resurrecting another one during a heated battle...
Level 1 resurrection 50pts
1 turn cast time = 150
1 turn exhaustion = 450
At a really high level this is probably more possible, but would wipe a priests mana in my mind. The other ability is parallel to a god, but could salvage troops after the victor completes a battle.
The exhaustion in my mind would basically halve the unit's effectiveness, including health and energy, meaning you don't want to be made vulnerable in a fight, as if you are in an at-level encounter, you would probably die again very quickly. Perhaps I should make a rule about stacking exhaustion...
Bonuses
Imagine a generic passive modification that applies to a generic action. Done. Each point put into a bonus after you've met the requirement grants you that bonus.
Aaaaand now you've got an idea of what I'm thinking for abilities. Give each subclass at least 20 abilities and 15 bonus' and were looking at 180 abilities with 135 bonuses for classes alone. Not intimidating at all... no never... But I've started on the path and so I shall continue.
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