Short Update

Having only two people in the party can be a challenge as it is, but when neither one has healing it really makes it difficult to gauge an appropriate challenge.  In the most recent game, and the one before that, at least one character has fallen into negative hit points, and needed to be dragged to a temple for healing.  It seems like the encounters I've been giving are either way too easy, or way too hard, and I'm having some trouble trying to find the middle ground.  Then again, I don't really get a lot of time to find it.

With Great Power Comes A Need For Control

I recently showed my static mana plan to my mother, the woman who raised me in modified AD&D. She liked the concept and implementation, up to a point - she raised concerns over it being too much power for a low-level character. My original thought was that, yeah, a 1st level mage might end up being able to cast 18 magic missiles, but magic is to a wizard what a sword is to a fighter, and the latter aren't restricted to how many swings in a day.

But then I thought about some of the other system changes I'd made from 1st and 3rd, and how weaponry and armor, as well as multiple attacks, have less to do with your class and more with your inherent stats. A mage might have stats optimized for casting, but if they'd taken fighter as a class instead they'd be no better off in physical combat. Any class can wear any armor, and my spell failure for arcane magic is based off of how much metal is in the armor rather than how much it inhibits arm movements for somatic components (something which seemed far too easily remedied with careful manufacture anyway).

So maybe I'm being too nice to casters.

Rather than come up with a system that limits how much mana is available until the maximum is reached, however, I thought about the possibility that spells might, at first, take more mana than would be indicated by their level. Say, for example, that at first level, a 1st level spell costs 5 mana instead of 1. You're just starting out in the world of magic, you haven't had a lot of practical experience, and you're still learning how to properly, and efficiently, wield the power you have. At second level, the cost goes down by 1 point. At third level, it now takes 3 mana for a 1st level spell, and so on until you reach the minimum of 1 point for a 1st level spell at 5th level.

Every time you gain access to a new level of spells, the cost of them is X higher than normal, let's say 4. That would mean that 4 levels after you start getting spells of that level, they would cost the normal minimum of 1 mana per spell level.

This could be a bit confusing for cantrips, since they normally take 1/4th of a mana. I could start them at 4, or I could be nice and start them at 1, dropping by 1/4 each level until the minimum.

Thoughts?

Keep Those Dice a'Rollin'

So my friend Jonathan came out this past week (Huzzah!) and we got to game a little bit. I am still fairly enamored with my new experience system, especially how clean it looks/feels to me at the moment. One potential concern that I noticed is that my system for saving throws and skill checks may be inherently flawed. The concept is that you roll 3d10, and you are aiming for a number lower than the relevant stat with a bonus gained from a secondary stat. With an expected average stat of 15, and a range of 3 to 30, I figured 3d10 would be appropriate. However, it seems that the majority of rolls are landing above 16 even after adjustments. I should have expected this, but I'm not yet sure how to deal with it. I was trying to approximate a d30, but I don't actually have any of those and they're not terribly common anyway. I suppose I could do a d6 and a d10, like how d20 rolls used to be done before d20s became popular. 1-2 on the d6 means the d10 is 1-10, 3-4 means it's 11-20, and 5-6 means 21-30. I'll have to do some blank rolling to find out if that brings the average down.

In pondering further upon the topic of skills, I thought about the idea of a slow method of improving skills based directly on Intelligence, rather than class as 3rd Edition had it. I'm thinking about putting a limiter, though, on how much of a bonus you can give any individual skill, based on the primary stat governing that skill. Maybe half of the stat? One of the things that really bugged me about 3rd Edition skills was that within a few levels the bonus to the skill far outstripped the ability of most challenges to keep up. Difficulty ratings kept getting arbitrarily bumped up just to have any chance of failure. I'm also, personally, a believer in inherent ability being a greater contributor than training.

Minor Update: Death Threshold

After playing around with various ways to implement the concept I wrote about here, including lots of number crunching and contemplation, I realized that messing with the death threshold and altering it from -10 would necessarily mean I would have to alter some of the other Fighting Skills I'd implemented. Certain abilities already altered how far below zero someone could go without dying. This isn't a major concern on its own, since it's easily enough fixed.

But I also came to the conclusion that unless I was going to go ahead and strip the ability to bring back the dead, as the other person had, then all I was doing was increasing an already generous hit point system at high levels, and in some cases (depending on how I chose to implement it) making lower level characters less likely to survive.

So at least for the moment, I'm not going to be using altered death threshold rules. I'm still fond of the idea, and like the increased realism that such a system would bring, but I'm already concerned about the level of complexity in my system anyway. Until I manage to do some serious playtesting to determine current power levels, I should probably just leave the mechanics alone.

Nielsen Family Diaries

A few weeks ago we got a letter in the mail from the Nielsen ratings people. They really do exist, and not just as a plot-device in movies! They gave us five new, crisp $1 bills to fill out a quick survey essentially stating how many television sets we have. I explained, in my responses to the online survey, that we do have televisions, but that we don't have cable or satellite or even access to public channels because of reception issues, and I expected that would be the end of it.

It wasn't. They called, and my wife answered and spoke to someone who said they wanted to send out a TV Viewing Diary for us to fill out, as well as $30 for the trouble. The diaries (one for each television set) arrived yesterday, and we got a reminder call today about filling them out. While I had the guy on the line, I again pointed out we don't have cable service, only internet, and asked if viewing a movie online, say through Netflix or similar, would be something they would want recorded. He said I could write that down, sure, as long as it was being shown on a television. I don't have any such internet movie subscription, but maybe Hulu would count.

I neglected to ask about purchased or rented DVDs, though. I mean, if Netflix would be something recordable, it would seem to follow that a rented DVD from an actual movie store would be just as valid. The instructions in the book only state what to do if you're watching something while recording it, or recording something for later viewing. It doesn't mention the possibility of viewing DVDs that have already been bought. Fortunately, such a circumstance is listed in the FAQ on their website, and it looks like I should write it down though it's still worded as though you had recorded the DVD yourself.

I guess I'll be keeping track of what DVDs our son watches, and maybe I'll see about some sort of movie night during this survey time. Then again, would that alter the actual information they're looking for, since I might not have done it otherwise? I must maintain the integrity of the survey, and not allow such a paradox to creep in!

Wow, who knew being a Nielsen family would be like time travel?

Methods of Improvement

I already had a system in place that would allow a character's Faith score to be malleable through the course of normal play, changing the score based on exceptional success or exceptional failure with Turning checks. Just today I wrote down and implemented a similar idea for the Luck stat, where the Luck would alter with exceptional critical hits (consecutive natural 20s), or exceptional critical fumbles (consecutive natural 1s).

I also allow stats to be built up using Combat Proficiencies (my term for Weapon Proficiencies, Non-Weapon Proficiencies, or Feats, depending on your chosen version. I don't know what the 4th Ed. equivalent is, but I don't care), but since I have these two stats as potentially variable I was wondering if there were other stats that people thought should be so quickly alterable. I know that physical stats such as Strength should not be so quickly or easily changed, but maybe Charisma might be affected by apparent wealth, or the Charisma scores of the people you're with?

Probably not, since it's a bit trickier than the systems I have in place for Faith and Luck. As it stands, Faith is really only important to one class, or anyone who wants to Turn or Rebuke undead. Luck is a bit more universally useful, since it affects saving throws, but there are two classes in particular that are majorly helped by having Luck as a primary stat. I like having these two stats alterable on-the-fly because I think it reflects the concept behind them well, but I don't know that any of the others really lend themselves to such.

New Exercise Program

I'm by no means a small person, and haven't been for the majority of my life. Part of this is simply skeletal structure passed down by genetics, and part of it is personal willpower limitations. I recognize I should "eat less, move more" to improve my body image and overall health, but quite frankly I find that I'd rather be spending my time on other things, like video games.

My solution? Video games that make you move. Sounds great, except that I don't have a Wii or any other system that really logs movement. I have a PS2, and an Eyetoy, but the only game I have for the Eyetoy isn't really engaging. When I first saw a Dance Dance Revolution arcade game, I thought that would be a great way to lose weight, except for the fact that (a) it costs money every time you want to play and (b) you have to potentially look like a completely uncoordinated goof in front of an arcade full of people. The latter reason became especially true after knowledge of professional DDR players became widespread, with videos like the one where the man starts breakdancing on both dance pads, and ends with a perfect score.

But wait a minute, didn't Dance Dance Revolution get converted to console gaming before they introduced the PS3?

Yes, yes it did.

I am now armed with two DDR titles, as well as a pair of dance mats. They arrived in the mail today, and I'm so far very pleased. Just tonight I have, according to whatever calculations the game uses, done the equivalent of a two mile jog. I'm not sure how accurate that is, since I didn't feel terribly winded afterwards (though I definitely felt like I had a workout!) and I was still sorely tempted to keep going. I'll probably play again for a bit after I'm done here.

I've made a few observations on my initial play-style, however. For one, I have trouble switching legs, with my right leg dominant. It's actually easiest for me, so far, to just stand on my left leg and use my right to do all the steps, even crossing in front or behind of the left leg to hit the left arrow. For some reason, I'm not nearly as adept at playing with my left leg, as when I tried to reverse things and just stand on my right leg, I ended up switching very quickly because of coordination issues. I have to wonder if this comes from the fact that the arrows on the screen are read as a pattern, and therefore under the "left brain's" authority. I also wonder if this is why having two left feet is a negative thing in dancing, since it implies that the left foot is already inferior.

Despite my right leg doing all the steps, though, my left leg may actually get the harder workout as it ends up being my sole balancing post and support for much of the movements. Either way, I'm definitely excited about this prospect.

City of Heroes: Freedom

Surprisingly, the in-game graphics are not far off from the box art.

City of Heroes is a MMOG based on the premise of comic book style superheroes, with adjoining City of Villains filling out the other side of the gallery, and the recent Going Rogue expansion portraying an alternate dimension with a few more shades of grey.

I've played this game off and on for a few years now. Thanks to my alt-itis, I don't tend to get very far with any single character, but this game almost encourages that by having one of the best, most variable character creators I've seen. From mixing and matching power sets to designing the appearance in much more detail than I've seen possible elsewhere, you really get the chance to personalize each character. Heck, there are times I've wanted to resubscribe just to fiddle around with the costume designer!

So I should probably be happy for the upcoming change to the game's business model, following in the footsteps of other games that have switched to the "Free to Play" format. Despite the company's reassurances, though, I still have my doubts.

Part of it, I suppose, stems from the sense of elitism one gets from being part of a game that requires a subscription to play. The $15 per month charge keeps the "riff-raff" out, as it were. But there's a not-so-snobby truth to this as well, because as anyone who's played both a subscription and a F2P (Free to Play) game knows, F2P is notorious for the number of griefers, spammers, goldbots, farmers, and otherwise irritating players not as prevalent in a subscription-based game.

This ties in, somewhat, with the points I made back here, too. The unofficial RP server on CoH is Virtue, and it already has a full load during peak hours. The people who have been playing there for years have already well-established their characters and supergroups (player-run guilds) on the server, but may end up being muscled out because the server is too full for more players once it's open to everyone. The company states that a new server is in the works that will be open only to Premium Subscription members (basically, the people who don't stop paying even once it's F2P), but why should the people who have already established their characters and supergroups be, essentially, required to start over somewhere else? Especially since they'll be competing with similarly-displaced players from the other servers as well, making it likely that this new server will be just as full and lagged as Virtue is now.

But, the costume creator will be free to play around with at last. That's gotta count for something, eh?

Delusions of Shakespeare

So why am I "The Bard?"

Contrary to the title above, I'm not trying to horn in on Will's racket. I've always been very musically inclined, and am an accomplished vocalist. I've been operatically trained, have been appearing in plays and musical theater productions since Elementary School with an actor's resume some 5 pages long. I've played trombone, piano, and guitar, but my primary instrument is my voice. As a young child, brought to events by my parents, my goal in the SCA was to join the musician's guild (and go fight in full armor, but what kid doesn't want to do that?). I am a Master Harper in one such SCA guild, modeled after Harper Hall in the Dragonriders of Pern series (and sanctioned by Anne McCaffrey).

I even bring my guitar, a Martin Backpacker, to gaming sessions. When I was a regular attendee at the Tuesday Games(tm), I would have it out nearly every session. Because of its small frame, it didn't interfere with most dice rolling, and it's easy to put to the side when the action gets heavy.

One particular Tuesday night, playing 3rd Ed. D&D, the party was trying to make their way down a corridor that was bottlenecked by a horde of goblins. As the rest of the group began discussing options, I started plucking out a tune I'd picked up at the St. Louis Renaissance Faire a year or two prior, modified for the current events:

"They're standing in line.
They're standing in line.
They want to get killed so
They're standing in line.
They're standing in line
For a very long time.
They want to get killed so
They're standing in line."

"Everybody sing!"

And everyone did. I led half a dozen people on an impromptu sing-along reprise, most of which had never even heard the tune before. There was no hesitation on anyone's part. No one missed a beat, and no one missed a word.

To make a group of full-grown men break into song without prior training or expectation of performance? That's a powerful feeling. If I'd needed any more convincing of real-world bardic magic by that point in my life, that event would have satisfied me.

So that's why I'm the Bard.

Experience Overhaul

Thank you for the comments on my last post. They allowed me to realize that the numbers were hiding a flaw in my entire system of experience.

My original intent with my system, as I explained here, was to reflect easier or greater difficulty in progressing, based on Intelligence and how many classes you took, and eliminate the feeling of "wasting" a high Intelligence by not taking as many classes as it could handle. While it did do this to some degree, it was flawed in the fact that it based experience per level more off of the number of classes than the Intelligence. There was nothing in place to adjust difficulty for relative Intelligence. A low-Int character would simply not have access to the more "valuable" classes, but it could still out-level a higher-Int character that had more classes in short order.

That's been fixed now. A low-Int character taking its recommended maximum number of classes will now progress at the same speed as any other character that is also taking the recommended maximum number of classes for the character's Intelligence score. I may tweak it some from here, as I lost some "downward mobility" in the advantage a person gets by not filling up on classes, but I think this is the form I was going for earlier. The numbers were just getting in the way, so I couldn't see it. So again, thank you.

Experience Over Time

I've always had alt-itis, I guess. I generally don't get any D&D character past 4th level except under extraordinary circumstances. Tonight, though, I thought I'd do a quick comparison check to see how the experience tables I have worked up for my game (based loosely off of 3rd Edition's charts) stacked up against the old 1st Edition AD&D tables I grew up using. What I saw surprised me a bit.

At 11th level, a Paladin from 1st Edition had amassed over a million experience points. By 15th, the Thief class crossed the one million mark, followed only by Bard at 16th level (which doesn't really count since it was the 1st Edition equivalent of a Prestige - you had to be both a Fighter and Thief for 5+ levels before you could become a Bard). To get to 20th, you're talking 3.3 million for the most lenient table, ranging up to nearly six million points for Paladin.

By comparison, the pure 3rd Edition chart is child's play: 2nd level at a mere 1,000 points (The least expensive in 1st Ed., Thief, was 1,251), 10th level at only 45,000 which provides you with a "massive" gap to the 190,000 total needed for 20th level. Add to that the fact that 3rd edition experience is granted, according to the DMG, as an even split to all participants in an encounter (rather than being awarded individually based on damage dealt and treasure found - a bane to all low-level spellcasters) and you have what seems to be a supercharged elevator to the top. No wonder WotC came out with Epic Level handbooks so quickly!

I remember, as a child, sitting in a restaurant with my parents, and overhearing a conversation from a booth behind me: one guy was telling his friends about a campaign that took place in some tower, and his Paladin character made it all the way up to 50th level, only to be defeated or level-drained or some-such, and had to start over again at the bottom, so he did it again and got up to 50th level, and he got booted back down again, etc. Being the naive, inexperienced youth that I was, I got excited because they were talking about D&D, and I suppose I asked my mother why she didn't seem interested in asking them to game with us. That's when she explained to me the concept of "Monty Haul" gaming, and why it was generally considered to be a lesser form or of poorer quality among serious gamers.

I have to wonder if WotC was intentionally reducing the difficulty in such a manner, hoping to snare old and new players alike by promising greater rewards at a much quicker pace. Perhaps they thought that the attention span of modern gamers wouldn't last as long as it used to? Or maybe they simply believe most gamers play infrequently enough that too wide a gap between levels is discouraging, a belief I can't readily refute given that I typically only manage 1d4+1 sessions a year.

Now, however, I'm left with the concern that my own table is likewise too lenient. After all, even my highest chart only requires about 370,000 points for 20th level, and that assumes a character with a maximum class load.

I could make a return to the charts of old, or try to find some balance between the old and the new. After all, with the more generous experience rewards given by 3rd Edition rules, it might somewhat bridge the gap between players of different editions. Or, I could shove it off to the side for now, perhaps ruminating further upon it when I actually have players with characters above 4th level in the current system. At present rate, that might only take five years.

Free Sound

If you're looking for sound effects for Softrope (see my last post), this site has free, searchable sound files. You do have to register an account, but there's no credit card or such involved. Along with music files I already had, I've managed to create soundscapes for a good many adventuring environments with the sounds from there.

Softrope RPG Soundscape Producer

I happened on this site through Obsidian Portal a couple days ago, and just got around to playing with it today. So far I'm very happy with it. It allows a good deal of control over what sounds are playing and when, allowing randomized tracks and looping, as well as fade-outs (though no fade-ins, strangely). The biggest problem is that it's still in Beta, and there is no manual, but it's fairly user-friendly.

I get a kick out of putting stuff like this together, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to put together environmental sounds or soundtracks for their games, though it's definitely more intensive than hitting random play on a CD player. Also, it does not come prepackaged with sounds or music, so you'll have to hunt around your existing files or find some online.

And I love the origin of their name.

This is what happens when I have time to re-think...

So, I have the schools of magic separated into Arcane and Divine schools. Under the Divine heading, currently, I have Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, and Necromancy. Arcane has Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, and Transmutation.

Last night, I decided it made more sense to have Necromancy draw from Constitution for mana instead of Faith. I also began asking the question, again, of whether it should be an Arcane school instead. There are arguments both ways, since it was established pretty soundly that in order to be a "true" Necromancer, you'd have to take both Cleric and Wizard in 3rd Edition. Evil Clerics could Rebuke and Command undead, and got some undead creation and manipulation, including the Cause X Wounds spells, which heal their created and controlled minions. Wizards, despite being able to specialize in Necromancy and having access to various negative energy spells such as Vampiric Touch, didn't have much that would allow them to build and control an undead army. Since I've put everything together into the different schools, though, a Necromancer in my game would have (what I think) all the abilities a Necromancer should have access to.

But that still doesn't tell me whether it should be Arcane or Divine in origin.

If I were to make it Arcane, that would mean I had 3 Divine and 5 Arcane schools, instead of 4 of each. I don't know if that would truly be an issue, for balance or other reasons. I had moved Abjuration to Divine only somewhat recently, in order to make the number even, since it made sense that the school dealing with shielding and protection would be more Divine-based (although I guess that depends both on your view of the gods and the views of your god). I could move it back, since the two groups would be asymmetrical anyway, which would give Mage Armor back to Arcane casters, or I could move another Arcane group to Divine instead.

The Arcane schools that I could most easily see becoming Divine (aside from Necromancy) are Enchantment and Transmutation. Enchantment holds most of the iconic benediction spells, such as Bless, but then every school has spells that were originally divine, including Evocation (Flame Strike). Transmutation, though it does have some very iconic Arcane/Wizard spells, is primarily based around enhancement spells at low levels.

Or, I could scrap this whole Divine/Arcane debate entirely. Several campaign settings have already decided that ALL magic comes from the gods, in one way or another. I could simply state that there is no appreciable difference between them.

Any input on this would be appreciated.

Step by step, inch by inch...

I now have a "course description" document (22 pages long) that does a fair job, I think, of explaining the various classes and class segments I have available in the game. There are a couple of classes which don't have all the details in that listing, due to the expected rarity of the classes and the fact that they essentially have their own spell lists and that would just be way too much to put in there.

My next project, I think, is to finally get around to a full list of equipment that isn't weaponry or armor. Which means I'm getting closer to needing a campaign idea to kick things off with.

New Class: Wild Caster

Just designed the basic concept behind a new class I'm currently calling Wild Caster. The idea is that they do not learn or memorize spells. Instead, they can attempt to cast any arcane-based spell, with a percentage chance of it either working, casting a random spell from the same school of magic, casting a random spell from a random school, or the energy fizzling entirely.

Actually, now that I think of it, I could add a 5th option: the energy backfires and deals damage to the caster.

At any rate, if I remember correctly this is similar to a concept that I've heard previous gamers express a desire to see implemented. Initial reaction?

Racial Benefits

Prior editions of D&D gave various bonuses to the different races when it came to class. Some classes were even limited to certain races. I have some Combat Proficiencies like that, but so far none of my classes are race-restricted. However, I just recently considered the option of giving a reduced experience cost to certain classes, based on race. At this point I'm not sure how much of a bonus it should be, or if it's even truly desirable as an aspect of the game. I would like to include some sort of technical variance due to race, but I could just include the bonuses based on size and the different types of vision and be done with it. Thoughts?

Neil Gaiman's Contest

Neil Gaiman has been putting together a full-cast audiobook version of American Gods, and is using a web-based contest to get talent for it. Popular vote determines the top twenty, and Mr. Gaiman himself will select from among them.

I've put together my own audition for this, of course, and so I highly encourage everyone to go and vote for me. Each registered user can vote once per day (winkwinknudgenudge).



Thank you.

Just A Father's Pride?

Why is it that a photographer can take a picture of my child, and then demand payment of over $100 for the digital copy and "rights" to print?

Yes, I understand that they need to make money. That's why they charge for the prints on the special glossy paper. Putting a watermark on the digital samples on the website, not even allowing download of lower resolution non-watermarked photos, and charging $120 for a CD with the pictures on it is ridiculous. You took a photo of my child. You should be paying me.

This hospital-associated studio doesn't do free shipping, even on orders of $1000+, and tried to get another couple bucks out of me by stating that their "free gift" still was taxable and put me into the next price bracket for shipping.

In the end, I didn't buy any of their silly packages - just an 8x10 and a 10x13 of the one shot we couldn't bear to pass up. I didn't get their CD, either - that's what my scanner is for. If they hadn't gotten lucky with that one pose, they'd have gotten nothing from me.

A Functional Brain

The world is crazy,
So crazy is normal.
To go with the norm
Is to be insane.
Sanity's rational,
Society's not.
The world's afraid
Of a functional brain.

Death and Dying

I found some RPG discussion forums today, and through them came across someone else's house rules for death and dying here. Essentially, it increases the amount below zero a character's hit points can go to before the character is dead, allows normal healing spells to work on a character that has died within 24 hours of death, and removes the ability to bring the dead back to life beyond that timespan completely.

While I understand not liking the revolving door of death, I'm not sure I'm ready to remove those spells just yet, and I don't know that I like normal curing spells bringing someone back from the dead, even at less than 24 hours, without the formerly-deceased also needing something to restore their mental faculties after their brain has been without oxygenated blood for so long. I dunno, I guess that might fall under the same healing spell.

I do like the idea of changing the amount below zero, though, for much the same reason as the person expresses: it reduces the lethality of a higher-level battle, where any hit sufficient to drop your character to negatives is also likely to kill outright. It also makes characters or NPCs with less than 10 hp a bit more realistic. That goblin with 4 hp and your 20 Con, 3rd level Fighter both need to hit -10 to die?

That said, I think making the "death threshold" equal to the inverse of the maximum hp is a bit much. I'm thinking more like half would be reasonable, and allow a bit more wiggle room without making it nigh-impossible to kill anyone at higher levels.

So, a third level fighter with a max of 30 hp gets dropped to -3 from a nasty critical hit. They make a save to resist falling unconscious. If successful, they are awake but still disabled, so they can't move as quick and anything more strenuous than talking causes them to take a point of damage. Unless they get their wound bound or stabilize on their own, they also take a point of damage each round, and if they do get bound it will reopen and need to be bound/stabilized again if they take any strenuous action. On top of that, any time they take damage, they have to resist passing out again. A couple of rounds resisting oblivion and still trying to fend off the enemy puts the fighter at -15. Unless help arrives swiftly, next round they'll die from blood loss.

This is extremely theatrical, allowing scenes similar to Boromir's last stand. I'll probably end up using it.

Captain, our shields are weakening!

In my present system, armor is capable of being damaged. It doesn't give less protection or fall off unless all of its hit points are gone (Even I knew that would be too much work), but it does have hit points, and its own damage reduction in the form of hardness, based on the thickness and material.

This means, though, that I need to keep track of a slew of different armor classes for the same character. I need to know what is needed to hit them directly, to hit their armor and/or shield if they have one, as well as the difference in their AC if they are surprised and therefore don't get their Dex bonus. If it hits the armor, damage is rolled to see if it gets past the hardness to damage the armor. Same for the shield, if there is one. If it hits the character, then unless it was some force effect that bypasses normal armor, it also might damage the armor.

Now, I could just roll the attack, tell the player what it is, and make them do all the work as to what it hit. Except I like theatrics, and heightening suspense, so instead I keep track of these numbers, make a Perception check for the character, and then tell the player whether their character thinks it will hit or miss. That's their cue to determine what defensive action, if any, they want to take. True, this may mean they waste some resources in defending an attack that would only have hit their armor, or that a failed Perception check could make them think they're safe only to have them take a solid hit. But, that's battle for you.

In an automated game, all this number-crunching would be handled behind the scenes in a matter of seconds, if that. In pen&paper, it's not so easy. Now that I've created this monster of a system, I'm concerned that it will end up being more trouble than it's worth, bogging down combat in a way that isn't fun, rather than adding theatrics and suspense. But removing it means I'll need to rework my armor list to re-balance it, since the hardness and hit points of armor was one of the balancing factors.

Thoughts?

Arcane, Divine, or something else?

Having split all of the available magic into the different schools, regardless of originating class, I realize now that I've blurred the Arcane/Divine division regarding the origin of magic. Some of the schools, like Conjuration and Necromancy, have a very definite Divine feel to them, though most of the benedictions Clerics got are now in Enchantment, and almost all their attack spells got dropped into Evocation.

Transmutation, as a school, has the most spells of any of them, with Evocation in second place, but the most expensive schools (in terms of experience cost for leveling) are Conjuration (because it has both summoning and healing) and Necromancy (because it can allow the caster to build an army of undead). These mostly reflect my preferences, I guess, which I picked up from my mother: I don't like messing with temporary pets/creatures, especially ones that can be changed with every casting. This is why I've replaced pretty much all the Conjurer's Summon Monster/Nature's Ally/whatever spells with one-shot, full-round summoning spells, FFTactics style. The entity bamfs in, does its thing, and bamfs out, end of discussion. Since it's summoning, not creation, this works and allows a Conjurer to summon things that do stuff outside the Conjuration school. Necromancy has a couple of modified spells tossed in to make it more like what it should be, in my opinion, but it's creation and not summoning which means I still have the temporary pet issue.

Back on track: the splitting of the schools means that some of my previous information, such as Arcane Spell Failure, is now either defunct or applies to a lot more than it used to. How do I deal with this?

Next up: Armor deterioration - Is it worth the hassle in a pen & paper venue?

Freshman Year - Adventuring 101

via IMs

Alright, you're all students enrolled at Lorinel U. Courses are a thousand gold each for tuition and materials. Those of you with less than five thousand gold in starting money are able to get Financial Aid in the form of loans, which will need to be repaid after you are no longer a student. Here's the course catalog. Choose your classes.

Since you're all new students, you end up in the same required courses with each other. During Adventuring 101, the professor is droning on and on about the merits of having the proper tools, when you get an illusory note passed to you, asking if you're interested in some shiral hunting this weekend.

xD
nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

heh
wait is this a start of game or just how your opening it?

Good question.

After a moment, the illusory script swirls and reassembles: No? Good choice. Welcome to Lorinel. -PDL

WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN

PDL?

That's what it said. I guess I could have you roll an Intelligence or Perception check... except you don't have character stats rolled yet.

lol no i dont

All of a sudden the professor's droning stops, and he looks up at the class and lets out a much more lively, animated 'Well, let's see who's left then.' Looking around, you notice there seem to be a number of students gone, though you don't remember anyone getting up to leave.

lol. The people who thought it was a good idea.
poof.

"Excuse me professor. Not to be rude.... but what just happened?"

"What's that?"

"I saw some note... asking me a question about shirals."

"Oh did you? Passing notes in class isn't the best way to get an education... most of the time. Those of you still here are here because you passed the Dean's pop quiz, intended to cut the wheat from the chaff as it were."

"OOOHHHhhhhhh....." thinks about it for a moment.... probably b/c we are in an adventure class... some probably thought it was part of that.

The rest of the class continues as normal, except now in a far more interesting, often hands-on fashion.

Class Building Blocks: Lego or Duplo?

Seeing 41 different options on my current character class list is a lot less impressive than it should be. First off, a character without any special starting abilities, like being an awakened psion or of a particular bloodline, only has access to 35 of those options. Further, a lot of the things listed on the "Class" list are more like Class fragments. Magic has been broken up into its various Schools, and each School is taken individually. Some of the iconic abilities of various classes have been stripped away from the class, and divided up into smaller packages.

For instance, the Paladin abilities such as Detect Evil and Lay on Hands are now distributed amongst Crusader, Temple Knight, and Faith Healer. These "fragments" have a lower experience cost if taken alone, obviously, but the idea is that you can build your own adventurer. One of the fragments is simply an extra starting combat proficiency, which could be anything from another weapon proficiency to metamagic. Some of the fragments are levelable, improvable crafting "classes" such as Bowyer, Armorer, and Alchemist.

And, one is simply a "Citizen" class: no abilities, no special stuff, you get the benefits inherent to your ability scores. That was mostly just to give me something I can use for NPCs, but it could be fun to start a group off as Citizens and have them progress to other classes and abilities through training.

The image I have in my head of how all this should work seems good: a mix between a class-based and a skill-based game with enough variance and limiters that not every character is going to be able to do everything, but will have more varied abilities than a typical character in a class-based system.

I still need to finish separating the magic into schools, to make it easier to roll them, and I still need to determine a setting, at least a small area to start in. Then comes the fun part.

Game Projects

Skill System...........................Done

Spell System..........................Done

Crafting System.....................Done

Class System..........................Done

Spell List...............................Done

Weapon List..........................Done

Armor List.............................Done

Other Equipment Lists...........Umm... no.

Combat System......................Done

Campaign Setting..................In Review

Campaign Ideas....................Way too many

Run Playtest.exe (y/N)? y

Starting Playtest.exe.........Error! Setting.ini not found! Abort, Retry, Fail?

*sigh*

Fail.

Typing to hear myself think

After discussing skill systems late last night with my conscripted playtester, it seems that a simple stat-based system which does not use skill points would be preferable over a stat-based system that uses minimal skill points or a percentage based, customizable improvement system. While this certainly makes things easier for me, it was a bit of a surprise since he had some time ago argued for the ability to improve skills through training. I should probably ask him again sometime when he isn't falling asleep at the computer.

I'm also considering an a la carte system for character creation, which would essentially allow players to create their own class. Magic is already divided into different schools, so that's easy enough. I can strip the special class-based abilities away from the classes, and either offer them as-is to be added on, or figure out a value for each ability to allow further customization. This could be an additional method on top of keeping the regular classes, maybe with the regular classes having a lesser experience cost to level than they would if broken into their individual abilities.

On the surface, this looks like it would make things more difficult or make creation take longer, but it would also allow me to take a new player, ask them what they want to be able to do, and put together a conglomeration of abilities that would approximate their desires.

I do have ideas for making individual schools of magic based on different stats for learning and casting. This would be a way for dedicated spellcasters to have more casting ability despite the static mana system, since different types of spells may draw from different resources.

I'm also considering the option of allowing some method of choosing spells, instead of having them random by default, since the sheer number of spells I have compiled makes it statistically daunting for a cleric to get any healing spells. This could change if schools of magic were taken a la carte, though. Something to keep in mind.

This post brought to you by the numbers 7 and 15

Absence is a bloody liar. A heart will grow fonder even in close proximity. But apparently while I wasn't looking, I got tagged for a blogger award, in the same post by Cap'n Kyrie that tagged Hyperbole and a Half. Allie is freaking awesome, and I love her humor and insight, and I feel terribly out-of-place getting any award she received.

Now, I'm flattered Cap'n, but I'm sorry. I just can't accept this award. Not because I feel I'm outclassed by the company it keeps, but because I just simply don't know fifteen other bloggers. That means I can't follow the rules of the award, and so I must refuse. That, and I'm pretty sure the ones I do know have already been tapped for it, so I'm actually preventing an infinite loop that could crash the internet... or not, since Demotivational Posters have already divided by zero.

But, I will go ahead and tell seven things about myself:
1) I do not have a PhD in Horribleness. I am working on a BA in Sociology, though. Working on semester two of my first year, through online courses, and I made the Dean's List last semester, so go me.

I do have a pretty good evil laugh, though.

2) I get really, really focused. If I'm working on something, I will try to hammer out each and every bit of minutiae I can long past the point at which it really matters, and react poorly when interrupted, even by the call of nature.
2a) I absolutely love and adore and cherish my wife, and am grateful for her patience with me.

3) My favorite X-Man is Nightcrawler, and has been since I was a little kid. I may not have a lot in common with him from a religious standpoint, but I've never been one to let religious differences stand in the way of a good friendship.

Blue or not, the man has skills and looks great in tights.

4) I used to be a Final Fantasy Fanatic. I own every Final Fantasy game released in the US, up to X-2, but I only ever finished one of them (X, so that I'd know where X-2 was picking up from). I'm convinced that this is because I didn't want the game to end, because that meant the fantasy was over. I didn't get into Final Fantasy XI Online because I didn't really have a disposable income and was, at least at that point, very against the idea of paying subscription fees for games, especially since I was already heavily involved in a free-to-play MUD. By the time FFXII came out, October 11 of 2006, I was busy starting a fantasy of my own, making arrangements for my wedding at the end of the month. I don't even know how many they've made since then. Take that, LegendaryFrog.

5) I am better at carpentry than the previous owners of my house, who apparently (according to a sign left in the shed when we moved in) ran a contracting business. I've learned more about power tools, floor supports, and fitting square boards into not-square rooms in the past few years than I ever did in high school. Guess I should have taken shop class after all. Maybe the vocational aptitude test I took back in elementary school was right when it said I was most suited to become an interior decorator.

6) I know more about computer troubleshooting than my best friend, who was trained as a CAD Technician by ITT. Seriously. I've debugged his computers multiple times, and even installed a new power supply for him because, while he may know how to use CAD programs, he has no clue when it comes to opening up the case of his tower. And here I thought I only really knew enough to get myself into trouble.

7) I play guitar. Acoustic, not electric, and not what I would consider well, but better than I can play the piano (which isn't that hard, since I know about 3 tunes on the piano and they're all from video games). I picked it up in high school, and have mostly used it as a means of enhancing my vocal performances with a few chords thrown in. Somewhat recently, though, my limited guitar skills landed me a position in an established group that travels the Renaissance Faire circuit (and other venues). Again, go me.

And that's my seven factoids. We now return you to your regularly scheduled, non-updating blog.