Philsys Revisions!

RP-related discussion otherwise not covered in the Character Closet.
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Jak Snide
 
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Jak Snide » Mon Aug 29, 2005 10:16 pm

I'd say it could do with work, but the work isn't mandatory. People have no problems using PS as it is, since it's used amongst our little community and thus doesn't need to be fine tuned like a commercial system does. Improving on PS is more of a hobby than a job.


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Kai
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Kai » Mon Aug 29, 2005 11:30 pm

Quote:
People have no problems using PS as it is


Okay. You people all know I haven't been around here very long. This is a thing that you know. You know that thing. And this is okay.

So let me give a perspective on what it was like to try and use the information on PS that was posted on the site. The guides, the skill lists, the weapons lists.... all that. The information that was there. It was good info. That doesn't mean the system is made of awesome.

Just because it isn't a commercial system doesn't mean it shouldn't be palatable to people who haven't been here since fargin dirt, okay? I think it's damned elitist to assume that not only does no one aside from the current group want to know, they don't need to know and/or are irrelevant as potential RPers.

The system is easier to learn with the revisions. I know this because I've tried both ways. That help anyone? <p>-------------------------
"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit and the emperor remains an emperor." -- Sandman "The Kindly Ones" </p>

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Jak Snide
 
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Jak Snide » Tue Aug 30, 2005 12:09 am

My apologies. I forget that new people do join the community from time to time. My current position on this topic is not motivated by irrational xenophobia and the belief that the current complexity of the rules will keep newcomers away. I simply believe that Dexterity and Agility are two sufficiently different things and should be represented in such a manner. If high Dex isn't a sufficiently enticing choice for those creating characters then it should be factored into the system more and, under Kelne's proposed revisions of ranged weapon accuracy, it would be the primary stat for those who want to specialise in ranged combat. Which makes sense to me, since fine motor skills would determine the handling of such weapons, rather than athletic ability.

Edited by: Jak Snide&nbsp; Image at: 8/30/05 0:11

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Kelne
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Kelne » Tue Aug 30, 2005 12:30 am

To be honest, I haven't seen philsys as a beta at all during my time here. I don't think I've ever actually seen the main philsys page altered, and I'm sure the addendum was already up when I arrived.

As I started to use it as a GM, and develop different characters, I did begin to see a few things that didn't quite mesh, most notably the whole accuracy vs dodge thing. So I was definitely aware that there was room for improvement. I assumed that one day, someone with sufficient knowledge of the system and time on their hands would go through, work out what needed to be done, and then set about updating things.

And lo, it has happened. I can't say I expected so much debate on what the changes would be, though. Come to that, I didn't expect to be involved in the debate myself. I'd assumed that the fundamentals were basically sound, with the changes to be made lying in the details, and a bit of simplification in certain areas (the skills list, for instance).

I fully agree with most of the changes, and with the need for them. Just because one is a sticking point doesn't invalidate the rest. In fact, I'd like to see things go further in some areas. If the accuracy/dodge rules still don't quite make sense, why not overhaul them both at once?

At present, while philsys does seem to work by and large, the revision definitely represents an improvement overall. One thing that's become rather obvious is that it's not fair to expect Brian to do practically all the work, and then gripe at him when he does something not all of us like. Especially when we do like practically everything else. Hence my own attempt at fiddling with accuracy and making dex more useful. <p>Centuries of threats of "I'll turn you all to stone!" and "I'll knock you all down!" have caused Domans to develop an instinct to form small groups. For safety, I assure you. – Keir</p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=kelne>Kelne</A]&nbsp; Image at: 8/30/05 0:33

Archmage144
 

Re: Well:

Unread postby Archmage144 » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:57 pm

OK. I've done some thinking, and I've come to the following conclusions:
<ul>
<li>10+AGI*2+INT for the dodge equation: I like this.
<li>DEX/DEX/STR or DEX/DEX/INT for bows/xbows/guns: This essentially turns a ranged weapon attack into a spell attack as far as hitting goes, which is an interesting notion, now that I think on it, especially when paired with the previous equation.
<li>If DEX can be substituted for STR to calculate AT/PA when using a light weapon, then the rank cap for a light weapon should be DEX-substitutable, too, so the base attributes for, say, a dagger are now COU/AGI/DEX.
<li>A list of standardized tech bases has been kicking around in my head for a couple days. I intend to jot those down relatively soon, or perhaps immediately, because I'm bored.
<li>Scrapping the added effects on elemental spells strikes me as a good move. I forget why I included them in the first place.
<li>My suggested compromise on the DEX/AGI merge is this: Isao is running a PS RP now, and we're using the merged stats. Unless Isao wants to do otherwise, those characters will stay that way, but I'm getting a lot of resistance on the point.</ul>

To shift topics a little, my next issue is barefist damage. I also want to rework and revise a list of "standard" [s] skills that's better and more balanced than the one listed in the addendum, which, as I reread it, kinda sucks. I have some ideas in that arena, as well.

One issue with barefist damage is that the current formula simply makes it too strong--a fighter with any STR at all and a few ranks in barefist is suddenly dishing out 30-40 damage punches without any to-hit penalties! This is possible with a mere total of 10 or so in STR + rank, which is very easy to achieve--at this point, with the current rules, a character is punching for 20+1d6 and kicking for 30+2d6 while a sword-wielding character has to heavy attack at -6 to get the same damage (17 + 4*3 = 29 + 2d6). A new formula was devised a while ago, but I forgot it and never actually got it on the website, and I don't remember if that one was really all that good anyway.

Using longsword damage (10/14/17) as an "average," and assuming that the average fighter has a STR of +4, we can make the following calculations:

Light: 10 + 4 + 1d6 = 17.5 damage, on average, no penalty to hit.
Medium: 14 + 8 + 2d4 = 27 damage, on average, -3 to hit.
Heavy: 17 + 12 + 2d6 = 36 damage, average, -6 to hit.

A monk-type character, fighting bare-handed, should probably do about the same type of damage, or do less but get more attacks. The multiple attacks formula, treating being unarmed as a "light" weapon, will aid this, as will the skill "Two-Fisted," which essentially acts as an "off-hand" unarmed skill, allowing yet another extra attack. Let us assume that taking Two-Fisted, which should have bases AGI/AGI/DEX, will be feasible for all monk-type characters, and that the average monk, at level 1, will be getting two attacks. As such, a single punch should do about half what a sword does for the same to-hit penalties.

Let's try (Rank+STR)+1d6 for punching and (Rank+STR)*2+1d6 for kicking.

Punch (Light): 4 + 4 + 1d6 = Average 11.5 per hit.
Kick (Medium): (4 + 4)*2 + 1d6 = Average 19.5 per hit at -3.

The only problem that I can see with this is that barefist damage is going to scale up way faster than weapon damage, because weapon damage is going to be wholly reliant on GMs giving out better weapons as characters gain experience, whereas barefist damage is solely rank-based. Also, multiplying kick damage that way results in two kicks being vastly superior to two medium sword attacks. Anyone have any suggestions? Because I'm going to have to put some more thought into these formulae. <p>
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Re: Well:

Unread postby FlamingDeth » Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:15 pm

Quote:
Anyone have any suggestions?


I need to start clearing up more time so that I can actually post larger, more explanatory posts (and also so that Pervy doesn't murder me for not posting in his RP).

But...perhaps just lower the unarmed damage accross the board. Punching someone in the face isn't going to do as much damage as stabbing someone, in most cases. Make them use techs if they want to do more damage. That's what techs are there for. <p>
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Jak Snide
 
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Jak Snide » Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:23 pm

While I've got no ideas currently on revising unnarmed attacks, something that was brought to my attention earlier; magic, like current barefist damage, is entirely dependant on the character's abilities.


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Re: Well:

Unread postby Blackwind Isao » Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:54 pm

It strikes me that I had told you that I'd help you to playtest any revisions that you wanted to try out. At this point I think that we should leave the AGI/DEX merger alone for the campaign (for say, two or three actual combats) and then perhaps try it under the system your attempting to put together using both (for a few combats) and keep going in that vein until we finnish the RP.

While I realize that this involves ALOT of reworking of character sheets for everyone involved in the RP it's also probably the fairest way of seeing how each idea presented works out in the long run of things.

Note that at some point we'll all get sick of changing our character sheets and I'll just stick with whatever we've decided works best at that point (or whatever we've decided as a comunity we're using).

That's all from my end of things for the moment. Perhaps I'll come up with something to add on barehanded damage and magic for the next time I swing by.

- Blackwind.


Archmage144
 

Re: Well:

Unread postby Archmage144 » Wed Aug 31, 2005 12:10 am

Wait, what? I don't understand what you're suggesting.

Are you saying we should use the "old" system for a short time period and then use the "new" system, altering our sheets during the RP? There's plenty of data on the "old" system, if that's your concern.

Also, Jak and I talked a bit about magic:

Arch mage144: Anyway--what exactly are you suggesting?
Jak Snide: Well, in my experience with RPGs in general, spellcasters are alot less gear dependant than melee fighters
Jak Snide: It kinda makes sense for barefisted fighters to be as well, though their damage is a bit strong
Arch mage144: Aye. You are correct. Mages and monks alike are less dependent on gear. This is pretty much universal--it is also somewhat logical.
Jak Snide: Indeed
Jak Snide: Wasn't complaining about how it is. But it does tie into something else Doug said
Jak Snide: Not enough good magic gear around. Now, I know he's a bit of a twink, but I think he's got a point.

Didn't we have a whole conversation about that in this thread? Jak and I discussed that matter, as well (he hadn't read those posts up to this point). We are in agreement that the solution to the whole situation is not "make magic less damaging because fighters need gear," and the multiple attacks and techs help close the gap a lot, as does proper use of strategy, so I don't feel it's a problem the way I used to. However, the point about magic items still stands.

And we already talked about this, but it's become important again, apparently. So we need to revisit the subject and figure something out.

Also: It is possible that the problem with unarmed damage is in the multipliers. Since rank scales up fairly quickly, and each rank amounts to +1 or +2 damage (depending on punch/kick), unarmed damage will scale up much faster than weapon damage, but slower than magic damage. Basically, I feel that unarmed fighters should do slightly less than half the damage of an armed fighter per hit, but should get more "hits" more quickly. Techs can expand this. Breaking through armor, then, becomes a serious issue for unarmed combatants (as it should be) unless they have techs or skills that allow it to be circumvented somehow (ki skills, for example). This is as it should be. However, what we need is more data.

Therefore, I (or someone) need to do statistical analysis of average damages for a mage, an armed fighter, and an unarmed fighter at various levels (1, 3, 5, and 10 sounds good to me for benchmarking purposes). Assume ranks are capped and that standard trends are followed for spell formulae--which, incidentally, multipliers for spells need to be hardened a little--and run the numbers.

The issue here is that if a fighter's level changes, his equipment will not automatically do so. What I intend to figure out is what the rough damage ratio is between the three archetypes, not to see how far to cut back the mage or the monk's damage, but how much help the fighter will need to catch up. That will give some idea of how powerful weapons will need to be at appropriate levels in order to be on par.

I might start running the numbers on this as early as tomorrow, if I find time--and I also intend to get down the starting of that tech stuff. <p>
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</p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=archmage144>Archmage144</A]&nbsp; Image at: 8/31/05 0:24

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Re: Well:

Unread postby The Great Nevareh » Wed Aug 31, 2005 2:37 am

I'd be willing to do some number-crunching for you if you like. I have pretty easy access to powerful number-crunching software, though you'd have to give me the numbers to crunch. <p>[---------------------------]
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Kelne
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Kelne » Wed Aug 31, 2005 8:10 am

I dunno. I've always liked the fact that characters aren't necessarily reliant on picking up shiny magical loot to be effective. Sure, said loot helps, and nobody's going to turn it down, but it's an earned bonus, not something vital to the character's very survival. Additionally, some characters use rather unusual weapons, or are flat-out attached to a particular weapon they've had for years. Of course, there are also those who begin their careers with magic weapons...

As far as availability of magic weaponry goes, I tend to think that there's not much market for them, and any stocked in stores are fairly minor in nature. However, I also think that anyone with sufficient funds or contacts would have no trouble commissioning a skilled enchanter to make or upgrade a weapon to their specifications. Within reason, of course.

While I haven't done much number-crunching, from what I can tell, multi-attack techs and the like level the playing field between fighters and mages. And fighter-types can keep using their techs for as long or longer than the mages can keep casting their most powerful spells. Mages may have a bit of an edge in damage, but fighters have the edge in staying power. Not that raw damage is the only tool in most characters' arsenals... <p>Centuries of threats of "I'll turn you all to stone!" and "I'll knock you all down!" have caused Domans to develop an instinct to form small groups. For safety, I assure you. – Keir</p>

Archmage144
 

Re: Well:

Unread postby Archmage144 » Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:21 am

Then all I'm going to have to do, ultimately, is run the numbers and see just how big the gap is and if adjustments have to be made and where. <p>
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Archmage144
 

Re: Well:

Unread postby Archmage144 » Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:13 pm

Pardon any typoes or errors in this post--I have not proofread it, completely, and wrote it all in spurts in my philosophy class.

All calculations assume maximum ranks for their level. Fighters are assumed to have a better-than-average (+4) STR at 1st level and achieve a STR stat-up at least occasionally as they gain experience.

I'm going to stop multiplying the rank and only multiply the monk's STR score when kicking, which should help with the scaling issue. Therefore, the new formula is:

(Rank+STR)+1d6 punching damage.
Rank+STR*2+1d6 kicking damage at -3.

The average mage is assumed to have a MAG of 4 or 5 and an INT and WIS of 3 or 4. This means that the average mage has a 1st level MP pool of around 80-90 MP. For calculation purposes, it will be assumed that a mage starts with 85 MP and gains approximately 7 MP each level ((5+4)/2 + 2.5). This is a slight abstraction, because the INT score may increase, but the overall difference in gains will be minimal (1-2 MP per level).

None of these calculations make allowances for techs. This is intentional, because all types of characters can take advantage of techs to gain extra attacks or other bonuses. The fighter archetype used in this example is assumed to use the same, typical weapon throughout the examples. This is not a complete set of examples, because a character could use a more powerful weapon or a light weapon, which would change his number of attacks, but the general idea is that a fighter with a longsword is a good estimate for the "average" damage done by a character who focuses on having a relatively high STR score.

All average damage/round calculations assume that all attacks hit and ignore the possibility of critical hits, because critical hits are equally likely with all archetypes, ignoring the [s]Precise Striking skill.

Level 1:

Ranks capped at 4.

Swordsman (using 10/14/17 longsword):

Light: 10 + 4 + 1d6 = 17.5 avg. damage.
Medium: 14 + 8 + 2d4 = 27 avg. damage, -3 to hit.
Heavy: 17 + 12 + 2d6 = 36 avg. damage, -6 to hit.

Monk:

Punch (Light): 4 + 4 + 1d6 = 11.5 avg. damage.
Kick (Medium): 4 + 4*2 + 1d6 = 15.5 avg. damage, -3 to hit.

Mage:

Rank 1 spell (8+rank*2+1d6): 8 + 8 + 1d6 = 19.5 avg. damage for 4 MP (<5% of total MP).
Rank 4 spell (14+rank*4+2d6): 14 + 16 + 2d6 = 37 average damage for 12 MP (~14% of total MP).

Level 3:

Ranks capped at 8. Physical fighters have improved STR to +5. At this point, a monk has gained an extra attack. Mage has 99 MP.

Swordsman:

Light: 10 + 5 + 1d6 = 18.5 avg.
Medium: 14 + 10 + 2d4 = 29 avg. at -3 to hit.
Heavy: 17 + 15 + 2d6 = 39 avg. at -6 to hit.

Monk:

Punch: 8 + 5 + 1d6 = 16.5 avg, 33/round.
Kick: 8 + 10 + 2d6 = 25 avg., 50/round, at -3 to hit.

Mage:

Rank 4 spell (14+rank*4+2d6): 14 + 32 + 2d6 = 51 avg damage for 12 MP (~12% of total MP).

Level 5:

Ranks capped at 12. Swordsman has gained an extra attack. Mage has 113 MP.

Swordsman:

Light: 10 + 5 + 1d6 = 18.5 avg., 37/round.
Medium: 14 + 10 + 2d4 = 29 avg., 58/round, at -3 to hit.
Heavy: 17 + 15 + 2d6 = 39 avg., 78/round, at -6 to hit.

Monk:

Punch: 12 + 5 + 1d6 = 20.5 avg., 41/round.
Kick: 12 + 10 + 2d6 = 29 avg., 58/round at -3 to hit.

Mage:

Rank 4 spell (14+rank*4+2d6): 14 + 48 + 2d6 = 69 avg. damage for 12 MP (~11% of total MP).
Rank 12 spell (20+rank*6+3d6): 20 + 72 + 3d6 = 102.5 avg. damage for 32 MP (~28% of total MP).

Level 10:

Ranks capped at 22. STR increased to +6. Monk has gained his third attack at rank 16. Mage has 148 MP.

There are no standardized direct damage spells listed in the spellbook past rank 12. If the progression were to continue, a rank 20 spell would hypothetically deal something like 36+rank*8+4d6 for about 52 MP.

Swordsman:

Light: 10 + 6 + 1d6 = 19.5 avg., 39/round.
Medium: 14 + 12 + 2d4 = 31 avg., 61/round, at -3 to hit.
Heavy: 17 + 18 + 2d6 = 42 avg., 84/round, at -6 to hit.

Monk:

Punch: 22 + 6 + 1d6 = 31.5 avg., 94.5/round.
Kick: 22 + 12 + 2d6 = 41 avg., 123/round at -3 to hit.

Mage:

Rank 12 spell (20+rank*6+3d6): 20 + 132 + 3d6 = 162.5 avg. damage for 32 MP (~22% of MP).
Rank 20 spell (36+rank*8+4d6): 36 + = 226 avg. damage for 52 MP (~35% of MP).

These data suggest the following:

At level 1, things are essentially completely fair. The monk does a fair bit less damage early on, barring techs or Two-Fisted (but a swordsman can technically use two weapons, if he wants, too). The mage deals the most damage, but will quickly run out of MP spamming his rank 4 spell.

At level 3, the monk's extra attack pushes his damage past the swordsman's. While he does have to make two successful hits to do so, his damage output (for a -3 penalty) is 20 points higher than a swordsman's. The swordsman does have one advantage--his attacks, individually, can hit harder than the monk's, allowing him to break damage reduction more easily. Oddly enough, at this point, the mage has almost an identical damage output with the mage.

At level 5, the swordsman gets his extra attack--and his performance is almost identical to the monk's! The mage's advantage is that he only needs to land one attack roll to deal almost the same amount of damage (slightly more), but he is still expending over 10% of his MP to do so. If the mage really wants to deal damage, he can utilize what functionally amounts to about 1/3 of his MP to vastly outdamage the physical fighters, but the swordsman's damage (with a heavy attack) does not lag that far behind, comparatively speaking. If a medium attack is the typical/average attack style, his damage/round is about half the mage's, but the mage only gets three "attacks" in a given day/time period if he casts NO other spells. This, in my opinion, works out to be fair, in practice.

At level 10, the monk has achieved his third attack. At this point, the monk is extremely superior compared to the fighter. His base damage, attacking with no penalties, is about 133% of the fighter's, and his average damage per round is triple that of the swordsman's! If he needs to pack more punch to break damage reduction, his kick attack deals as much damage as the swordsman's heavy attack without the same penalties. As would be expected, the mage deals the most damage, but proportionally speaking, not much more--the mage is still dealing about twice as much as the swordsman per round, but the monk's damage output compared to the mage's (especially since the monk has no need to expend MP and can still use techs to increase damage further) is remarkable.

The solution here, as I see it, is not to eliminate the monk and the mage's ability to scale up damage purely by gaining levels. Nor is it, in entirety, to provide the swordsman with better equipment--indeed, in order to be on par with the monk in terms of per-hit damage, he would have to have a weapon dealing around 20/30/50 base damage, which is pretty absurd (for comparison's sake, Order's Edge, a weapon forged by Shamaya, goddess of order, did 22/33/44 base damage, which sure seemed like a lot at the time). Instead, it might be best to introduce some sort of skill-based improvement to damage for weapon-wielding fighters. This might be something as simple as adding the skill rank to each "step" of a weapon's base damage, which essentially means that the monk and the swordsman have the same damage formula--a standardization that might be good. Changing medium attack damage to base damage + rank + STR*2 + 2d6 would standardize it further--and heavy attacks can be changed to base damage + rank + STR*3 + 3d6. I would also like to reduce the penalty for a heavy attack to -5 to encourage fighters to use them more often--it's a very slight benefit, but it helps. In addition, medium attacks (as well as kicks) could also be reduced to -2. Strictly speaking, heavy attacks could be reduced to -4--with the present rules, from a hitting perspective, it simply isn't efficient to use heavy attacks. However, I really don't think reducing heavy attacks to -4 is a good idea, because I've always seen heavy attacks as "opportunistic" attacks, intended to be used against defenseless or hampered targets (foes in critical condition or denied parry rolls, for example).

The other issue that needs to be addressed is whether or not the character can "trade" an extra attack for an extra parry roll instead. This does, on thinking about it, seem reasonable.

There is one problem with this solution--a character using a dagger will get the same number of attacks as an unarmed fighter, with the current setup, and get the damage bonus--while dagger fighters do not necessarily (or typically) have a high strength, a pure dagger fighter will always outdamage a monk, barring techs. This, on one hand, is realistic, so I'm not inclined to think of it as a dreadfully serious problem, but it should be noted that the system would give characters no advantage to NOT use a weapon except stylistic purposes. I mostly don't consider this a problem because Philsys is all about style anyway, it doesn't put a fist-fighter that far behind a knife-fighter anyway, and, generally speaking, it doesn't actually matter.

To recap, the new damage formula could be:
<ul>
<li>Light: Weapon base damage (if applicable) + skill rank + STR + 1d6
<li>Medium: Base damage + skill rank + STR*2 + 2d6 at a -2 penalty
<li>Heavy: Base damage + skill rank + STR*3 + 3d6 at a -5 penalty</ul>

This gives everyone a chance to improve, regardless of being granted magic gear--though I'm still not ruling out the suggestion that there ought to be more magic weapons for PCs. It also effectively improves everyone's damage, possibly excepting current fist-fighters, who are somewhat overpowered anyway.

The "rank damage multipliers" for spells have traditionally been somewhat inconsistent. When Phil-dog created Hakaril's sheet for me back in the dark ages, his rank 1 spell had a rank*2 multiplier and his rank 4 spell had a rank*6 multiplier. In retrospect, this seems a little high, and the spellbook suggests rank*4 multipliers for rank 4 and rank*6 multipliers for rank 12 (level 5). At one point, I toyed with the idea of essentially having "another use for MAG." The numbers in the spellbook were potentially to be modified by the "mage cutoff"--at 4 MAG, a character has the aptitude to focus heavily on spells. A character with 6 MAG, in some situations, could have rank*6 spells at rank 4 and rank*8 spells at rank 12--and that's what Hakaril's sheet says.

The question then, is: Should spell damage multipliers be somehow related to MAG? On one hand, magic does not need to deal more damage than these examples, so the answer is "probably not," or at least, not the way that is being presented. The idea of making the rank*8 multiplier spells rank 20 seems to make sense, because it follows a reasonable looking pattern (spell base damage improves at 4, 8, 12, 20, and perhaps 30?). It's hard to believe that mages would need to deal more direct damage after rank*8, because at that point, damage is scaled up to be well beyond 160 from rank alone, but a rank*10 (or even rank*12) could be a possibility for the rank 30 "uber nukes."

Before anyone says anything, I realize that there is a rank 26 space spell with a rank*13 multiplier. Since no one has spells that powerful at this point, and this level of number-crunching had not been performed, some of the really high-level spells are not balanced simply because they were never placed on an accurate scale. Also, that spell costs 164 MP (dear sweet Lord) and would consume roughly 100% of a mage's MP, were he just barely high enough level to cast it (level 12, average max MP 162). Let's ignore, for the moment, the "high-level" spells that have never been playtested, much less subjected to intense mathematical scrutiny. Also, I don't really mind terribly that some of the more nebulous spell effects are less concretely defined in terms of requisite rank--in that sense, GM discretion is a perfectly fine mechanism as long as there are some benchmarks. Think about how the different levels of power ("spheres") are defined in Mage: the Acension, if you know what I'm talking about. I am primarily concerned with precisely defining limitations for directly damaging spells.

Since we're changing the damage formulae in a way that essentially increases everyone's damage, we might get to go back and fix a bizarre oversight regarding AC and be able to set AC equal to damage reduction as originally intended. The equipment list needs reworked anyway, at this point, especially since we're eliminating the AT penalties on most armor and need to add attack options for weapons that previously lacked them (spears, with their thrusting only limitation, come to mind). It should also be noted that "high damage" is a goal of Philsys. It is intentional and largely optimized for such--again, fights are intended to be survived by hitting first (and harder), avoiding getting hit, and potentially wearing enough armor to negate most damage. It is also intentional that critical hits are intended to settle fights almost immediately. In order to extend a battle with a major NPC more than a few rounds, GMs are encouraged to increase the NPC's defensive capabilities (damage reduction, both physical and magical, is appropriate, as is comparatively high PA and MBlock), not give them (especially ordinary humanoids) astronomical amounts of HP, though there may be some creatures (powerful demons, dragons, whatever) that do have lots of HP instead. However, I never intended for monsters with HP in the thousands to be commonplace--not that I'm saying anyone is doing that, but I wanted to be clear about it.

I realize not everyone may have internalized/considered this, but I'm going to move on to my next point, so all facets of this post can be discussed simultaneously or whatever.

Standardized tech benchmarks for weapons. I have some baseline numbers that I want to throw around, and the way I want to classify what's fair for what weapon skill is going to be based on two things: the weapon type (light, standard, or heavy) and the skill rank required to utilize the ability. As such, there are a few things I want to suggest and or standardize.

These techs are going to assume DEX and AGI are remaining separate.

[Light Weapon Skill=2]Precise Striking (2 TP) - Uses DEX to determine weapon damage bonuses instead of STR and eliminates all penalties to hit other than those caused by magical debuffs for one round. Heavy attacks are impossible when using Precise Striking.
[Light Weapon Skill=4]Dextrous Striking (2 TP) - Adds DEX to AT a second time for one round.
[Light Weapon Skill=6]Rapid Striking (3 TP) - Allows one additional attack (of any type) this round.

[Standard Weapon Skill=2]Defender's Stance (1 TP) - Adds weapon skill rank to all PA rolls made this round. Even if no parry roll is allowed, half of the users's weapon skill rank is added to his PA for the remainder of the round. This tech cannot be combined with any other offensive tech, and the user forfeits any bonus attacks (but may use them, instead, as bonus parries).
[Standard Weapon Skill=6]Full Attack (4 TP) - Allows one additional attack (of any type) this round.

[Heavy Weapon Skill=4]Devastating Blow (2 TP) - As a heavy attack, but damage is multiplied by 1.5x. If the attack misses, the user loses his one of his parry rolls for the round.
[Heavy Weapon Skill=6]Follow-through (5 TP) - Allows one additional attack (of any type) this round.

Basically speaking, an extra attack from a tech costs 3, 4, or 5 TP depending on whether or not the weapon is light, standard, or heavy, and the prerequisite rank is 6--the other techs are included as some basic examples for benchmarking, but I wanted to lay those out, as simple as they are.

I'll eventually work on that [s] skill list, but I think I'm throwing out enough material for discussion at the present time. <p>
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Besyanteo » Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:30 pm

(Rank+STR)+1d6 punching damage
Rank+STR*2+1d6 kicking damage at -3

... Last I saw, that WAS the current set up for it. Not complaining, but... Well, that's what it already was on my sheet, before this whole discussion began. o_o;

... except that kicking got 2d6, not 1d6. *goes to cut off damage for the second time*


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Re: Well:

Unread postby Archmage144 » Wed Aug 31, 2005 6:00 pm

It's possible that we DID come up with that at some point, but I don't believe it was ever official. <p>
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Jak Snide » Wed Aug 31, 2005 8:55 pm

I'll go over Ducky's big post more thoroughly later, but for now here's some initial thoughts:

-Dagger Fighters, while doing more damage overall, will also have their damage reduced by armour more due to it being spread out over more attacks.

-A melee type with dealing the most damage in mind will be using a two handed weapon. I'm curious to see what sort of damage a man with a halberd would be doing in each of the level scenarios.


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Re: Well:

Unread postby Kelne » Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:53 pm

A few points, covering random areas as and when they occur to me.

My first point is a stylistic one rather than anything to do with rules, but it might be useful to have exact spell damages next to the formulas. This means that rank multipliers and the like only need to be calculated once at each level-up by the player, rather than the GM having to look up skill ranks and make the calculations whenever a spell is cast. The same would apply to techs such as precise striking, where dex is substituted for strength in damage calculations.

As an example of what I'm talking about, from Kelne's sheet:

[Fire=4]Fire 2 (12 MP) - Does 14+rank*4+2d6 (46+2d6) fire damage to a single target.

Or from James's:

[Katar=2]Precise Striking (2 TP) - Uses DEX to determine weapon damage bonuses instead of STR and eliminates all penalties to hit other than those caused by magical debuffs for one round. Heavy attacks are impossible when using Precise Striking. (Damage is now light - 9+1d6, medium - 12+2d4)

Just something to make life easier for the GM.

I notice that ranged combatants haven't been considered in the preceding statistical calculations. Bit of a tricky area really, since weapon damages for guns and crossbows, at least, are fixed. My own feeling is that in terms of raw damage and extra attacks they're on a par to a fighter dealing light damage (probably a bit less as the fighter levels), and that placed shots substitute for the extra damage of heavier attacks quite nicely. I may or may not get around to backing this feeling up with statistics.

Tangent time again. So far as I'm aware, the main rules don't cover disarming attempts, which is likely just the sort of thing a high dex rogue-type character will try to pull on a clumsier foe. I think those disarm techs which do exist work off of opposed dex checks. Is this area worth covering in the main rules? After all, in theory anyone can try to disarm anyone else.

As a final note, I've been doing a bit of meddling with the skills list. Dividing skills up into weapons-related and magic-related makes it a bit easier to use, and helps identify which ones are redundant, superfluous, don't match other skills of the same type, or just don't make sense. I'll be posting that up separately in a while. <p>Centuries of threats of "I'll turn you all to stone!" and "I'll knock you all down!" have caused Domans to develop an instinct to form small groups. For safety, I assure you. – Keir</p>

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Re: Well:

Unread postby Kelne » Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:44 pm

There we are, one [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=kelne>Kelne</A]&nbsp; Image at: 8/31/05 22:48
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Archmage144 » Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:17 am

Being able to train in "Infravision" sure as hell doesn't make any sense to me.

On that note, the few [s] skills that don't follow the rules don't follow the rules of 0.5/rank for a reason. They're [s] skills because they have prereqs (other skills do not).

Disarming is not all about dexterity--it's about strength, too, and using a lighter weapon to disarm someone of a heavier one is very difficult, if not impossible. If anything, disarming should be an [s] skill, [s]Disarming AGI/DEX/STR, which adds a +1 to disarm attempts per rank--anyone, regardless of skill, should be able to attempt a disarm. Perhaps disarming can be handled with opposed AT checks, somewhat like I tend to resolve grapples? <p>
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Kelne » Thu Sep 01, 2005 3:13 am

Version 2.

A few notes on what I've done:

The magic list has been pruned down a bit, with several synomynous categories gone. There are probably still a few that overlap to some extent, but no outright duplicates are left. Necromancy has been added to the list. Not sure how that got missed the first time around. Since all magic uses the same base stats, I cut those off, making things a bit easier to read.

Ki usage and Mental duel remain under magic for the moment, since they seem to fit, even if their base stats aren't the same.

Various other duplicate skills are gone. Neither ropes nor cooking struck me a (k) skills, for instance.

Navigation remains in two categories for the moment, since I'm not quite sure whether it's knowledge, support or normal. Deception also continues to occupy two categories.

Various skills which don't make a great deal of sense have been axed, notably including technomancy.

Advanced parry, parrying and weapons parrying have been integrated into Advanced Parry. I also altered the base stats to (Agi/Dex/Dex), since that seemed a bit more logical than just Agi.

The base stats for Mechanics have been changed, as I don't imagine Mag is a base stat there.

Languages are another area I'm not sure about. Generally, people learn specific languages, and while fluency may increase over time, it's not the sort of thing you make skill checks on. <p>Centuries of threats of "I'll turn you all to stone!" and "I'll knock you all down!" have caused Domans to develop an instinct to form small groups. For safety, I assure you. – Keir</p>

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Re: Well:

Unread postby Idran1701 » Thu Sep 01, 2005 4:34 am

How about going the route of other systems with languages? Give it a strict skill point cost to learn a language rather than having ranks in it. <p>

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Re: Well:

Unread postby NamagomiMk0 » Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:43 am

At least that'll keep every other damn yoik out there from knowing Valthi or having some ability to translate it without being from Valth. And it's supposed to be a difficult (though not as difficult as Barian) language. <p>ChibiUrusai: *chomps* I am underage. ^-^
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Kelne » Thu Sep 01, 2005 6:48 am

Hm. Could work. Then again, we could just scrap the skill entirely and leave languages to peoples' discretion (ie leave things as they effectively are now). They tend to be pretty good about such things. Can't think of many characters who speak more than two languages off the top of my head. <p>Centuries of threats of "I'll turn you all to stone!" and "I'll knock you all down!" have caused Domans to develop an instinct to form small groups. For safety, I assure you. – Keir</p>

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Re: Well:

Unread postby NamagomiMk0 » Thu Sep 01, 2005 7:33 am

*says "sandwich" in Barian* <p>ChibiUrusai: *chomps* I am underage. ^-^
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Re: Well:

Unread postby FF Fanatic 80 » Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:15 pm

On the language front:

As I recall, there a specific languages in D&D that have prereq's. For example, there's a secret druidic language that only druids know, and cannot teach outsiders without losing their powers.

Not to go to that extreme, but perhaps you could get a list of languages and give them certain prereq's?


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Re: Well:

Unread postby Idran1701 » Thu Sep 01, 2005 1:21 pm

Well, it seems that most languages would merely have the prereq of having had the opportunity to learn the language somehow; live in the country at some point, know someone that could teach it to you, that sort of thing. At least, I can't think of any languages in Gaera that are mystical in and of themselves to the point of having any special prerequisites beyond this. <p>

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Re: Well:

Unread postby Archmage144 » Thu Sep 01, 2005 3:40 pm

[k]History should, from one perspective, either be a specialized skill ([k]History (Doman), for example), or it should be a generalized skill that provides an overall knowledge of history--it is up to the player to RP the character's level of knowledge.

The list of weapons should be pared down or eliminated. Alternately, it should be divided into light, standard, and heavy, and three or four examples should be given for each type of weapon--that way, players should be able to decide for themselves where their weapon fits. Listing every weapon skill possible is overkill, and listing some of them (Unique Weapon - Kougan Anki comes to mind) is just unnecessary.

Two-Weapon Fighting's bases are now DEX/DEX/AGI. It should be noted somewhere that a DEX of 3 is required for wielding two light weapons and a DEX of 4 for two standard ones. The only problem I can see with this is that those 4 points in DEX are largely wasted for a fighter using a standard weapon, since he cannot apply the DEX to his AT/PA the way a light weapon user can. This is going to require some thought. No one can dual-wield heavy weapons. Two-Fisted shall be DEX/AGI/AGI, as more body coordination is required. Both of these are regular skills.

Mutually Destructive Magic, Ryuuzoku/Dragon Magic, Tarot Magic, and Fluffy Magic probably don't belong on the generalized list of spells. X-Magic should be axed entirely, because X-Magic is something we never appropriately resolved, balance-wise, and random other shit.

[s]Advanced Parry has already been defined as applying +1/rank to a character's parry roll. The prerequisite stat is AGI=3, because it's supposed to represent an improvement in raw dodging skill. It will cover all "equivalent" skills ([s]Evade Physical, for example).

[s]Magic Shielding applies +1 to MBlock and reduces damage from all by 1/rank. The prerequisites are INT=2, WIS=2, because a rudimentary understanding of magic is required.

In general, [s] skills should represent one of two things: Something everyone can do, but you can do better because you're specialized in it ([s]Drinking, [s]Endurance, [s]Acrobatics), or something that works to support another set of skills ([s]Elemental Melding). Usually, an [s] skill does not define a tech by itself (there might be some exceptions), but works with another skill (Fire, Ice, and Lightning magic + [s]Elemental Melding = Triad). By this logic, Bluff should be an [s] skill--also Climbing and Intimidation, because they're generalized things that just about anyone can do well, without training--just that some people take extra time to train in them.

Cooking, Diplomacy, Herb Hunting (Herbology/Botany), and Mechanics should probably all be [k] skills in some form or another.

Specifically speaking, I think Backstab should be absorbed into [s]Chink Detection or a similar [s] skill, or even into weapon skill based techs for (usually light) weapons--anyone can make a sneaky backstab attack, but not everyone is going to be specialized in it. It doesn't seem to be worthy of a "normal" skill on its own.

The debate about languages is already going on, but as I see it, an adventurer or well-educated character in a fantasy setting is likely to know at least two languages, purely for utilitarian purposes. It should also be kept in mind that languages are not exclusive. Just because a language is (predominantly) spoken in only one country, and even if that country is mostly isolationist or hostile, that does not mean that the language in question will never be learned by people outside the country. Valth and Barius are not exceptions. Barians have come to the mainland, and not all Valthi live out the entirety of their lives stuck in their "designated sectors"--indeed, none of the Valthi PCs I'm aware of do. Plus, even if they were restricted to "D-class" sectors or whatever, scholars and linguists could certainly go to Valth, study the culture and language, and take it back with them to their home countries. As such, I'm sure there's a book on Barian grammar and vocabulary floating around in the castle library, and it might be possible for interested students at Gunnir to learn Valthi (even if it is a fairly limited language in terms of use). My perspective on languages is that if a character has a good reason to know a language, he does--but more often, he only knows parts of it. A good example is Hakaril--the guy can fluently read and understand Elvish and Celestial, but usually has little reason to speak either. He knows a few sentences (mostly choice phrases and insults) in spoken Draconic and can read it with a little bit of effort, speaks very basic Griffonic (at about the level of a 6 year old, and it requires him to transmute his vocal structures to even make the right noises, and he's still terrible at it). He knows about as much Valthi as a first-year Spanish student knows Spanish, and he knows maybe three words of Barian, one of which is "sandwich," which he looked up primarily for comedic value. Poor Will Baseton.

If this seems unrealistic to anyone for some strange reason, I can use myself as an example: I've taken three years of Spanish, two of Latin, and learned to speak and understand a little bit of extremely rudimentary Japanese. I don't consider myself a fluent Spanish speaker, but I can read and understand it about half the time, I still recognize Latin vocabulary and remember almost all of the grammar rules, and my Japanese is limited to greetings and simple sentences about how I'm a foreigner and would like to order a beer. I don't claim to be able to speak any of those three languages, but I'm at least familiar with them.

In any case, I don't feel it's unbalanced for a character to have some grasp of several languages if their background suggests it might be feasible--but I don't feel that the D&D approach of "spend a point and gain functional fluency in a language" is all that appropriate, either. As such, it seems to me to be pretty fair to let players decide what languages their characters speak (and how fluently), because it's hardly gamebreaking and can't really be considered a balancing issue.

Besides, if a GM needs a language no one can read or understand for some reason, he can always make one up (archaic Draconic alphabets, for example, or dead languages that haven't been spoken or written for centuries). <p>
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Re: Well:

Unread postby Kelne » Thu Sep 01, 2005 8:30 pm

Further revision.

I've cut out most of the magic types mentioned. Dragon magic remains for the time being, since dragon or dragon-half PCs pop up from time to time, while Ryuuzoku and Paladins of Stacey are much rarer.

I have to disagree on cooking and diplomacy being knowledge skills. Book learning doesn't necessarily make a person a great diplomat or a great chef. Diplomacy comes down to charisma in large part (at least in the sorts of face-to-face encounters PCs tend to be involved in), while cooking can be either largely a matter of instinct, or following a recipe straight out of a book. Both have been made support skills for the time being. Looking back, I seem to have missed mechanics. Something for next time.

Weapons have been divided up into different categories. A more exhaustive listing of weapon types will of course appear on the equipment page. It's noteworthy that certain skills, Swords for instance, will encompass weapons from multiple size categories.

Magic shielding I'm not sure about. I don't see philsys as containing any one-off skills that provide a fixed bonus. I'd suggest a rank/2 bonus to MgR, and leave damage reduction out entirely. A reduction of a point or two doesn't make much difference, and it slows things down.

Two-fisted fighting has been placed into support skills, since it parallels two-weapon style. As a note, we still have two versions of unarmed fighting. I'd think that (Cou/Str/Agi) is the better of the two.

Since I'm going away for a while, this is likely to be my last update to the skills list for the next few days. When I get back, I'll turn my hand to equipment, since I seem to have a few notes there. <p>Centuries of threats of "I'll turn you all to stone!" and "I'll knock you all down!" have caused Domans to develop an instinct to form small groups. For safety, I assure you. – Keir</p>

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Re: Well:

Unread postby Archmage144 » Fri Sep 02, 2005 1:46 am

I would like to note that neither Two-Weapon Fighting or Two-Fisted should be [s] skills unless it is listed that they cost 1:1 as opposed to 0.5:1 in terms of points.

I'm willing to go with you on the Diplomacy and Cooking things.

If [s]Advanced Parry is +1/rank, [s]Magic Shielding should be, too, I think, even though it's technically possible that it will be useful more than once a round (unlike the former). Axeing the damage reduction is fine, though. <p>
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Re: Well:

Unread postby NamagomiMk0 » Sat Sep 03, 2005 11:05 am

It'd also make sense for Deception to be a [s] skill by the standard definition presented by Brian. It HELPS you deceive, but you can do so without.

Additionally, I present an additional case for keeping [s]Magic Shielding at a 1/rank bonus. Yes, magic costs MP. Yes, magic has no cap on the number of resist rolls you can make However, it might be worth stating that magic does significantly higher per-hit damage as opposed to even a high-skill unarmed fighter. Also significant is that there are few, if ANY pieces of equipment that actually provide damage reduction against magic, whose damage comes in very large chunks as opposed to chains of hits. To top that off, even nondamaging offensive spells tend to have nasty alternate effects that make up for the lack of damage, or effects that go alongside the damage. I can name a large number of cases that can be mentioned there.

All in all, I don't think it's a problem to keep [s]Magic Resistance at a 1-per-rank bonus. <p>ChibiUrusai: *chomps* I am underage. ^-^
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Unread postby Kai » Sat Sep 03, 2005 1:27 pm

Yeah, with there being no "standard" equipment that reduces magic damage, resisting a spell is key to surviving, in many cases. Strictly speaking, it is not that much harder to block a spell from an opponent than a physical attack, assuming your magical defenses are already decent--a mage's chance to land a spell is not really any better if the defender is prepared. However, arguably, it is more important to resist a spell than it is to dodge one sword swipe--a good physical hit will leave you badly wounded, but a good spell hit will leave you unconscious or dead at higher levels. This, systematically speaking, is fine--and since Philsys combat emphasizes dodging or resisting over having tons of HP to soak damage, this skill should definitely be 1:1. It's much easier to raise PA, as you can hypothetically put your weapon skill ranks toward defense andraise stats that add to your base AT/PA, and physical fighters can use [s]Improved Parry to their benefit as well.

For the sake of fairness, [s]Magic Shielding is a good skill to have in the system, and a fair deal at 1 rank for +1 chance to resist. <p>-------------------------
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Re: Lazy Brian uses Kai's computer!

Unread postby Kelne » Sun Sep 04, 2005 6:03 am

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I'd only suggested the rank/2 thing to counteract the fact that people were paying 0.5 per rank for it at present. <p>Centuries of threats of "I'll turn you all to stone!" and "I'll knock you all down!" have caused Domans to develop an instinct to form small groups. For safety, I assure you. – Keir</p>

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PROPOSAL TO THE DARK COUNCIL

Unread postby Capntastic » Mon Sep 05, 2005 2:42 am

I propose that offensive spells do either Magical damage, or Physical damage.

My reasoning is that being able to resist magical-fire or slow-spells will not help one when a summoned giant rock falls on them, or a conjured sword runs you though.

As for how Physical Damage spells would be evaded, most could work as projectile weapons, were ACC = Rank + Dex*2.
The target's armor counting, of course.

I think it's a pretty logical idea, really. I'll wait to see what people think before adding more ideas.





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Re: PROPOSAL TO THE DARK COUNCIL

Unread postby NamagomiMk0 » Mon Sep 05, 2005 10:23 am

One problem. Offensive spacial spells do physical damage, and without some conjured weapon. However, how would you "dodge" a massive gravity fluctuation focused on you? Just something to ponder when you throw out that suggestion. <p>ChibiUrusai: *chomps* I am underage. ^-^
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Re: PROPOSAL TO THE DARK COUNCIL

Unread postby Jak Snide » Mon Sep 05, 2005 10:38 am

Gravity spells would probably be best left as magic in nature. You can't really dodge the field of effect, since the spell isn't fired at the target. And if we were to count it as physical damage then AC would come into play, which seems a might odd. Best to say you can resist the pressures being applied to your body since they are magical in nature, I think.


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Re: PROPOSAL TO THE DARK COUNCIL

Unread postby Archmage144 » Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:38 pm

Quote:
I propose that offensive spells do either Magical damage, or Physical damage. My reasoning is that being able to resist magical-fire or slow-spells will not help one when a summoned giant rock falls on them, or a conjured sword runs you though. As for how Physical Damage spells would be evaded, most could work as projectile weapons, were ACC = Rank + Dex*2.

I think we already discussed "reflex saves" and how we weren't going to do it. And adding two separate "attack roll" formulae to spells gives GMs an extra thing to worry about.

Philsys combat is already terribly slow at times, because GMs have to calculate and recalculate things a lot--I felt at times that without my calculator the numbers and multipliers involved ultimately would have taken me far longer to deal with. If a GM has to back off double-check to determine whether or not the spell is a "physical projectile" or not, it will bog things down even further.

Plus, if you can dodge a thrown rock as if it were a physical attack, why not dodge a thrown fireball as though it were a regular missile?

This has already been discussed, essentially, and for both balance and simplicity, the idea has been vetoed. <p>
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Re: PROPOSAL TO THE DARK COUNCIL

Unread postby Capntastic » Mon Sep 05, 2005 10:34 pm

It's not like the GM would arbitrarily decide if the spell's effect would be physical or magical; it could be written in the spell's description. Most spells would be pretty obvious, anyways.

Also, since the dodge stat needs to be written up onto sheets anyways, it'd be right there for a GM to roll. It's not like it'd be any different than, say, a ranged attack-- and a helluva lot easier than some multi-attack with modifiers techs.


Archmage144
 

Re: PROPOSAL TO THE DARK COUNCIL

Unread postby Archmage144 » Mon Sep 05, 2005 11:27 pm

Unfortunately, that's not entirely correct.

Let's use a basic example. A character has ranks in Earth magic, and he is using a spell that creates and hurls a large rock to throw at an enemy. From an RPG perspective, this is a spell--most console RPGs would simply treat it as an earth-elemental attack spell and leave it at that. Philsys's spell mechanics often mirror CRPGs (Final Fantasy in particular comes to mind), so this makes a decent example.

The first reason for an issue here is that if spells create physical "missile weapons," the "normal" spell check, INT+WIS+MAG+rank+d20, is essentially not important. As such, it won't get made, and in its place, a different roll will. If we're talking about using the rank of the magic skill as the rank for the "skill" with the missile weapon, that doesn't necessarily make sense, either, because being able to create a rock and being able to throw a rock accurately are not the same.

The second reason is that if a character has to use a second skill to throw the rock created by his spell, he is at a disadvantage when compared to characters who choose a different form of attack. He must invest skill points in ranks in the "Aiming Conjured Rocks" skill. With the suggested bases, it means that he must also invest in an additional stat, DEX, which will likely do him no good otherwise--magically speaking, it will only be useful for his "missile weapon" spells.

The third issue is that this comes back to the "why throw a fireball when I can just set my foe on fire" argument against "Reflex saves" in Philsys--all spells are resisted exactly the same way, both for simplicity and for consistency. If a character gets a resist roll to avoid any spell cast on him, and the rules are consistent (which they should be), a character that is the target of a "missile spell" should get a chance to dodge the spell and a chance to resist the spell if he fails to jump out of the way (or whatever). For the sake of balance and consistency, all spell attacks are handled the same way. No character has an advantage or disadvantage because the cosmetic effects of his spell differ from those of another caster. The cosmetic effects are just that--cosmetic.

If a spell's effect is "physical" in nature, it could be noted that the spell's damage is reduced by the target's armor class. Creating an entirely separate mechanism for making and avoiding spell attacks will simply overcomplicate things.

As a side note, if a character wanted to use a spell specifically to create projectiles, like throwing knives for immediate or later use, that would definitely be acceptable--in that case, the character is utilizing an effect that is clearly not a direct spell attack. However, most spell attacks that deal "direct damage" should be handled with a simple spell roll vs. resist roll, because it keeps the system uncomplicated. If the GM would prefer to describe the character as somehow dodging the effect (in the case of the giant earth-elemental boulder, for example) because it would make more sense, I highly encourage that it be done.

Philsys, as I see it, needs to tread carefully while walking the very fine line between "too much detailed shit to keep track of" and "not enough detail to accurately represent a character." Strictly speaking, no system is needed for an RP, but many players enjoy the mechanical complexities of a system that add a "game-like" dimension to roleplaying. A system should generally attempt to do as many things as possible in almost exactly the same way--in other words, it should base as much as is possible on its core mechanic. In GURPS, the core mechanic is 3d6, and 90% of rolls in GURPS are 3d6 checks. In d20, the core mechanic is d20+modifiers vs. DC. In Philsys, the core mechanic is somewhat more unclear, which is why I feel it is a less streamlined system--it approximates d20+modifiers, but oftentimes even at low levels the modifiers contribute as much or more than the roll does. If anything, the core mechanic of Philsys needs to become more streamlined, not more divergent, which is why I favor as many types of checks being "universal" as possible. Creating multiple types of spell checks, resist checks, and the like will only create confusion.

Keep in mind that there are two extremes in roleplaying, and, generally speaking, I like neither of them. On one end, there is HYBRID (which is obviously a joke, but supposedly defines every facet of your character ranging from their SAT score to their penis size based on some obtuse logarithmic variables). On the other end are systems like The Window, which define characters in loose, abstract terms. Commerical systems attempt to strike a balance between the two wherever possible, some leaning more towards "crunch" (math, detailed descriptions of individual spells and abilities, "game" stuff) and some favoring "fluff" (GM arbitration, player sense, the system as being a background that serves as nothing but an impartial judge for the characters, "roleplaying" stuff). In my opinion, Window isn't much better than the d6 "Chatsys" we used to use for quick arbitrations, and an overly complex Philsys will err dangerously closely to the side of HYBRID (okay, it'll probably never be that bad, but the hyberbole makes my point well). <p>
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Besyanteo
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Re: PROPOSAL TO THE DARK COUNCIL

Unread postby Besyanteo » Mon Sep 05, 2005 11:40 pm

Translation: No, Zero. There is no compelling reason for your suggested change. Please stop rephrasing it to present it again. :(


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Kai
Fighting the Iron Law of Oligarchy Since 2006
 
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Re: PROPOSAL TO THE DARK COUNCIL

Unread postby Kai » Mon Sep 05, 2005 11:59 pm

*glomps Bes* <p>-------------------------
"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit and the emperor remains an emperor." -- Sandman "The Kindly Ones" </p>

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