Philsys: Racial talents and other musings

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Philsys: Racial talents and other musings

Unread postby Archmage » Tue May 01, 2007 3:52 pm

First: Yeah, there's a Philsys revisions thread. I felt this deserved its own thread.

Second: I'm going to enjoy a big heaping serving of crow, since I'm pretty sure Nama brought this up once and I told him it probably wasn't necessary. Now I'm starting to think it might be a good idea.

Third: Yes, the character closet is the "Philsys discussion" forum. I don't like that and never have, so sue me. I think that's a good place to discuss individual sheets instead of the system at large. :(

OK, so, the real point of all this.

I've been thinking lately about characters that have innate racial talents, partly because of Miang's sheet. It's been more or less accepted that dragons can breathe (stuff), for example, and Amanda had a lot of interesting ideas for things Miang could do with her breath weapon aside from simply breathing a single blast. There are a lot of other "racially appropriate" skills that have come up, such as certain types of magic (fey), unique talents (vampire charm/dominate/bite, succubus life-sucking), plain weird abilities (slimes, shapeshifters), and the like.

The solution to these issues has been somewhat inconsistent. The usual understanding of the situation is that the player must pay skill points when applicable; fey characters only have nature-oriented magic that the PC has spent skill points to justify. Not all (race) are going to have the exact same abilities, just inclinations toward certain racial talents, so this works reasonably well. Until we start looking at characters with more fantastic or unusual racial abilities, anyway.

Playing an unusual race in Philsys essentially costs nothing because it offers no "free" benefits; anything your character can do, you have generally spent skill points to justify, with some minor exceptions. It is generally accepted that certain innate racial abilities (darkvision, gills, even elemental affinities) are part and parcel of playing a specific race, so they get tagged [Innate] and everything is cool. Some [Innate] abilities are tied to character level, notably the system for gradually increasing elemental resistances that I worked out way back in the day for various characters with strong elemental affinities.

These sorts of "passive" talents seem to work well this way. They often don't scale up as the character grows in strength, and when they do, the character has no way to accelerate their growth because it isn't an ability set that the character is actually practicing in any way; you can't "try to be more fire elemental," for example.

Active skills are a different story.

Breath weapons, dominating gazes, life-sucking powers, shapeshifting, whatever, these abilities seem like they should cost skill points. The obvious initial objection to this is "but this is just something my character can do, not something he learned to do, why skill points?" I'm suggesting skill points because they're a fair way to require characters to invest some sort of cost in their abilities. Perhaps it's better to think of skills and skill points as a reservoir of points to spend on unique things that the character can do that other people may not necessarily be able to do rather than things the character has trained in.

There are some definite advantages to this revision.

Under the current system, the only way an [Innate] can scale as the character grows in power is typically character level. On one hand, the character gets a boost each level "for free" (which is probably bad). On the other, the character has no way to focus on specific abilities, being limited to the level progression and not being able to spend skill points to "do better." Of course, characters can only spend skill points at level-up anyway, but it's a good way to differentiate characters of the same race (as rarely as that happens).

For example, suppose two characters are both shadow dragons. What if one PC wants to focus his attention on improving his swordsmanship and the other wants to focus on improving his inborn draconic talents? Under the current system, the latter PC would presumably take ranks in shadow magic, while the first might not. However, both of them would get the same breath weapon and elemental resistances. Why not allow the latter PC to specifically train himself to have a much better breath weapon than the former?

Essentially, what I'm proposing is that characters who have useful racial abilities should take a skill for them, assuming that no current skill covers what they need to do. In most cases, Cou/Sta/Mag seems an appropriate base set. For example:

Dragons: Draconic Powers [Cou/Sta/Mag]. Covers breath weapons of all appropriate types, including more creative uses of the ability, and abilities that are very specific to the type of dragon in question.
Succubi/Incubi: Demonic Talents [Cou/Sta/Mag]. Life-draining sexual contact abilities, very limited shape-shifting at higher ranks.
Vampires: Blood Talents [Cou/Sta/Mag]. The classic bite attack, spawn creating abilities, etc. Domination and the like fall under the Telepathy magic school, so this ability does not grant them.
Shapeshifters: Polyself [Int/Wis/Mag]. Covers self-only shape-shifting abilities.

This is only a short sample list; we can come up with more as necessary.

Essentially, this sort of system gives characters a concrete way to improve their racial skills--by spending points--and allows them to have a tech progression like other skills do. For example, a dragon with 1 rank in Draconic Powers might have a weak version of a breath weapon, whereas a dragon with 12 ranks could create a wide-angle spray that fills an area and lingers, dealing continuous damage. Keep in mind that these skills do NOT include things that are already covered by an existing skill, notably schools of magic; instead, these skills cover things that a character can only do because of his or her race.

While we're at it, giving base stats to these kinds of abilities makes it easier to make opposed checks for them; at current it's pretty much assumed that a dragon's breath is opposed with either Mblock or MisEvade, but what the hell do you roll for the dragon's side? I've always treated it as a standard magical attack, but that doesn't seem right anymore.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
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Unread postby Seethe » Tue May 01, 2007 11:34 pm

First off, I definitely like the idea of applying base stats to innate abilities.

However:

Succubi/Incubi: Demonic Talents [Cou/Sta/Mag]. Life-draining sexual contact abilities, very limited shape-shifting at higher ranks.


I can see requiring a skill for shape-shifting, but it's not really an ability I would have associated specifically with succubi or incubi. No more than with any other type of demon or fey, at least. Kilisha, in any case, isn't going to be getting it.

As for the "life-draining" ability, I don't really know how that's going to be improved. There shouldn't really be any way to improve it. You consentually have premarital or extramarital sex with a succubus, she rips your soul. That's not going to get a whole lot more effective. It really shouldn't even require a check, either, since you already failed to resist when you fell for her charms. I mean, no matter how hot someone might be, convincing some random stranger to just up and have sex with them is already a difficult enough proposition <s>unless said stranger is a man</s>. And if the intended victim knows they are dealing with a lilim, it's going to get even more difficult. Once the conditions for the ability to take effect are met, though, the only relevant variable left is whether the lilim decides to be mean or nice. Therefore, I think this should remain an Innate, maybe should even be considered a passive ability, and probably shouldn't even cost any TP or MP. Definitely no MP, since a lilim with no points in Mag should still be able to do it due to the fact that he or she is still a lilim.

Now, skills I would think relevant to this ability would include Seduction, which really ought to be listed in the Skill List on the Wiki anyway, and probably something related to whatever it is the succubus actually does with souls once she has them. Probably just plays with them in most cases, but I don't know. Somebody with a succubus who isn't as opposed to the idea of soul-sucking as Kilisha is should probably answer that question.

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Unread postby Archmage » Thu May 03, 2007 11:29 am

As for the "life-draining" ability, I don't really know how that's going to be improved. There shouldn't really be any way to improve it. You consentually have premarital or extramarital sex with a succubus, she rips your soul. That's not going to get a whole lot more effective.

Either I poorly explained this or you completely missed half the point of it.

One of the issues is that there are certain abilities that a character should not have at first level. By assigning a (Name of Succubus racial skills) skill, a fixed rank progression can be assigned, allowing the ability to mature as the character levels.

Being a foocubus does not allow you to simply kill people who have consensual sex with you; it allows you to rapidly drain their life force through acts of intimate contact. When the victim isn't resisting (or can't resist) this becomes a whole lot easier, but foocubi are not known for asking. At that point, it's even possible for it to be a combat ability; grapple, pin, initiate forced makeout session, drain life force. They don't have to seduce their victims, because their victims don't have to be willing.

At no point should a low-level character be able to simply deal instantaneous death to anyone they can convince to follow them to bed. As such, lower level foocubi might have the option to deal shadow damage during intimate contact. As they improve their skills in energy draining, they might be able to gain that damage as hit points or temporarily improve their statistics. And at some point, paralyzing their victims while they are steadily drained of energy would be available. It should never be a "free" ability; a foocubus character should have to spend skill points to utilize it, especially in the capacity you're discussing. It's definitely not passive, because foocubus characters have engaged in sexual contact before without killing their lovers, so they obviously have control over it. And, like all abilities of a similar nature, it should cost TP to utilize.

Can of worms: ICly, we run into cosmology issues if foocubi can actually claim the souls of their victims. I always assumed that the whole "soul sucking" thing was basically just a layman's description of what happens. People who have sex with foocubi frequently just kind of die. I imagine that their souls are free to go on to some appropriate afterlife normally, unless we want foocubi to become the mortal enemies of Reshtaha.
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Unread postby Nekogami » Thu May 03, 2007 11:45 am

Could you post an example of how other systems deal with this situation? I mean just for comparison of style.

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Unread postby Archmage » Thu May 03, 2007 2:30 pm

Sure.

GURPS. You don't have any racial abilities. In fact, GURPS doesn't even technically have races, and even when they do, they don't matter, because all GURPS characters are a package of abilities and nothing more. You can't do anything you haven't spent points to buy, whether it's something the GM will likely allow anyone to purchase (the keen hearing advantage) or something the GM will restrict to certain racial groups as part of a package of abilities (a poisonous bite).

In GURPS, you as the GM might rule that all elves have night vision (20 points), keen hearing and sight (2 points each), and one level of magical aptitude (15 points). The GM would then sum up the costs for each advantage (total 39 points), factor in some quirk of a bonus (maybe a +1 to musical instrument skills), and say that it costs 40 points to play an elf. It is not cheaper to say "I'm playing an elf" and buy the package of abilities than it is to say "I'm playing a human" and buy all the abilities separately.

The same goes for more fantastical creatures. In GURPS, you might say that a demon species has razor-sharp claws (20 points), an armored hide (6 points), and fire breath (25 points). In order to play a demon, the player would have to spend the total cost (51 points) of all of the demon's abilities; you don't get anything for free by saying you want to play a demon, even though it might not be logical for a human to have any of these abilities, preventing a human from purchasing them in the first place.

Philsys ought to operate the same way, for the most part. You can't just say "I'm playing a dragon" and get a whole truckload of free abilities at first level, because if you do, everyone who isn't playing a magical beast of some sort is disadvantaged considerably. Rather than introduce weird mechanics that give people bonuses for playing humans, it makes more sense to charge people (somehow) for playing exotic magical creatures.

With this revision, playing a dragon doesn't actually cost you anything--unless you want to use things like the dragon's breath weapon. For the sake of consistency, and because it's just cool, most players are going to spend the skill points to be able to use their dragon's racial abilities. If the skill points are not spent, the character can still learn to use them later, since the dragon could always breathe fire--he just didn't learn how to do it effectively yet.
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Unread postby Capntastic » Thu May 03, 2007 3:04 pm

D&D 2e's Skills and Powers stuff works similarly from what I know. You can choose to play an elf and you get so many points to spend, or not spend, on elfy abilities. Humans gets these points too, but to spend on more humany things; or skills or whatever.

But stuff like what AM says is why I wanna try to get my mitts on a GURPS book because it seems pretty legit.

Anyways, innate abilities should work like techs and make sense, cost-wise. Hurray!

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Unread postby Idran1701 » Thu May 03, 2007 3:48 pm

Capntastic wrote:D&D 2e's Skills and Powers stuff works similarly from what I know. You can choose to play an elf and you get so many points to spend, or not spend, on elfy abilities. Humans gets these points too, but to spend on more humany things; or skills or whatever.

But stuff like what AM says is why I wanna try to get my mitts on a GURPS book because it seems pretty legit.


Not quite, but sort of. In 2e S&P, you get a certain amount of points based on what race you choose to select from a suite of abilities specific to that race, though you can save the points to spend instead on class abilities, skills, or traits later on.

For example, elves get 45 points to spend on abilities from an elf-specific list, while humans get 10 points to spend on abilities from a human-specific list.

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Unread postby Seethe » Thu May 03, 2007 4:03 pm

but foocubi are not known for asking.


That is a basic assumption that I failed to make make. I really haven't been able to find any examples of how this issue has been handled in RP, if it even has been. It was my perception that consent was required and, therefore, it would already have been a difficult enough ability to use, especially in actual RP. If consent isn't required, though, then I'll agree that it shouldn't be a free ability.

However, if the ability requires grappling first, then the succubus is going to need to be fairly strong in the stats related to grappling. So, my new question, should the succubus then have to deal with another resistance roll for magic? After that, how much damage can she actually cause? If she has to put up with both grappling and MRES, then the chances of the ability actually working are going to be pretty low, so the damage would have to be pretty high for the tactic to actually be viable. Or would the whole thing be entirely dependent on Cou, Sta, and Mag despite the use of both grappling and magic?

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Unread postby Archmage » Thu May 03, 2007 8:42 pm

To the best of my knowledge, no one's been brutally violated by a foocubus and had their life force sucked away in an RP, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. This partly has to do with the themes RPGWWers as a whole are interested or willing to RP; nonconsensual sexual contact of any type* has traditionally been outside the scope of RP here, not that that's a criticism so much as an observation.

I'm not sure why you would perceive that consent was required for an effective foocubus attack, given their mythology, but I digress.

An astute observation, that a foocubus would have to have significant physical strength to overcome a target by grappling. I don't know where you ever got the idea that this should be easy. I imagine that any foocubus that wanted to make its energy drain an ability used in a standard combat situation instead of defaulting to something that leaves it less vulnerable (like, I dunno, a weapon or spells) would presumably train in unarmed combat so as to better subdue foes for passionate life-sucking make-outs. This doesn't seem unreasonable to me. A low-level foocubus would probably need to restrain and drain a target for several rounds to knock them out, whereas a more powerful specimen might be able to knock a target unconscious with a firm kiss and drain the rest of his or her life energy in a round or two. Even if you can drain life from opponents by kissing them or whatever, that doesn't mean it's always the best option for combat when your target is surrounded by allies.

The most basic thing to keep in mind is that in-world, foocubi's characteristic ability is to steal the life energy of others through intimate contact. It would certainly be easier to seduce mortals and trick them into giving up so that they don't know what's happening until too late, but that's not the only use of the ability.

What you're asking for now are precise numbers as to how effective a foocubus can actually be in terms of energy draining attacks. I could come up with those if it were necessary, but there is a question of whether or not anyone actually needs them right now. If they do, I can throw something together.

*Potentially excepting "comical" violation of the male anus, with or without spoons.
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Unread postby Seethe » Thu May 03, 2007 10:42 pm

What I really want to know is how useful this talent is, practically speaking, as compared to the racial talents of other races. Because, even at a low level, if it's ineffective in battle and has no purpose out of battle aside from being a fancy alternative to slitting your lover's throat in their sleep, then we've really just unbalanced the race towards ineffectiveness.

It's fine for an ability to be hard to use, but if it's also ineffective, there's no reason why a succubus would realistically choose to develop it.

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Unread postby Idran1701 » Fri May 04, 2007 5:04 am

There is if a succubus doesn't care if it's effective in battle or not. Not all (and I'd go so far as to say the vast majority of) succubi and incubi would even care about if they can use it while they're fighting, since they would tend to prefer the seduction route.

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Unread postby Archmage » Fri May 04, 2007 6:41 am

Seethe wrote:then we've really just unbalanced the race towards ineffectiveness.

It's still more supernatural power than humans get, as a rule.

I'm totally not going to adopt the the argument of the position "being able to kill people in sex with no weapon and without leaving any physical marks is useful" because I just don't feel like taking the time to construct it.

Additionally, it has been established from an RP perspective that killing people with energy drain during sex is fun, probably more enjoyable than actual sex alone. I assume that most foocubi are ICly going to advance their talents in it because one possibility is that they could make it more useful for them in the long run. If you can boost one of your primary stats for several days because you sucked out the life force of a strong warrior, or temporarily increase your magical score because you devoured some mage's energy, I'd say that's a pretty valuable talent.

It may not be useful in the hands of a foocubus PC who spends all his or her time fighting off hordes of goblins with other PC adventurers unless the foocubus just can't control itself and has to tackle the last remaining survivor and have its way with the poor beast. It isn't really my job to come up with these sorts of RP-related motivations for every PC, so I'm not going to try.

We're digressing horribly from the subject of this thread to talk about life-sucking sex, but the real point of this entire discussion is that racial abilities need to cost something, somewhere instead of being a pile of free abilities tagged with Innate and earned at first level just because "this is what my character can do." I don't think people abuse the Innate tag on purpose, but it should be clarified just what you can and cannot do for free, and the most recent thing that brought this to the forefront of my mind was Miang's sheet. Miang had a lot of really cool dragon abilities, but it seemed weird to just call them all innate and assume she had them all, no questions asked, at level 1. It would be much better and more interesting if she learned them all over time, and it would allow her to develop even more techniques than the ones she had at level 1 in a concrete manner tied to a skill progression, which is much better than saying, "well, I think I'm level 5, that's good enough for a new innate, right?"
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Unread postby Nekogami » Fri May 04, 2007 7:48 am

I have to agree with you, Brian, that innate abilities of an advance nature should cost something.

I think my understanding of innate abilities were they were abilities that occured naturally. So if we were to compare a dog and a human, "Walk Upright" would be innate for a human and "Super Smell" would be innate for the dog. But even man must learn to walk and dogs must learn to hunt, so I can see where you're going with innate abilities.

The only problem that I'm encountering in my reasoning over here is how do we treat Innates. Should they be race specific and be bought from a list as half price like [K] skills? Or perhaps should levels and prices be applied to them?

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Unread postby Capntastic » Fri May 04, 2007 2:02 pm

I'd prefer they be bought at full price. After all, it'd be sort of unfair for someone to essentially be able to buy ranks in fire magic (dragon breath) or whatever for half price just because of being a dragon.

I really like the idea of a character's race just being flavor, and having the option to pay points for racial abilities as you would any other character. Which I think is the point of this thread. If you want to play a troll, you're gonna have to pay points for being able to regenerate and all that. Likewise you could play a human that, for some logical explanation (having some trollish blood), can regenerate as well. And then it's just up to the player to decide how powerful that ability is.

It's a fine line between making characters balanced and making them make sense; and I think that if a person really wants to RP some cool race that can go through walls or whatever, they'll be willing to funnel points into it.

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Unread postby Seethe » Fri May 04, 2007 3:48 pm

Additionally, it has been established from an RP perspective that killing people with energy drain during sex is fun, probably more enjoyable than actual sex alone.


So, the return on the skill points spent is gratification. Now I see the benefit. It isn't the kind of benefit I was thinking of, but it generates utility for the character all the same.


As for the overall idea of this thread, it works for me as long as characters retain the option of not taking their racial abilities. I mean, I still want the option of having a dragon that doesn't have any breath attacks so that the points required for breath attacks can be spent on other skills. And I definitely don't want a race to become a set packet of abilities. Not that such a thing seems like it's being proposed, but just to be sure.

I also would prefer having racial abilities cost full price. For one thing, there are the fairness issues. For another thing, being able to take them at half-price would encourage people to universally funnel all the points they could into their racial skills, which would cause characters of the same race to be more likely to all be copies of each other.

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Unread postby Nakibe » Fri May 04, 2007 5:28 pm

Um, I think that was said about a couple of posts back, Seethe. In fact, that's in the ORIGINAL post here.

Anyway, what we need to do in general tems is think of the abilities that the various Gaeran races are SUPPOSED to exhibit innately, and at least start thinking of benchmarking the ones that should naturally be trained up over time. Forget the Cubi. What about the many DRAGONS we have here, huh? How about the Blood Angels, or the many many other races that need their abilities explained at this point?


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