robert4818's page

PC's in MMO's aren't generally like people in real life. They don't go home on a regular nightly/weekly basis. They'll wander hundreds of miles away for "weeks" on end, barely ever stopping by their home town.

With that in mind, how do we make an assassin/bounty hunter able to track down a PC in order to kill them?

Obviously we don't want to put homing beacons on pc's that track their movements down to exact spot on your minimap. But at the same time, leaving their location completely unknown renders assassins both neutered and largely un-fun to play.

So, some thoughts.

A bounty contract will allow you to see "last town visited" (LTV) by the target, at the time the contract was written. From there we rely on the streetwise skill.

A person hunting a target goes into the LTV by the target and starts talking to various npcs. For each success, you build up a little bit of information, for each failure you build up a little bit of "notice". (i.e. Hey man, some guy's been asking around for you). When you reach enough success, one of two things happens:

If the person has been active in a different town since the contract, it becomes the new "LTV" and the cycle restarts.

If the town really is the LTV, you are given a 7 hex "super hex" that has his general location in it. With a bit of searching through those hexes, you can narrow that tracker down to that one single hex that contains your target. Beyond that, your on your own.

The game generally keeps track of who's "attacked" you, so that if you truly want to you can issue bounties, death curses, etc.

It shouldn't be too hard then, to give players a box listing people who have "wronged you" (i.e. attacked you, hit you with spells, etc.) that allows people to choose whether or not to forgive that person or not. The system is unforgiven biased, and you have 24 hours to choose to forgive or not. If you do not forgive them within 24 hours, then the game assumes you do not forgive them. If you do forgive them, the the game simply refunds the reputation/alignment hit they took for the attack. (Alternatively, the reputation hit does not take effect until the choice is made to forgive them or not).

I don't see this option being open for system abuse, though you always have the chance that the person who should forgive you simply chooses not to.

Taverns are the center of the "Kaverns and Kobolds" gaming world.

Its where adventurers meet up, spend their gains, relax, and start/end adventures. Oh, and they also get Drunk.

Now in an MMO, especially DDO and Neverwinter, I've seen this concept fall flat. Taverns are simply not fun to hang out in. In fact, they are quite boring.

First, you can't really get drunk in video games, so that reason for going to the taverns is done.

Second, there's nothing to DO in the taverns. People in bars beyond getting drunk also tend to want something to do.

I say we get some tavern games. If this was DnD I'd suggest Three Dragon Ante, butits not...so you might try finding some non-poker style gambling card games you can make analogues of for Pathfinder.

Then there's Liars Dice, commonly seen in Pirates of the Caribbean and some other games.

You might also add in darts, ringing the bull, or other olde taverns.

The key here is when you have "down time" in the game, either enforced, or when the player just doesn't want to craft, explore, kill (etc.) they can go to the tavern, pick up a game and play.

I've just been reading up on the PVP and flagging system over on Goblin works (I know, I'm behind the curve here). I wanted to talk a bit about the concepts of Risk vs Reward and long term consequences for criminal actions.

I'll step into the real world for just a second, and ask, if being a criminal is profitable, why don't more people do it? The answer is that the risk for doing so is, for many people, unacceptably high. Sure, you can rob a bank and get away with 30-40 thousand dollars, but in the process you risk spending a very large amount of time in jail, or even a very permanent vacation in a 6 foot hole. Being a criminal means you have a very high reward potential vs a very high risk potential. You can earn lots and lots of loot, with the risk (generally one that grows higher with every crime) of losing pretty much everything.

When you leave the real world and go back to MMO Land, you end up losing keeping the high reward, but you lose the high risk. There's a very good reason for not killing characters (permanently) or locking them up for long periods of time. Both tend to drive away players. However, I've found that without some level of risk that counters that level of reward, you end up with a very lopsided equation that has more people than "normal" deciding to take up the mantle of criminal. Its simply too lucrative a job in the long term.

I talk about long term risk here, because when you look at short term risk, things look fairly equal. Both players have a chance to live or die, and both stand a chance to lose items upon death. Even if you lopside the short term risk, (say wolf loses 2 items, sheep loses 1 on death) the short term risk is outweighed by long term gain. On top of this the wolf generally takes precautions when hunting to lower his short term risk.

For example, A sheep might be wearing their "Best" gear because they are going to/have been hunting monsters/dungeons for the better part of their gameday. These better items are generally "essential" for this style of play. On the other hand the wolf, knowing the risk he is about to embark on, generally puts on gear that is "good enough", and looks for the best time to strike. Remove any illusions of the Robin Hood walk up. What generally happens is a wait for an opportune time such as after a grueling combat before the strike happens. This greatly lowers the wolfs hunting risk, and helps him build that reward. Will the wolf lose? Yes, but statistically speaking, over the long run, his gain ends up being much more than his loss.

The question then, is how do we fix the long-term risk/reward system so that the high reward of choosing the outlaw life is balanced by some sort of long term risk?

The path they are on is a decent start, but I don't think it works to level out the equation, though unfortunately, I don't have the answers for that problem just yet. The key though is that once flagged criminal/evil, getting killed for those actions (such as through a bounty or a death curse) should really really hurt.

I can't help it. I'm a HUGE fan of 4th edition's Warlord. A class who's primary job on the battle field isn't necessarily to fight, but instead to coordinate the battle to the benefit of his allies is just such a great concept.

As it is, I would like to create a "Warlord" for Pathfinder, and I figured you guys can help.

My thoughts:
Hit Die: d10
Armor: All Armor and Shields
Weapons: Simple and Martial

Schtick:
Team Player - Any teamwork feat can be used by a warlord in conjunction with another player, as if the player had the teamwork feat.

Team Leader - Any of the warlords allies may utilize any teamwork feats that the warlord has, as if both they and the warlord had the feat.

Bonus Feat - At level 3, and every 3 levels thereafter, the warlord may take a teamwork feat as a bonus feat. He must still meet all other requirements.

Tactical Points - A warlord gets a number of tactical points equal to 1/2 his level (min 1) every day. These refresh after 8 hours of sleep. Tactical points may be spent as follows:
-1 point Swap initiative position with an ally
-1 points allow an ally to take a free move or standard action on your turn.
-3 points allow an ally to take a free turn immediately following your turn.
-2 points designate a single enemy, targets have +2 to attack and damage that enemy.

These are my thoughts so far. What can you guys think of?

I love the concept of the teamwork feats. I hate their execution. I didn't like them in Star Wars Saga when I saw them, and I can't say I'm a fan of them in Pathfinder either.

My problem with them is that generally the feats require other people to also purchase the same feat to be of any use. With the feat economy generally as tight as it is, it makes this sort of proposition fairly unusable.

Instead, I would rather see the game opt for treating the "group" as an entity. Just like a player, or even a familiar, the "group" can increase in strength. One of the advantages for this increase in strength would be the gaining of the "Group Feats" which, basically, are the team work feats we have already. The only difference is that once the group grabs the feat, everyone counts as having it.