So I had an interesting conversation with Ember last night. They brought up some points worth mentioning here and mulling over.
1) The "World's Greatest Swordsman" should own any new character, even with T1 +0 gear.
I think Ember was getting at how our power is strongly tied to out equipment- which is true, at least for our damage much of our defenses. But I got to thinking about it and the World's Greatest Swordsman would still own T1 characters as well as some low-level T2 characters with T1+0 gear. Here's why:
Sword Attack = BAB + Feature + Heavy/Light Melee Attack Bonus + Racial bonus + Dragoon = 20 + 20 + 40 + 10 + 20 = 110
Even without the Racial Bonus or Armor Bonus, the World's Greatest Swordsman is already dealing maximum effect and damage to anyone in T1 armor 1000% of the time. Adding on the Racial Bonus and Dragoon Armor puts them where they need to be to also have strong effectiveness against a player in T2 Armor.
The World's Greatest Swordsman will also have defenses stoked higher than a normal T1 characters, likely with Reflex Maxed and all their Defensives maxed. Their Reflex would be between 80 and 90 in heavy armor, or nearly on par with a T2 opponent in heavy. Their Physical resistances will be the main thing lacking; but it will still be around 27.
Finally, the World's Greatest Swordsman will have the benefit of maxed out Reactives, and an Attack, Utility and Reactive set up that is built to work together to take down most any foe- regardless of gear quality.
So Test 1 is a pass. The World's Greatest Swordsman can definitely take down any T1 character with ease, and probably some T2 characters as well.
2) The World's Greatest Swordsman shouldn't be reduced to T1 status just because their settlement was taken away from them. This isn't a test so much as it is a statement of something that is pretty obvious. As Ember pointed out to me, the rootless-hero is a common fantasy trope. I would add that it is not uncommon for Hero's to loose their home and come back even more powerful than they were before. Anyways, the point is, a level 20 character going to T1 status in any amount of time as a result of loss of home is silly and immersion breaking.
That said, the mechanic of loss of ability is an important part of what will keep settlements and together- particularly due to the number of MMO players who tend towards solo play. It quite literally forces everyone to work together. So! I'll propose a new system that compromises between the two ideas.
Instead of us getting knocked back down to T1 from what ever high status we had reached, we get knocked down by a percentage of our ability- say, 20%. Longterm, this mechanic would be gradual over two weeks- both loosing the power and regaining it.
For the World's Greatest Warrior, this means gradually slipping down to level 16 in power- still Tier 3 and a potent, dangerous foe; but the edge has now been knocked off.
For someone at Level 10, they would slide back down to level 8. Someone at level 8 would just go back down to Level 7.
Of course, since not all feats work on a 20 rank system, there would be some fidgeting to get the system right. But the details wouldn't bee too hard to work out in this case since we have a wide variety of ways to determine the "Effective Level" of a feat.
Goblin Squad Member
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Another very common fantasy trope is the hero only gets to die once.
Some might say that an unlimited number of resurrections is silly and immersion breaking. That's their opinion; Goblinworks seems to think that unlimited resurrections is importantant for the game design; game design being some balance of fun and meaningful.
What Pharasma giveth, Pharasma can taketh away. I'd be ok with characters holding onto whatever skills they have... up to the point of their death. So if you get kicked out of your town (or lose your town), Pharasma generously gives you one month to be a social animal and find your character a new town or retake your old one. After 1 month, though, at the next resurrection, the character suffers the full impact of not having town support. The rootless hero can avoid Pharasma's cold grasp at his skills as long as he can stay alive.
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Goblin Squad Member
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He's also not really left-handed.who? the six-fingered man?
No, different scene.
To be fair, neither of them are actually left-handed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like Thurman's idea, along with (maybe) some slippage, instead of a plummet. Say two weeks' grace after being de-settled, then 1 level every additional two weeks or after every death.
So, up to day 14 no loss. If you don't die during days 15-28, one level at day 28. If you do die after day 14, that adds on. Lose one level at a time until bottoming out at NPC level.
No precipitous drop, unless you get killed a lot (which probably means you're doing exactly the sort of thing they're looking to stop).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another very common fantasy trope is the hero only gets to die once.
Some might say that an unlimited number of resurrections is silly and immersion breaking. That's their opinion; Goblinworks seems to think that unlimited resurrections is importantant for the game design; game design being some balance of fun and meaningful.
What Pharasma giveth, Pharasma can taketh away. I'd be ok with characters holding onto whatever skills they have... up to the point of their death. So if you get kicked out of your town (or lose your town), Pharasma generously gives you one month to be a social animal and find your character a new town or retake your old one. After 1 month, though, at the next resurrection, the character suffers the full impact of not having town support. The rootless hero can avoid Pharasma's cold grasp at his skills as long as he can stay alive.
I really like this idea as well, it strikes a good balance of what I think Ryan is looking for and those looking for a story idea for the power loss.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd be ok with characters holding onto whatever skills they have... up to the point of their death. So if you get kicked out of your town (or lose your town), Pharasma generously gives you one month to be a social animal and find your character a new town or retake your old one. After 1 month, though, at the next resurrection, the character suffers the full impact of not having town support. The rootless hero can avoid Pharasma's cold grasp at his skills as long as he can stay alive.
I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking this is a really cool idea. It seems to provide a reasonable - and hard to argue against - response to a lot of the objections to losing access to Feats, without really sacrificing the design objectives. It also gives a little nod to the Perma-Death crowd.
