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<snipped long post about logarithsm, CR, and math that it is far far far too early in the morning to compute>
... and that ladies and gentlemen is reason number five that I no longer use XP.
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Should one who sucks at math even bother an attempt at 3rd party TTRPG design? How about one who's been gaming for some 20 years and has a kind of pseudo-intuition about it?
Given that 137ben boggled my mind for a bit (math has never been my best subject unfortunately :P), I'm going to say probably not. :P
I will say at least getting the basic math of the RPG system you're writing for would be a huge help though. :)
I'm going to jump in and disagree with Ashiel for the first time in awhile. I think the CR/EL formula in 3.5 is better than the one in pathfinder. It may not be simpler, but it is more accurate, and it can actually be made simpler by altering the pathfinder xp table slightly.
(Warning: in the following discussion, I am going to ignore monsters with a CR less than one, because they are handled differently. They are also handled differently in pathfinder, as the pattern in the CR and XP table changes. I will address such weak monsters at the end.)
Thanks! :D
I'm going to go over this a few times and try to commit it to memory. ^_^
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Sadly, the whole appropriately-calculating-CR thing is pretty useless to me in general, both because I don't use XP so having to keep track of an "XP budget" is irrelevant, and because my players are almost never challenged by things of the "appropriate" CR. Likely mostly because we tend to have rolled stats rather than point-buy, so the characters are generally far stronger than they'd otherwise appear, and because my players are very fond of unorthodox solutions that you can't really factor into CR or APL. It's kind of bizarre the sorts of things these guys and gals tend to think up. So I typically pitch a little wildly until I have a general idea of what sort of things actually challenge them, then eyeball everything from there, adjusting on the fly as needed.
Occasionally I'll give them a soft encounter that I meant to be challenging, or they'll get tripped up on something I thought was much easier than it actually was (like when I threw a Nerizo at a level-5 party and the only reason they didn't TPK was the Oracle got a lucky crit card that banished the thing) but generally it seems to work out.
Do you think it would be possible to turn the entire Tower fight part of the Dead Fantasy series (up to the bit where everyone gets teleported) into a workable Pathfinder scenario?
Having just spent some time re-watching it (I loved these), I do think that it could though some additional material would be needed than what's in standard Pathfinder I think.
I gotta run to work but I'll provide details when I get back!
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I was wondering what kind of response the city itself has. Since they have access to 6th level, the city should have the firepower to deal at least some of the attackers.
Defenses will be mustered certainly, but the majority of the local guard and such are within the realm of normal humanity, with a few outliers (such as the aforementioned casters). It's assumed that there's quite the raid going on and that the PCs are dealing with a portion of it (they essentially end up crossing paths with certain encounters at the GM's discretion).
I would love to know what happens to Kellad bay if they PCs do nothing. While the PCs should have little difficulty dealing with 1 Yeti/WW combat it can be an interesting challenge if they have to engage 4 squads within 12 rounds to toss the assault back on its heels.
I may end up implementing a sort of scorecard to determine the overall success or failure of the attack on Kallid's Bay and might throw in some extra events that could occur if certain prerequisites are met. How much of this I'll include in the core of the adventure versus additional options in sidebars is a bit up in the air. While I'm pretty fond of large scale combats and such, I recognize not everyone is, and I think it can be written so you can have your cake or eat it.
That particularly tough if the encounter areas are spread of several thousand feet but dim door or splitting the party might make that doable.
Much of this I plan to provide resources for in the case that the GM wants to make use of them. It's important to note that in all technicality, the GM can skip any or all of the encounters that aren't integral to the advancement of the plot, which means that several of the Yeti/Wolf encounters and some of the Undead encounters might not happen if your GM feels the players won't care (or the GM can throw in a few extras if the party is diggin' it).
Because of this, I'm intending to some sidebar commentary about tweaking the adventure for your desired purpose. The battle with Crexa out on the bay is intended to be quite formidable, so if the GM wants to play around with the warfare stuff, the GM might have each of the bonus encounters a little lower on the CR scale (using the reduced XP budgets) if the idea isn't to strain the resources of the party to the wire (because if the party deals with all of the optional encounters plus the battle with Crexa, they'll definitely be exceeding the 4 equal-CR encounters / day paradigm). I feel this is a good thing (my players are really good at resource management) so having the extra content to throw at them if they're being really efficient should be a plus. :)
I would also like to see the encounter difficulty with each encounter. I think you said they are supposed to be 11th level so this first on is APL+0.
Also what happens if the PCs stop to use large are buffs on mass troops (bless/Prayer)?
I'll probably include a few encounters where the PCs have the ability to lead other citizens in the fight, so if the GM wants to include that sort of thing they'll be able to. Also, again, if the GM is interested in running more of an "epic" start for the game where the first raid on the town is more like a war, then the GM will be able to balance out the combats with friendlies.
The system I'm thinking of using for balancing friendlies is creating some sample NPC groups and letting allies be kind of a CR coupon. So if you give the PCs 4,800 XP worth of allies then the encounter gets 4,800 XP worth of additional badguys. I think this will produce some really epic fights for anyone who wants bigger, badder, more grand combats. Likewise, in such cases, you'd be rewarded for supporting your allies since if they're not being useful then the encounter is going to be harder for no appreciable gain.
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You might have bonus objectives be placed in the adventure, like preventing the destruction of a peasant armory, or aiding a troop gathering resources from the guards' alchemist lab (alchemists fire and the like) etc.
Keep a running total of events that they succeed to see how their efforts effect the over-all raid. For example, if they succeed in recovering supplies from an alchemists lab, several squads of guards and some of the peasant militia might be outfitted with alchemists fire and come to their aid or the aid of others or make other encounters easier. For example, they might be beset by a large squad of Winter Wolves that get carpet bombed by a friendly NPC squad with Alchemist Fire turning a tough encounter into a much easier one.
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Do you think it would be possible to turn the entire Tower fight part of the Dead Fantasy series (up to the bit where everyone gets teleported) into a workable Pathfinder scenario?Having just spent some time re-watching it (I loved these), I do think that it could though some additional material would be needed than what's in standard Pathfinder I think.
I gotta run to work but I'll provide details when I get back!
Okay, back from work and this is what I've considered at the moment.
The Scenario
The scenario, separate from the mechanics of the fight itself basically goes in this order.
- The interior of an old temple (with hanging platforms).
- The exterior of an old temple (with a precarious bridge).
- A stupidly high spire of awesomeness (with obstacles).
- A boat ride on a river of lava (danger everywhere!).
- A fight on an icy lake (big finale).
That's the whole thing.
So let's try to work this out.
Temple Interior
The interior of the temple is relatively simple. Now one of the things that stands out as being somewhat difficult is the platforms and stuff hanging around inside the temple and how fragile everything seems to be in the scenarios. Characters routinely do things like snap chains and crush stone objects. Now, being a high level martial (especially initiators that deal damage in lump packages) could get around most of these issues and make it more viable.
Secondly, since the temple is old, we could probably assume it's run down with the broken condition if we wanted to have more fun with more easily smashed objects.
There's even some reasons to do things like snapping chains and throwing the platforms into enemies and that's because when you throw a a "falling object" at someone, you make a touch attack, which makes it a more attractive option since obviously the characters in Dead Fantasy are speccing defense pretty solidly (as is especially apparent whenever Ayumi and Rikku are duking it out).
Temple Exterior
The temple exterior is probably the simplest battlefield. It has the least "moving parts" of the scenario being a platform, a bridge, and the escalating temple. It requires nothing special other than the threat of getting tossed off making lots of "stage hazards".
The Freefall (AKA Stupidly High Spire of Awesomeness)
Probably the craziest of the environments you'd need to deal with because the entire fight happens during a free-fall at terminal velocity (as is apparent since much of the fight actually takes place with no one touching anything). Hence the name. In about 12 seconds, a human reaches terminal velocity during a freefall, traveling about 1500 ft. during that time. So over the course of the fight, they have fallen thousands upon thousands of feet (hence "stupidly high").
Given that the characters are obviously high level, the falling part isn't actually a major threat to their safety (it caps at 20d6 damage) and if any of them have slowfall (which doesn't actually slow your fall rather than reduce falling damage) they can coast down the entire time with no issues.
About mid-way through the fight they begin having to dodge structural features. The way I'd probably handle this is separate the spire into several planes of squares (say 30 ft. across) and roll a d6 each round to determine where the next obstacle was going to appear, and then you have 1 round to get out of the way before you smash into the obstacle.
River of Lava
Technically similar to the temple exterior, you're now on a platform that is traveling along at a brisk pace. It's basically an arena with a massive stage hazard (LAVA!). You can include objects or areas outside of the platform as you run by (such as the mountainside Tifa runs across) for added scenery.
Icy Lake Fight
When Rinoa shows up, she freezes the lake of lava to prevent everyone from getting BBQ'd. A miracle spell should be sufficient for this as one of the things you can casually do with it is divert a disaster and gives the example of sparing a city from a natural disaster (if you can basically say "No" to a comet destroying a city, then you can probably say "No" to lava burning a small group of people).
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At least for me I will need far more the four at level encounters to get my PCs to even consider calling it a day. I usually throw 3 to 7 Apl +2 to +4 encounters at them to run them down.
They asked me why I amp things up so much and in response I ran the final dungeon of an AP as is. They took 22 APL+0 (ECL5) to APL+2(ECL7 encounters in a row. They did have 5th PC but still...
They rested up and then used their newly granted 6th level to take on a CR 8 followed by a CR 11. They CR 11 has write in for a helper. They got none. They had to NOVA to win but they did with only one person knocked out of the fight.
My players optimize at about 7 or 8 for any given sheet but they work together and have massive party synergy and then they use tactics better then any other group I know.
I have seen them use PFS pregens and come up with a plans they ensure that no encounter is more then mop up after round 1.
Nice. This reminds me a lot of the groups I've played with. I see one of the strongest options for a player is the ability to manage their resources and tip the scales in their favor. If you can, marathon games are not only possible but entirely win-able.
For example:
I was playing my witch flavored psion and I don't think I spent more than 5 PP in the fight. I just used 1 PP ectoplasmic sheen powers (think grease) against the low-Reflex giants. Giants would fall down or lose their weapons, the party would focus on a single giant at a time and mop them up, and generally made it difficult for the giants to surround them. Before the Chicken-the-Hut managed to wreck two of them, the party had all but routed the rest.
Similarly, when Aratrok and Aliizsa charmed some trolls and turned them back on their teammates. Pretty epic resource management right there!
There's also the beauty of knowing when to nova, like you said. By using your resources wisely, you'll have them when the poo hits the fan. In one fight that the party was in, Aratrok had been saving up some high CL potions that he bought a few sessions prior and buffed to hell and back during a particularly large encounter where they were outnumbered. The result was his archer turned into a tank. :P
When I mod an AP I usually account for the 5th PC, fix stupid in stat blocks and then smash the 20 or so encounters in the dungeon down to 6.
I hear ya. It's kind of depressing sometimes how much you have to fix statblocks and stuff. :(
Sounds like you've got a great team of players. :D
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Sometimes they forget to role play in their quest to roll play but it is great fun. At least they are all adult enough to accept "Wow that is great build, please don't play it anymore."
Occasionally they stumble on a just win button and after they use it once they can accept that the game is no longer fun and not do it again. Still we generally play at 10th below those buttons are hard to avoid when you have 6th level spells. I am hoping to learn to deal better with them and let play get higher.
One thing I'm pretty happy about is my group are big fans of the roleplaying. Generally speaking, I try to tailor adventures to the characters in question, or modify adventure paths a bit to be a little more interactive with the party. I think that helps get people out of their shell.
For example, my brother made a Paladin and he didn't really have anything in the way of a backstory besides a couple of visual details and some family heirlooms. So I started having NPCs refer to events and stuff that hadn't happened, something involving some cabbages and a destroyed statue of his god, a his commander being kinda furious about it, and his current superior being kind of a dick. I'll see if I can get him to pop over here and tell you about it. :P
.... *cough*. $500 worth of RPG books, and the only bid I got on 'em was $175... After fees and shipping and so forth I'll be lucky to recoup 1/4th of that, and most of those books were brand spankin' new too, creaky spines and all...
Should I feel bad? Wondering if I should've priced 'em higher, lol. Ah well, still got 20 hours of hope for a bidding war ^_^.
So, I'm totally into this... Sorta-kinda new game that I only found out about a little while ago and have yet to really play. Have you heard of OVA RPG? AKA: Open Versatile Anime?
It's totally sick. Totally smooth, totally streamlined, and deceptively simple (I wind up over-thinking things a LOT). With your love of changing viewpoint on fluff and flavor, you can use it to cover pretty much anything, even non-anime. It's easily probably the best system I've seen for Star Wars, for example. The system sets out for "Cinematic" experience, rather than simulation.
I only have like 2 or 3 out of my group of 6 that RP. The rest of them are there just for the hack n slash. It bores me as GM, honestly.
It is what it is.
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My group role-plays, but they sorta create these uni-dimensional characters (one player is a sexy assassin for Calistria- so... sex and death, pretty much all she cares about). And character types that lose utility in combat end up being abandoned completely (the "Diplomat" of our group uses Chain Lightning as the solution to every problem and has endorsed genocide... twice.)
I try to thread things for them (I feel like I am at least somewhat successful at that) but sometimes they forget their own RP elements. So... I have some hack-n-slashers. We have fun, I guess that is all that matters.
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And character types that lose utility in combat end up being abandoned completely (the "Diplomat" of our group uses Chain Lightning as the solution to every problem and has endorsed genocide... twice.)
Look, mistakes were made. It was time for aggressive negotiations. At least everyone is at, um, peace now. Yes? Yes. (Self-evidently.)
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Recent example:
GM (me): As the paladin lay defeated, the clouds gather overhead, as you feel the presence of your dark master. The brightly burnished breastplate with the holy symbol of Mitra, darkens and turns black, as that symbol is replaced with the symbol of Asmodeus!
Player (anti-paladin of Asmodeus): Umm. Meh. I don't want it. (proceeds to give a lame metagame reason why he shouldn't claim this breastplate)
GM (me): <facepalm>
My group role-plays, but they sorta create these uni-dimensional characters (one player is a sexy assassin for Calistria- so... sex and death, pretty much all she cares about). And character types that lose utility in combat end up being abandoned completely (the "Diplomat" of our group uses Chain Lightning as the solution to every problem and has endorsed genocide... twice.)
I try to thread things for them (I feel like I am at least somewhat successful at that) but sometimes they forget their own RP elements. So... I have some hack-n-slashers. We have fun, I guess that is all that matters.
Yeah I get that sometimes with some players. Sometimes talking about characters like talking about them in a book helps, I think. Commenting on where they were and where they've come, character development, events, etc.
Hahahahah~!
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In the Diplomat's defense she did try diplomacy for a while... She offered to "help" the Duergers in their war against the Drow so the dark dwarves took this as her offering herself and her comrades as free slaves and put them in shackles and prepared to give them to the Drow as a peace offering...
Another time she made parlay with Iomedaen clerics/paladins in order to prevent them from warring with her kingdom (bla bla harboring dark priestess of death bla bla evil explosions and turning their saint into a golden statue bla bla) and in the course of the 'negotiations' she had a Geas and a Mark of Justice placed on her...
So... I mean... I suppose one could say that she hasn't exactly had the best experiences with her negotiations. But the poor Svirfneblin... Their screams...
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In the Diplomat's defense she did try diplomacy for a while... She offered to "help" the Duergers in their war against the Drow so the dark dwarves took this as her offering herself and her comrades as free slaves and put them in shackles and prepared to give them to the Drow as a peace offering...
Another time she made parlay with Iomedaen clerics/paladins in order to prevent them from warring with her kingdom (bla bla harboring dark priestess of death bla bla evil explosions and turning their saint into a golden statue bla bla) and in the course of the 'negotiations' she had a Geas and a Mark of Justice placed on her...
So... I mean... I suppose one could say that she hasn't exactly had the best experiences with her negotiations. But the poor Svirfneblin... Their screams...
So... what you're saying... is...
Look, mistakes were made. It was time for aggressive negotiations. At least everyone is at, um, peace now. Yes? Yes. (Self-evidently.)
;D
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Hey Ashiel- what do you know about the dnd 5th? We are starting a new game and we decided to try out the 5th rules and such... I kinda like the character creation and the idea of Inspiration.
I dunno if you had any tips or thoughts or: "Oh yeah just remember to look out for..."s
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But I wear full plant and switching to breast plate will lower my AC.
iirc, it was "I already got a +2 breastplate, and I don't want to carry two of them around."
What? GIVE it away? Azmodeus would spit in your eye given half the opportunity and a pinch of Copenhagen!
That's very much so like giving it away.
If you replace the "give" with "take a disproportionate amount in exchange". :D
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you weren't LION about that being a good TACTIC!!! lol, ah... thanks... I will be here all week. Tip your waitress.
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Tip your waitress.
Every daggum day. In fact, it's getting kind of weird. And she doesn't "moo" like she's supposed to.
TBH I almost had him un-fall or whatever happens to anti-paladins.
But it would have only been out of anger, not any good in-game reason.
So on the boat ride to Farholde, he had nightmares. Dreams in which he was surrounded by enemies, and when he needed his power the most, it left him. When I informed the player of this, he just shrugged.
The other characters, to their credit, became interested that he may be losing favor with Asmodeus...which means he'd no longer be protected by contract...
SMH
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Hey Ashiel- what do you know about the dnd 5th? We are starting a new game and we decided to try out the 5th rules and such... I kinda like the character creation and the idea of Inspiration.
I dunno if you had any tips or thoughts or: "Oh yeah just remember to look out for..."s
The power balance in that game is intensely caster heavy. Especially since skills will never get out of the gutter where there's a chance of a random commoner beating you even at 20th level, and hitpoints outscale martial damage output really hard. The winning move in 5e is be a class that can cast animate dead and bring an army of skeleton archers everywhere.
Basically, if your character's plan involved making attack rolls or skill checks to contribute long term, you've already lost in 5e.
Paladins are pretty okay though. Their offense is underwhelming like everyone else's, but they get an aura that provides a save bonus equal to Cha, which is a godsend in a game where your highest save ever will be +11 at 20th level (and your lowest might be +1 or +2) and save DCs go up to ~19-21.
Hey Ashiel- what do you know about the dnd 5th? We are starting a new game and we decided to try out the 5th rules and such... I kinda like the character creation and the idea of Inspiration.
I dunno if you had any tips or thoughts or: "Oh yeah just remember to look out for..."s
The power balance in that game is intensely caster heavy. Especially since skills will never get out of the gutter where there's a chance of a random commoner beating you even at 20th level, and hitpoints outscale martial damage output really hard. The winning move in 5e is be a class that can cast animate dead and bring an army of skeleton archers everywhere.
Basically, if your character's plan involved making attack rolls or skill checks to contribute long term, you've already lost in 5e.
Paladins are pretty okay though. Their offense is underwhelming like everyone else's, but they get an aura that provides a save bonus equal to Cha, which is a godsend in a game where your highest save ever will be +11 at 20th level (and your lowest might be +1 or +2) and save DCs go up to ~19-21.
Hmm... this is going to make people think Paizo likes martials or something... UNACCEPTABLE!!!
/joke
A friend of mine gave me a copy of 5E's rules and I followed along in the playtest for awhile (but could never get anyone to playtest with me). I've kind of lost all interest in the series to be honest.
Ashiel, have you heard anything about the Occult Adventures book coming out soon? If so, what's your opinion on Paizo's take on psychic themed classes?
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I'm not Ashiel, but my opinion is:
I like psionics because of its mechanics and how easy it is to change the fluff. I get the impression that that's the case for a lot of psionics fans. A book about completely different mechanics with some vaguely similar fluff seems kinda pointless if the goal is to sell it to people that like psionics.
If it's anything like the playtest I'm not interested in spending any money on it. I'll give it a read over when it's online for free a few weeks later.
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Hmmm... so far our party is a Barbarian, Bard, Cleric and Monk... I wouldn't let anyone play Warlock (because I want to play the warlock and I don't want anyone ruining the experience MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! EVIL! or... you know... NEUTRAL!!!)
I think the game SHOULD be to the benefit of casters because it is MAGIC!!! and that should be a big deal. But I also think that once the spells are gone casters should mostly be robed furniture: "Well, I have cast both of my Magic Missile spells for the day... oddly within the same battle. Now I shall stand over here and provide commentary on the wondrous feats of strength my comrades are able to achieve! Oh... and cast Light. Because BRIGHTNESS SOLVES ALL PROBLEMS!!!"
You know... THAT is balance- Phenomenal cosmic power... once! :)
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You know... THAT is balance- Phenomenal cosmic power... once! :)
Once is all it takes... in the right hands.
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The problems with balancing casters by limiting their spells slots while giving them incredible cosmic power is that 1- They still have game-breaking abilities, 2- It's really boring for caster playera to stand around doing nothing.
It's very freaking difficult to make spells powerful enough to compensate only having a few of them without giving out so many spells per day that expenditure becomes a non-issue.
IMO, simply removing/revising the most troublesome spells (Simulacrum, Maze, etc) would make casters balanced enough... I'd also prefer that SoL spellz had more gradative effects based on your roll, rather than being the all-or-nothing bullshit they are.
oooh... yeah! Rolling spells... I like that.
How would that work Ash?
oooh... yeah! Rolling spells... I like that.
How would that work Ash?
Actually... I was referring to rolling saving throws... But it's pretty easy to convert spells so that the roll is made by the caster...
Caster rolls 1d20 + spell level + casting attribute modifier. Saves become a statix defense of 10 + usual saving throw bonuses...
The math stays exactly the same.
The only problem is that this makes SoL effects even more infuriating... -.-'
Isn't that basically how 4E saves worked?
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oooh... yeah! Rolling spells... I like that.
How would that work Ash?
Probably like it will in the new core I'm working on. Save or suck/lose/die spells as well as a lot of other effects in the game are becoming non-binary, where the amount you fail against it matters.
For example, flesh to stone might partially petrify you on a failed save, where you become staggered until you can get healed. That sucks, and it's damn debilitating, but it still lets you keep acting. However, if you fail the save by 10 points, you're a lawn ornament.
This also means a lot of spells and effects will be more lethal as sweepers since you can liberally apply effects that are viciously harsh when used against enemies who are far below you. For example, wail of the banshee might deal minor damage on a successful save, moderate damage on a failed save, and instant-kill all those trash mooks that failed by 10 points.
Another example of this in action is a feat I cooked up as a prototype for a werewolf encounter I was running for Aratrok and Aliizsa in a different campaign. The werewolf had a fear-inducing howl that it could use once every so many rounds. Failing the save made you shaken, failing by more than 5 made your frightened, and failing by 10 or more made you panic.
Most effects tied to HD (such as cloudkill, lich fear auras, etc) will follow this design paradigm instead. Likewise a lot of "save or lose" effects like mummy auras and such will do this too.
Attacking Saves: Aratrok and I have also discussed reversing saves so that the attacker rolls against defenses. I'm probably going to go with this practice in the core revision as the standard for two reasons.
1. It allows players to roll dice (something players usually want to do).
2. It cuts down on total rolling (you make 1 attack roll when the wizard chucks his fireball instead of making 5 saving throws for the 5 goblins getting nuked). I view writing rules as sort of like writing a computer code and cutting down on the amount of "processing" that has to be done to resolve an action is a #1 priority as it allows you to resolve actions faster.
3. It opens up some possibilities for playing around with using your saves as alternate armor classes. For example, we could theoretically make a talent that allowed a PC to temporarily replace their armor class with their Reflex defense as they go into a sort of extreme-dodging mode.
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Isn't that basically how 4E saves worked?
Yep. While I really don't like 4E, there are some things in it I did like. Saving throws as defenses are one of those things.
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If you use the 'Saving Defense' style of saving throws, one thing you need to do is make it so that spells that effect multiple people have guaranteed effects.
In such a system, doing something like a 2-level dip into Rogue becomes very attractive because, it requires the caster to make a single roll against everyone. So, say the 20th level Wizard throws a fireball at those uppity peasants in the Thieves Guild. If he totally botches his effect roll for this fireball (say, with rolling a 1), all of those level 2 rogues will have been unaffected by the spell.
An Inquistor 11/Rogue 2 would be a bit of a nightmare (Stalwart and Evasion).
___________________
However, if you were to the 'gradual effect' thing Ashiel is doing, you could change things like Evasion or Stalwart so they make it so you are affected as if you were one category better on your saving throw.
Missed your save by -10? Instead of being petrified, you're only staggered until a remove curse is cast upon you, because your Stalwart improved your 'effect category' by +1.
An Improved Evasion/Stalwart could improve your effect category by +2.
Isn't that basically how 4E saves worked?Yep. While I really don't like 4E, there are some things in it I did like. Saving throws as defenses are one of those things.
Ah. See they were one of the things I most DISliked.