Orn 3.0 - Problems to Address

Most of you haven't been here long enough to remember, but the current Shards of Orn game system wasn't our first. There was a prior version with high health and damage totals (characters started at 20, 10th-level characters could add 50 damage to one hit), skill points that had to be spent on everything (including professions), a Specialty Action skill that let you buy more prepared actions, and bonus actions granted by appropriate race/class combinations.

It was bad.

Importantly, though, we played it long enough to ignore the bad parts. It took a lot of work to convince folks we needed to take it back to the drawing board and find a better way. When we did, though, we unearthed a lot of real problems and ended up solving them. Health and damage got scaled down for simplicity. Armor became a lot simpler, and got rolled into the existing item slot system. Most ways of acquiring bonus prepared actions went out the window in favor of carefully chosen at-will abilities. Free actions based on race gave each race a class-like flavor without pidgeonholing people. We ended up solving the main "cookie cutter" problem the old system created and allowed characters to feel truly unique and interesting.

You can probably see where I'm going with this. The current system will turn four years old this off season. It's not bad, necessarily, but it has its flaws. Some are actually pretty glaring if we take a step back and really think about it. So I'd like to get the ball rolling and take it back to the drawing board for next year.

It'll be a long process, so there's no need to rush everything. For this discussion, I'd like to highlight problems areas, things we've grown accustomed to and tend to gloss over. What does the current game system do poorly, or fail to do at all that it really ought to? Here's my list to get the ball rolling.

Power inflation is too steep. Most level-based RPGs have this problem, and we're no exception. Low-level characters are the next best thing to worthless, while high-level characters tend to be godlike. I've seen this first hand. Thalenir was a caster with no Fortitude but over 50 health due to items. He was consistently able to drop 43 Crit, enough damage to kill 18th-level monsters outright, without using a trump, and his base damage was enough to one-shot most characters 4th level or lower. Things like this detract from the fun, not just for everyone outshined by powerful characters, but for powerful characters themselves when everything stops being a challenge.
Health is impossible to track. Except at the earliest levels of the game, human processing ability can't keep up with even the simplest math. Everybody, and I mean everybody, estimates, which is cheating on paper but impossible to avoid. We need to re-examine this and come up with something simple enough to actually use.
High-level characters are hard to play. It's expected that complexity will increase with character level. However, it can get pretty out of hand, especially with items involved. An 18th-level character with three fully-enhanced masterwork items might have 35 actions to keep track of.
There's no way to choose multiple paths. What if I wanted to play a seer/warlock or an assassin/bard? The current system explicitly prohibits it even though such character concepts might make sense.
Certain items are overvalued. One word: Mana. It's too useful. A revamp of how we create and enhance equipment can help.
Many effects are misunderstood or applied inconsistently. Command, Fear, and Frenzy, for instance. Often times, these effects end up being either too complicated or too powerful, and neither is desirable.
Counting is inconsistent. In theory, waiting out a minute for actions, a minute to bleed out, or 10 seconds between ticks of a performance makes balanced sense. In practice, players tend to count faster or slower when it's advantageous to do so.
Refresh abilities are over-powered. Even after being nerfed, Refresh enchantments (Recall, Guile, Theury, Warfare, and Wizardry) and pale ivory continue to be a power gamer's dream.
Story abilities interrupt narration, stifle roleplaying, tax immersion, and are used inappropriately in combat or against monsters.
Only enchanters and engineers can enhance equipment.
Limits on prepared actions make it difficult to heal.
The large diversity of character builds and items make teamwork difficult.

Please add to the discussion in the comments below. I'll add to this list as I see points worth addressing.

I will start by saying I am no game designer and I don't presume to know the best way to run a game like this. The following are merely observations that I, a simple player, have made.

Allow me to add to the point on mind control by extending the concept to most compulsions. As a class whose bread-and-butter is compulsions, I have found a few problems with them in general (which is a shame, because I LOVE them). Many of them seem to be too complicated. For example, I have almost never seen Fear executed properly. I have seen several instances of people metagaming Frenzy by scooting a bit closer to enemies when they become affected (although, metagaming will always persist, regardless of mechanics). Even Taunt has its subtleties. Charm is wonderfully simple and easy to execute. Perhaps compulsions could be consolidated or cut back?
There is a lot of waiting in the current system. 60, even 30 seconds to rest is a long time to rest or recharge. Seconds tend to be much shorter when resting, and much longer when on a dying count; it doesn't matter how honest a person you are. This goes back to your point about estimating. I'm having trouble coming up with a better way to mechanically balance getting all of your prepared actions back, but there is just too much waiting.
Story Actions. We all know the troubles with story actions. Personally, I have begun to dislike RP on mods because of story actions. I dropped all of mine, except for my racial, because as soon as RP starts, someone else is sure to blurt out every story action in the game. I end up twiddling my thumbs - feeling the immersion dissipate - as eight people use Inspect Secret on a perfectly normal door. If it were up to me, I would get rid of story actions altogether.

That's all I can think of right now, I will post more later if I get more ideas. Thank you for considering my humble input!

Im just gunna go bullet by bullet, because i agree with 100% of this.

Power inflation is fucking real. I can drop a 28 5 times, and im not even capped out yet. I can eat an entire respawn of monsters on most mods because of this. It fucks with the pacing of mods, or makes narrators arbitrarily increase the monsters respawns or stats as a result, which just makes players butthurt. I remember when the Owners rolled out, i felt a sense of relief because i didnt think we would see the 18th level monsters for a very long time, but because myself and other are sooooo heavily geared that narrators have to use them to even kind of challenge us. All that being said, ive been going to this game for a long time, and i want to feel like some kind of badass at this point. As those of you who have met me, im a big dood. Orn is great compared to other games because i dont have to be particularly fit or skilled to have a good time. I augment my play with having a crapton of gear and equipment so i can compensate for my lack of martial skill and fitness, as im sure others do as well.

I am a spellsword that wears armor and has a racial health bonus. I feel that hard to track HP thing.

A high level character is a motherfucker to play. Its a common thing for to be on a knee going "Shit, i could have lived, i have X that would have kept me alive" or for some of us "did i use that stack of recalls yet? i dont think i did, but that Tyrant just respawned, lemme go nuke it" Yes, its a little cheaty. Personally, I think the Recall, Wizardry, Theurgy, Warfare and Guile enchants need to go away. They over-simplify and....vanilla-tize? (thats totally a word) the game. They turn characters into fire hoses.

I could take or leave the ability to multclass within the same path. THAT BEING SAID, Gimme dat sweet, sweet warmage goodness.

MANA IS TO GORRAM USEFUL. I'm a capped forager, and totally benefit from it, and i say the mana-market needs to get nerfed all to hell. Personally, id like to see weapon and armor enhancements come from the classes that make the shit. Guard and Withstand enchants can go ahead and die here. Want more HP? Have your blacksmith thicken your plate, or hell, make it out of a better steel. Or have your forager find you a thicker hide and boil it. Have you tailor weave or stitch something your smith made into your doublet for sneaky armor gain. Want a better balanced sword? have your engineer slap a gyroscope on that bitch. As a smilth, unable to find that right quench oil to make your blades dope as hell? Talk to your alchemist, let them open up a new tier of weapons for you. If we take a look into how things are actually made, we can find a whole slew of ways for our professions to interact with each other aside from "I dun did give deez magic rocks to da enchanta man an' now mah sword extra sharp hurr duurr"

RIP Command, fuck that action. Rebel wasnt that bad, it just needed a use limit. BUT, i am so fucking tired of hearing about it and it simply ruining my good time because people fucking argue about it.

I do agree with Danny that Recall, Wizardries, and Theurgies are the bread and butter of the caster. I haven't had any in the almost 2 years I have been here and my character feels completely weak without them. I am spending the rest of the season FTM to get boon to get those Recall and Wizardry enchants to really be able to contribute in a mod. Unlike Danny I don't blast away a whole wave but plan to pick off one here and there. Without these enchants in the current system, 3 blasts that don't come close to killing anything and I am done. I cannot get off base spell attacks some someone in my face with a 7-syl requirement. I want to play a spellcaster. I don't want the solution to be go take levels of warrior so you have a basic melee attack to get around needing 7-syl incant.

I of course don't have a solution but I think if we do get rid of those enchants should we really have spell enchants anyway. People use them to cover all bases so they aren't vulerable to anything.

Another one I see is Ruin and Maim. Those are something just about every character can do and every character has to plan. Just getting rid of Ruin and Maim would cut out 2 offensive and 2+ defensive actions. Just a thought.

I also am no game developer and have no idea how to really make any of this work in the existing game. What we have is alot of fun and I don't envy anyone having to try to make changes and maintain the quality.

A huge fan of maybe being a scout assassin

@Johnstone: Agreed on the inconsistent counting and troublesome effects. I've added those to the list. There is a safety concern with the waiting, though; it forces people to take a breather. Exhausted players are more reckless, less consistent in following the rules, and, obviously, more likely to injure themselves. Adding space in between exertion is a physical and practical necessity.

I disagree on dropping story actions. I remember a time before them and I feel they've added real depth and interactivity to storytelling. That being said, a good system ought to encourage roleplaying (without forcing it down everyone's throats, anyway), so there might be some room for revision to avoid the sort of interruptions you described. The recent revision allowing well-acted story actions to be lower difficulty spawned from this sort of thinking. Make good roleplaying improve effectiveness and you may find they add to the immersion rather than detract from it.

@Danny: I hear what you're saying about wanting to feel powerful and I agree. Becoming more powerful is a part of most every RPG and won't be going away. I just think it's a Goldie Locks issue: Too little advancement and players don't feel rewarded, but too much and you get crazy power disparity. We just need to redefine how things scale.

I've added the note about Refresh enchantments to the list. I think there may be some room to revisit other professions adding enhancements, though there are several ways to address the mana overvaluation problem.

@Kenny: Most of what you're saying sounds like it would be addressed by fixes to power disparity. I consider Maim and Ruin some of the simplest and most proven effects in the game. They're staples, so they won't be going anywhere.

Power inflation- I think this is not a level problem as much as it is a gear problem. I have went on mods with people who have decked out items and ended up just sitting in the the back doing nothing. They didn't need me for counters and they called so much damage most things fell down before I got to them. I dont know exactly how to fix the gear problem but I think doing something with the refresh enchants many be a good start.

Multiclass- I am 100% down for this one. Does that mean I will probably have to redo poppy a couple times. Yes. But I do really like the idea of being able to dual class while in the same tree. Or just dual class with less limits.

Mana problem- also agree this need to be changed. It is bad when most newbies and some mid players switch professions to a mana making one because that the only way they will make business. I like dan profession suggestion I think that would help the other ones feel more useful while decrease the cost of mana

Command thing- I dont know what to do with this one it been changed so many times. I thought it was fine as rebel and I not even sure exactly how to use it now as command. I have thought about dropping it all together but it is my racial so I keep it around. It may just need to be scrapped at this point.

ALSO, Boon, while we are on game issues.

There should totally be a limit on boon purchased at the very least

Also, why not just give people gold for helping the game? Like the character was off working some odd job or some such while the player is monsters/actually doing an odd job. Possibly add in a feature where you can collaborate on projects, or NPC can be hired to advance your DT/crafting. It would add flavor, and increase the value of gold by having another outlet for it to leave town. Gold could also be used to hire re-trainers and pay for respends

@Johnstone Re:Story Actions
I agree with the point on multiple characters using the same action on the same 'thing' at the same time. Obviously if 10+ characters all use a story action they will succeed, so maybe find a way to nip that in the bud? I don't think they should be done away with entirely (What sort of savage would not be able to break down a door?) but maybe find a way to more easily incorperate them into the RP. That's just my 2 cents from someone with only 1 season and 2 events so take it as you will.

Story actions taxing immersion : While this may be true, what is even more taxing is players not staying in character during an adventure. Constantly shouting out foolish things to interrupt game play and the trying to 'break' a story for fun is not fun for most and taxes immersion.

+1 to Marloff's comment

I like the idea of cooperation between the professions.
My main concern, however, is what Marloff says above - we can have an awesome system in place, but if there are folks who try to break RP, then all the work is moot. I have no answers, unfortunately 'cause, quite frankly, I hadn't realized there was a bit of a probem to begin with. Small issues of unbalance, sure - as a lower-mid level character, I find the higher levels make me superfluous, and then i feel like I'm stepping on the toes of the lower levels. However, as the more experienced LARPers work on the system, the best I can do is listen and see how the new rules fit into the play.

@Danny: Unless something is done to increase the inherent value of gold, I think that changing from boon to gold base would do more harm than good in terms of volunteers and donations. Just my thought.

Now it is time for crazy options to be thrown onto the table only to have them probably thrown off again. But the examining of all options is important in order to help create and maintain an awesome game.

1. Throw out the levels and go to a skill based purchase system of XP. This would be a major overhaul of the entire thing. I would get rid of all the class and cross-class problems and possibly the high/low level gap problem. But I feel it may destroy the flow of Orn. This kind of skill based system works well with hit-location or low HP, but it might not with higher HP characters.

2. Hit location instead of HP. This change has alot of pluses and minuses. So much that I don't think anyone wants to do it; and I would be one to agree with them. I think HP should stay but be limited to something like a cap of 10 or so.

3. A more interlocking profession/production system. Something akin to Dan's suggestion. Mana is overpriced because it is overpowered. Spreading out the love might be the way to go here.

4. Limiting equipment to a one-two-three slots in quality instead of one-three-five. Getting or making a magic item is expensive, but once you have it such an item simply adds actions to your character semi-permently. This should help slow the power growth of characters by items without eliminating it. Making something especially for your character is cool. We like that. We just need items to not be so game braking.

5. Add expiration dates to items so they need maintaince. This would really only slow the accumulation of in-game wealth.

@Danny: I mentioned this in chat, but thought I'd inclue the response for everyone else's edification. Boon is an important reward system. It greases the wheels that keep the game running. If you can get the same reward through downtime or treasure draws, why on earth would you want to do it scrubbing toilets? That being said, it may do to combine boon and wish points, which are weirdly separate based solely on how we used to hand out "plot wishes."

@Morgan, Dana, and Sheila: It's important to realize that immersion is not our ultimate goal. There are more immersive games than ours. Long ago, we consciously made the decision to pursue fun first and leave "serious face" LARPs to their own devices. I'm open to ideas that promote more immersion and roleplaying, but it'll never be a hard rule. Stopping interruptions to narrative is one thing, but breaking character to crack a joke will always be allowed. It's a part of our DNA as a game.

@Robert: Interesting ideas, but you're getting ahead of yourself. Let's start by finding problems to solve, not by finding solutions in search of a problem. ;)

The idea of immersion came from your post Thad. My point was not about cracking a joke and having fun.

I would like to see story actions where people are actually "acting" out the action. Inspect secret (actually looking for traps). Calling on an immortal for purge, etc. Instead of 85 people running up to the narrator yelling out their story action.
Could also limit the number of people per attempt for mods that have a large number of people with the same enchant. Say 3 at a time? Gives more people a chance to actually do stuff for the RP portions of mods.

Edit: Read Thad's other post, so this post is old news....lol

Power inflation is too steep. Cap enchants to items at 1, 2, and 3 instead of 1, 3, and 5. This decreases the number of total actions. Cap actions in general. An action can only be stacked to 3. Instead of 12 Dodges a person could get, that person could only ever have a total of 3.
Health is impossible to track. Decrease HP, or go with a hit location system, with armor/items to soak up hits. This would require a rework of the current combat system, changing how damage, and abilities would work. A very time intensive overhaul, IMO.
Refresh abilities are over-powered. Again, limited number of enchants would eliminate this problem. A person would only ever have 3 at any given time.

@Kenny: Being a monk if maim is lost just about as immortal as it can get since I'm immune to a lot already. And as fun as it is to watch faces drop when I say immune to a monster, would get old after a while.
•I would like too see the scout assassin come about. Lol a lot of stuff you get from the same class would be nice for an option.
•I somewhat agree with Johnstone. A lot of times when it comes to story actions it can be frustrating. Especially if you're doing a mod with a person's character whose overbearing as it is and dominates story actions. Then turns around and address of the group with "there's nothing going on." Even though it's a meta to overhear some of the things that were said. Dude if I'm waiting 20-30 minutes for you to do your story actions you better tell me something.

Maybe a thought could be to just do away with all enchants completely and the only thing we have is what is on our sheets. Then anything new we build is alot easier to balance. It sounds like trying to balance character system with an item construction system on top of it. I am sure people would dislike losing alot of enchants but maybe then we could roll what was enchanted to leveling up characters to make up for it. Keeping the Boon into XP per event to keep boon valuable.

I know this might be jumping the gun a bit but I was just thinking and wanted to get my thoughts out there.

Power inflation is too steep.This might be solved with the Health and High level problems if we find a way to reduce High level effectiveness then they might become easier to play. maybe another numbers squish is needed I don't really know the answer here without looking at a full system overhaul, which I feel is unnecessary. Honestly Orn's system is way easier then others I've heard with health reaching the hundreds and damage in the 20's for base alone. I also think that players should be able to buy missed bonus XP. The bonus XP feature either should go or be built on because it benefiting older players to newer. If you cannot get boon your first five events for what ever reason (there are a bunch of reasons but TLDR) you miss out on a chance to shoot up the level brackets.

There's no way to choose multiple paths. I think just out right this should be added you gain the chance to gain path specific merits and abilities for a lose of class abilities.
Certain items are overvalued. Mana needs nerfed and I think a big part of this is player ability to set prices for things. The other half of the problem is that mana is used for every enchant this feeds into the idea I've heard above. I totally back the idea that certain enchants should require certain items. To imbue with tox (for example) I think you should have use less mana and then 3 of the consumables that imbue tox. Alchemists and Apothecaries become more useful and foragers can harvest other things and maybe then crystals can be removed cause lets be honest no one can afford those. (minus Emi and Squidy, Maybe Brian) I also agree with reducing property limits.
Many effects are misunderstood or applied inconsistently. Maybe squish the effects fear is just out of sight remove the 60 second count. Make frenzy permanent until roused. Things like that might make it easier.
Refresh abilities are over-powered. Agree nerf them again I say. These should cost what imbues cost and I believe imbues should cost less. (Low level proficiency)
Story abilities interrupt role playing and tax immersion.Some suggestions here are to limit story action use and removing stacking, allow for more actions to be used as story actions, increase the level that players get inspect secret(its to useful) or split to categories like detect and inspect (one tells you if something is present, the other tells you what it is?), make some story actions like fly and repel automatic. (I love dropping flyers into might pits cause they failed a check but its more realistic. Maybe (and this one is big) let some story actions be used on players especially if between flagged players. As for immersion as a whole think that maybe the pvp white headband rule should be loosely applied to everyone.
Story writing. This sort of fits in with the immersion problem but I'd like to as a narrator see players plot notes or give players the option to make plot notes see able by narrators. Some high level characters don't realize that Narrators and Writers cannot see their plot notes. I also think that some people are too shy to ask for plot attention either because they are not high level or other. I love cinematic and progressing characters but at the moment its really hard to do and its a little hard to collaborate with other writers. Being able to tag characters to stories so that a archive search would pull up all stories that directly effected them would be nice.

These are just might thoughts and I realize not everyone will agree, but I think as a whole everyone is on the right track. The system is really good but you're right Thad complacency is the enemy of progress

@David: The test you ran during the field battle seemed to work well, though it's difficult to enforce across the board. An uordeq using Adapt Darkness, for instance, doesn't seem to have much to act out.

As far as limiting the number of people or attempts, it's always been on the narrator. I've done one story action at a time, for instance, specified the difficulty, and let each person who wanted to try it call out a different number. In practice, I've found you might as well just give it to them if they've got three or more people doing it.

I like the item enchant caps; it was something I was already considering.

@Kenny: Getting rid of the enchants all together seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Sure, it addresses inflation, but then I can't have a magic sword. It's fun to have magic swords. :P

@Reid: I have to disagree on the bonus XP. The way it stands, those who want to help out have some incentive to contribute consistently, a little bit every event. This nets us a larger pool of helpers who know how to do their jobs well and discourages people from hogging every possible job.

Absolutely not on story actions versus PCs. We've been down that road; it led to nothing but misery for the narrators. How am I supposed to know if the other guy is lying or where he went with your stuff?

Plot notes are largely an old system. In fact, I plan to delete the field entirely. If you want to tell stories about your character, they might as well be public and on your blog.

On the topic of plot notes; I can appreciate that some players may have character backgrounds that you'd like to see slowly brought to light but not be common, readily accessible knowledge. One of the main reasons I first started soliciting player backgrounds was to be able to integrate them into stories.

Short version: Plot is dead, long live storytelling. If you'd like your story brought into play in an in game fashion, please contact the writers; we're standing by to take your calls. :) Note: I don't just mean me, please, I love you all, but I definitely can't write for everyone ( :P ) the other writers love you too! We all have our own styles, so try to find someone who you think can bring your story to light in a fitting way. :)

/End of storytelling/writers soap box. :P

After reading everybody's posts it sounds like to me mechanic wise characters eventually morph into roughly the same thing. Enchants on items give everybody access to almost everything. This is why the high level players can "fix" almost every problem and the low levels feel useless. Nobody (class wise) is as unique as the original build. As you play the game longer you get enchants to cover the weaknesses in your class, which is fine, but it reduces the need to work with others on your mod and think strategically. I'm wondering if some how reducing or restricting the enchants system would help everybody feel more unique and needed on their mod. For example, if rogue was the only class (and players) that had inspect secret then you wouldn't have 15 people coming up to inspect secret (unless you had 15 rogues on the mod, lol).

Also, as a major rp centered player I keep character notes of each event and every downtime encounter in my plot notes. All this info is for my eyes only to help me remember events and thoughts my character has. In no way do I want the general public to see these notes but I would love it if writers could. Therefore, I do not like the idea of getting rid of the plot notes area because it is very useful to me!

Though I've been out of the loop on what happens on mods for awhile I can give a couple of good suggestions to the story action issues. First players try to understand that spamming your actions seems to be one of the biggest detractors from how story actions are being used. Narrators, know that players are going to have a shit ton of them, and probably spam them at you. It could be as Thad mentioned that you let the players take ten if you are running a mod a 10 people are in line with the spam cans waiting.
Also for Narrators consideration...Bad stuff happens when they fail. This can easily make people think twice about just arbitrarily trying to do something. If your warrior has an item that disarms traps cool, but what if his inexperience with traps causes him to bring the cavern floor down on your heads?
As a game mechanic issue I think that story action Items are to blame for much of the butt-hurt about story actions in the system. Taking them out may solve some of the issues, allowing character classes to shine rather than items.
I will say as someone who has played with no story actions, that the system should be overhauled and not eliminated. It sucked to not be able to have traps to bypass, ghosts to talk to, water to walk on, and to fly up and whack a flying dragon in mid air. They are a great tool for narrators (when used and administered carefully), and great fun for a character to get their chance to shine.

Another idea regarding story actions: How about only allowing one story action per challange? That would give players another choice to make during the challange of an encounter and limit the amount thrown at the narrator. The players would then have to think carefully about the clues given in a discription of the challange in the scene instead of spaming the narrator.

If you can not "crack jokes" and enjoy yourself at LARP, in or out character then what is it all about? *redacted by owners*

We weren't compaining about 'cracking jokes'. just that some players try to break emersion.
And, we ALWAYS know where Danny is, ALWAYS have an eye on him, and he is with us MOST OF THE TIME. If we see that the player he is with and speaking with, or playing games with, or is sparring with has had it, we pull him back. He also used to help out at the den - we NEVER saw anyone at Orn as providing 'free babysitting'. We have no one here, and Thad and Jen and Nick were kind enough to allow us to bring him. However, if one person has a complaint, I"m sure there are more. So perhaps we wil not be attending Orn anymore. We do not want to cause any problems for the other players. And if our bringing Danny is the cause as to why people cannot get into character or why immersion is broken, then we can't and won't come.
Thanks, Alexis.. We didn't realize how much of a burden we had been upon Orn. I appreciate your enlightening us.

Alright, I was just going to let it drop where it was. But it seems I can not.
I never said there should be no joking or wise cracking for fun. That was Thad's take on me stating that one player deliberately ruining the story with sheer stupidity (trolling, if you will) just for that one players enjoyment and at the expense of all other players enjoyment is wrong. Having fun for all is a different thing altogether.
I made these statements , agreeing with Thad's post where he says story abilities tax immersion and role play.
I expanded on that and expressed what I see and have seen. I was shot down, told I was wrong. ( while agreeing, still wrong)
*redacted by owners*
I never knew there was a problem with our Son being there, if we had had any feedback to that respect we could have corrected it.
I will gladly respond to any other cruel remarks as obtained.

Everyone here is an adult. Please act as such and refrain from attacking people. If you don't have something nice to say, sit down and shut up until you do. Peroid.

I'd like to see people try and be a bit more quiet for scene setting. It can be very very hard to hear the narrators and to catch all those helpful hints as to what story actions we might want to do. Also not trying to do story actions on the monsters away from the narrator. We all know that monsters are briefed for a pretty short amount of time, they usually don't know all of the mod and the different contexts to make a call (nor do they have the authority to make those calls most of the time). So it hurts immersion when I gotta look at this character be like...."I should know that but I don't".

I also agree that the higher level characters can pretty much do /everything/ and that takes away from the specialness of character classes. I'd love to cross class under theurge especially since it's the only class I have an interest in. I wonder if, if we nerf the enchants if we could up the amount of actions or how many action points you can put in one action. As a healer it's a pain in the butt to only have three actual heals. Burst heals can be tricky to handle cause I don't want the monsters taking advantage but the adventures always spread so far out. Maybe I have difficulty with that because of my play style, but I thought it couldn't hurt to share my thoughts on the matter.

A follow up to Nava's point about burst heals. I think as players we don't make the best use of our healers. Burst Recovers at will are very much needed because as a community we do not do a good job of grouping up. This is not a mechanic issue but more something we need to work on as players. Players with a lot of health and heals enchanted will take for granted that they can go anywhere on the battlefield they wish. That may change in the new Orn. I don't mind the spread out party because, hey, burst recover at will.

I don't know how much this helps the discussion, but I think it's something that we, as players, should work on improving.

Goose, I agree completely with your notion that players need to work more closely as a team. Thoughtful movements and efficient use of abilities in a planned out manner would go a long way toward successful adventures and enhance immersion into any story as well. Beyond that, the added comradely would strengthen the community as a whole.

Along that line, aside from class/path descriptors, it can be hard to remember what all a team can do unless you run together a lot. What can Esgir do? Some healing and damage, built like a support; he's better suited just behind the front line, or right beside someone on it. What can Marloff do? Blast things with spells primarily (sorcerer iirc?). What can Goose do? Heals, melee, animal shapeshifting with some of the tricks that come there (also kicking people to heal them :P).

TLDR: action proliferation, especially with enchants on top of it, makes it difficult to remember what all I can do personally, much less what everyone else can do. I don't really have a simple solution there, but getting together and working out a proposed plan of action whenever possible is definitely a boon; I know we tried to account for a lot in "Shadow Over Talaud" - and we still lost half the party. :P

First I need to second what Megan says; the narrator giving information and/or instruction - or cues for the monsters - is an extremly important part of play. It is immersion breaking to have to say 'what?' or look at your fellow player/monster and shrug 'what did he say?'. :-)
As another healer, I, of course, agree with both Megan and Goose. As a player, let's add Dana and Brian in there, too. I have seen a lot of team cooperation (players tag-teaming; stronger warriors or those with abilities at stopping foes protecting the healers; etc.). I just say let's keep that up.

Interdependence has always been a goal of the system. Take professions, for instance; you could potentially do it all yourself, but it's much more effective to barter with others. This is always my preference: Mechanical incentives that make it a better idea to work together than alone. The question just becomes how to pull that off, especially when the advantages of teamwork are already huge and obvious.

@Brian: If anything, this may become even more difficult in the new system. If I remove the distinction of paths, everyone may become a special snowflake with a unique mix of abilities. This isn't a terrible thing from a character development angle, of course, but it will introduce complexity in coordination.

From a character development angle, you always want to try and be prepared for anything. ;)

Honestly I think cutting back items as proposed will help, as have even a few master quality right now adds a lot more actions - a character decked out in full master would have an additional +50 actions tops (if all enchants were "use" abilities), which is more than double what a 20th level character can prepare naturally.

Back on something Megan brought up, I understand that the 3 stack cap is made to prevent spamming a specific action and promote diversification in preparation, but I agree that it would be nice if healers could heal more often. That's one reason my build is built around the Mystic merit and Theurgues/wizardries (which I figure are going away).

Personally I don't think the class/path system is bad. Yes, it would be neat to do an assassin/bard. But really the only difference is a few actions. It is something that could be RPed. I mean we don't want people just cherry picking from all the paths, There is also an advantage to the system. If you have a Hiero, or Warrior, or whatever you have a general idea what they can do.

If we want more uniqueness maybe replace lackluster spell or actions with better ones so the choices are harder. Maybe add subpaths, like Mage/Wizard/Chronomancer or Fighter/Warrior/Bastion. Something like this would make more unique characters and open/lock actions to them.