I speak for both Nick and I when I say that the playtest went fantastic. Everything went according to plan, people had some fun, and I think a lot was learned about the kinks still in the system. Heck, even the weather stayed dry just long enough. It was almost serendipitous.
For those of you who attended, you guys were great. The enthusiasm was much appreciated, as was the feedback. I've awarded four boon to each of you. The only two outstanding awardees are Shane and Kevin V., both of whom need accounts first.
Another big thank you to those of you who've prepaid for your first event. I've gone ahead and awarded an additional 12 boon to you. If anyone who hasn't paid yet wants to take advantage of the offer, feel free to mail your prepayment to Jennifer (email me for details).
Obviously, we've got a lot to do in preparation for the first event. As far as the system goes, here are a few notes from the post-playtest feedback. Feel free to add your own observations (or those I've forgotten). No doubt Jessi and Jessi II (a.k.a., Casey) will have a few additions of their own, as well. ;)
Class Updates
Disciples are just fine. "Well-rounded" was the feedback received. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.Disciples will not be fundamentally changed before the first event.- Druids need to be improved. I'm leaning toward a 3/4 level-to-intensity ratio on Shapeshift effects for starters, as well as adventure duration shapeshifts. They may see some class-specific skills that they can pick up to boost the capabilities of their shapeshifted form, as well.
Monks need to be nerfed. My initial reaction was to reduce their affinities for Brawn and Weapon Specialization, but I realized that they could easily regain those affinities with a simple level dip in Savage or Warrior. I'm up for suggestions on how to bring them down to earth a bit.The monk's affinity for Weapon Specialization has been reduced to weak, and multi-weapon strike actions have had their ratings increased.Rogues are just fine. Lacking poisons, they couldn't be used to their full effect in the playtest; since they also didn't have Perceive effects to contend with, though, I'd say we got a pretty fair look. Enjoyable, sneaky, effective from behind, just as they should be.Rogues will not be fundamentally changed before the first event.Savages and warriors are just fine. See the note below on multi-weapon strike actions, however.As with monks, all multi-weapon strike actions have had their ratings increased.Wizards are just fine. Not the best in melee, but a credible threat at range, as they were always intended to be. Wizards may be simplified a bit, however. Preset verbals will probably be going away, and damage type-specific effects will probably be replaced by general spells that can call several different damage types at the wizard's option.Preset verbals are now merely suggested verbals. Players are free to make up their own verbals as they like. However, all verbals must meet specific criteria to be posted. Due to time constraints, damage type-general wizard actions will have to wait until after the first event.
Game System Updates
Multi-weapon strike actions need to be nerfed. Monks and savages both pointed out how powerful combos and assaults turned out to be. Thankfully, tweaking them is a simple matter of changing the component rating, which will then filter down to every action and character it should effect.The rating of multi-weapon strike method components has been increased by two per additional strike.Shields should be able to block packets that call a damage tagline. By all accounts, this makes sense, isn't too complicated in other games, and is a much-desired benefit for shield users.The ruling on shields blocking packet-based damage stands. Shields cannot block packet-based damage. Actions will become available later that allow serious shield-users to counter packet-based damage, however.Fumbled shields need to be clarified. Nick suggested that fumbled shields need to be held behind the person's body. I'm still up in the air about it.You must release your grip on a fumbled item, regardless of what that item is. If the item is still attached to your character after releasing your grip, it remains as such.- Durations need to be clarified. A suggestion that seemed to resonate well was a one-minute common action to break out of any effect. Another was for buffs to automatically go away the moment you start to rest.
Armor refresh needs to be revised. Currently, the best solution is to make armor refresh after a minute of rest, as normal, but not in addition to actions. Thus, you either get your armor or your actions back.For simplicity's sake, the ruling on armor refresh stands. Armor refreshes after one minute of rest along with encounter actions.PCs need to be able to diagnose the status of other characters. This is something I took out to simplify First Aid and always meant to add back in. I'm thinking I'll add the ability to determine current health and dying/dead status to First Aid and add the ability to diagnose other status ailments to another skill. Triage and Diagnosis have been suggested as names for this skill, but I'd prefer something with more of a fantasy feel.First Aid now allows one character to determine another character's health status (e.g., down X health, dying, dead, etc.). The new Diagnosis skill will allow one character to determine other status effects (e.g., Asleep, Frenzied, Commanded, Snared, etc.).Fighting during a Repel needs to be clarified. Can the creature performing the Repel continue to hit the target as it flies away? Can others? Can the repelled creature fight back or perform other action? The current suggestion is to take repelled creatures temporarily out of combat (i.e., can't attack or be attacked while being repelled).Repelled character are temporarily removed from combat. They cannot perform or receive actions of any kind until they complete their movement. A repelled character who is attacked must declare, "No Effect."Unarmed attacks need to be obvious. Some have suggested changing the damage tagline of an unarmed attack to "Claw" or "Fist." My only problem with this is that the character has to attack first to make that clear, whereas a visual cue would immediately tip off other combatants.Requirements for boffer props representing unarmed attacks will remain unchanged. However, a character who inadvertently expends a Fumble or Ruin action against a character using unarmed attacks is permitted to automatically refresh the action, since the ineffectiveness of such actions would have been obvious in play.
As I said, these are just my take-away notes. Feel free to add to the list. I'd like to address each of them before the first event. That way, we can devote the event to uncovering whole new problems. ;)
The only issues I can see with holding the shield behind your back when someone uses fumble is that A. It takes away from balance from the shield holder. B How will this effect rouges back stabs and kidney shots. C If you fumble someones shield cant you have that 5 sec to pick it up yourself and use it or at least to prevent them from picking it back up?
42
I agree with Pogon on the shield thing, one of the strategies I have used in other larps is to disarm my opponent follow up with a knock back effect then prevent them from picking up their weapon/shield giving me an advantage in battle. it's completely realistic and not dropping the shield would prevent that interesting twist in combat
"I'm not locked up in with all of you, all of you are locked up in here with me!" Rorschach - Watchmen
K, here we go.
Druids--I agree that their shapeshift needs to be more powerful and last longer. I also think they should get maim, ruin and fumble actions b/c almost everyone else gets them.
Monks--I think increasing the multi-strike ranking will help to balance Monks. I think if you want to take them down a bit more you should either reduce brawn or weapon specialization but not both, especially since they only start out with base 2 weapons.
Rogues--I think they need some affinity for herbalism otherwise their poisons/acids are still not going to be effective. (It wouldn't hurt to give Urdeks some affinity too.)
Savages/Warriors--Fine so far.
Wizard--Fine so far.
Multi strikes--I agree.
Blocking Damage--I do not think that shields should be able to block packets with a damage tagline because that would make most of the wizard's spells and rogue's attacks useless.
Fumbles-- I think the original concept for a packet fumble was that it makes your hands open and you drop anything that you are holding. If you don't have a shield strapped to your arm some how then this would mean that you drop your shield but otherwise I think you should keep it on. It does mean that you couldn't steal a shield but it makes sense for the spell effect. Also, if you tie your weapons to your wrists and get fumbled, you may have to drop them and not be able to use them for 5 seconds but they also can't be stolen.
Durations-- I agree that negative effects should last 60 seconds but damage should not be able to pop you out of an effect. I also think that beneficial buffs or enchantments should last until you re-memorize you actions or 10 minutes for an encounter buff and 1 hour for an adventure buff.
Armor Refresh-- I agree that it should be one minute to refresh your actions and one to refresh your armor.
Diagnosis-- I think the first level of first aid should let you identify any conditions on a character and how many hit points they are down.
Btw, this is from Gerald and Jessi.
OK, so...
----
"Melee radius": I don't think this should be dependent on the reach of the effect initiator, because that makes it even harder to marshal. Maybe a 5 or 10 foot set radius? It's *much* easier to eyeball that distance and prevent a hold as opposed to trying to determine what the initiator's reach is going to be (for instance, it could mean the difference between the reach of a caster with a 72-inch spear and a caster with no weapon on hand, making the same spell much more or less effective at the same level for two different PCs).
----
Druid "Oaken Step" vs. "Oaken Passage": Do Druids seriously get *two* Encounter teleport effects at 7th level? Aside from the (minimal) difference in AR, that 20-foot teleport is, well, twice as good as the 10-foot. I realize that neither of them are Silent actions and they're restricted to "planty areas", but really why would you *ever* bother to learn the 10 foot at the same level? Oaken Passage is the most powerful teleport action currently available to any class. Even a Wizard only gets a 10-foot teleport at 7th and no option to get a higher level one. If it's left in, I think that Oaken Step should be moved to a higher level/AR - possibly put at 9th level, since druids have nothing there? Or (crazy idea) maybe make the 10-foot a Silent action and put it at a higher level or AR, and leave the 20-foot where it is.
----
Durations: I mostly agree with Jessi, although I had some slightly different thoughts about duration, mainly in line with some of the existing provisions for duration inside and outside of combat. I don't necessarily think we need to make an extra distinction between buff and debuff effects if we base the duration on the normal reset time for an action of the effect's duration. (Warning...I probably have TOO many examples...I was looking through all the classes trying to find a place where this wouldn't really work.)
- Encounter: 1 minute in a combat situation, 10 minutes outside of combat.
- Adventure: 10 minutes in a combat situation, 1 hour outside of combat.
- For all, if the affected entity enters a combat situation, the combat timeout begins immediately.
I think the big pro here would be that it makes it easy to remember how long it takes for an effect to wear off in combat, it works for both buffs and debuffs, and it takes care of the "reset" situation. If Bobo the Fighter gets buffed for 5 health in the middle of a fight and then decides to do an encounter reset, by the time he's done his Encounter buff will have worn off. But if he gets buffed for 5 health while lounging in the Tavern, he's got 9 minutes to go help his friends if a fight breaks out.
Meanwhile if McNasty the Warlock gets turned into a sheep during a duel, the wizard who just humiliated him won't simply be able to skip off along his merry way without a good chance that McNasty will be chasing after him for revenge in a minute. (But McNasty's friends won't just be able to give him a good sharp poke and immediately turn him back into a Warlock.) If that wizard sneaks up on McNasty in a dark alley, sheeps him, and then runs away, our wizard hero has a pretty good chance of getting far away before McNasty can ever get himself together to go catch his archenemy.
Also it still makes "crowd control" abilities behave as I understand our game owners intend them to be (a non-permanent effect to take an opponent temporarily out of a fight).
I realize this isn't perfect for rogues either but I think it makes sense. If Robbie the Rogue runs away and hides from a fight in progress, chances his enemy will either lose interest and go find another target, or has a pretty good idea of where Robbie went off to and will keep looking for him until Robbie can't hide anymore, however long it takes. But if Robbie wants to sneak up on Mayor Dogooder's office and listen to those shady dealings that he knows are going on around midnight, he'll be able to take his time hiding and will have more time to gather information.
Hokay that was a bit long. Talk amongst yourselves. ;)
-C-
I reject your reality and substitute my own!
Here are my feelings on fumbled shields. Fumble is not intended to be a powerful action, and it's simply not realistic to be able to force someone to drop a strapped shield short of ruining it. Thus, until I hear a more compelling argument, the current ruling on Fumble stands. A weapon-delivered Fumble to an item (shields included) forces you to release your grip on that item for at least five seconds. A packet-delivered Fumble forces you to release your grip on everything you're holding for five seconds. If, after releasing your grip, that item is still attached to your character, it remains so.
I am, however, still torn as far as shields being allowed to block damaging packets. As a fan of casters, I recognize that it puts them at a slight disadvantage against shield fighters. Then again, shields are still a big bleeding target for other effects. A shield user will almost certainly try to block a packet, even if that packet is a Ruin, Repel, etc. A possible middle ground is an effect that allows fighters to counter packet-delivered damage with a shield as an action, but I'm not committed to a ruling as of yet.
"You are technically correct. The best kind of correct!"
- Bureaucrat 1.0, Futurama
After going over the math, I went ahead with revising the component ratings of the multi-weapon strike method components. Whereas they all used to have a rating equal to the number of weapon strikes (i.e., 2 for Two Weapon Strikes, 3 for Three Weapon Strikes, and so on), they will now all increase by two per additional strike (i.e., 3 for Two Weapon Strikes, 5 for Three Weapon Strikes, etc.). This should have the effect of increasing how difficult these actions are to learn as well as how frequently they can be performed.
The math actually works out pretty neatly. Casters have a slight advantage on raw output for multi-packet actions. Fighters now, however, don't get more bang for their buck by using actions with more swings. An 8th-level warrior, for instance, can now add +40 to one strike, +20 to two, or +10 to four at the exact same rating and frequency (in this case, AR 16 and encounter). Using more strikes or fewer, then, will become more a matter of personal taste than effectiveness.
Naturally, this change is already in effect and has filtered down to every action and character to which it should apply. Gotta love a dynamic system, eh? ;)
"You are technically correct. The best kind of correct!"
- Bureaucrat 1.0, Futurama
Thank you all for such constructive posts. Anyone that does not agree or feels that something else was missed, please write in. We thrive on your input and will utilize as much as we possibly can. Help us to make this game the greatest game ever played!
Thad and I realized very quickly at other Larps that the game is so much more than just the people running it. Hence our motto is: Power to the players! And this is a great example of that power coming to bear on a topic. Once again thank you all and keep it coming.
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Kevin pointed out that with my "duration" idea, any debuff effect should automatically fall under the shorter "combat" duration since whoever did it to you was almost certainly doing it as an unfriendly attack (thus initiating combat, even if you can't fight back).
-C-
I reject your reality and substitute my own!
Re: Jessi
I agree that druids should get Maim and Ruin, at least. However, because they can get that through shapeshifting, I'm not inclined to give it to them as casters, too. I may give them a Fumble spell, though, but I'm sorry; I hate the name Fish Grip. ;)
I've reduced the monk affinity for Weapon Specialization to weak to keep their damage a little more sane. Beyond that, I don't plan on nerfing them further until they prove that they need it in play. After all, they're supposed to be great fun to play, too. No need to over correct.
I've granted weak affinity for herbalism to rogues in exchange for their affinity for jewelcrafting. Considering the use of jewels in the item system, it makes more sense to be a castery skill, anyway. Urdeks won't be getting it, though; saying it makes sense for them feels like a stretch.
For simplicity's sake, I don't plan to institute a separate refresh for armor. Even if it wasn't about simplicity, I don't think it's overpowered to refresh it at the same time. Armor is great in this system, and was always intended to be.
I'm pretty sure I've already touched on the other stuff, but bring it back up if I haven't.
Re: Jessi II (a.k.a., Casey)
Melee radius should probably be restated, but the idea is that you are close enough to engage each other in melee. I established the reach of the initiator's weapon so there would be an obvious measuring tool for marshalling. The fact of the matter is, five or ten feet is pretty darn ambiguous, and I doubt many people would be able to eyeball it as easily as you say. Mind you, the distance I'm talking about is the "normal use" reach of the weapon, not a caster holding a staff at its tip. This point deserves to be clarified.
Wizards were always intended to have Teleport effects. In fact, they're really supposed to be the masters of it; I always thought it would be nice to have a melee radius "Teleport back to our cabin"-type spell, although the rating would be astronomical. Frankly, I just haven't thought of a suitable name for these spells and it wasn't a priority for the playtest or the first game. Your point about Oaken Step vs. Oaken Passage is perfectly valid, though; there'd be no point to ever use Oaken Step. I'll look into revising the ratings.
Re: Durations
Durations are obviously tricky and will require some special consideration. As with all things, I'm convinced that there's a good, simple way to do it. Emphasis should be placed on simple, because having multiple potential durations based on whether or not you're in combat is pretty complicated. Let's give it some more thought and try to come up with a simple way of saying when encounter-duration or adventure-duration stuff goes away. Here are my thoughts.
There is one obvious problem with negative status effects lasting 60 seconds. Let's say I'm a wizard squaring off against a fighter mono-a-mono. We get depleted and it looks like he's going to win, so I Critter Form him. He's that way for 60 seconds, which is just long enough for me to rest and regain all of my encounter abilities. For the price of one action, I just got a full encounter refresh. If I were that fighter, I would be rightfully ticked off all the way to the fate marshal.
One possible solution for sneaky stuff would be to add a Duration component of 10 minutes. It was originally in the system, but I removed it... for a reason I can't recall at the moment. At any rate, it's what used to be in rating two slot between encounter- (1) and adventure- (3) duration actions. We could add that back in for longer skulking and the like, if need be. I just wouldn't want to see it on combat-related buffs, since nobody's keeping an eye on their watch during a field battle and it could easily turn out to be as good as an adventure-duration buff.
On another note, if we decide to use resting as a way of automatically ending buffs, I already know that I'll rule they go away as soon as you start resting, not when you're finished. The reason for this is because resting is supposed to be a vulnerable state. Deciding to rest should be a hard decision if there's danger nearby; not only might you be interrupted and gain nothing, but you will definitely lose your buffs the second you start. Sorry to play the evil GM card, but I like to force hard choices on people, and it doesn't get much better than that. ;)
I'm wracking my brain on this one. I thought I had a solution a minute ago, but I broke it with Compel effects. I'll post it to a new thread whenever I have a proposed solution.
"You are technically correct. The best kind of correct!"
- Bureaucrat 1.0, Futurama
After discussing it with people on both sides of the argument, I've decided to let the ruling on shields stand. Shields cannot be used to block packet-based damge. The most compelling argument was that it would nerf casters too much. However, because it makes sense, I do plan to give serious shield-users a way to counter packet-based damage as an action at some point in the future.
"You are technically correct. The best kind of correct!"
- Bureaucrat 1.0, Futurama
Re: Casey
The almost-solution was that 30 seconds of rest could remove any encounter-duration effect on a character, beneficial or detrimental. Add to that a stipulation that you can rest even if you can do nothing else, and it works fairly well. A frozen, critter-formed, snared, etc. creature could spend 30 seconds to actively remove whatever was afflicting them.
As I mentioned before, this broke with Compel effects. A frenzied, charmed, commanded, etc. creature would not have enough insight or self-control to take the rest. Thus, if we instituted this rule, all Compel effects would become much stronger than other effects, and they're not intended to be.
Re: Pogon
Because the person throwing the packet at you had to expend an action to do so. Granted, there is some criss-cross between skills and actions, but I generally like to make it so you have to use an action to stop an action. It's just fairer that way, and makes things more interesting from a tactical standpoint.
"You are technically correct. The best kind of correct!"
- Bureaucrat 1.0, Futurama
There were some that we may have missed. So please add them here. Some that I remember are the armor reset after 60 sec of rest. This is not at the same time of an ability reset. And shields that are disarmed must be held behind the back for five seconds.
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson