Makensha
2009-02-25, 10:38 AM
I have worked on a pencil and paper combat system (I think that's the right term) for a while now, and if it wasn't for the lack of motivation to finish working on the glossary, I'd be in the testing stage. Before I can explain the problem, I need to explain a few things about the system and my goal with the system.
Acies, the system, is built to be a quick moving combat system. A single turn with 5 people (4 players and 1 GM) should last at most 5 minutes (given nothing weird happens and that the players know what they want to do before their turn). There are 5 classes. All 5 classes, depending on how you build their skill tree, can come to depend on mana. The definition of mana here is "A pool of power from which the owner takes from to use various abilities." This is where the problem might be.
I've worked a lot to try to cut out as many annoyances that might slow the game as I've found a way to do. I'm worried that mana is too much work to keep the game moving fast. Health is complicated enough with various healing a damage (don't really want to talk about that), but to also keep track of mana might be too much for what I'm aiming for. Below is a list of things related to mana that would need to be watched.
-Mana regeneration each turn
-Mana lost from casting
-Mana gained from abilities
-Mana lost through enemy's abilities
-When temporary mana drains and regens end
It doesn't seem like too much, right? Let's look at the list of things the gm needs to keep track of (because they're supposed to be the responisble ones).
-When temporary mana and health drains and regens end on all players
-The health, mana, armor, and skills of all npcs
-The thought process of npcs of attack order
-Whatever weird enviromental things are going on
-Player health
-Player mana (special cases only)
-Careful attention to players prone to try to cheat
It starts getting to be a bigger list. Still managable, yes, but if I knew it was way too much, why would I ask other what other people thought?
If I do have to change the system, I have some ideas for what to do, but I've spent a lot of time putting Acies together with mana in mind, and I'd rather not have to rewrite half of the system (lots of abilities that use mana as a balancing factor would need a lot of work).
So is mana to complicated for a system that tries to be fast?
Acies, the system, is built to be a quick moving combat system. A single turn with 5 people (4 players and 1 GM) should last at most 5 minutes (given nothing weird happens and that the players know what they want to do before their turn). There are 5 classes. All 5 classes, depending on how you build their skill tree, can come to depend on mana. The definition of mana here is "A pool of power from which the owner takes from to use various abilities." This is where the problem might be.
I've worked a lot to try to cut out as many annoyances that might slow the game as I've found a way to do. I'm worried that mana is too much work to keep the game moving fast. Health is complicated enough with various healing a damage (don't really want to talk about that), but to also keep track of mana might be too much for what I'm aiming for. Below is a list of things related to mana that would need to be watched.
-Mana regeneration each turn
-Mana lost from casting
-Mana gained from abilities
-Mana lost through enemy's abilities
-When temporary mana drains and regens end
It doesn't seem like too much, right? Let's look at the list of things the gm needs to keep track of (because they're supposed to be the responisble ones).
-When temporary mana and health drains and regens end on all players
-The health, mana, armor, and skills of all npcs
-The thought process of npcs of attack order
-Whatever weird enviromental things are going on
-Player health
-Player mana (special cases only)
-Careful attention to players prone to try to cheat
It starts getting to be a bigger list. Still managable, yes, but if I knew it was way too much, why would I ask other what other people thought?
If I do have to change the system, I have some ideas for what to do, but I've spent a lot of time putting Acies together with mana in mind, and I'd rather not have to rewrite half of the system (lots of abilities that use mana as a balancing factor would need a lot of work).
So is mana to complicated for a system that tries to be fast?