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IronFist
2013-08-20, 10:11 PM
Hey, guys. I suck at math.
So, I'm trying to figure out how important some stats in my system are.
Let's say we have Accuracy, Defense, Damage and Health (I'm simplifying, bear with me here). Attacks are made rolling 1d10 and adding Accuracy and comparing the result to your target's Defense. Special effects happen (call it a critical hit) if you beat their defense by 5 or more.

Accuracy ranges from 2 to 12.
Defense ranges from 7 to 17.
Damage ranges from 1 to 12.
Health goes from 2 to 12, however several characters have additional "bars" of health (around 3 for a player character).

My problem here is: how do I figure out if Accuracy and Damage have equal value or not? Which should be more expensive?

kyoryu
2013-08-20, 10:16 PM
Hey, guys. I suck at math.
So, I'm trying to figure out how important some stats in my system are.
Let's say we have Accuracy, Defense, Damage and Health (I'm simplifying, bear with me here). Attacks are made rolling 1d10 and adding Accuracy and comparing the result to your target's Defense. Special effects happen (call it a critical hit) if you beat their defense by 5 or more.

Accuracy ranges from 2 to 12.
Defense ranges from 7 to 17.
Damage ranges from 1 to 12.
Health goes from 2 to 12, however several characters have additional "bars" of health (around 3 for a player character).

My problem here is: how do I figure out if Accuracy and Damage have equal value or not? Which should be more expensive?

Projected damage = chance of hit * damage amount.

That's the easiest calculation, but it's not complete by any means. A 50% chance to hit for 10 damage is equivalent in terms of expected damage to a 100% change to hit for 5 damage. However, if fighting something with 6 -10 hit points, the first gives you the chance of taking it out in a single round, which may in some cases be the difference between life and death.

So while expected damage is a good start, you've also got to consider the other factors in your system as well - what impact armor will have, etc.

Edit: This assumes a standard hit point/accuracy type model, which it appears is what you're using. Other systems can be slightly harder to reduce to this extent.

SowZ
2013-08-20, 10:48 PM
Something to consider is the including of hard caps or not. I always recommend against them because they kill immersion, IMO. Anyways, you're actual question...

I would rank accuracy as a little more valuable. First off, you can have 10,000 damage a hit, but if you miss, that doesn't matter. Let's look at your system.

With max accuracy, you would hit 60 percent of the time against someone with max defense. With minimum accuracy, you would also hit 60 percent of the time. That's a system with quite a bit of inaccuracy. Also consider, accuracy DOES translate to damage, (or something like it,) in your system. So accuracy is really important. I'd say maybe 1 point of accuracy is equal to 2 points of damage? That is of course with no real knowledge of your system so it is a total ballpark.

IronFist
2013-08-20, 10:52 PM
Well, when it comes to armor and damage prevention in general, I can pretty much just give it the same value as damage, right?


Something to consider is the including of hard caps or not. I always recommend against them because they kill immersion, IMO. Anyways, you're actual question...
I don't actually have hard caps.


With max accuracy, you would hit 60 percent of the time against someone with max defense. With minimum accuracy, you would also hit 60 percent of the time. That's a system with quite a bit of inaccuracy. Also consider, accuracy DOES translate to damage, (or something like it,) in your system. So accuracy is really important. I'd say maybe 1 point of accuracy is equal to 2 points of damage? That is of course with no real knowledge of your system so it is a total ballpark.
There is something I forgot to add. 1d10 is the base everyone uses, but there is a technique to roll 2d10 and choose the better result. There is another technique that spends a limited resource for yet another d10 (but you still only keep one).
Also, you might have multiple attacks per round and each attack you evade reduces Defense by 1.

SowZ
2013-08-20, 10:53 PM
Well, when it comes to armor and damage prevention in general, I can pretty much just give it the same value as damage, right?

Actually, I consider damage a little more valuable than armor because dealing more damage means killing the enemy faster. Killing the enemy faster means they deal less damage to you. So damage serves as both offense and defense.


Well, when it comes to armor and damage prevention in general, I can pretty much just give it the same value as damage, right?


I don't actually have hard caps.


There is something I forgot to add. 1d10 is the base everyone uses, but there is a technique to roll 2d10 and choose the better result. There is another technique that spends a limited resource for yet another d10 (but you still only keep one).
Also, you might have multiple attacks per round and each attack you evade reduces Defense by 1.

Regardless, you never get to utilize damage bonus without hitting first. And even if you roll 2d10 and take the better, without a good accuracy bonus, I'd be willing to be that getting a crit is still very hard.

kyoryu
2013-08-20, 10:56 PM
If you're really interested in making a game, I suggest starting with the types of decisions that your players make, and the interactions that they have.

All of the math in the world doesn't really change the game if it's just "roll dice, enemy takes damage." It's possibly got some interesting charop things to do, but it doesn't really change what you do *at the table*.

The actual math and mechanics to determine results matters less. In fact, overcomplication can often be bad as it can lead to edge cases that render lots of choices meaningless.

That said, let's look at some of the data points here.

If both attacker and defender are at min attack/defense, you've got a 60% chance of hitting. This is also true at max, as has been pointed out.

If you start with 60% hit chance, you have expected damage of .6 (assuming a 1 damage score).
the best you can do is add 66% to your damage by increasing accuracy if you can get 100 % hit rate (expected damage of 1).

Depending on where damage starts, that can make it very easy for damage to add more expected damage than accuracy does, against a min-defense target. Going from 1 to 2 damage will *double* your expected damage (.6 to 1.2). Without knowing what the baseline damage is, it's hard to tell the overall effect.

That said, accuracy will mostly be important to keep up with the defense of the bad guys. If they increase their defense by six points, they become untouchable. Even before that, they massively start decreasing the damage that they take on a percentage basis. The change from four extra points (11) to five (12) will result in them taking *half* of the previous step of damage from a min-accuracy opponent.

With any system like this, the big swings are going to be at the extreme ends, so keeping those in check is pretty useful.

Armor is also interesting, as if it's a straight damage reduction system, that can have interesting effects on low-damage numbers. In almost any system with straight damage reduction, big hits are inherently rewarded, as the damage reduced will be a smaller percentage. You need to think about that in terms of weapon design - but if you increase the 'baseline' damage for smaller weapons so that they do something against armor, you run the risk that unarmored opponents will just get chunky salsaed.

IronFist
2013-08-21, 12:10 AM
If you're really interested in making a game, I suggest starting with the types of decisions that your players make, and the interactions that they have.
I have that figured out, that's why I never mentioned it. I just needed help with math.


All of the math in the world doesn't really change the game if it's just "roll dice, enemy takes damage." It's possibly got some interesting charop things to do, but it doesn't really change what you do *at the table*.
Agree completely.


That said, let's look at some of the data points here.

If both attacker and defender are at min attack/defense, you've got a 60% chance of hitting. This is also true at max, as has been pointed out.

If you start with 60% hit chance, you have expected damage of .6 (assuming a 1 damage score).
the best you can do is add 66% to your damage by increasing accuracy if you can get 100 % hit rate (expected damage of 1).

Depending on where damage starts, that can make it very easy for damage to add more expected damage than accuracy does, against a min-defense target. Going from 1 to 2 damage will *double* your expected damage (.6 to 1.2). Without knowing what the baseline damage is, it's hard to tell the overall effect.

That said, accuracy will mostly be important to keep up with the defense of the bad guys. If they increase their defense by six points, they become untouchable. Even before that, they massively start decreasing the damage that they take on a percentage basis. The change from four extra points (11) to five (12) will result in them taking *half* of the previous step of damage from a min-accuracy opponent.

With any system like this, the big swings are going to be at the extreme ends, so keeping those in check is pretty useful.

Armor is also interesting, as if it's a straight damage reduction system, that can have interesting effects on low-damage numbers. In almost any system with straight damage reduction, big hits are inherently rewarded, as the damage reduced will be a smaller percentage. You need to think about that in terms of weapon design - but if you increase the 'baseline' damage for smaller weapons so that they do something against armor, you run the risk that unarmored opponents will just get chunky salsaed.
Thanks, that's exactly the kind of feedback I needed. I'm trying to figure out what baseline damage should be. For player characters, it's probably going to be around 4-8. Damage is fixed, btw, not rolled.
Different kinds of weapons don't change damage in my system, each weapon has traits that change combat in other ways. An Overpowering weapon, for example, can trigger a spread (which is kind of a critical hit) when you beat defense by 4 instead of 5, but the only spread effect you can use is increased damage.

From what I see, looks like the main engine is working as intended, which is what had me worried. Still have to figure out the baseline damage thing. I should probably avoid effects that increase accuracy or damage, since it is kind of boring and could easily lead to messed up numbers.



Regardless, you never get to utilize damage bonus without hitting first. And even if you roll 2d10 and take the better, without a good accuracy bonus, I'd be willing to be that getting a crit is still very hard.
Exactly. Criticals (we call them 'spreads'- it's based on manga, so when you get a spread, you can imagine your character doing that in a big pannel, a splash page, something like that) are a big thing in this system, with several effects. Most of the folks the player characters will fight won't roll 3d10 or even 2d10, ever. Monster and mooks are stuck with 1d10, so they don't crit much. Player characters, however, do.
Rolling 2d10 and keeping the higher averages 7.1 instead of 5.5, so there is that (though that's less than a +2 to Accuracy). 3d10 is only 7.97, so I guess I need to included an extra effect when you use both aura when perseverance together. Hm. An extra d10 should suffice.
Yeah, I definitely should not add simple accuracy boosters in the system.

SowZ
2013-08-21, 12:37 AM
I have that figured out, that's why I never mentioned it. I just needed help with math.


Agree completely.


Thanks, that's exactly the kind of feedback I needed. I'm trying to figure out what baseline damage should be. For player characters, it's probably going to be around 4-8. Damage is fixed, btw, not rolled.
Different kinds of weapons don't change damage in my system, each weapon has traits that change combat in other ways. An Overpowering weapon, for example, can trigger a spread (which is kind of a critical hit) when you beat defense by 4 instead of 5, but the only spread effect you can use is increased damage.

From what I see, looks like the main engine is working as intended, which is what had me worried. Still have to figure out the baseline damage thing. I should probably avoid effects that increase accuracy or damage, since it is kind of boring and could easily lead to messed up numbers.


Exactly. Criticals (we call them 'spreads'- it's based on manga, so when you get a spread, you can imagine your character doing that in a big pannel, a splash page, something like that) are a big thing in this system, with several effects. Most of the folks the player characters will fight won't roll 3d10 or even 2d10, ever. Monster and mooks are stuck with 1d10, so they don't crit much. Player characters, however, do.
Rolling 2d10 and keeping the higher averages 7.1 instead of 5.5, so there is that (though that's less than a +2 to Accuracy). 3d10 is only 7.97, so I guess I need to included an extra effect when you use both aura when perseverance together. Hm. An extra d10 should suffice.
Yeah, I definitely should not add simple accuracy boosters in the system.

Regardless, I think that establishes accuracy is much better than simple damage. Especially if 'splash' panels are big deals like they would be in any Manga. Which manga is it based on? I might be able to better recommend thinks based on tone if I've read it. Unless it is generically based on manga style, not one specific manga.

IronFist
2013-08-21, 12:55 AM
Regardless, I think that establishes accuracy is much better than simple damage. Especially if 'splash' panels are big deals like they would be in any Manga. Which manga is it based on? I might be able to better recommend thinks based on tone if I've read it. Unless it is generically based on manga style, not one specific manga.

It's based on seinen action manga in general. But yeah, a spread is a big deal. It can deal extra damage, it can allow damage to 'bleed' from one life bar to another, it can add status conditions, it can even deal several attacks in a row.
Accuracy is determined by adding two stats together. One of those stats is usually (like, 75% of the time) Technique. I'm afraid it might become a God Stat. I'll have to add restrictions to it.

Vitruviansquid
2013-08-21, 01:15 AM
The value of accuracy or damage in this system depends on the value of the other stat.

If you have a 10% accuracy, raising your damage by 1 point will give you an extra 0.1 damage per round, but if you have a 90% accuracy, raising your damage by 1 point will give you an extra 0.9 damage per round.

Likewise, if you do 1 damage with a hit, raising your accuracy by 10% will cause you to do 0.1 extra damage per round, but if you do 9 damage, raising your accuracy by 10% will give you an extra 0.9 damage per round.

Just considering damage per round:

- Multiplying your damage by some number is the same as multiplying your accuracy by that number. For example, doubling your accuracy is worth the same as doubling your damage.
- HOWEVER, if you can multiply your damage by x AND multiply your accuracy by x, you'll raise your damage per round to the power of x. This means players will maximize their damage per round by advancing accuracy and damage at the same rate, unless it's drastically harder to increase one stat than the other.

Now, there are also several factors to consider that throw this math off balance.

- Depending on what your "spreads" do, it may be worth it to get more accuracy in order to trigger them more often.
- Depending on how health and initiative are handled (I'm not sure I understand your meaning of health "bars") in your system, it may be worth it to get more damage in order to have a chance to kill an enemy before he can retaliate.

If you want to make the value of accuracy and damage more intuitive, the simplest solution is probably to make one or the other a constant and only allow players to modify the other. The other solution would be to make sure that players can never buy accuracy and damage with the same resource, making it hard for them to convert one to the other, but this may really make it so your offensive characters will do a crazy high amount of damage compared to characters not optimized for defense.

IronFist
2013-08-21, 02:13 AM
The value of accuracy or damage in this system depends on the value of the other stat.

If you have a 10% accuracy, raising your damage by 1 point will give you an extra 0.1 damage per round, but if you have a 90% accuracy, raising your damage by 1 point will give you an extra 0.9 damage per round.

Likewise, if you do 1 damage with a hit, raising your accuracy by 10% will cause you to do 0.1 extra damage per round, but if you do 9 damage, raising your accuracy by 10% will give you an extra 0.9 damage per round.

Just considering damage per round:

- Multiplying your damage by some number is the same as multiplying your accuracy by that number. For example, doubling your accuracy is worth the same as doubling your damage.
- HOWEVER, if you can multiply your damage by x AND multiply your accuracy by x, you'll raise your damage per round to the power of x. This means players will maximize their damage per round by advancing accuracy and damage at the same rate, unless it's drastically harder to increase one stat than the other.
That was very helpful, I will probably use this as reference.


Now, there are also several factors to consider that throw this math off balance.

- Depending on what your "spreads" do, it may be worth it to get more accuracy in order to trigger them more often.
This is definitely true.


- Depending on how health and initiative are handled (I'm not sure I understand your meaning of health "bars") in your system, it may be worth it to get more damage in order to have a chance to kill an enemy before he can retaliate.
The system does not call it "bars", it's just a short term I use. Thing is, you have one Health pool. However, there is an ability (and every player character and every villain has access to it) that allows you to spend a limited resource (say, Willpower) to "reset" your health. There is a limit to how often you can do that in a single scene (1-6, depending on a stat).
Basically, for most fights, enemies will have a single health "bar".


If you want to make the value of accuracy and damage more intuitive, the simplest solution is probably to make one or the other a constant and only allow players to modify the other. The other solution would be to make sure that players can never buy accuracy and damage with the same resource, making it hard for them to convert one to the other, but this may really make it so your offensive characters will do a crazy high amount of damage compared to characters not optimized for defense.
I think I might apply the second alternative. I might make it that only two or three stats can be used for damage, while using other 2 or 3 stats for accuracy. And it should be completely impossible to use the same stat for both, period. Thanks a lot. This was very helpful.

SowZ
2013-08-21, 02:18 AM
That was very helpful, I will probably use this as reference.


This is definitely true.


The system does not call it "bars", it's just a short term I use. Thing is, you have one Health pool. However, there is an ability (and every player character and every villain has access to it) that allows you to spend a limited resource (say, Willpower) to "reset" your health. There is a limit to how often you can do that in a single scene (1-6, depending on a stat).
Basically, for most fights, enemies will have a single health "bar".


I think I might apply the second alternative. I might make it that only two or three stats can be used for damage, while using other 2 or 3 stats for accuracy. And it should be completely impossible to use the same stat for both, period. Thanks a lot. This was very helpful.

Also, all this gets thrown off if there is any sort of damage reduction. Damage reduction makes damage more important, because now landing a blow with high accuracy stats doesn't necessarily mean dealing damage, (just like high damage stats doesn't guarantee dealing damage if your accuracy is low.)

IronFist
2013-08-21, 02:28 AM
Also, all this gets thrown off if there is any sort of damage reduction. Damage reduction makes damage more important, because now landing a blow with high accuracy stats doesn't necessarily mean dealing damage, (just like high damage stats doesn't guarantee dealing damage if your accuracy is low.)

Yeah, but damage reduction is not very common in this system. You can certainly have it in your PC, but most enemies won't have it. There is going to be at least one way for a high accuracy char to deal with it, though.

SowZ
2013-08-21, 02:41 AM
Yeah, but damage reduction is not very common in this system. You can certainly have it in your PC, but most enemies won't have it. There is going to be at least one way for a high accuracy char to deal with it, though.

Alrighty. Just keep in mind that despite me arguing the importance of accuracy this whole thread, the more damage reduction that exists, the more potent damage becomes.

If I had to rank the main combat stats, I would rate them like this-

Accuracy: Most important, required for damage to even matter
Damage: Next most important, high damage is a better defense then a high defense
Defense: Defense vs. HP importance depends entirely on the system. In D&D, for example, I would rank HP as more important. But from what little I know of your system, avoiding damage entirely sounds just a little better than being able to soak up a lot of it. Mainly it boils down to; systems where you are going to fight a lot of boss type creatures that bypass your defenses or are going to be able to out-accurate your defense without crazy optimization? HP is more important. Systems where PCs are treated specially and there are few ways to just insta-deal damage or target special, rare defenses, defense is really nice.
Health: Should be cheapest to 'purchase' if it is a point buy system or should scale the fastest/be the easiest to raise in a more level based system.

Vitruviansquid
2013-08-21, 03:41 AM
Damage reduction, which I'll call "Armor," and accuracy reduction, which is already present in the system in the "Defense" stat will work the almost the same way for Damage Per Round. I say "almost" because they will average out to the same effect (reducing one by a percentage is the same as reducing another by that percentage), except that playing around with Armor and Damage will tend to make your games more consistent and emphasize strategy and preparation (for example, bring a high damage character if you want to kill a high armor enemy), whereas playing around with Defense and Accuracy more will tend to make your games more swingy and emphasize adaptability and luck, at least until you reach the point where you have 0% and 100% chances to hit.

I must disagree with SowZ's hierarchy of the stats. While it's true that a better offense will protect you by killing enemies quickly and eliminating them as sources of damage, the flip side is also true: higher defense will also enable you to do more damage because you can survive longer to keep doing it. In fact, I would rate defensive stats as more important than offensive stats because powerful, non-expendable player characters lose their advantage the more inconsistent combat gets, and combat becomes shorter and more inconsistent as enemies gain offense and players lose defense.

By the way, the way I came up with a base health in my system was to take the expected Damage Per Round a character will take, multiplied by the number of rounds I expect a battle to have. The expected damage per round = number of attackers * amount of damage per hit on average * percent of hits that will land

I think these are the biggest potential problems in your system:

1. If your game allows players to control who their enemy will target relatively well (for example, World of Warcraft, where a "tank" character will be able to get all the enemies to attack him and only him), your players will want to specialize as much as possible so they can take advantage of stat synergies (accuracy and damage, health and defense). Unless your system forces the players to gain offense and defense at the same pace, your players will become more and more specialized as the game progresses. This can make players feel like they're locked to a few mathematically powerful builds, and that the game lacks a sense of danger because only one guy is getting hit, and that guy is ultra-prepared to soak the hits. At worst, this will throw off your calculations of how powerful enemies should get as the players level up, making it difficult for you or potential GM's to design challenging encounters.

2. If your game does not allow players to control who their enemy will target very well... well, I don't see why you would want your players to have separate offensive and defensive stats in the first place, because the most efficient builds would have an equal amount of every stat (of course, health will be multiplied by the number of hits they expect to take per battle), since the total damage a player will deal in a given fight will be their Damage per Round * Rounds participating in battle. "Rounds participating in battle," is basically another way of saying "Defensive stats."

I stress the word "potentially" because the way you dodge the problem of having mathematically optimal builds is by obfuscating what exactly is optimal by introducing more complex math elements (which you have already done), and special abilities that change the rules of the game (which you have also already done).

NichG
2013-08-21, 08:43 AM
The Defense vs Offense balance is affected by the expected number of simultaneous opponents per character.

If you're running a game which looks like a series of boss fights, defenses become far less valuable because you may not actually need them every round to avoid taking damage. At the same time, damage becomes far more valuable because the boss is going to have more than the 2-12hp.

If you're running a game where there's lots of mook battles, defenses become very important compared to offenses. Against mooks, you'll pretty much take one out every round if you hit and do average damage, which makes increasing your damage output pretty worthless compared to increasing accuracy. At the same time, increasing your defense provides protection against N separate attacks, where N is the average number of mooks per character.

So figure out the relative mix of those things that you intend to have in the system, and then look at the numbers 'how many rounds can I survive?' and 'how many rounds does it take for me to on average take out my enemies?'.

Detailed comparison spoilered:

For example, a duel between someone with average stats and the PC bonus health bars, and a PC who also has average stats.

Both of them have: Accuracy 7, Defense 12, Damage 6, Health 9

On average, they will hit 60% of the time. They both need to hit twice to win.

So by round 2, one of them has won 36% of the time. If we increase damage, this doesn't change until the damage hits 9, at which point its a 60% chance of winning by round 1 (instead of 0), and its a 84% chance of winning by round 2.

If we use round 2 as the standard, this means that 1 point of damage is worth about a 16% chance of winning. This value goes up as your accuracy increases.

If your accuracy is one higher, you go from a 36% chance to hit to a 49% chance to hit, so one point of accuracy is worth about a 13% win chance. This value goes up as your damage increases.

In a duel, accuracy is worth slightly more than defense. Accuracy increases the chance of winning 'now'. Defense increases the chance of surviving to roll accuracy again, so one can think of defense as being worth about 60% of the value of accuracy in this situation.

Now, your health. If you increase your Health by 4, the enemy has to hit you an additional time to take you out. By round 3 you've got something like a 75% chance of winning, so thats worth about 9% per point of Health - much like defense, its multiplied by your accuracy.


Anyhow, you can see that all of these stats interact with eachother synergistically. Having a very high accuracy makes your damage more valuable, and so on. With that in mind, what I might do to make a simple diminishing returns system is say something like: All stats cost the same amount; this amount goes up by 1 every time you buy up any stat.

Frozen_Feet
2013-08-21, 11:29 AM
Your accuracy and defence advance in mathematically equivalent steps. However, your system slightly favors the attacker. People in this thread have assumed your system is "roll same or above", leading to 60/40 chances at the base, and since you have not corrected them, I take this to be the case. I suggest changing it to strictly "roll above", leading to 50/50 base chance.

Otherwise, a defender always has to keep his defense 1 point higher to keep changes even.

Since "critical hits" can have game changing effects, this creates incentive to have defense high enough so your opponent can't beat your defense by 5. This requires keeping defense at least 2 points higher than a likely opponent's accuracy (this means 30/70 chances).

It's hard to say anything more without knowing how hard it is to increase these numbers. If all stats are equal in cost, you will see people focusing on Accuracy and Damage and trying to get the first shot in, as that will near-guarantee victory.

If raising damage is harder than raising health, both health and defense increase in importance. If Defense is easier to raise than accuracy, the importance of getting the first turn will diminish.

Without further information, I suggest making Health the cheapest/easiest resource to acquire, followed by Accuracy and Defense which are equal, and Damage being the costliest/hardest resource to acquire.

SowZ
2013-08-21, 03:23 PM
Your accuracy and defence advance in mathematically equivalent steps. However, your system slightly favors the attacker. People in this thread have assumed your system is "roll same or above", leading to 60/40 chances at the base, and since you have not corrected them, I take this to be the case. I suggest changing it to strictly "roll above", leading to 50/50 base chance.

Otherwise, a defender always has to keep his defense 1 point higher to keep changes even.

Since "critical hits" can have game changing effects, this creates incentive to have defense high enough so your opponent can't beat your defense by 5. This requires keeping defense at least 2 points higher than a likely opponent's accuracy (this means 30/70 chances).

It's hard to say anything more without knowing how hard it is to increase these numbers. If all stats are equal in cost, you will see people focusing on Accuracy and Damage and trying to get the first shot in, as that will near-guarantee victory.

If raising damage is harder than raising health, both health and defense increase in importance. If Defense is easier to raise than accuracy, the importance of getting the first turn will diminish.

Without further information, I suggest making Health the cheapest/easiest resource to acquire, followed by Accuracy and Defense which are equal, and Damage being the costliest/hardest resource to acquire.

But since high Accuracy inherently does more damage, shouldn't that be the most expensive?

NichG
2013-08-21, 03:27 PM
But since high Accuracy inherently does more damage, shouldn't that be the most expensive?

They multiply - each influences the effectiveness of the other.

+1 accuracy = +10% of your damage stat.

If 10% of your Damage stat is > 1, then accuracy is worth more. If 10% of your Damage stat is < 1, then damage is worth more. However this is strictly in terms of 'total damage output'. With the health levels in this system, one or two hits tends to take out a target in most cases, so there's a lot of wastage.

SowZ
2013-08-21, 03:35 PM
They multiply - each influences the effectiveness of the other.

+1 accuracy = +10% of your damage stat.

If 10% of your Damage stat is > 1, then accuracy is worth more. If 10% of your Damage stat is < 1, then damage is worth more. However this is strictly in terms of 'total damage output'. With the health levels in this system, one or two hits tends to take out a target in most cases, so there's a lot of wastage.

But it doesn't actually work out that way, mathematically, because high accuracy also adds bonus damage. Having a high damage stat does not give you bonus accuracy. Also, accuracy isn't wasted because of low health levels. Damage is, but accuracy is never wasted. Even on enemies with super low defense, you still want high accuracy. You are already guaranteed to hit, but if you can get your accuracy high enough to guarantee a crit, you may be able to one shot any mook without any investment in the damage state.

NichG
2013-08-21, 03:55 PM
But it doesn't actually work out that way, mathematically, because high accuracy also adds bonus damage. Having a high damage stat does not give you bonus accuracy. Also, accuracy isn't wasted because of low health levels. Damage is, but accuracy is never wasted. Even on enemies with super low defense, you still want high accuracy. You are already guaranteed to hit, but if you can get your accuracy high enough to guarantee a crit, you may be able to one shot any mook without any investment in the damage state.

I was ignoring that because it wasn't defined in any way I can calculate with. Without knowing what exactly a crit gives you, its hard to say if its worth much or not.

With sharp cutoffs like 'can I actually crit or not' the landscape becomes very rugged based on whether this particular point of accuracy is the one that makes crits possible or not. Furthermore, of course all these values depend on the average stats of your enemies. Any non-trivial system is going to have that property.

But its a mistake to think that accuracy is inherently worth more 'because its damage too', because in many cases it may be less additional damage than you'd get from raising damage alone.

SowZ
2013-08-21, 04:16 PM
I was ignoring that because it wasn't defined in any way I can calculate with. Without knowing what exactly a crit gives you, its hard to say if its worth much or not.

With sharp cutoffs like 'can I actually crit or not' the landscape becomes very rugged based on whether this particular point of accuracy is the one that makes crits possible or not. Furthermore, of course all these values depend on the average stats of your enemies. Any non-trivial system is going to have that property.

But its a mistake to think that accuracy is inherently worth more 'because its damage too', because in many cases it may be less additional damage than you'd get from raising damage alone.

Except in either case, on a level playing field, raising accuracy also increases the value of damage and vice-versa. So on a level playing field, they should be roughly equal. But add in that accuracy is damage too and even a little bit more damage pushes it over the edge. Whether or not that makes accuracy marginally better or a lot better depends.

I suppose we need clarification from the OP. Are criticals or spreads minor little increases, mostly for flair? Are they damage multipliers? Or are they combat changing effects?

NichG
2013-08-21, 04:51 PM
Except in either case, on a level playing field, raising accuracy also increases the value of damage and vice-versa. So on a level playing field, they should be roughly equal. But add in that accuracy is damage too and even a little bit more damage pushes it over the edge. Whether or not that makes accuracy marginally better or a lot better depends.


I think your mistake is thinking that accuracy has some inherent benefit in its own right aside from increasing damage. But it doesn't. Its not that accuracy is X plus a bit of damage, accuracy is just one of two ways in the present system of increasing your damage.



I suppose we need clarification from the OP. Are criticals or spreads minor little increases, mostly for flair? Are they damage multipliers? Or are they combat changing effects?

Yes, more information would help figure this out.

SowZ
2013-08-21, 05:01 PM
I think your mistake is thinking that accuracy has some inherent benefit in its own right aside from increasing damage. But it doesn't. Its not that accuracy is X plus a bit of damage, accuracy is just one of two ways in the present system of increasing your damage.



Yes, more information would help figure this out.

I realize that, but accuracy has a way of increasing damage that seems to be totally independent of the damage stat. Whereas damage has no apparent way of increasing accuracy.

So if Damage just increase damage, put accuracy increases damage AND accuracy? Accuracy is better.

NichG
2013-08-21, 05:53 PM
I realize that, but accuracy has a way of increasing damage that seems to be totally independent of the damage stat. Whereas damage has no apparent way of increasing accuracy.

So if Damage just increase damage, put accuracy increases damage AND accuracy? Accuracy is better.

But 'increasing accuracy' on its own is meaningless. Its only useful _because_ it increases damage. Its not like you're comparing 1+x with 1, you're comparing x with 1. If you could have 0 for Damage, then Accuracy would be fundamentally worthless in the system as described - it would do literally nothing.

Damage per round is basically Accuracy * Damage / 10 + constant*Damage, where the 'constant' is based on the enemy's Defense score. Each point you increase Damage gives you a bonus outcome equal to Accuracy/10 + constant. Each point you increase Accuracy gives you a bonus equal to Damage/10.

That is all they do (that we know about), barring the crit mechanic. There is no extra fudge factor because 'accuracy is also accuracy'.

IronFist
2013-08-21, 06:12 PM
I suppose we need clarification from the OP. Are criticals or spreads minor little increases, mostly for flair? Are they damage multipliers? Or are they combat changing effects?
They are combat changing effects. A crit can be one of:
1) Double damage (the number can and probably will change)
2) An extra attack
3) Recovering 1 point of Willpower
4) Remove 1 point of Willpower from target

Gameplay is very focused on emotions, and to draw on emotions you spend Willpower. In fact, for every use other than 3, you need to spend Willpower. You can also use Willpower to invoke additional Health bars, break mental influence, recover spiritual energy, a bunch of stuff. It's basically the most important resource in the system (well, there are also Destiny points, but that's a different deal). Winning a fight against an actual villain (as opposed to a monster or mook) is more about reducing his Willpower (which can be made by beating the hell out of it, forcing it to spend Willpower or through social combat).

SowZ
2013-08-21, 06:38 PM
But 'increasing accuracy' on its own is meaningless. Its only useful _because_ it increases damage. Its not like you're comparing 1+x with 1, you're comparing x with 1. If you could have 0 for Damage, then Accuracy would be fundamentally worthless in the system as described - it would do literally nothing.

Damage per round is basically Accuracy * Damage / 10 + constant*Damage, where the 'constant' is based on the enemy's Defense score. Each point you increase Damage gives you a bonus outcome equal to Accuracy/10 + constant. Each point you increase Accuracy gives you a bonus equal to Damage/10.

That is all they do (that we know about), barring the crit mechanic. There is no extra fudge factor because 'accuracy is also accuracy'.

Well now we know that a crit can double damage. Meaning each point of accuracy translates into a 10% chance of double damage. So as long as you deal 1 damage with an attack, increasing accuracy will increase your average damage.

NichG
2013-08-21, 10:04 PM
Well now we know that a crit can double damage. Meaning each point of accuracy translates into a 10% chance of double damage. So as long as you deal 1 damage with an attack, increasing accuracy will increase your average damage.

There was never any doubt that increasing accuracy increases your average damage. The question is how much, compared to just increasing damage directly. Now we know:

average damage ~ Damage * clamp( (Accuracy-Defense+10)/10) + Damage * clamp( (Accuracy - Defense + 5)/10 )

where clamp(x) is x if 0<x<1, 0 if x<0, and 1 if x>1

If we're in the range where neither of them is clamped, then average damage = 2*Damage*(Accuracy-Defense)/10 + 1.5 * Damage

So increasing Damage by 1 increases your average damage by 1.5 + (Accuracy-Defense)/5. Increasing Accuracy by 1 increases your average damage by Damage/5.

Against an 'equal' target, Defense ~ Accuracy+5. So +1 Damage is worth +0.5 average damage, and +1 Accuracy is worth Damage/5 (break-even around 2-3 Damage), which does suggest that accuracy is more important against an equal target. The crit makes a huge difference here - without the crit, it would have been +1 Accuracy is worth Damage/10.

If we're attacking a target we're already good at hitting (say Defense ~ Accuracy+2) then +1 Damage is worth +1.1 average damage, but +1 Accuracy is still worth Damage/5 (break-even around 5 Damage).

IronFist
2013-08-21, 11:16 PM
As you know, I suck at math.
However, I think the extra attack option on a critical hit is better for high accuracy characters, because you can trigger yet another critical hit out of it.

NichG
2013-08-21, 11:38 PM
As you know, I suck at math.
However, I think the extra attack option on a critical hit is better for high accuracy characters, because you can trigger yet another critical hit out of it.

Ah, thats a good point. Against a low-defense enemy, thats basically 'take as many attacks as you have Willpower to spend'.

SowZ
2013-08-22, 12:58 AM
Not to mention that with Willpower sounding so important, if you have high accuracy, you have as many Willpower points as there are weak mooks. In fact, you may be made stronger by the addition of more mooks, (like in many hack and slash style games where you love to see mooks since it means more HP/MP drops,) but how consistent this resource is is dependent upon your accuracy.

Meaning that while damage serves only to deal damage, accuracy serves many functions of which damage is only one of them. In fact, accuracy helps you perform every single action you can use willpower to do since it recovers willpower. Accuracy is one of the best ways to get more health/tank since you get more willpower to spend on that.

For all these reasons, yeah, Accuracy should be really expensive to improve. You probably don't want people getting a free willpower point every round.

IronFist
2013-08-22, 01:20 AM
So what I have now is this. There are 9 base stats (Agility, Guile, Determination, Spirit, Strength, Intelligence, Presence, Technique and Constitution). They go from 1 to 6, 3 being average. Player characters are expected to be around 4.
Accuracy is determined by Technique + one other stat, depending on the move you make (it can be either Agility, Spirit or Presence).

Damage depends on a stat (Strength, Determination or Intelligence, depending on the move) and the move's bonus (from 1 to 12).

Defense is 5 + Technique + one of Agility, Guile or Constitution.

Starting Willpower is Determination + Presence.
Starting Health is Strength + Constitution. (this can be increased with other ways)

There is also Nagen, a mana attribute, but it doesn't figure much in the core mechanics. It's fuel for supernatural stuff.

I'm a bit afraid Technique might end up as a god stat.

SowZ
2013-08-22, 01:34 AM
So what I have now is this. There are 9 base stats (Agility, Guile, Determination, Spirit, Strength, Intelligence, Presence, Technique and Constitution). They go from 1 to 6, 3 being average. Player characters are expected to be around 4.
Accuracy is determined by Technique + one other stat, depending on the move you make (it can be either Agility, Spirit or Presence).

Damage depends on a stat (Strength, Determination or Intelligence, depending on the move) and the move's bonus (from 1 to 12).

Defense is 5 + Technique + one of Agility, Guile or Constitution.

Starting Willpower is Determination + Presence.
Starting Health is Strength + Constitution. (this can be increased with other ways)

There is also Nagen, a mana attribute, but it doesn't figure much in the core mechanics. It's fuel for supernatural stuff.

I'm a bit afraid Technique might end up as a god stat.

Well let's look at what each stat does.

Agility- Sometimes accuracy, sometimes defense
Guile- Sometimes defense
Determination- Sometimes damage, part of willpower
Spirit- Sometimes accuracy
Constitution- Sometimes defense, part of health
Strength- Sometimes damage, part of health
Intelligence- Sometimes damage
Presence- Sometimes accuracy, part of willpower
Technique- Accuracy, Defense

Technique does end up looking very good, since you need it for both accuracy and defense. And accuracy not only increases, well, accuracy, but also increases extra attacks, willpower regeneration, and extra damage.

Guile, Intelligence, and Spirit look like the least important stats. If you use the right attacks and rely on other stats, you can dump them entirely. From what you've said, it looks like you can keep them all at 1 and it will never come up if you use the right attacks.

Agility fairs slightly better since it can help with two things, but it can still be dumped.

Determination, Constitution, Strength, and Presence, fair a little bit better since they are guaranteed to do something. But it looks like at higher levels they aren't as necessary for Health and Willpower. So they still are nowhere near Technique.

Hmm. How does leveling up work? Is it point buy based? XP spending? Leveling?

Hmm... I'd recommend making all stats save technique equal. So give Spirit, Guile, Agility, and Intelligence some passive bonus like the other four have. Then make technique much harder to raise.

Maybe something equivalent to skills/professions your character is good in for intelligence. Some sort of resistance to supernatural or plot-y magic for Spirit maybe? Maybe Guile+Agility determine your initiative?

Just some ideas.

IronFist
2013-08-22, 02:05 AM
Well let's look at what each stat does.
Technique does end up looking very good, since you need it for both accuracy and defense. And accuracy not only increases, well, accuracy, but also increases extra attacks, willpower regeneration, and extra damage.
Yeah, that's making me concerned.


Guile, Intelligence, and Spirit look like the least important stats. If you use the right attacks and rely on other stats, you can dump them entirely. From what you've said, it looks like you can keep them all at 1 and it will never come up if you use the right attacks.
Guile and Intelligence are important for other stuff. Guile is a key stat in social combat (next to Presence), where it can be used for attack and defense. Intelligence determines your skill points.


Agility fairs slightly better since it can help with two things, but it can still be dumped.
I think Agility is fine, because it's a requirement for plenty of other stuff in the system and it comes up in skill use.


Determination, Constitution, Strength, and Presence, fair a little bit better since they are guaranteed to do something. But it looks like at higher levels they aren't as necessary for Health and Willpower. So they still are nowhere near Technique.
Yeah, Technique is just better compared to everything else.


Hmm. How does leveling up work? Is it point buy based? XP spending? Leveling?
It's point based.


Hmm... I'd recommend making all stats save technique equal. So give Spirit, Guile, Agility, and Intelligence some passive bonus like the other four have. Then make technique much harder to raise.
I initially had a hard cap on Technique, but I gave up on the idea when it seemed to limit concepts too much.


Maybe something equivalent to skills/professions your character is good in for intelligence. Some sort of resistance to supernatural or plot-y magic for Spirit maybe? Maybe Guile+Agility determine your initiative?
Guile + Agility could work for initiative, yeah. I like it.


Just some ideas.
All very helpful ^^
I'm considering dropping Technique altogether and instead having a character trait or something called Martial Artist/Expert Fighter or something like that, to have that extra edge without creating a god stat. Might make it that martial artists roll 2d10 and keep the better result, instead of using this mechanic for aura sight.

NichG
2013-08-22, 10:14 AM
What if Technique didn't affect Accuracy/Defense, but instead determined what bonuses you are eligible for on a crit?

Or alternately, what if Technique just changes the crit range?

Autolykos
2013-08-22, 01:37 PM
Or, you could forbid raising Technique above your lowest stat (or lowest of the former "dumpable" stats Spirit, Guile, Agility, and Intelligence). Since that "mind and body in harmony" thing is pretty big in Japanese philosophy, that would also make a lot of sense inside the setting.
EDIT: Unless there's a really good reason not to, I'd merge Spirit and Guile into one stat, leaving you with 7+1 (Technique is going to be kinda special). That stat would then be mechanically on par with Agility. You should see whether Intelligence is better or worse than those two and tie skills (if any) to the weaker one. Either "Skill points are given by Intelligence" á la D&D, or "Physical skills are derived from Agility, mental skills from Spirit/Guile.", similar to GURPS.

SowZ
2013-08-22, 02:02 PM
Couldn't you just remove technique entirely? Other stats would still remain to give you your defense and accuracy so nothing seems like it would be lost. As it stands, keeping Technique maxed seems like a necessity to be as powerful. Which is basically a feat tax. If every build will need technique, than the bonus from technique should just be built into the system naturally.

Joe the Rat
2013-08-22, 03:04 PM
Given that this is a manga based (seinen, but that means even more blood :smallwink:), Technique as God Stat is thematically appropriate. Who's got the best move? Who's got the fastest draw? Who has practiced their specialty kick 10,000 times?

This just means you need to restrict or cost up Technique. Rather than a linear cost, I'd figure some sort of progressive cost (or more progressive than other stats). Geometric is nice.

Something else to consider is the combining stats - what if technique isn't a single thing? Different schools use different approaches, and would therefore use different attributes in combination with technique.

You've already laid this out, but you could formalize this: specific techniques require combining specific attributes for accuracy/defense/damage. Now here's the important part: Techniques that use the more 'dump stats' for effect, or have poorer synergies are cheaper to raise. You can easily build focused on one or two attributes (Agility/Strength for attack & defense / damage & part of health). Or you could build a technique that uses as many stats as possible (Spirit, Guile, Intelligence: one for att,def,dmg, none contribute to health or willpower). MAD Techniques can be made cheaper to gain - or more importantly cheaper to raise with experience.

Just a thought, mind you.

Oh, and call your criticals 'splashes': it evokes both "splash page" and "splashing blood all over everything."

SowZ
2013-08-22, 03:32 PM
Given that this is a manga based (seinen, but that means even more blood :smallwink:), Technique as God Stat is thematically appropriate. Who's got the best move? Who's got the fastest draw? Who has practiced their specialty kick 10,000 times?

This just means you need to restrict or cost up Technique. Rather than a linear cost, I'd figure some sort of progressive cost (or more progressive than other stats). Geometric is nice.

Something else to consider is the combining stats - what if technique isn't a single thing? Different schools use different approaches, and would therefore use different attributes in combination with technique.

You've already laid this out, but you could formalize this: specific techniques require combining specific attributes for accuracy/defense/damage. Now here's the important part: Techniques that use the more 'dump stats' for effect, or have poorer synergies are cheaper to raise. You can easily build focused on one or two attributes (Agility/Strength for attack & defense / damage & part of health). Or you could build a technique that uses as many stats as possible (Spirit, Guile, Intelligence: one for att,def,dmg, none contribute to health or willpower). MAD Techniques can be made cheaper to gain - or more importantly cheaper to raise with experience.

Just a thought, mind you.

Oh, and call your criticals 'splashes': it evokes both "splash page" and "splashing blood all over everything."

Then why not have 'technique' be a stat that raises automatically, scaling with power growth? Like, every 20 XP you raise one 'technique.' It would give the GM an easy way to estimate power levels, too, since a party at 'Technique 4' would have a fairly predictable power level compared to 'Technique 2.'

I'm a big believe that when there are no brainer choices that everyone spends XP on, just remove that as an XP option and build that bonus in. XP sinks and feat taxes are typically considered bad.

IronFist
2013-08-22, 05:42 PM
What if Technique didn't affect Accuracy/Defense, but instead determined what bonuses you are eligible for on a crit?

Or alternately, what if Technique just changes the crit range?
That would be a greta idea, but I'm already using it as a solution for other stuff (like weapons and specialization in specific kinds of attacks, such as kicks or combos).


Or, you could forbid raising Technique above your lowest stat (or lowest of the former "dumpable" stats Spirit, Guile, Agility, and Intelligence). Since that "mind and body in harmony" thing is pretty big in Japanese philosophy, that would also make a lot of sense inside the setting.
Genius! I might do just that. Maybe get it as "Technique can't be 2 points higher than any other stat".


EDIT: Unless there's a really good reason not to, I'd merge Spirit and Guile into one stat, leaving you with 7+1 (Technique is going to be kinda special). That stat would then be mechanically on par with Agility. You should see whether Intelligence is better or worse than those two and tie skills (if any) to the weaker one. Either "Skill points are given by Intelligence" á la D&D, or "Physical skills are derived from Agility, mental skills from Spirit/Guile.", similar to GURPS.
Spirit is a very important stat, because it's what enables the system's spellcasting. It opens up a whole different tier of tricks.


Couldn't you just remove technique entirely? Other stats would still remain to give you your defense and accuracy so nothing seems like it would be lost. As it stands, keeping Technique maxed seems like a necessity to be as powerful. Which is basically a feat tax. If every build will need technique, than the bonus from technique should just be built into the system naturally.
But that's the thing, you don't need high technique to be very good in combat, it just helps a lot. A Spirit-based character, for example, gets all sorts of tricks. A cyborg gets high damage and Armor. High Agility characters get access to multiple hit attacks, which also increase your ability to hit. High Guile characters get feints. There are other mechanisms in the system for you to fight, high Technique is just the more straightforward.


Then why not have 'technique' be a stat that raises automatically, scaling with power growth? Like, every 20 XP you raise one 'technique.' It would give the GM an easy way to estimate power levels, too, since a party at 'Technique 4' would have a fairly predictable power level compared to 'Technique 2.'

I'm a big believe that when there are no brainer choices that everyone spends XP on, just remove that as an XP option and build that bonus in. XP sinks and feat taxes are typically considered bad.
That sounds like a good idea, however I'd like to allow players to build characters less geared towards combat.


Given that this is a manga based (seinen, but that means even more blood :smallwink:), Technique as God Stat is thematically appropriate. Who's got the best move? Who's got the fastest draw? Who has practiced their specialty kick 10,000 times?
Yeah, that's what lead to Technique being a stat in the first place.


This just means you need to restrict or cost up Technique. Rather than a linear cost, I'd figure some sort of progressive cost (or more progressive than other stats). Geometric is nice.
I think I will use the harmony thing; it can't be much higher than your lower score. That has a side effect of keeping cyborgs balanced, since they WILL dump Spirit.



Something else to consider is the combining stats - what if technique isn't a single thing? Different schools use different approaches, and would therefore use different attributes in combination with technique.
Like Street Fighter StG, right? I had this in a previous version of the system, but tried to get it more streamlined. I could have Offense and Defense as separate stats, though.


You've already laid this out, but you could formalize this: specific techniques require combining specific attributes for accuracy/defense/damage. Now here's the important part: Techniques that use the more 'dump stats' for effect, or have poorer synergies are cheaper to raise. You can easily build focused on one or two attributes (Agility/Strength for attack & defense / damage & part of health). Or you could build a technique that uses as many stats as possible (Spirit, Guile, Intelligence: one for att,def,dmg, none contribute to health or willpower). MAD Techniques can be made cheaper to gain - or more importantly cheaper to raise with experience.
That's a very cool idea, but it would be a bit too complicated for what I'm trying to do.


Oh, and call your criticals 'splashes': it evokes both "splash page" and "splashing blood all over everything."
Genius! I'm doing this.

SowZ
2013-08-22, 05:48 PM
That would be a greta idea, but I'm already using it as a solution for other stuff (like weapons and specialization in specific kinds of attacks, such as kicks or combos).


Genius! I might do just that. Maybe get it as "Technique can't be 2 points higher than any other stat".


Spirit is a very important stat, because it's what enables the system's spellcasting. It opens up a whole different tier of tricks.


But that's the thing, you don't need high technique to be very good in combat, it just helps a lot. A Spirit-based character, for example, gets all sorts of tricks. A cyborg gets high damage and Armor. High Agility characters get access to multiple hit attacks, which also increase your ability to hit. High Guile characters get feints. There are other mechanisms in the system for you to fight, high Technique is just the more straightforward.


That sounds like a good idea, however I'd like to allow players to build characters less geared towards combat.


Yeah, that's what lead to Technique being a stat in the first place.


I think I will use the harmony thing; it can't be much higher than your lower score. That has a side effect of keeping cyborgs balanced, since they WILL dump Spirit.



Like Street Fighter StG, right? I had this in a previous version of the system, but tried to get it more streamlined. I could have Offense and Defense as separate stats, though.


That's a very cool idea, but it would be a bit too complicated for what I'm trying to do.


Genius! I'm doing this.

You could just have technique passively increase all types of offensive moves. So technique also increases your technique at designing gadgets or engaging in diplomacy. That forces people to get slightly better at everything as they 'level up,' but no moreso than a combat character has to raise every stat in order to maximize combat potential if you go that route. Besides, just getting better in general isn't that opposed to manga style.

Alternatively, you could get rid of the technique 'stat' and just have a long list of things called techniques that are similar to feats or new moves/specializations. It would require the most work on your part but would give the most character customization and a lot more options.

Joe the Rat
2013-08-22, 07:56 PM
Like Street Fighter StG, right? I had this in a previous version of the system, but tried to get it more streamlined. I could have Offense and Defense as separate stats, though.


That's a very cool idea, but it would be a bit too complicated for what I'm trying to do.

That's probably a better idea - take the simplest approach that covers what you want the system to do. It's always easier to widget it up later.

Now I'm really wanting to see what this is going to look like when finished.


Genius! I'm doing this. :smallcool:

IronFist
2013-08-22, 08:10 PM
Now I'm really wanting to see what this is going to look like when finished.

:smallcool:

That might take quite a while ^^
It's being designed in Portuguese and after it being designed, it has to be playtested, then the art director has to make his magic and only then would I translate it into English.
If you have facebook, though, I can add you to the discussion group. It's mostly in English, but you could see some illustrations, at least.

Sith_Happens
2013-08-22, 11:05 PM
Not entirely on-topic, but given what you've said so far about the style you're going for, the system's going to allow simultaneous physical/social combat, right? So you and the villain can argue personal philosophies during your big swordfight, try to demoralize each other, etc. and have it actually do something (probably damage each other's Willpower)?

IronFist
2013-08-22, 11:33 PM
Not entirely on-topic, but given what you've said so far about the style you're going for, the system's going to allow simultaneous physical/social combat, right? So you and the villain can argue personal philosophies during your big swordfight, try to demoralize each other, etc. and have it actually do something (probably damage each other's Willpower)?

Not everyone can do that, but there is a special move exactly for that, yes.
Social combat basically lowers Willpower, when you get it to zero you get a special effect depending of how you got it to zero. Of course, in physical combat, just engaging in social combat is already devastating.

Frozen_Feet
2013-08-23, 03:00 AM
Your math, as it stands, favors the attacker too much. It's too easy to get damage in excess of defender's health, and too easy to get accuracy in excess of defense.

Think of this way: if average Stat is 4, and you add stat to damage, then a critical hit doubling damage will one-shot vast majority of opponents. Or, if you have accuracy to near-guarantee a hit, using extra attacks from a crit will also allow killing most opponents in your first turn.

Suggested adjustments:


Cap damage at just stat. If you max Health (per bar) is 12, no-one needs damage higher than 6.
Remove extra attacks as a crit option, or soft-cap it by stating that each additional attack needs to score lower than the previous in addition to beating your target's defense.
Alternatively, raise amount of Health expected by vast amount. I'd argue 12 should be the minimum, with max being 60 or so.
Again, make your system strictly roll above, so that accuracy doesn't get a headstart.
Rethink how often crits happen in your system. Currently, the chance is 10% when chance to hit is 50%, and goes up with 10% as to-hit rises. This is very often compared to other systems.


Failure to make adjustements means combat will be over very quickly, often in the first turn with the defender given no chance to react.

Also, you have too many base stats. Nine is too much, and there's clear conceptual overlap between some of them. You want to:

Condense Guile and Intelligence to one stat. (Call it Wits.)
Condense Spirit and Nagen to one stat (Call it Spirit.)
Condense Determination and Presence to one stat. (Call it Bearing).
Remove Techinique alltogether, or make it so each odd point adds to defense and each even point adds to accuracy. (This'd help balance Accuracy vs. Defense)


This way, you would end up with Strenght, Agility, Constitution, Wits, Spirit and Bearing, plus maybe technique.

IronFist
2013-08-23, 03:11 AM
Your math, as it stands, favors the attacker too much. It's too easy to get damage in excess of defender's health, and too easy to get accuracy in excess of defense.
That's intended. A important character that gets down to 0 health can invoke an additional bar of health with Willpower. You have to "defeat" him around 4 times.


Think of this way: if average Stat is 4, and you add stat to damage, then a critical hit doubling damage will one-shot vast majority of opponents. Or, if you have accuracy to near-guarantee a hit, using extra attacks from a crit will also allow killing most opponents in your first turn.
That's exactly what I intended. That way mooks and monsters go down fast.

Suggested adjustments:



Cap damage at just stat. If you max Health (per bar) is 12, no-one needs damage higher than 6.
Remove extra attacks as a crit option, or soft-cap it by stating that each additional attack needs to score lower than the previous in addition to beating your target's defense.
Alternatively, raise amount of Health expected by vast amount. I'd argue 12 should be the minimum, with max being 60 or so.
Again, make your system strictly roll above, so that accuracy doesn't get a headstart.
Rethink how often crits happen in your system. Currently, the chance is 10% when chance to hit is 50%, and goes up with 10% as to-hit rises. This is very often compared to other systems.

I'm definitely going to use the roll above thing. The rest is pretty much intended, though.


Also, you have too many base stats. Nine is too much, and there's clear conceptual overlap between some of them. You want to:

Condense Guile and Intelligence to one stat. (Call it Wits.)
Condense Spirit and Nagen to one stat (Call it Spirit.)
Condense Determination and Presence to one stat. (Call it Bearing).
Remove Techinique alltogether, or make it so each odd point adds to defense and each even point adds to accuracy. (This'd help balance Accuracy vs. Defense)

Nagen is not a stat per se, it's a pool. The split between Guile and Intelligence is mostly because of social combat and fear of a god stat. It also fits genre conventions. Determination and Presence becoming a single stat does make sense, though. I'll consider it.
My way to solve the Technique thing is not to allow it to be more than 2 points higher than your lower ability score.

I'd like once again to thank everyone for your suggestions. I was pretty stuck with this and now things are flowing like they haven't in months.

SowZ
2013-08-23, 04:03 PM
That's intended. A important character that gets down to 0 health can invoke an additional bar of health with Willpower. You have to "defeat" him around 4 times.


That's exactly what I intended. That way mooks and monsters go down fast.

Suggested adjustments:


I'm definitely going to use the roll above thing. The rest is pretty much intended, though.


Nagen is not a stat per se, it's a pool. The split between Guile and Intelligence is mostly because of social combat and fear of a god stat. It also fits genre conventions. Determination and Presence becoming a single stat does make sense, though. I'll consider it.
My way to solve the Technique thing is not to allow it to be more than 2 points higher than your lower ability score.

I'd like once again to thank everyone for your suggestions. I was pretty stuck with this and now things are flowing like they haven't in months.


A couple concerns, though. The whole, "Technique can't be lower than your lowest stat," forces all combat characters to raise all stats fairly evenly. What I think you will see is characters designed around boosting Technique as much as possible moreso than anything else.

I'm calling it right now that around a table with 6 player characters, the stats of around 4 of them are going to be very, very similar. At most, people will pick on stat they like other than technique and max that out but everything else they will raise equally. Any metagame construct for balance that encourages certain build choices, while not removing options, encourages characters and stats to be based on hitting magic target numbers and such as opposed to just giving your character what works for them.

It is an issue I have with Mutants and Masterminds, too. A lot of character build limitations and hard caps that end up making players build similar characters to each other.

That's my biggest problem with World of Darkness character creation. If my end goal is to have 2 Dexterity and 4 Strength, I am gimping myself by starting my stats at 2 Dexterity and 3 Strength. I'm better off starting with 1 Dexterity and 4 Strength. I am afraid your system will end up having the same problem, only in reverse.

As for different levels of health fixing the HP issue, I still think it doesn't, really. If Mooks run around with 3 HP, the difference between 4 damage and 10 damage doesn't matter at all, further making accuracy more favorable to damage in non-boss fights. Also, those 4 HP bars won't be like different boss modes that are dramatic on each shift. With powerful characters, the boss is probably going to be dropping 2, sometimes 3 Health bars in one turn before he even gets to act.

Frozen_Feet
2013-08-24, 12:58 PM
That's intended. A important character that gets down to 0 health can invoke an additional bar of health with Willpower. You have to "defeat" him around 4 times.


I fear this is going to break down when there are multiple characters fighting against one. Two or three characters focusing on Accuracy can defeat all but the toughest bad guys in one turn, from the beginning of the game.

IronFist
2013-08-24, 05:19 PM
I fear this is going to break down when there are multiple characters fighting against one. Two or three characters focusing on Accuracy can defeat all but the toughest bad guys in one turn, from the beginning of the game.

That's usually how it goes in the source material, though. You need to be extremely badass to fight two named characters and win in seinen manga.

IronFist
2013-08-25, 09:03 PM
I forgot to mention this - I want to implement a rock-paper-scissors mechanic regarding attacks (similar to Burn Legend, for those familiar with it). Currently, it takes shape as your current move sets up possible counters (say, you use a Strike, that means your Defense is at -1 against Charges until you do something else). However, that felt kind of underwhelming and would probably mess up the math completely.
I could make it apply to damage only, but the thing is I wanted it to be two-layer janken thing - one layer is the kind of attack and the other layer is elemental janken. The elemental thing would apply to damage and the other layer would affect accuracy/defense.

Basically - I don't like it the way it is. I was considering allowing certain moves to be used as reactions depending on where they stand in the janken scenario as an options, but I'm still not so sure about it.