Balancing Blaster Wizards (Design Philosophy)

[Jakinbandw]

Okay, I'd like clarification on how fortune dice are supposed to work. So let's say I have 10 ranks of Chaos, and I roll a 7, and then my fortune dice is an 18. What should the result be?

[Telok]

For your average enemy the DC to hit and damage is going to be ~22 in tier 1, ~24 in tier 2, ~26 in tier 3, ~28 in tier 4, and ~30 in tier 5.

Obviously, some foes will be weaker and some will be stronger, and some might be more defensively focused at the cost of offense (or vice versa) or easier to hit and harder to wound (or vice versa)

TLDR: Easiest rule of thumb to max your damage per attack, figure out the target's difference between to hit & to wound dcs, then use whatever means to set your attack bonus & damage bonus to the same difference. If target is dc 24 to hit & dc 20 to wound then the difference is 4, you try to get your +attack to 4 over your +damage.

Well that was interesting. There's a simple basic build for weapon using that gives base +15 attack & damage before weapon type (weapon is heirloom 5) that comes in about 105 points before flaws. There's variations, like one with attack & damage fetishes does better right off the bat but I'd have questions about advancement with it before a real game. Any ways, the simulator has an option now to try adjusting through all combos +/-10 atk & -/+10 dmg versus given to hit & to wound targets.

At all tiers for all weapons having balanced atk/dmg ratios worked best against balanced hit/wound dcs. There's only an exception if you can get to +9/-9 on the first tier balanced and low to hit dc targets. That's coming from the +20 damage boost for crit hitting, and unarmed/claws/brass knuckles don't get an increase in damage for doing that. They might if it went to +12/-12 but I haven't checked. Against increasingly lopsided dodge/resil you just adjust in tandem with it, like a target with 26 to hit & 18 to wound you want to shift from +18 attack & +17 damage to +21 attack & +14 damage. This only looks at damage, not stuff like maiming a swordsman's leg to walk off and shoot him. Wounds per attack were strikingly consistent. If you get within +/-1 of the best number you're generally within 2% of max damage and that max damage holds true across all +/-5 from the balanced to hit & to wound dcs. If you adjust from +18/+17 vs 22/22 to +14/+21 vs 18/26 to +22/+13 vs 27/17 you get the exact same wounds per attack rate at each one.

Claws/knuckles at +19/+16 went from 1.08 wounds per attack on tier 1s to 0.5 on tier 5s. Braced 1-handers, dual 1-handers, bows, and 2-handers are the same dang thing. They vary from +19/+18 to +13/+24, but they all output the same damane of 1.12 on tier 1s to 0.59 on tier 5s. Guns are literally +1/+1 over bows, 1.15 to 0.67.

Conclusion: if you assume a character able to get to even attack/damage bonuses and modify them +/- by about 5-7 points then; unarmed may be better for maneuvers that rely on hitting but not wounding, everything else is basically the same on damage and you should pick weapons based on asthetics, ranged vs melee, and non-damage characteristics.

[gbaji]

Staying out of the specific weeds of character building in your game system, but...

I still don't think I agree though. As I said above, if I take a trait, merit or flaw, I expect it to come up. To me, a GM who doesn't alter their story to enable the PCs isn't doing their job.

Just philosphically, I somewhat disagree with this. It's not a hard disagreement, just a caution, specifically with the second part. While there's nothing wrong with a GM considering the characters wants/desires (and certainly actions) when deciding what the game world will do, I'm hesitant to "alter the story to enable the PCs". This becomes about what the player wants the story to be, which to me, is problematic (or at least can be).

If the players want to alter the game world, they do so by having their characters take actions which alter it. Done. I'm not going to rewrite a scenario because a PC has a specific flaw or ability or whatever. I write the game environment. The players write their characters. Then we see how they interact. And yes, this means that players could write in something that is an epic fail. Which, you know, actively discourages them from engaging in serious munchkinism. Which, to me, is a good thing.

But most gentleman's agreements are phrased as absolutes in my experience.

Things like "The enemies won't use X broken spell if the PCs don't use X broken spell" are a lot more common than "Nobody can use X broken spell. Period."

The latter is really more of a house rule than a gentleman's agreement imo.

Uh... I'm going to echo what someone else said earlier. Fix the broken rule!. If you are the game dev, then you fix the rules directly. If you're GMing an existing game, you create a houserule, get buyin from your players, and write it down or something.

My issue with "gentlemen's agreements" is that they are informal, don't have weight, are not really agreed on, and inevitably will create disagreements and conflicts. There's a mistake in assuming that this is less heavyhanded or soemething, or players will appreciate it. Over time, it will actually create the perception that the GM is being arbritrary or inconsistent. This will lead to player frustration, and IME will either result in angry arguments over things, or players just retreating and being afraid to ever even try something somewhat out of bounds (or hiding this from the GM, so as to avoid a ruling). All of which lead to a disfunctional and unhealthy table.

I'm reminded of what I read about MM3 and GURPS--they deal with things like this by requiring active GM approval for all builds. And I think that's kinda necessary in a build-a-bear (as opposed to class/level-based) system--the number of "abusive" combinations is, well, combinatorial. Fixing all of them without severely constraining non-abusive builds is difficult where it's even possible. So you pay for build-time flexibility with needing way more GM involvement in character creation. On the flip side, a class/level-based system, simply because the number of combinations is so much smaller, can go a lot further with only white-listing sources of content (as opposed to white-listing actual assembled characters piece by piece). Tradeoffs, it's tradeoffs all the way down.

Was gonig to comment on this. It seems as though this rule system really really needs a whole section on GM approval for builds, so as to regulate player and GM expectations. You can address power levels on build, GM setting powerlevels in a setting, etc. In the absense of that being spelled out in the rules themselves, you will get folks trying to min/max the rules to make OP characters. Slapping them down after the fact seems like a bad approach.

Setting standards and "expected norms" ahead of character build time would probably save a lot of trouble IMO.

I played a lot of Champions back in the day. That game absolutely had a number of ways to build absurdly powerful characters. The rules also specifically recognized this, and clearly stated that all builds were subject to GM approval, and directly recommended that GMs create their own expecations for their game. We regularly would set things like power point limits (total build and limits to actve powers) for different games. So we'd play "high power", or "low power", or even "henchmen/agent level" games. All worked. But you had to set up those standards ahead of time.

Communication is king here.

Honestly, very few players try to actually break things in my play-tests. Maybe that's because they know I will just fix the broken rules so there isn't much point?

Isn't that exactly what playtesting is for? The latter should not be a "punishment" to the players, but what they are precisely trying to do when playtesting.

When I'm testing code, I don't just do the things the devs expected me to do. That's not testing. I'm going to do all the crazy ridiculous things that some random person banging on a keyboard might try to do. Why on earth have the players restrict themselves to "expected stuff" if they are playtesting the game?

I really don't like the idea of the GM having to approve all characters. I have had far too many stupid GMs veto character aspects for stupid reasons. At the same time, people rarely actually try and play ridiculously one sided characters in actual play and it is seldom necessary.

I think that out of your desire to not be heavy handed, you may be making things worse. You're still applying GM veto, but being very passive aggressive about it. Basically the rule is "I'm not going to veto characters... until I do, and then it'll be via some nasty thing I have happen to your character in the game setting". That's still you vetoing character builds. Just not giving firm documented boundaries/rules for the players to follow so they know what sorts of things are allowed or not.

And given that most of these things are exploits that exist in the rules themselves, that's a double bad whammy for the players IMO. They think that according to the rules, what they are doing is legal. But the threshold between "I can play with no problems" and "I'm going to get my character whacked" is unclear. This leads back to what I talked about earlier. Some players will be angry and argumentative. Others will retreat into just meekly avoiding ever coming anywhere close to controversial so as to avoid backlash.

Which, again, is not healthy.

[Telok]

Okay, I'd like clarification on how fortune dice are supposed to work. So let's say I have 10 ranks of Chaos, and I roll a 7, and then my fortune dice is an 18. What should the result be?

As I understand it, because it works like Inept and Tak & I talked on that, your base die has a default "bad on 1' and 'good on 20'. Subsequent dice for bad effectively lose 'good on 20' and subsequent dice for good effectively lose 'bad on 1'.

So the way I've been testing it is with... say bad fortune 1-10 & good fortune 19-20, you roll d20+bonus, it's 8 = bad fortune. All subsequent fortune dice lose the good fortune on 19 & 20, you're now at bonus-20 and roll another die. If it comes up 19 you're at bonus-20+19 = bonus-1. If it was another 1-10 you go to bonus-40 and another roll.

So if you take the insane 9 relic point chaos tool for a 1-10 bad fortune and 11-20 good fortune:
1. First die 7 then 2nd die 18 = bonus-20+18
2. First die 18 then 2nd die 7 = bonus+20+7
3. Dice do 7, 7, 20 = bonus-40+20
4. Dice do 11,11,1 = bonus+40+1

Edit: as a fumble system it's pretty lenient since rational people won't go too nuts with Inept/Chaos tools, the last die always adds, most people want a 10-15 bonus at anything anyway, and actual fumble effects only kick in at target number-20.

[Talakeal]

Okay, I'd like clarification on how fortune dice are supposed to work. So let's say I have 10 ranks of Chaos, and I roll a 7, and then my fortune dice is an 18. What should the result be?

Negative eleven.

[Jakinbandw]

Negative eleven.

Two more questions then, same setup:

1) first 7, then 20, then 13
2) first 9, then 1, then 4

[Talakeal]

Two more questions then, same setup:

1) first 7, then 20, then 13
2) first 9, then 1, then 4

Assuming maximum chaotic?

-26 and 8 respectively.

[Jakinbandw]

Assuming maximum chaotic?

-26 and 8 respectively.

Took me a few seconds, but i get it now. I can see why you wanted to change it to be less confusing though. Should i go with that, or with the +/-20 version for my next build?

[Talakeal]

Took me a few seconds, but i get it now. I can see why you wanted to change it to be less confusing though. Should i go with that, or with the +/-20 version for my next build?

You can do whatever you want for your next build, but I am going to be reverting to the older text in the next revision of the rulebook :)



In short; how it is intended to work is that if you roll a natural 20, roll a fortune dice and add it to the result, if you roll a natural 1, roll a fortune dice and subtract it. If the fortune dice rolls a natural 20, roll another dice of the same type. There is no effect for a fortune dice rolling a natural 1.

It's not confusing IMO, but it does involve subtraction and negative numbers. I tried to rewrite the rule without subtraction, but it doesn't work in the case of increased thresholds.




Of course, in typical play, it is mathematically identical to simply roll a confirmation dice; if you roll a natural 20 roll again, if the second result would succeed, you get a critical, if it would fail, you get an ordinary success. Likewise, if you roll a natural 1, roll again, if the second result would also fail you fumble, if it would succeed you get an ordinary failure.

No extra math at all, but it breaks down if you fail on a 20, succeed on a 1, or have a modified threshold for fortune.

[Jakinbandw]

You can do whatever you want for your next build, but I am going to be reverting to the older text in the next revision of the rulebook :)



In short; how it is intended to work is that if you roll a natural 20, roll a fortune dice and add it to the result, if you roll a natural 1, roll a fortune dice and subtract it. If the fortune dice rolls a natural 20, roll another dice of the same type. There is no effect for a fortune dice rolling a natural 1.

It's not confusing IMO, but it does involve subtraction and negative numbers. I tried to rewrite the rule without subtraction, but it doesn't work in the case of increased thresholds.




Of course, in typical play, it is mathematically identical to simply roll a confirmation dice; if you roll a natural 20 roll again, if the second result would succeed, you get a critical, if it would fail, you get an ordinary success. Likewise, if you roll a natural 1, roll again, if the second result would also fail you fumble, if it would succeed you get an ordinary failure.

No extra math at all, but it breaks down if you fail on a 20, succeed on a 1, or have a modified threshold for fortune.

Good to know. The reason I called it confusing (or more accurately counter inutitive) is that high rolls are always good, except when you roll a fortune dice off a 1. Its a reveral of built expectations. Now im fine with it, and i think the people attracted to your game would probably be fine with it, but it is worth noting.

I think im going to take a break from builds until your next release. Im worried that ill forget a rule change without a proper referance.

[Telok]

Ok, tried for three extreme (though not full on TO) starter builds. Pretty sure the survivor one is a fail/trap by simply being bad at everything except not dying in standard combat.

Also, couldn't follow you guys fortune math at all. You using a different version from... no version numbers... Apr 28th download?

Don't recall, would it be reasonable in actual play to buy limited enlightenment up into full enlightenment?

Basic "all offense" starter character, this can actually swap melee/brawling/marksman around pretty openly

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stats 5s (80 pt)
prime skills: melee, business (need to buy better armor eventually), resolve (vs no-armor magics)
secondary skills: marksman, acrobatic (vs area booms), fortitude (vs poisons & the remaining no-armor magics), open skill
prodigy x5 melee (5 pt), +melee damage trait x5 (5pt), evocation fetish (4 pt), necromancy fetish (4 pt), heirloom sword +5 (5 pt), martial move x2 precise shot & wide swing (2 pt)
subtotal: 105, colorblind (yellow orange), -5 performance skill, allergy (peanuts), deformity (heavy scarring)
note: consider adding another flaw to get ambidextrous

anima & chakra 1, wealth 10, concentration 5, mana 5, might 10, dodge 10(12) (to hit 20(22)), resilience 5(11) (to wound 15(21)), tenacity 5, vitality 5, destiny 5, speed 5, encumbrance 5, initiative 10

fighty:
melee attack = dex 5 + skill 5 + prodigy 5 + weapon bonus AND roll 2 take better
melee damage = str 5 + heirloom weapon 5 + trait 5 + weapon bonus AND roll 2 take better
precise shot = +2 damage for -2 attack
wide swing = +2 attack for -2 damage
(ranged attack is -2 from that and ranged damage is -10 from that)

dual wield axe (-2/+5 +hilt guard)(-2 attack +high armor penetration) & short jagged heirloom blade (+2/+10 +hilt guard) (+7 damage & low armor penetration) for +2 attack
jag = +17 attack & +20 damage
axe = +15 attack & +15 damage
low caliber pistol (+3/+2 +long range & ammo(6x2)) = +11 attack & +12 damage & range 10

medium armor & helmet (+4/+5 resilience, -4 acrobat, -4 athletic, -4 stealth, -5 alertness)
house, clothing, long pole with a hook at the end (generally useful around the house), stuff, personal effects (re: business, fortitude, resolve)

Function: against tier 1 targets of 22/22 to hit/to wound aim for a +19/+18 attack using wide swing for 99% hit & 8% crit hit yields 100% wounds per hit & 14% crit wounds & 1% mortal wounds, OK if we vary by +/-3 as those are within a 5% wound/attack rate. Can stack aim & maim with good results.

Advancement: limited mutation +str(damage) at 2:1, limited mutation +dex(melee) at 2:1, generally buy up endurance & willpower, get assorted +5 skill traits, get assorted +3 basic skill proficiencies, get the knife enchanted as an artifact, get better armor

Basic "all defense" starter character, this one assumes we can't take an heirloom helmet for +6 resilience

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stats all 4s (64 pt) except endurance at 7 (6 pt)
+6 dodge (6 pt), mutation endurance x5 (20 pt), mutation agility x5 (20 pt), heirloom heavy armor +5 (5pt), +1 encumbrance
prime skills: melee, business (need to buy better weapons), marksman
secondary skills (all bad fortune on 1 & 2): athletic, acrobatic, fortitude, resolve, unarmed combat, stealth
subtotal: 122, -5 reason, -5 leadership, -2 initiative, -5 perform, weak left arm (-2 str), colorblind (yellow/orange), allergy (peanuts), -6 hearing, deep sleeper (-4), ignorant x2 + inept x4, deformity (no ears), shaky hands (-1 manual int tasks), impoverished (-1), -2 concentration, -4 might
SOULLESS, amputee & bionic right arm (+2 str)

anima & chakra 1, wealth 8, concentration 2, mana 4, might 4, dodge 20(22) (to hit 30(32)), resilience 12(24) (to wound 22(34)), tenacity 4, vitality 12, destiny 4, speed 4, encumbrance 5, initiative 6

heavy heirloom armor + helmet (+11/+12 resilience, -6 acrobat, -6 athlete, -6 stealth, -5 alertness)

dual wield a jagged short blade & low quality melee claw with a hilt guard
jagged short blade (right): +13 attack & +9 damage & low armor penetration
claw (left & not ambidextrous): +11(bad fortune 1&2) attack & +2 damage
large caliber hand gun (+long barrel & high damage ammo 6x2): +8 attack & +14 damage (low armor pen) & range 8

house, clothing, steel toe boots, long pole with a hook at the end (generally useful around the house), stuff, camo fatigues, personal effects (re: business, fortitude, resolve)

Function: Survive. You aren't amazing at anything (agility skills +9 but bad fortune 1 & 2) but you can probably contribute a warm body until you buy up your dexterity & strength. You will be the last one standing.

Advancement: Buy stats & skills & the +5 talents. Acquire decent weapons.

Power abjurer midget

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stats 5s (80 pt) & enlightenment (abjuration) x10 (10 pt)
mutation (enlightenment) x5 (20 pt), staff power 2x (abjuration magic missile OR circle of protection depending on other characters and starting situation) (8 pt)
prime skills: abjuration, stone carving, social
secondary skills: unarmed combat, marksmanship, business, insight
subtotal: 118
-5 perform, -5 leadership, deformity (midget), colorblind (yellow/orange), allergy (peanuts), -2 hearing, deep sleeper (-4), tiny (-2 size (phy dmg & might & resil & to be perceived), -5 expression)

anima & chakra 1, wealth 8, concentration 5, mana 5, might 10, dodge 10 (to hit 20), resilience 5(10) (to wound 15(20)), tenacity 5, vitality 5, destiny 5, speed 5, encumbrance 5, initiative 10

fighty (size -dmg factored in)
blowgun (+4/+1): +12 attack & +4 damage (to do: buy poisons)
silver melee claw (+4/+1): +12 attack & +4 damage (for use on werewolves & etc.)
light armor +shield +helmet (+2/+5 resilience & -2 athletic, -2 acrobat, -2 stealth, -4 alertness)

Function: cast abjuration spells at base +20, depending on the party priority of staves for defense or mixed.
circle of protection(enchant): tn 20 = area 1 within 5 hedges out "thing" with soulless unaffected(+15 meta for that), tn 25 for larger area
protection(enchant): tn 25 (empower) = person 1 within 5 immune to damage type, weapon type, specific poison, etc.
assault of stone (missile): tn dodge to hit & then test damage as base range 5 weapon, empower +5 for specific mineral, reach +5 for base range 50, blunt damage, needs stone brick cobbles (carry a bag of sling stones)
asylum(enchant): tn 20 encase 1 thing/person in range 5 in crystal, paralyzed & safe & auto-pass fortitude & durability 30 until release/broken, +2 meta for +2 to affect larger size things
cantrip of ground(cantrip): tn 10 or 20 as quick action or 25 as reflexive action for roll 2 & take best on resilience or stone working (tn 15 for extend duration for complex task like carving stone work)
chains of wrath(incant): tn 20 any 1 target in 5 wrapped in iron chains, immobile & paralyzed, tn 30 escape or feat of strength to get free, durability 50,
... so many spells...

Advancement: ASAP staffs of power (prismatic character pt -> abj-only ambrosia) for protection, cantrip, and magic circle. Also conglomerate all staffs into one with symbiotic or maybe use stone crafting to make a focusing crystal clockwork version, moliate +5 metamagic transfers artifact power to another object (rings? suppositories are probably a no-go). Carve piles of periapts in spare time (2 concentration each). Buy skills & talents & more mana (unlimited). Purchase a +quality abjuration spell book.

[Talakeal]

Spoiler: Build Nitpicking

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I don't feel this is clear right now. Cataract starts off saying that it can make an illusion real, and then goes on to state it can replicate spells. That sounded like two separate applications of the same spell to me. As I said though, I already dropped it.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, there seems to be an unwritten style in a lot of RPGs where the first sentence is a fluffier explanation of what the rule does, and the next sentence is a crunchier explanation of how it does it. It would be really neat to study this writing style more, maybe a topic for a new thread

I'd reword this for clarity. Also, couldn't the PC just write an in universe character sheet, or make a short story showcasing all the attributes they want, then cast Genesis? Feels like this is overly complicated.

No, because the caster isn't the one who is creating the being, they are drawing them forth from the universal subconscious. This spell is meant to be complex, you are creating wholly new life from non-life. If you are simply trying to get a minion, there are much better ways to


Yeah, I'm going to put this fully on you here. As a fan of time loop stories it makes narrative sense to me a character could try over and over to get something right. From a rules perspective though it's even worse. Turn back the Clock reads 'Note that the Gamekeeper might have to restrict player knowledge if a chronomancer uses this spell to simply avoid paying the costs for information gathering spells and abilities. Likewise, the Gamekeeper chooses which dice rolls from the previous timeline stand.' Making it seem like that omission from glympses is intentional, and thus that dice are rerolled. I'm curious of the rules around this however, if I go to cast a spell and stop, is that roll saved forever? If not, how long is it saved for? I'd like to know before my next build.

I am making a serious effort to stop engaging in arguments about trying to assign % of blame, it never ends well and always derails the thread. I will just say that your reading is a valid RAW interpretation, but it was not at all what I intended and I have rewritten the spell accordingly.

In my experience, fiction about time-loops is typically about trying different things, not just doing the same thing over and over again until it eventually it works.

The roll is stored for the rest of the mission.

First, that's really not clear, and the wording of the spell implies otherwise "Force of nature grants the land a life of its own, allowing it to take direct action against nature's enemies by forming a vengeful avatar." Avatar is a trait living creatures can take, and it doesn't have any wording to say that it is undead or a construct. If it's not alive, that should be spelled out. Especially when the spell says it gives life.

This is more English being stupid combined with first sentences being . Life has several definitions. For example, if "an engine roars to life" that doesn't mean it is sustained by biological processes. The blue fairy brought a puppet to life, but he wasn't yet a real boy. Etc.

I could easily see ruling that a force of nature was alive because only those made from cities are constructs, but my intent was that it functioned like the elemental body of a kami, and if you look up kamis and elemental bodies both called out as being animate conglomerations of un-living matter.

There are other beings that are neither alive nor constructs; spirits, vampires, tulpas, living spells (the latter of which actually has living in the name).

Generally I don't spell out explicitly what creatures are alive as it is the default state for most creatures and doesn't need additional rules, but maybe I should for a few edge cases like this.


Fourth: Fusion is very clear - it cant copy anything other than traits and proficiencies, and allow attributes to be set at specific ranges. Since that bit of rules text is none of those things, it can't be carried over even if we wanted to. It's why I didn't assume the new character had like 25 chakras with only 5 filled. It's not something that could carry over. I went hard RAW with this build.


That's an odd interpretation IMO; to transfer the benefits of a limited ability without the limitations.


While you say the maximum for a stat is 15, spirits have stats that go to 20.


Spirit's attributes are capped to 15 as per Chapter Six, and nothing contradicts this or says they go up to twenty. The primordial gods have numbers that are flat out impossible, and are explicitly stated to be able to ignore the game's rules entirely, but I don't believe anything ever gives them attribute scores, twenty or otherwise, unless there is some text from an earlier draft floating around somewhere that I missed.

I would argue that lacking an explicit rule, that right now rules as written, the force of nature could have that 30 in their stats.

As written, the force of nature doesn't have attributes at all. I will clarify it in the next build.

Mainly because while every other ability and spell in the game lists a cap, force of nature doesn't, and the paragon rules you need to reference show that higher stats are possible. Maybe there is a general rule, but I didn't see it, and I was looking. Also, specific beats general and all that. This is an easy wording fix however, and any new builds will abide by it.

As written, the force of nature doesn't have attributes at all. I will clarify it in the next build.

There isn't really a good place in the book to put the no stat may ever exceed 15 in the book, and every way that I know of to modify stats already has that as a limitation.

Not sure what you mean by the paragon rules show higher stats are possible. Could you please elaborate?


I understand how you run it at your table. When I do a TO build, I assume that stuff that needs table permission is off the table (so to speak). And it does explicitly state all players "Chronomancers should not be allowed to cast the empowered version of this spell unless all of the other players are willing to put forth the required effort."

Right, but it doesn't say they have a ability to veto the spell for tactical reasons, it says the spell shouldn't be cast if they are unwilling to put in the time and effort. Claiming that you don't have the time when for a tactical advantage would, by RAW, be both lying and cheating IMO. Although I guess that you could argue that the rules don't say WHY you are unwilling to put in the effort and still be technically correct.

In the end, I think I get your system enough I could build a character for it now, but with how spread out everything is, it's really hard. I'd like to see all the player stuff put closer together, and I'd love to see more tables like the trait list. It would make it easier to find spells, artifacts, and item mods.

Also for your next version, please include sample starter builds.

I do eventually plan on including examples and walkthroughs at some point in some version, but it won't be the next one.

IMO tables take up a lot of space and are really ugly to look at, and I try and avoid them unless it is actually presenting new information.

Likewise, in my experience sample characters are just wasted space. I have never used one, and they actively make it harder to find the information I need. Likewise, I imagine that any sample characters you would find interesting would be too weird and complex for a general audience and those made for a general audience would seem bland and generic to you.

I understand that you and others want character building to be a skill in your game that players can master. I feel that is a trap. Let's say a new player builds a character next to a master player, and struggles because of it (say they wanted to play a blaster mage, but didn't realize all the downsides until the game started, and they regret their decisions). How are they supposed to catch up, when they only get 1 cp per adventure? Some builds can be fixed by an expert with help, but others are unfixable. Are players intended to make and retire multiple characters over the course of the game as they get better at building?

You know, I feel like people are coming at me from both sides in this thread; telling me that I hate any form of optimization but also trapping players by requiring optimization. Make up your minds you dang kids!

I have a hard time imagining a "trap build" that someone could just stumble into; its really more about simply not liking that type of character you made rather than being hampered by bad choices IMO. And even if you did somehow have an un-fixable build, well, that's what transfiguration magic is for. I have certainly never seen a player wish they could buy off a weakness they took at character creation but just didn't have the CP to; honestly I tend to have the opposite problem of people having too many CP to spend and not knowing how to do so without making their character's weaknesses dissapear.

I admit I have a differant philosophy from you and others here. When I ran into a Newby trap option in my game (in my case it was players that wanted to spend every action attacking instead of utizing other tactical options) I changed combat to make it rewarding, and even optimal at times, because I want players to have freedom to play any character they can imagine.

IMO people should have the option to have weaknesses if they want them. For a lot of people, myself including, the struggling is part of the RP experience, and makes victories feel all the more rewarding.

Your system allows them to build any character, true, but it has many trap builds, which effectively make it impossible to play certain common archetypes. For me its more freeing for players to have every build and play-style be viable, even if it means that expert players can't overshadow new ones.

Could you please elaborate on this? I am serious, if you can think of some common archetypes that don't work in my system, I would love to hear about them. Heck, you can even toss them back to me as character buildings challenges of my own.

Likewise, I am not aware of any trap options; please point them out so I can fix them.

In my experience, the only way you can get a "bad" character in HoD is by ignoring synergy, either within yourself or with the rest of your party. Like, for example, making a gun-slinger with no guns, or an orator with no voice, or a pick-pocket with no hands, or an academic with no intelligence, etc.

Or, I guess, making a one-note character and then getting bored when their one thing isn't appropriate, but that really seems more like a choice and a matter of distribution rather than being bad in a vacuum.

For abilities I limit myself to a single line of fluff, and put it in italics. For example from my 'Sacred Hunter' class/feat group:

Restoration
Between your own rituals, and your divine patron, you undo a monster’s harm
As an action, spend a point of karma: A target not at their System Strain (SS) cap is healed of both enough physical wounds to put them below their physical wound limit and any curses with a DC to remove lower than 12 + your level. This causes them 1 SS.
During a long rest choose a target with a monster npc concept that is not natural for them: you may deal them a spirit wound to remove it from them, returning them to their normal form.

That works for a more gamist system, but for a lot of things there isn't a clear division between fluff and crunch.

Like, for example:

"Vikings are tall, blonde haired warriors who live in the fjords. They are the undisputed masters of close combat. Vikings receive +3 to strength, proficiency in sailing and melee, and +2 to resilience so long as they wear little horns on their helmets."

I can't imagine even the worst rules lawyer arguing that you are cheating for having your viking move inland or for having a non-viking dispute their mastery of close combat. Likewise, I would generally consider the blonde hair and helmet horns fluff, but I could easily see a cursed magic sword that can only be wielded by redheads or someone wanting to use the horns on their helmet as a handhold.

Like, I remember an argument on this thread a few months ago about whether or not one could see the glow from the armor of faith as the spell description mentions a glowing aura, but doesn't give it any mechanical effect.


Also, the idea of a forced one sentence of fluff makes me wince. Both because I am trying to imagine how bad my writing would be if I had to force everything worth saying into one sentence, find something stupid to say if there wasn't a full sentence worth saying, and because it feels like a value judgement about fluff vs. crunch.

TLDR: Easiest rule of thumb to max your damage per attack, figure out the target's difference between to hit & to wound dcs, then use whatever means to set your attack bonus & damage bonus to the same difference. If target is dc 24 to hit & dc 20 to wound then the difference is 4, you try to get your +attack to 4 over your +damage.

Well that was interesting. There's a simple basic build for weapon using that gives base +15 attack & damage before weapon type (weapon is heirloom 5) that comes in about 105 points before flaws. There's variations, like one with attack & damage fetishes does better right off the bat but I'd have questions about advancement with it before a real game. Any ways, the simulator has an option now to try adjusting through all combos +/-10 atk & -/+10 dmg versus given to hit & to wound targets.

At all tiers for all weapons having balanced atk/dmg ratios worked best against balanced hit/wound dcs. There's only an exception if you can get to +9/-9 on the first tier balanced and low to hit dc targets. That's coming from the +20 damage boost for crit hitting, and unarmed/claws/brass knuckles don't get an increase in damage for doing that. They might if it went to +12/-12 but I haven't checked. Against increasingly lopsided dodge/resil you just adjust in tandem with it, like a target with 26 to hit & 18 to wound you want to shift from +18 attack & +17 damage to +21 attack & +14 damage. This only looks at damage, not stuff like maiming a swordsman's leg to walk off and shoot him. Wounds per attack were strikingly consistent. If you get within +/-1 of the best number you're generally within 2% of max damage and that max damage holds true across all +/-5 from the balanced to hit & to wound dcs. If you adjust from +18/+17 vs 22/22 to +14/+21 vs 18/26 to +22/+13 vs 27/17 you get the exact same wounds per attack rate at each one.

Claws/knuckles at +19/+16 went from 1.08 wounds per attack on tier 1s to 0.5 on tier 5s. Braced 1-handers, dual 1-handers, bows, and 2-handers are the same dang thing. They vary from +19/+18 to +13/+24, but they all output the same damane of 1.12 on tier 1s to 0.59 on tier 5s. Guns are literally +1/+1 over bows, 1.15 to 0.67.

Conclusion: if you assume a character able to get to even attack/damage bonuses and modify them +/- by about 5-7 points then; unarmed may be better for maneuvers that rely on hitting but not wounding, everything else is basically the same on damage and you should pick weapons based on aesthetics, ranged vs melee, and non-damage characteristics.

Very interesting. Thank you for the effort.

Any chance I could see a spreadsheet of the results or something like it?

Good to know. The reason I called it confusing (or more accurately counter inutitive) is that high rolls are always good, except when you roll a fortune dice off a 1. Its a reveral of built expectations. Now im fine with it, and i think the people attracted to your game would probably be fine with it, but it is worth noting.

I think im going to take a break from builds until your next release. Im worried that ill forget a rule change without a proper referance.

Agreed.

I much prefer the shortcut of just using confirmation dice if at all possible.

Just philosophically, I somewhat disagree with this. It's not a hard disagreement, just a caution, specifically with the second part. While there's nothing wrong with a GM considering the characters wants/desires (and certainly actions) when deciding what the game world will do, I'm hesitant to "alter the story to enable the PCs". This becomes about what the player wants the story to be, which to me, is problematic (or at least can be).

Sure, its not an all or nothing thing.

But if it makes sense to alter the story, then I think a good GM will put in the effort. It doesn't have to be extreme or anything though, but it will feel richer and less random if there is some sort of connection.

For example, when I last ran the Dragonlance modules, one of the player's backstory was about how they grew up in a monastery that was destroyed when a bitter former student betrayed them. I swapped out one of the Dragon Highlords who didn't have a lot of development or personality in the book as written with said former student, thus putting a personal face on the enemy and giving the player more of an incentive to get involved.

If the players want to alter the game world, they do so by having their characters take actions which alter it. Done. I'm not going to rewrite a scenario because a PC has a specific flaw or ability or whatever. I write the game environment. The players write their characters. Then we see how they interact. And yes, this means that players could write in something that is an epic fail. Which, you know, actively discourages them from engaging in serious munchkinism. Which, to me, is a good thing.

It also turns every session into Russian roulette, which is not fun for anyone. The other players feel overshadowed when the weakness when it doesn't come up. The munchkin feels picked on when it does. And the GM has to listen to them all bitch about it.

Uh... I'm going to echo what someone else said earlier. Fix the broken rule!. If you are the game dev, then you fix the rules directly. If you're GMing an existing game, you create a house-rule, get buy-in from your players, and write it down or something.

My issue with "gentleman's agreements" is that they are informal, don't have weight, are not really agreed on, and inevitably will create disagreements and conflicts. There's a mistake in assuming that this is less heavy-handed or something, or players will appreciate it. Over time, it will actually create the perception that the GM is being arbritrary or inconsistent. This will lead to player frustration, and IME will either result in angry arguments over things, or players just retreating and being afraid to ever even try something somewhat out of bounds (or hiding this from the GM, so as to avoid a ruling). All of which lead to a dysfunctional and unhealthy table.

I honestly don't remember how we got to talking about gentleman's agreements, but I don't like them. I much prefer written rules to unwritten ones, and as someone with NVLD real life has enough "unwritten rules" that I am unaware of for me to want them at my gaming table.

Of course, the players till get it in their heads that we have them, and often spring them upon me after I "broke them" without realizing it.

I think that out of your desire to not be heavy handed, you may be making things worse. You're still applying GM veto, but being very passive aggressive about it. Basically the rule is "I'm not going to veto characters... until I do, and then it'll be via some nasty thing I have happen to your character in the game setting". That's still you vetoing character builds. Just not giving firm documented boundaries/rules for the players to follow so they know what sorts of things are allowed or not.

And given that most of these things are exploits that exist in the rules themselves, that's a double bad whammy for the players IMO. They think that according to the rules, what they are doing is legal. But the threshold between "I can play with no problems" and "I'm going to get my character whacked" is unclear. This leads back to what I talked about earlier. Some players will be angry and argumentative. Others will retreat into just meekly avoiding ever coming anywhere close to controversial so as to avoid backlash.

Which, again, is not healthy.

Please not, that I explicitly called out having a character with too many artifacts ambushed right out of the gate as being something that I wouldn't do and explicitly called it out as being overly passive aggressive.


But again, I don't believe in holding the player's hands. I will tell them the risks, and then let them play, and if the natural consequences of the setting or the mechanics hurt their character, that is on them.


To use a D&D example, it is generally considered a very bad idea to dump constitution, and it will likely lead to the death of the character who does it.

I don't think the game would be improved by having a rule that outright forbids dumping constitution.

The guy who enjoys a challenge, the guy who likes the fiction of a Raistlin style cripple, or the guy who thinks he can beat the system and never actually take a hit all deserve to be allowed to play the character they want to play.

The GM should remind them of the risks, and then play it fair and impartial. And gain, stacking the game so that constitution is super important is bad GMing, although in universe a character's enemies who find out about their weakness are certain to exploit it.

[Telok]

Very interesting. Thank you for the effort.

Any chance I could see a spreadsheet of the results or something like it?

Ha, once I saw the patterns I started just spot checking it.

Here's a g-doc link to the big sheet. Heart of Darkness is down in the bottom cluster by the Cowboys & Dinosaurs one, click the button to show the calculator.

//drive.google.com/file/d/11FssDTd3_uqj7gUUMW0Y3ofrmcd4f5tX/view?usp=drivesdk

It's a web page, but you run it local. Not set for phones/tablets. I swear there's no network/internet code in there but you can open it with any text editor to make sure.

I'm not 100% sure I'm running the fortune dice right after your last convo with Jak. But as long as you skip the expanded fortune range it shouldn't matter by more than a +1.

[gbaji]

But if it makes sense to alter the story, then I think a good GM will put in the effort. It doesn't have to be extreme or anything though, but it will feel richer and less random if there is some sort of connection.

For example, when I last ran the Dragonlance modules, one of the player's backstory was about how they grew up in a monastery that was destroyed when a bitter former student betrayed them. I swapped out one of the Dragon Highlords who didn't have a lot of development or personality in the book as written with said former student, thus putting a personal face on the enemy and giving the player more of an incentive to get involved.

Yeah. That kind of minor stuff works just fine.

It also turns every session into Russian roulette, which is not fun for anyone. The other players feel overshadowed when the weakness when it doesn't come up. The munchkin feels picked on when it does. And the GM has to listen to them all bitch about it.

I actually didn't even really think about it until this exchange, but it occurs to me that I pretty much avoid playing games with weaknesses/flaws in the system nowadays.

This has always been a problematic mechanism for gaming. And yeah, I get that many players just love them. And the folks who love them for RP reasons work fine with them. It's the folks who are using them for min/max reasons that become problematic IME. They want the "free points" for taking these things on their character, and often take a *lot* of them in order to pay for their builds. But that puts the GM in a pretty uncomfortable position of having to decide just how often those weaknesses should really play a part. And yeah, the min/max folks are often the very first to complain if/when one of the dozen or so weaknesses they took on character build actually comes along and bites them in the butt somehow.

It's problematic becuase it's inherently part of the "balance" of the build system (you literally get more points if you take more of them, right?), which suggests that they should actually balance more powerful characters during actual play to offset that fact (ie: you take more or higher point weaknesses and they should hinder you more often or to a greater degree). But that rarely actually goes over well and is always going to be subject to player complaints about being targetted unfairly.

And of course, if you don't take those weaknesses into account during play, then the more powerful chacters are just more powerful "for free", essentially. Which is going to annoy/upset the players who perhaps took a more modest set of them, thinking they would actually be a sufficient amount of balance effect to wash out, but now discovering they do not.

Put another way. If we were to treat this as a strictly mathematical calculation. If you take a set of weaknesses that grant you 20 extra chacter build points (or whatever), those weakensses should have the effect on every single scenario as though your character didn't have those extra 20 points. Otherwise, you are gaining more from taking them than you lose. You get to use those extra points in every adventure, and in every encounter, right? But I'm pretty sure the players would be up in arms if you had -20 points worth of negative effects applied to you in every encounter on every adventure, right?

Which is why these can be problematic mechanisms IMO.

[Jakinbandw]

I'm back home at my computer so writing is easy again! Woohoo!

I do eventually plan on including examples and walkthroughs at some point in some version, but it won't be the next one.

IMO tables take up a lot of space and are really ugly to look at, and I try and avoid them unless it is actually presenting new information.

Likewise, in my experience sample characters are just wasted space. I have never used one, and they actively make it harder to find the information I need. Likewise, I imagine that any sample characters you would find interesting would be too weird and complex for a general audience and those made for a general audience would seem bland and generic to you.

Ah, we are such different people. My entire current rules text is nothing but tables. I find them so much easier to navigate quickly. That's all just personal preference, so I wouldn't worry about it.

As for me finding sample characters interesting, you might be surprised. Once I found the Extras templates section, I was super interested to find that an animus 1 character is expected to be rolling with a +12 to their good skills, and a +6 to everything else. Likewise, a fighter is good at all 3 combat skills, and one additional skill of their choice. These are the exact benchmarks that I would look for when trying to make a character, and while I might push to a 13, it gives guidance that a +14 is of the table until I hit animus 2.

Just because I make super complex builds, doesn't mean that I don't find uncomplicated builds interesting.

You know, I feel like people are coming at me from both sides in this thread; telling me that I hate any form of optimization but also trapping players by requiring optimization. Make up your minds you dang kids!

It's not that we think that you hate any form of optimization, it's that optimizing in the game as you envision it can easily lead to characters being killed, or made unplayable, while not having enough system mastery makes the game frustrating. I will refer once again to the two examples of this: The pyromancer wizard that started this thread, and the character with the bow. One could solve their problems easy enough, but because they lack system mastery, they are unable to (seriously, it's a moderately cheap artifact to fix). The other will have their 40 point artifact taken from them:

Spoiler: Quote

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I said a 60 point artifact bow is likely to get stolen.

...


I agree, it is incredibly poor sportsmanship to just yank it right away without warning, but sooner or later, someone is going to take your bow.

At this point they are down over a third of their CP budget, and have nothing to show for it. And while I've seen some rules for getting lost points back, they generally are based around receiving double CP until the debt is cleared. At 40 points, that's 40 adventures until they catch up with the rest of the party, or 20 until they are back up to animus 1 effectiveness, assuming that their build wasn't focused around the artifacts, and can't work without them, leaving them with a bunch of useless CP in options that were meant to combo with the artifact, and are now gone.

I have a hard time imagining a "trap build" that someone could just stumble into; its really more about simply not liking that type of character you made rather than being hampered by bad choices IMO. And even if you did somehow have an un-fixable build, well, that's what transfiguration magic is for. I have certainly never seen a player wish they could buy off a weakness they took at character creation but just didn't have the CP to; honestly I tend to have the opposite problem of people having too many CP to spend and not knowing how to do so without making their character's weaknesses dissapear.

I've pointed out two above, but generally anyone that wants to play an archetype instead of play the system will suffer. If a character wants to play Legolas, and they focus on a bow build, they'll quickly find out that they are pretty useless for most fights. Remember, a character dumping all stats from 5 to 1 is equivalent is scale to an archer taking a -4 on their accuracy. They are going from an average chance of hitting, to being equal to the worst in the world. A mage that wants to pretend to be Gandolf and charge into melee with a sword and staff can be done, but if the player is lacking system mastery, they will die very, very fast, and find it frustrating.

These are what I mean by trap builds. They are options that you allow, and even have support for, but that when followed without a certain level of mastery, will result in a frustrating, unfun play experience, even (or even especially) when the character is unable to live up to the archetypal examples that they wanted to imitate or iterate on.

IMO people should have the option to have weaknesses if they want them. For a lot of people, myself including, the struggling is part of the RP experience, and makes victories feel all the more rewarding.

Sure. But if that's the case, there is no reason to give them Character Points for taking a flaw is there? If they are just there for extra challenge, then giving a player CP for taking them actively works against their primary intended use case.

Could you please elaborate on this? I am serious, if you can think of some common archetypes that don't work in my system, I would love to hear about them. Heck, you can even toss them back to me as character buildings challenges of my own.

As I said, it's not about the archetypes themselves, but rather the system mastery required for them to work. So I'll give you two, each one with restrictions based on a players lack of experience with your system:

1) Build as close as you can to a functional Legolas with the following restrictions: No Armor. Can only use a bow to make attacks, and is effective at melee range, or when firing into a melee. Good acrobatics and athletics. Can only build using rules found fully within in the first 3 chapters (though this does allow the items from Step F on page 9), this means no items, artifacts, spells, races, or combat maneuvers may be taken or enhanced by traits. Bonus: Do the entire character creation within 5 minutes to limit your ability to plan, and force you to put pen to page as recklessly as possible to simulate a player who knows the system much worse than you do.

This is to simulate a new player build.

2) Build as strong as a character as you can while taking at least 50 points of artifacts. Assume that at least 10 more points are spent towards the main artifact gimmick of the build. Then, when the build is over, remove all artifacts and enchantments, as they are stolen by powerful opponents. Have the result be at least as effective as a journeyman extra, as the player will be stuck with this build for a while, and they should be able to still play with their friends.

That works for a more gamist system, but for a lot of things there isn't a clear division between fluff and crunch.

Like, for example:

"Vikings are tall, blonde haired warriors who live in the fjords. They are the undisputed masters of close combat. Vikings receive +3 to strength, proficiency in sailing and melee, and +2 to resilience so long as they wear little horns on their helmets."

I can't imagine even the worst rules lawyer arguing that you are cheating for having your viking move inland or for having a non-viking dispute their mastery of close combat. Likewise, I would generally consider the blonde hair and helmet horns fluff, but I could easily see a cursed magic sword that can only be wielded by redheads or someone wanting to use the horns on their helmet as a handhold.

Like, I remember an argument on this thread a few months ago about whether or not one could see the glow from the armor of faith as the spell description mentions a glowing aura, but doesn't give it any mechanical effect.


Also, the idea of a forced one sentence of fluff makes me wince. Both because I am trying to imagine how bad my writing would be if I had to force everything worth saying into one sentence, find something stupid to say if there wasn't a full sentence worth saying, and because it feels like a value judgement about fluff vs. crunch.

The purpose of such a system is to give clear guidance to the players of the system what is fluff and what is crunch. For your example I can keep the mechanics, while making it much more clear, and give 3 different readings:

Viking
These are tall, blonde haired warriors who live in the fjords. They are the undisputed masters of close combat.
Vikings receive +3 to strength, proficiency in sailing and melee, and +2 to resilience so long as they wear a viking hat.

Viking
The undisputed masters of close combat who live in the fjords.
Vikings receive +3 to strength, proficiency in sailing and melee, and +2 to resilience so long as they are Taller than the average person (6' for men, 5'5" for women), have blond hair, and wear a Viking hat.

Viking
These are tall, blonde haired warriors who live in the fjords. They are the undisputed masters of close combat. They are recognizable by the iconic viking hats they wear.
Vikings receive +3 to strength, proficiency in sailing and melee, and +2 to resilience.

So then what is fluff? It is what can be freely changed in a system without it causing any issues to the game. In the first example, the game is stating that a character can get the benifits of being a viking while playing a short black haired warrior, because such details aren't important to the balance of the game. In the second, it is making clear that those details are important to balance, and thus shouldn't be changed. In the last, it makes it clear that the only part that is important to balance is the bonuses received to strength and resilience.

In a more political setting, the 'Undisputed Masters of Close combat' might not be fluff, as it could be more important than everything else on the sheet when it is used to pressure other nations into capitulating. If that was the case, taking this trait could allow a viking to intimidate any foe if they are in close as even a dragon is aware that they aren't as good in melee combat as the average viking. It sounds silly, but if you make it clear that part is mechanical, then players feel more free to play around with those options.

The argument you are talking about is a great example. If the glowing aura was separated out in some way (like say italics), then there wouldn't be an argument because players would know that part isn't important to the balance of the game, and thus goes with whatever is convenient to the caster. Just like if your Cataract spell had the part that said it can make illusions real in italics, it would be more clear that that is an explanation of what the spell does, but not actually the mechanics of how the spell works for balance purposes.

If players ever need to argue about the rules, I believe it's the system's designers fault. To me at least, clarity is king.

Spoiler: Build Discussion

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No, because the caster isn't the one who is creating the being, they are drawing them forth from the universal subconscious. This spell is meant to be complex, you are creating wholly new life from non-life. If you are simply trying to get a minion, there are much better ways to

This rule/lore isn't stated anywhere in the spell, so this is something else you have to fix. Remember, players can't read your mind. All we can do is go off what you've written.

I am making a serious effort to stop engaging in arguments about trying to assign % of blame, it never ends well and always derails the thread. I will just say that your reading is a valid RAW interpretation, but it was not at all what I intended and I have rewritten the spell accordingly.

This is all I meant when I said it. If I say something is your fault, I'm not trying to put you down, I'm saying that it needs to be fixed. If I say it's my fault, then that means you wrote it properly and I didn't read carefully enough. Basically I'm just trying to point out which stuff needs to be rewritten/clarified, and which is just fine as is.

The roll is stored for the rest of the mission.

What counts as a different action? Casting it at a different target? Using a different set of meta magic? Or does it apply to any spell casting check? These are some things that you need to clarify when you update this rule.

This is more English being stupid combined with first sentences being . Life has several definitions. For example, if "an engine roars to life" that doesn't mean it is sustained by biological processes. The blue fairy brought a puppet to life, but he wasn't yet a real boy. Etc.

I could easily see ruling that a force of nature was alive because only those made from cities are constructs, but my intent was that it functioned like the elemental body of a kami, and if you look up kamis and elemental bodies both called out as being animate conglomerations of un-living matter.

There are other beings that are neither alive nor constructs; spirits, vampires, tulpas, living spells (the latter of which actually has living in the name).

Generally I don't spell out explicitly what creatures are alive as it is the default state for most creatures and doesn't need additional rules, but maybe I should for a few edge cases like this.

At the very least, saying that their body is like that of a Kami's would at least give guidance. I don't know if you need a general set of rules, but for exceptions like this I think it's important. Especially considering the hoops a player has to go through to cast this spell and get use from it.

That's an odd interpretation IMO; to transfer the benefits of a limited ability without the limitations.

I'm trying to go by what's written. Either way it doesn't really matter in the long term. The rules for attributes and skills supersede them so during the next downtime the player takes all of that gets updated anyway. This is an edge case that I honestly don't think is worth worrying about, as you plan to make it harder to use fusion with call of the wild anyway.

Spirit's attributes are capped to 15 as per Chapter Six, and nothing contradicts this or says they go up to twenty. The primordial gods have numbers that are flat out impossible, and are explicitly stated to be able to ignore the game's rules entirely, but I don't believe anything ever gives them attribute scores, twenty or otherwise, unless there is some text from an earlier draft floating around somewhere that I missed.

It's actually not from the text, its from me talking with you just before I posted the build:

Spoiler: Convo in question

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It also spiritually fuses with a 5 times empowered Force of Nature. I'm honestly not sure what effect that has, as Fusion references attributes, but extra templates don't have attributes.

An extras attributes can usually be assumed to be equal to their "bad" score +/- and racial modifiers they might have.

As written, the force of nature doesn't have attributes at all. I will clarify it in the next build.

As written, no extras have attributes.

Spoiler: From Page 104

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Rather than taking the time to detail their individual attributes and abilities, extras use one of the templates found in Chapter Ten.

Does this mean fusion is intended to be impossible to cast except on two PCs?

There isn't really a good place in the book to put the no stat may ever exceed 15 in the book, and every way that I know of to modify stats already has that as a limitation.

Force of Nature didn't. It started at 10, and then got +2 for each level of empower added to the spell with no listed cap.

Not sure what you mean by the paragon rules show higher stats are possible. Could you please elaborate?

So as above when you responded about what an extras attributes would be, you said they were equal to the extras 'Bad Score.' So when I went to page 533 to look up a Paragon's Bad Score to find out what the attributes for a Force of Nature would be (As force of nature uses the Paragon Template), right next to it you can see that Eldritch Entitys and Primordials both have bad scores above 15. But even more than that the rules state 'Inborn attribute modifiers and traits modify an extra’s scores normally.' This means that even a forth circle spirit could hit a bad score of 16 in a stat with the right template applied to it, thus the highest attribute in the game would be around 25.

Right, but it doesn't say they have a ability to veto the spell for tactical reasons, it says the spell shouldn't be cast if they are unwilling to put in the time and effort. Claiming that you don't have the time when for a tactical advantage would, by RAW, be both lying and cheating IMO. Although I guess that you could argue that the rules don't say WHY you are unwilling to put in the effort and still be technically correct.

Let's be honest, TO builds are always built on being technically correct anyway. That's the reason they aren't used, the GM is expected to take one look at it and tell the player to build something more in line with the power level of the game.

[Telok]

Honestly for a 'brain in jar' build I don't see why you can't just go with the Ghost in the Machine spell. You just need a decent/high value humanoid clockwork body and a way to make it immune to anti-magic & null zones.

Um, we need some possible modifications or clarifications on the Spell-Kissed armament enchant. Like "how often" or some other use limit, and maybe a less multiplicative effect/save dc calculation.

Working on the 'spell bullet' idea;

Spoiler

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Assumption: For worldbuilding we'll say NPCs offscreen aren't relegated to the mission structure and use the 28 days divided by <mana/concentration> optional rule. Therefore an average person has 5m & 5c that they can regain at the rate of 1 every 6 days. We give them a day off so they have a reserve for their own lives and they can use 4/month. Neh, let's be nice and throw in holidays, 3/month.

Assumption: I'm not considering the action of Imbue to be an actual spell and therefore things like Staff of Power won't apply. Otherwise it does look like you could do this sort of stuff without spending mana, and that's probably pretty bad.

The Imbue meta makes an artifact, costs mana = 1+1/rank, lasts the scene unless Tied or Extended or Permanency, dc is 20+2xRank. This cannot be a ritual (I think) and therefore the "spell" stays as a basic action. If we decide that the enchanter is also the crafter we get an additional -4 dc at the cost of making the target object & spending concentration = object value.
The Glyph meta at -5 dc makes the artifact single use and removes the extra mana cost, making it the usual spell 1 mana cost.
The Subtle meta lets you cast a spell unenlightened using Int for the attribute of your occult skill.
Spell kissed is a variable artifact quality based on the dc to cast the spell; 20=4, 15=3, 10=2 (we'll be topping out at 20). There are some limits as to what spell can go in.
Imbued ammo is a variable artifact quality that just applies everything to 12 ammo instead of 1 weapon.
Clockwork is a no cost artifact modification that makes the artifact basically a function of mad science instead of magic and allows for the creation of the artifact to be done with crafting skills instead of with occult skills.

Thus a clockwork spell kissed 12 ammo one use artifact(glyph) costs 1 mana and a 20+2x(spell dc/5) Intelligence:Crafting+Tools skill check and results in 12 bolts, arrows, bullets, blowgun needles, or sling stones, which will cast a given spell on the target when they hit. Rolls like 'test for damage' would be at (I think) the shooter's 5+5xEssense. I have no clue what the resolve dc would be to resist the spell at this point, normally it's 10+CasterMod but this might be 15+5xEssence or 15+5XIntelligence now.

spell:enchant-glyph (optional another -4 for the enchanter also being the crafter)
20=23 (19)
15=18 (14)
10=13 ( 9)
5= 8 ( 4)

On spells;
The Restrained meta limits the scope of a spell to a single subset of it's effects.
The Flash meta limits an enchantment to lasting until the start of the caster's next turn.
The Baleful meta takes a beneficial spell and makes it harmful.

spell options

Spoiler

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Flesh Like Water, dc 20, add a rank of a medium physical trait to creature
-- fins, gills, slither, delicate*, fat*, frail*, hemophiliac*, weak back*, seizures, slow*
* minor can be limited to lower dc or limited+empowered to do 2 ranks
Alter State, dc 20, change object state without otherwise changing it (solid-liquid-gas)
-- use on armor/weapons
Obscure, dc 20, deflection shield, -2 close combat & shooting, -2 environment damage tests
-- reversed gets the target hit more, restrained
Ensnare, dc 20, apply Amputee by binding a limb
Enduring Breath, dc 20, immune to suffocation
-- reversed might apply suffocation
Drain magic, dc 15, un-magicify an artifact for the duration
-- zap that magic armor/weapon
Sanguine Health, dc 20, +1 endurance (vitality & resilience)
-- reversed & 1 turn & limited to vitality & 3 empower = -4 max vitality for a turn
Psychic Surgery, dc 20, undo a sudden/unnatural mental trauma flaw
-- reversed adds -> coward(-5 morale), follower(-5 resolve), ignorant(minor)(-2 skill prof)
Beast Shape, dc 20, what you'd expect & does not affect gear
-- one turn of bunny-shape will unequip basically all gear and be really vulnerable
Spirit Shackles, dc 20, add soulless trait to prevent casting
Animate Dead, dc 20 incantation, suitable for reversal against animated dead
-- requires use of the counter-spell metamagic
Dispel magic, would need interpretation
Suffering, dc 20, take 1 illusionary wound that vanishes at end of spell
Mind's Eye, dc 20, emotion evoking illusion
Blindness, dc 20
Burning power, dc 20, +1 strength
-- reversed & limited to encumbrance & 2 empower = -3 max encumbrance
Stasis, dc 25, unable to act but can still be affected
Slumber, dc 25, unconscious
Paralysis, dc 25, as per
Madness, dc 15, add a mental quirk (addict, phobia, psychosis, vice)
Stone Skin, dc 20, +2 resilience & as armor vs hi/lo penetration weapons
-- reversed -2 resilience
Protection, dc 20, +4 resilience vs named thing, empowers upgrades to invulnerability
-- reversed = weakness = -4 resilience vs thing, reverse + empower = ???

flesh like water:
20 - 5 (limited to minor traits) - 5 (one turn) + 10 (2x empower) + hemophiliac = dc 20= 23(19) enchant for -6 vitality for one turn on a hit
1) trade hemophiliac(vitality) for resilience, dodge, melee damage, encumbrance, speed, tenacity
2) trade off lasting the encounter instead of a single turn for only having a -4
3) have only a -4 & one turn for an enchant dc of 15= 18(14)

Result: 12 glyph clockwork subtle spell-kissed restrained flash empowered flesh like water bullets, on hit the target saves Resolve vs ??? or takes -4 vitality for one turn. Creation requires Intelligence + Metalworking + Tool Quality vs 18 & 1 mana or vs 14 & 1 mana + 2 concentration. This is pretty doable by NPCs. It's the TES Morrowind/Oblivion drain life enchant all over again.

Going the other way we can just do Subtle(+0) Rune(+3) spells using Intelligence:Occult+Grimoire. This limits us to spells from the school of magic the creator is skilled in and we aren't getting the glyph & imbue-as-crafter discounts. But it also opens us to a wider variety of spells and MAYBE the Ritual(+0) meta that might (since we're replacing Essence with Intelligence) let us discount some metamagic costs with concentration.

Result: 1 rune subtle restrained flash empowered flesh like water bullet, same effect as above, still an unknown resist dc. Requires Intelligence + Transmutation + Grimoire Quality vs dc 18 & 1 mana or vs dc 15 & 1 mana + 3 concentration.

Abusing this character as straight up using a spell-kissed sword

Spoiler

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stats 5s (80 pt) and 10 endurance (10pt)
prodigy melee +5 (5 pt), enlightenment in transmutation +10 (5 pt)
primary skills: melee, transmutation, whatever
secondary skills: whatever

flaws: -5 performance, yellow/orange color blindness (-3 pt)
relic: 3 point spell-kissed short curved blade (+2 attack & low armor penetration)
- spell: Flesh Like Water(hemophiliac) Restrained(minor trait) Flash(one turn) Empowered(total of two ranks) -> 20-10+5=15
- effect: On hit beings test Resolve vs 5+5x10=55 or have -4 vitality until the start of this character's next turn

Dual wield with whatever else for +20 to hit & +8 to wound with low armor penetration

Plus, hey, you're still a +15 transmutation caster with 10 endurance and (if you want) heavy armor.

ALTERNATE OPTIONS:
0) Take 1 more point of flaws (or reduce endurance by 1 or something) to kick on another layer of empower and up the -vitality to 6.
1) Take 1 more point of flaws (or reduce endurance by 1 or something) and it's a 4 point relic that just straight lays on regular unaltered Beast Shape(bunny) for the rest of the encounter at save vs 55.
2) Move spell & school over to one of the dc 15 individual incantations that just says 'test for damage' (e.g. Conjuration:Tear p.448) to add that 'test for damage at +55' to every hit. Ooh, that's a possible issue.
3} Healing spells on low/no damage weapons...

random silly characters
fit the first: boot to the head

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stats 5s (80 pt)
specialty (unarmed:kicking p.prof+5) (3.5 pt), specialty (marksman:firearms p.prof+5) (3.5 pt), specialty (insight:sense magic p.prof+4) (3 pt)
primary skills: resolve, fortitude, athletics, +(kicking, firearms, sense magic)
secondary skills: insight, acrobatic, alertness, stealth
subtotal: 90 pt

amputee(leg)+bionic limb(leg) (0 pt), chi (4 pt), legendary skill: kicking (2 pt), symbiotic(in the leg) necromancy fetish for unarmed damage (4 pt)

shoot: long barrel rifle, +15 attack & +12 damage
bionic kick: +21 attack & +9 best-of-2 damage

Options: 5 points of flaws for a heirloom rifle, 3 points of flaws for a business prof specialty in acquisition, trade in the necromancy fetish for the limited mystic ability & limited fisher's ring to cast the necromancy cantrip ourselves (not as good until anima 3 (2 if restrained applies) and only better at anima 4+).

fit the second: glowy doom ball

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stats all 4s (64 pt) & a primary skill in mysticism
10 pt, enlightenment in mysticism
5 pt, heritage mystic grimoire +5
Subtotal: character points 79

Orb spell (dc 20, instant, any target, turns to light & goes to end of line then all in line test evade or else resist vs radiant damage)

I believe that the evade and resolve vs damage rolls will be at dc 30 if we're casting at a +20 bonus.

Dang it. Reread dweomer mastery again and it didn't work like I though all this time. Hmm... rewriting...

Persistent+5 = becomes an enchantment & lasts a whole act
Tie+5 = unlimited duration but takes a chakra
Control+5 = continually change the parameters
Ritual+3 = use concentration to offset metamagic costs
Subtotal: dc 38
8 (87) points of relic for 2 wands of tie & persist = dc 28 -- note: unsure if wands offset the dc increase or negate it by applying the meta without cost, makes a difference for sense magic
5 (92) points of +range talent = range 9 -- note: because even more meta for range was getting unweildy
8 (100) concentration -- note: same question as wands for same reason
Skill +20 +1 mana + ritual off 8 points of meta (control & ritual) with concentration vs dc 20.

Maybe add the suppress under circumstances meta?

[Talakeal]

The difficulty to resist a spell is always twenty, not sure where you get ten plus occult.

Not sure how glyph would interact with magic ammunition; I could easily see it ruled that it only effects a single arrow or that the first arrow fired uses up the charge for the entire effect.

Flash, plus synchronicity, plus glyph is unlikely to work out timing wise as the windows for the effects are unlikely to overlap.

[Telok]

The difficulty to resist a spell is always twenty, not sure where you get ten plus occult.

Not sure how glyph would interact with magic ammunition; I could easily see it ruled that it only effects a single arrow or that the first arrow fired uses up the charge for the entire effect.

Flash, plus synchronicity, plus glyph is unlikely to work out timing wise as the windows for the effects are unlikely to overlap.

The games uses a bunch of 10+x to set dcs all over the place. I don't know that it ever mentions the resist dc as being completely static and unchanging. I thought it followed the pattern. Hmm... that has implications for rerolls and the utility of the specialty trait in builds that don't want to buy the three resist skills. Could you do a wand of piercing x4?

Yeah, the artifact crafting is fiddly and having the different parts spread across different metamagics confuses things. It's not clear if imbuing uses a spell or not and may or may not qualify for renew/staff of power or what sticking other metamagics on it might do. I'm assuming it doesn't.

Synchronicity? You mean Stasis? The concept is a one use (glyph) spell kissed ranged ammo that, on hit & failed save, (stasis) locks the target in place until (flash) the start of the attacker's next turn. It's basically the same as paralysis but with a different mechanisim.

[Jakinbandw]

Okay, one last build, just to see how it turns out. This is me attempting to replicate the character I'm playing in my current system. Obviously there will be some differences, but I'll do my best to cover the basic abilities that my character has (mainly because I don't think I'll have the points to cover their ability to improvise any ability they have access to)

Fake Edit: Yeah, this is pretty painful. It costs 160 points for a fairly ineffective character. I'll post what he would look like at immediately after character creation in my system vs your system.

Spoiler: Susland Mason (CP 160)

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Agility 4
Charisma 7
Dexterity 6
Endurance 6
Intellegence 10
Perception 8
Strength 4
Willpower 8

Proficiencies:
Major Proficiency: Resolve, Leadership, Social, Academics, Reason
Minor Proficiency: Unarmed, Marksmanship, Melee, Expression, Insight, Alertness, Medical, Survival, All Occult Skills


Merits:
Sagacious x13
Eidetic
Empathic
Beauty
Confident
Soothing Voice
Priest (Gaia)
Ally (Major) (Gaia)
Wise x 8

Martial Technique (Kiai Shout)

Relic: Mage Blade + Dancing Blade + Symbiotic
Relic: Halo + Magic Banner + Symbiotic

Spoiler: Susland Mason (CP 100)

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Agility 2
Charisma 5
Dexterity 5
Endurance 4
Intellegence 10
Perception 5
Strength 2
Willpower 5

Proficiencies:
Major Proficiency: Resolve, Leadership, Social, Academics, Reason
Minor Proficiency: Unarmed, Marksmanship, Melee, Expression, Insight, Alertness, Medical, Survival, Mysticism, Chronomancy

Merits:
Priest (Gaia)
Ally (Major) (Gaia)
Wise x 2
Relic: Mage Blade + Dancing Blade + Symbiotic
Relic: Halo + Magic Banner + Symbiotic

Stuff like this is why I feel the need to minmax. Even the 160 point version would lose against a basic Journeyman Soldier.

[Talakeal]

The games uses a bunch of 10+x to set dcs all over the place. I don't know that it ever mentions the resist dc as being completely static and unchanging. I thought it followed the pattern. Hmm... that has implications for rerolls and the utility of the specialty trait in builds that don't want to buy the three resist skills. Could you do a wand of piercing x4?

Yeah, the artifact crafting is fiddly and having the different parts spread across different metamagics confuses things. It's not clear if imbuing uses a spell or not and may or may not qualify for renew/staff of power or what sticking other metamagics on it might do. I'm assuming it doesn't.

Synchronicity? You mean Stasis? The concept is a one use (glyph) spell kissed ranged ammo that, on hit & failed save, (stasis) locks the target in place until (flash) the start of the attacker's next turn. It's basically the same as paralysis but with a different mechanisim.

The rules for resisting magic are on page 141.

No, you cannot stack multiple artifacts of the same type.

Yes, staff of power works with imbue. Glyph should probably have focus, but it doesn't as is.

I meant subtle, not synchronicity. My bad,

[Telok]

I finally understand the core issue behind the opening post. I went back to reread just in case. It's a confluence of factors that devalues damage spells. Investing fully in magic will make a character a batman wizard with a limited number of "i just solve that" and an effectively unlimited ammo flexible options heavy rifle. But that will take about 1/3rd of the character's starting point allotment and replicating the normal nameless npc takes 4/5th or more of the starting point allotment and you won't be killing anyone with magic. If you make a dedicated blaster evocation wizard you'll have fewer flaws or better stats, but your blasting won't be much better at exploding stuff than just going full batman.

I am not saying this is bad or wrong. It's a part of system & opponent design that I think matches the tropes & assumptions in the combined system & setting. It took a lot of crunching through the book, tracing multiple page references from a single rule, asking questions, and building a "roll this out a million times and report the result" sim. I propose no "solution" because this is not a mechanical problem at it's core (well aside from all the page flipping).

Here follows what I did

Spoiler

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Ok, I apparently no longer have any clue as to how spells do damage. Let's work through all the different references.

-- note: need sub-headings in the table of contents
-- note: this is why you need page references and/or margin hyperlinks. I bounced around 4 or 5 different chapters working this all out.
-- note: Fireball spell, dc 20 incant area, all in the area evade or test for fire damage. Fire Blast spell, dc 15 incant calling, all in the zone evade or test for fire damage. Ref p.104 and zones = paces while area spells... p.275 same. Ok zone=pace=base spell area. I think Fire Blast may also bypass the Soulless trait unlike Fireball because the magic calls the flame into existence rather than affecting stuff with magic fire.
-- note: expansion of zones/paces by the enlarge meta magic is unclear. Do we run 1 pace across then each enlarge doubles that? Or is it we double the total area of paces? Thus 3x enlarge is 1-> 2->4-> 8, for either a 8 pace diameter area & 50 square paces OR 8 paces as an incomplete 3x3 area?
-- note: turns out that sensing magic is a basic action people have to take unless the magic is used/cast/targeted in their direct presence. Over the horizon spell detection isn't a worry unless there are some highly organized people with a bunch of spare masters of the insight skill laying around.

Going through evocation (p.453 - p.459 of p.430 - p.502 spells) because I'm assuming it hits all the different variations. Referencing magic rules (p.270 - p.277 under Supernatural) under Damaging Spells (p.274) "unless specified otherwise the adjustment when testing for damage is equal to the magician's score in the relevant occult skill", no mention of the dc. Let's see, what else; p273 "step 7: spells are resisted with resolve & magic missiles skip this step", p.275 area spells roll evade (acrobatic+agility) to escape the area instead of resolve (endurance+fortitude) to resist it.

Combat, attacking, p.172, test attack vs dodge (10+dodge = 10+(5+agl)), test for damage vs resilience (10+resil)... and that looks about like all that will apply.

Checking individual skills... Acrobat p.121, evade, dc 20, mentions diving for cover but no reference, difficulty mod is positive but the table not uses negative penalties to the roll (just a minor inconsistency). Dive for cover ctrl-f... just cover... p.179 penalty to attack or damage tests by cover type and amount up to a maximum of -12, good example with the brick wall & window, very nice. Fortitude skill doesn't mention magic. Resolve, p.141 resist magic dc 20, there it is, and on a crit they're immune to similar spells for the rest of the mission.

Thus checking the typical extras/npcs presented p.530-531 we see that amateur mystics should resist spells 55%, adept 75%, and nobody else should get to 50% unless they're paragons. This means most no-stat extras will mostly not resist spells... no do the math... non-caster journeyman success on rolls 14+ is 35% success rate. Ow, that's actually kind of bad for casters. Even if you cast and pay the mana you just don't do anything 1/3rd the time. Then on anything with stats... where are those... well I guess we just assume 5s since that's run as average, but still a... save 30% rate. Hmm... I getting the vibe that baseline +15 casters are basically still novices, maybe slightly above average novices. A 80% cast rate vs dc 20 then a 35% save rate is a 52% rate to affect some nameless extra with a base dc 20 spell. Do note that at the table, unless you're actually looking at the exact numbers and trying to track the difference, a player won't notice the difference between a 52% and 56% success rate. They will in fact have a very hard time telling the difference between 40% and 60% success rates unless they're actively trying to track it.

Therefore for pcs the trait: specialization resolve(resist magic) 1=primary skill & 1/+2 up to the stat 10 cap & +2 resolve trait means 4cp = will+10 at will 1-5 (throw the other point as evade or something), and at base will 5 a +15 on resisting magic. Cantrip of the Sun is the resolve 2-fer so that's a 2 point Mystic talent & 2 point Fisher's Ring 95% basic action 0-mana cast which at animus 3 we can alacrity to a quick action OR we just dump 4 points into a Mysticisim Fetish relic and now... 96% spell resist for 8 character points. If we go with the free-but-more-fumbles trait for faux prodigy we can... take up to a bad fortune range of 1-4 without impacting the 96% success rate for 5 character points, and we still have a 1% fumble rate plus a 7% crit rate. Thus willpower 5 (standard) + specialization in resist magic for 2 character points for a primary skill (+5) & 2 specialized prodigy + 3 inept prodigy in resolve (bad fortune 1-4) + 5 resolve trait for 2 more character points is our +15 vs spells for 4 character points (6 if we want to avoid the bad fortune). Might as well do the same with evade since that'll cover our ass for all the area effect stuff. Save the fetish relics for if they feel really paranoid.

Right then. While I'd expect an overall higher average for evasion bonuses I think area effects are where it's at. Now, to get any spell past point blank range (perception in paces) and a 1 pace diameter well have to use at least +5 reaching and +3 enlarge. If we wand & dwesomer master the enlarge meta to stack 3 it becomes a 8 pace diameter zone at the cost of 3 character points and +4 casting dc. With a well placed blast we should be able to place it to apply a (p.121)... ok raise the evade dc to 28 OR apply a -8 penalty. Math wise it's the same but I wish the table & text were consistent. And if they find cover instead of evading we can still call it a win as cover penalizes our to-wound roll less than resists negate it. Unfortunately we've now increased the base dc by +14 and our casting dc by +9 putting even a original dc 15 up to 24.

So test: A wizzy with book in one hand, wand in the other, and max basic enlightenment, spends the mana to throw Fire Blast (effectively a D&D style fireball and less taxing than actual Fireball that does the same thing) rolling +20 vs dc 24 that's a... cross reference insight (p.133) at max range penalty dc 35... Oh! Important note that sensing magic is a basic active action that you take unless the spell casting, caster, or target, is in their presence. Well that changes some stuff. We only have to worry about over-the-horizon detection for people who; A) we directly target, or B) have lots of staff on hand organized into a MAGDAR (MAGical Detection And Ranging) unit. Well any ways, wizzy gets that faux fireball off making everyone in the area test agility + acrobatics (evasion) vs 20 + 4x(their speed in multiples from the edge or cover), potentially a range from dcs 20 to 32ish. Then on everyone still in there rolls +20 vs 10 + resilience + cover bonus (looks like max +12 from cover) which for starting opponents we know to be average 22 (probably +/-4). Average extras (p.530)... none have acrobatics so +6, speed 6, vitality 6, resilience 12... dang, they're better than lots of starting characters at that... d20+6 vs dc 24 to evade (85% hit rate) then damage at d20+20 vs 22 at.. calculator; 85% hit, 4% crit fail evade, 1% crit success evade, 95% wound per hit, 8% crit per hit, +20 damage from the crit fail evades is in there, 0.5% fumbled the damage roll, 0.4% mortal wounds...

Wizzy has (assuming we'll destiny or extra mana any of the 1/6 failed casting rolls) about an 81% chance to hurt any specific extra in the blast and about 1/12 will take 2 wounds. Which with 6 vitality and tenacity means we won't kill average towns people. Hmm... add a level of piercing to apply a -1 to evades and a +1 to damage, ups casting dc to 25 and max range detection dc to 30 (although that's less important than we thought)... fractional changes in nearly all numbers, it did go to a 94% chance of hurting any specific extra that started at the center of the blast. Oh, guess for completeness I should check those closer to the edge where it's still dc 20 to evade. Ok, 67% to wound those closer to the edge, or 73% with the extra piercing.

Fine, fine, no armor & no helmet checking is -5 resilience but +6 evasion for... with piercing... 60% fail evasion at the center, 72% chance to harm, on damage test; fumbles 0.2%, crits 21.6%, mortal wounds almost 2%. Buggers closer to the edge get 40% hits, 48% chance to harm, on damage test is no change. The townsfolk not wearing armor take less damage from fireballs.

fit the third: Ur-Average Extra

Spoiler

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stats (derive from scores)
trained in 3 skills = int 5 or 6, speed 6 = agility 6, perception 6, encumbrance 6 & might 12 = strength 6, tenacity 6 = willpower 6, vitality 6 = endurance 6, OK, looks like all stats are 6s for 96 pt.

skills: 3 primary skills except that we need +12 total and stats are 6 so +3 pts for prodigy (99pt)
but then no secondary skills so 3x uneducated or whatever the flaw was for -3 (96 pt)

resilience, dodge, and damage are +12s, stats assume medium armor & helmet but no penalty for having a helmet AND no training so factoring that we need... eh, it's wash, +5 alertness trait, +1 resilience trait, a 6 damage 1-handed weapon and since those are +5 we need the +1 damage trait, +1 dodge trait or the skirmisher trait if trained for combat... (101 pt)

BUT extras take morale rolls and have neither mana no destiny so fated characters need the coward flaw, -6 mana flaw, -6 destiny flaw... -14 pt (87 pt)

UNLESS we're a magic user where we have +12 to all magics for...
Major caster 12 mana & 7 enlightenment & assume they have 1 primary magic skill for 87+28=115 character points
Minor caster 6 mana & 6 enlightenment & no occult skills for 87+18=105 character points. Also they're total crap at just about anything magic that's more complex than a cantrip.

You're average nameless extra is a 87 point character unless they're a magic user. Either way they likely have better attribute scores than most starting fated characters.

[Jakinbandw]

Yes, staff of power works with imbue.

Are you pondering what I'm pondering pinky?

Staff of Power Imbue. Use Subtle to make/find Eldritch Mechanisms. Attune to those Eldritch Mechanisms to cast the spell of your choice. At the end of the act, the artifacts stop being artifacts so you can't be attuned to them any more, and you can now make more Eldritch Mechanisms.

The only loss of power is on a failure to cast the imbue spell, which has a DC of 22, so it's not that expensive.

[Talakeal]

I finally understand the core issue behind the opening post. I went back to reread just in case. It's a confluence of factors that devalues damage spells. Investing fully in magic will make a character a batman wizard with a limited number of "i just solve that" and an effectively unlimited ammo flexible options heavy rifle. But that will take about 1/3rd of the character's starting point allotment and replicating the normal nameless npc takes 4/5th or more of the starting point allotment and you won't be killing anyone with magic. If you make a dedicated blaster evocation wizard you'll have fewer flaws or better stats, but your blasting won't be much better at exploding stuff than just going full batman.

I am not saying this is bad or wrong. It's a part of system & opponent design that I think matches the tropes & assumptions in the combined system & setting. It took a lot of crunching through the book, tracing multiple page references from a single rule, asking questions, and building a "roll this out a million times and report the result" sim. I propose no "solution" because this is not a mechanical problem at it's core (well aside from all the page flipping).

Here follows what I did

Spoiler

Show

Ok, I apparently no longer have any clue as to how spells do damage. Let's work through all the different references.

-- note: need sub-headings in the table of contents
-- note: this is why you need page references and/or margin hyperlinks. I bounced around 4 or 5 different chapters working this all out.
-- note: Fireball spell, dc 20 incant area, all in the area evade or test for fire damage. Fire Blast spell, dc 15 incant calling, all in the zone evade or test for fire damage. Ref p.104 and zones = paces while area spells... p.275 same. Ok zone=pace=base spell area. I think Fire Blast may also bypass the Soulless trait unlike Fireball because the magic calls the flame into existence rather than affecting stuff with magic fire.
-- note: expansion of zones/paces by the enlarge meta magic is unclear. Do we run 1 pace across then each enlarge doubles that? Or is it we double the total area of paces? Thus 3x enlarge is 1-> 2->4-> 8, for either a 8 pace diameter area & 50 square paces OR 8 paces as an incomplete 3x3 area?
-- note: turns out that sensing magic is a basic action people have to take unless the magic is used/cast/targeted in their direct presence. Over the horizon spell detection isn't a worry unless there are some highly organized people with a bunch of spare masters of the insight skill laying around.

Going through evocation (p.453 - p.459 of p.430 - p.502 spells) because I'm assuming it hits all the different variations. Referencing magic rules (p.270 - p.277 under Supernatural) under Damaging Spells (p.274) "unless specified otherwise the adjustment when testing for damage is equal to the magician's score in the relevant occult skill", no mention of the dc. Let's see, what else; p273 "step 7: spells are resisted with resolve & magic missiles skip this step", p.275 area spells roll evade (acrobatic+agility) to escape the area instead of resolve (endurance+fortitude) to resist it.

Combat, attacking, p.172, test attack vs dodge (10+dodge = 10+(5+agl)), test for damage vs resilience (10+resil)... and that looks about like all that will apply.

Checking individual skills... Acrobat p.121, evade, dc 20, mentions diving for cover but no reference, difficulty mod is positive but the table not uses negative penalties to the roll (just a minor inconsistency). Dive for cover ctrl-f... just cover... p.179 penalty to attack or damage tests by cover type and amount up to a maximum of -12, good example with the brick wall & window, very nice. Fortitude skill doesn't mention magic. Resolve, p.141 resist magic dc 20, there it is, and on a crit they're immune to similar spells for the rest of the mission.

Thus checking the typical extras/npcs presented p.530-531 we see that amateur mystics should resist spells 55%, adept 75%, and nobody else should get to 50% unless they're paragons. This means most no-stat extras will mostly not resist spells... no do the math... non-caster journeyman success on rolls 14+ is 35% success rate. Ow, that's actually kind of bad for casters. Even if you cast and pay the mana you just don't do anything 1/3rd the time. Then on anything with stats... where are those... well I guess we just assume 5s since that's run as average, but still a... save 30% rate. Hmm... I getting the vibe that baseline +15 casters are basically still novices, maybe slightly above average novices. A 80% cast rate vs dc 20 then a 35% save rate is a 52% rate to affect some nameless extra with a base dc 20 spell. Do note that at the table, unless you're actually looking at the exact numbers and trying to track the difference, a player won't notice the difference between a 52% and 56% success rate. They will in fact have a very hard time telling the difference between 40% and 60% success rates unless they're actively trying to track it.

Therefore for pcs the trait: specialization resolve(resist magic) 1=primary skill & 1/+2 up to the stat 10 cap & +2 resolve trait means 4cp = will+10 at will 1-5 (throw the other point as evade or something), and at base will 5 a +15 on resisting magic. Cantrip of the Sun is the resolve 2-fer so that's a 2 point Mystic talent & 2 point Fisher's Ring 95% basic action 0-mana cast which at animus 3 we can alacrity to a quick action OR we just dump 4 points into a Mysticisim Fetish relic and now... 96% spell resist for 8 character points. If we go with the free-but-more-fumbles trait for faux prodigy we can... take up to a bad fortune range of 1-4 without impacting the 96% success rate for 5 character points, and we still have a 1% fumble rate plus a 7% crit rate. Thus willpower 5 (standard) + specialization in resist magic for 2 character points for a primary skill (+5) & 2 specialized prodigy + 3 inept prodigy in resolve (bad fortune 1-4) + 5 resolve trait for 2 more character points is our +15 vs spells for 4 character points (6 if we want to avoid the bad fortune). Might as well do the same with evade since that'll cover our ass for all the area effect stuff. Save the fetish relics for if they feel really paranoid.

Right then. While I'd expect an overall higher average for evasion bonuses I think area effects are where it's at. Now, to get any spell past point blank range (perception in paces) and a 1 pace diameter well have to use at least +5 reaching and +3 enlarge. If we wand & dwesomer master the enlarge meta to stack 3 it becomes a 8 pace diameter zone at the cost of 3 character points and +4 casting dc. With a well placed blast we should be able to place it to apply a (p.121)... ok raise the evade dc to 28 OR apply a -8 penalty. Math wise it's the same but I wish the table & text were consistent. And if they find cover instead of evading we can still call it a win as cover penalizes our to-wound roll less than resists negate it. Unfortunately we've now increased the base dc by +14 and our casting dc by +9 putting even a original dc 15 up to 24.

So test: A wizzy with book in one hand, wand in the other, and max basic enlightenment, spends the mana to throw Fire Blast (effectively a D&D style fireball and less taxing than actual Fireball that does the same thing) rolling +20 vs dc 24 that's a... cross reference insight (p.133) at max range penalty dc 35... Oh! Important note that sensing magic is a basic active action that you take unless the spell casting, caster, or target, is in their presence. Well that changes some stuff. We only have to worry about over-the-horizon detection for people who; A) we directly target, or B) have lots of staff on hand organized into a MAGDAR (MAGical Detection And Ranging) unit. Well any ways, wizzy gets that faux fireball off making everyone in the area test agility + acrobatics (evasion) vs 20 + 4x(their speed in multiples from the edge or cover), potentially a range from dcs 20 to 32ish. Then on everyone still in there rolls +20 vs 10 + resilience + cover bonus (looks like max +12 from cover) which for starting opponents we know to be average 22 (probably +/-4). Average extras (p.530)... none have acrobatics so +6, speed 6, vitality 6, resilience 12... dang, they're better than lots of starting characters at that... d20+6 vs dc 24 to evade (85% hit rate) then damage at d20+20 vs 22 at.. calculator; 85% hit, 4% crit fail evade, 1% crit success evade, 95% wound per hit, 8% crit per hit, +20 damage from the crit fail evades is in there, 0.5% fumbled the damage roll, 0.4% mortal wounds...

Wizzy has (assuming we'll destiny or extra mana any of the 1/6 failed casting rolls) about an 81% chance to hurt any specific extra in the blast and about 1/12 will take 2 wounds. Which with 6 vitality and tenacity means we won't kill average towns people. Hmm... add a level of piercing to apply a -1 to evades and a +1 to damage, ups casting dc to 25 and max range detection dc to 30 (although that's less important than we thought)... fractional changes in nearly all numbers, it did go to a 94% chance of hurting any specific extra that started at the center of the blast. Oh, guess for completeness I should check those closer to the edge where it's still dc 20 to evade. Ok, 67% to wound those closer to the edge, or 73% with the extra piercing.

Fine, fine, no armor & no helmet checking is -5 resilience but +6 evasion for... with piercing... 60% fail evasion at the center, 72% chance to harm, on damage test; fumbles 0.2%, crits 21.6%, mortal wounds almost 2%. Buggers closer to the edge get 40% hits, 48% chance to harm, on damage test is no change. The townsfolk not wearing armor take less damage from fireballs.

fit the third: Ur-Average Extra

Spoiler

Show

stats (derive from scores)
trained in 3 skills = int 5 or 6, speed 6 = agility 6, perception 6, encumbrance 6 & might 12 = strength 6, tenacity 6 = willpower 6, vitality 6 = endurance 6, OK, looks like all stats are 6s for 96 pt.

skills: 3 primary skills except that we need +12 total and stats are 6 so +3 pts for prodigy (99pt)
but then no secondary skills so 3x uneducated or whatever the flaw was for -3 (96 pt)

resilience, dodge, and damage are +12s, stats assume medium armor & helmet but no penalty for having a helmet AND no training so factoring that we need... eh, it's wash, +5 alertness trait, +1 resilience trait, a 6 damage 1-handed weapon and since those are +5 we need the +1 damage trait, +1 dodge trait or the skirmisher trait if trained for combat... (101 pt)

BUT extras take morale rolls and have neither mana no destiny so fated characters need the coward flaw, -6 mana flaw, -6 destiny flaw... -14 pt (87 pt)

UNLESS we're a magic user where we have +12 to all magics for...
Major caster 12 mana & 7 enlightenment & assume they have 1 primary magic skill for 87+28=115 character points
Minor caster 6 mana & 6 enlightenment & no occult skills for 87+18=105 character points. Also they're total crap at just about anything magic that's more complex than a cantrip.

You're average nameless extra is a 87 point character unless they're a magic user. Either way they likely have better attribute scores than most starting fated characters.

I will post more on Sunday when I have a keyboard, but this all seems right.

I will put page references and hyperlinks in once the layout is finalized.

Fire blast is not an area spell.

Area spells target any point, and everything within 1 pace is affected. That distance doubles with each enlarge. So at most, a base aoe can at most affect a 3 zone by 3 zone square, enlarged to 5x5, double enlarge to 9x9, etc.

Thanks for pointing out the evade table consistency. Thats some real quality feedback despite being a simple fix.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by a blaster wizard. If you mean like Flossie, that character in the op, yeah, she won’t out damage a similarly skilled person with a rifle, but she only paid for a four point staff of power and still retains full casting ability on top of it. If you mean a dedicated evoker who chooses a suite of artifacts and dweomers designed for dealing damage, no, they will kick more ass than a rifleman can ever dream of.

Okay, one last build, just to see how it turns out. This is me attempting to replicate the character I'm playing in my current system. Obviously there will be some differences, but I'll do my best to cover the basic abilities that my character has (mainly because I don't think I'll have the points to cover their ability to improvise any ability they have access to)

Fake Edit: Yeah, this is pretty painful. It costs 160 points for a fairly ineffective character. I'll post what he would look like at immediately after character creation in my system vs your system.

Spoiler: Susland Mason (CP 160)

Show

Agility 4
Charisma 7
Dexterity 6
Endurance 6
Intellegence 10
Perception 8
Strength 4
Willpower 8

Proficiencies:
Major Proficiency: Resolve, Leadership, Social, Academics, Reason
Minor Proficiency: Unarmed, Marksmanship, Melee, Expression, Insight, Alertness, Medical, Survival, All Occult Skills


Merits:
Sagacious x13
Eidetic
Empathic
Beauty
Confident
Soothing Voice
Priest (Gaia)
Ally (Major) (Gaia)
Wise x 8

Martial Technique (Kiai Shout)

Relic: Mage Blade + Dancing Blade + Symbiotic
Relic: Halo + Magic Banner + Symbiotic

Spoiler: Susland Mason (CP 100)

Show

Agility 2
Charisma 5
Dexterity 5
Endurance 4
Intellegence 10
Perception 5
Strength 2
Willpower 5

Proficiencies:
Major Proficiency: Resolve, Leadership, Social, Academics, Reason
Minor Proficiency: Unarmed, Marksmanship, Melee, Expression, Insight, Alertness, Medical, Survival, Mysticism, Chronomancy

Merits:
Priest (Gaia)
Ally (Major) (Gaia)
Wise x 2
Relic: Mage Blade + Dancing Blade + Symbiotic
Relic: Halo + Magic Banner + Symbiotic

Stuff like this is why I feel the need to minmax. Even the 160 point version would lose against a basic Journeyman Soldier.

Thats a pretty non-focused build, but hardly bad.

It would be absolutely amazing in a big party or one with a minionmancer in It.

Its odd that you took a mageblade and all occult skills but no mana or enlightenment.

Also odd you have a bunch of charisma boosting traits but only an average charisma.

No way in the world this character loses to a journeyman extra.

Depending on what era the game takes place in, literally having God as an ally could also be a bit of a powerplay.

Conceptually, what are you going for here?

[Talakeal]

Are you pondering what I'm pondering pinky?

Staff of Power Imbue. Use Subtle to make/find Eldritch Mechanisms. Attune to those Eldritch Mechanisms to cast the spell of your choice. At the end of the act, the artifacts stop being artifacts so you can't be attuned to them any more, and you can now make more Eldritch Mechanisms.

The only loss of power is on a failure to cast the imbue spell, which has a DC of 22, so it's not that expensive.

I don’t know what subtle adds to this aside from giving the GM an opportunity to mess with you.

[Jakinbandw]

Thats a pretty non-focused build, but hardly bad.

It would be absolutely amazing in a big party or one with a minionmancer in It.

Its odd that you took a mageblade and all occult skills but no mana or enlightenment.

Also odd you have a bunch of charisma boosting traits but only an average charisma.

No way in the world this character loses to a journeyman extra.

Depending on what era the game takes place in, literally having God as an ally could also be a bit of a powerplay.

Conceptually, what are you going for here?

Basically something of a cross between a witcher and a cleric.

So the mageblade isn't actually for combat, it's more meant for out of combat utility. Basically, at it's end, it gives Susland access to a bunch of useful minor magical abilities. He can start a fire, maybe summon a bunch of rocks (depending on how Elemental Shank works with the Conjuration Magic Missile). Think of a witchers Signs, not true magic, but useful in a pinch. To be able to switch it to the different elements, I need proficiency in the relevent Occult skill. That's why it's set up the way it is.

As for the Charisma skills, my character isn't really focused on them in my game. He instead is built around battlefield control, and debuffing opponents. Things like throwing up walls of fire, or linking far away areas with portals, or freezing an opponent to slow them down a bit, using plant growth to lock them in place, ect. Since I couldn't see a solid way to go about that, I defaulted to buffing the party instead which relies on charisma. Any normal debuffing options required a successful hit, and Susland is bad at hitting.

As an aside, Susland ends up taking the most damage out of everyone in the party in my current game, just because he's willing to get in close, while not being especially good at the actual fighting part of combat.

But that said, I can't see him winning against a journeyman extra. Susland would need to roll a 13 to hit, while the Journeyman soldier would only need a 5. For Damage Susland needs to roll a 17, while the extra only needs to roll a 10. This is assuming Susland is using heavy armor, a Mace, and a Tower Shield, while the Journeyman soldier is using a heavy armor, and sword and shield. I just don't see Susland walking away from it alive.

As for the God thing, it's mostly just narrative fluff. In my system, it's biggest benefit in the early game is that I can spend reputation/Karmic Luck to ask her a question now an then. As Gaia is locked up and unable to do much of anything... Like I said, mostly just fluff.

I don’t know what subtle adds to this aside from giving the GM an opportunity to mess with you.

Switches it over to Intelligence instead of Occult, so it saves a bunch of attribute points. Runic anvil is also an option.

[Telok]

I
Fire blast is not an area spell.

Area spells target any point, and everything within 1 pace is affected. That distance doubles with each enlarge. So at most, a base aoe can at most affect a 3 zone by 3 zone square, enlarged to 5x5, double enlarge to 9x9, etc.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by a blaster wizard.

On fire blast; its a calling spell that says it affects a zone. And a zone is a pace is a square on the board. And people caught in/beside harmful callings get an evade just like an area spell. And enlarge doubles that. So that's why the note with the question, because I had to cross ref three chapters to try to figure it out. Either way you just drop the area to use actual fireball and everyone evades versus 20 instead of the ones at the center evading vs 24.

On area; it says something like that but it says that in relation to partial zones. It also says your area starts as 1 zone. Another issue might be the assumption of a board with squares. I know they're the most common in many places, but a number of us prefer to run hex boards when/if we use them for a game. So starting with a 1 pace aoe, how do we hit... ah, radius vs diameter. Your 1 pace zone is a 2x2 square area placed in the middle to partally cover a 3x3 square. Needs a picture (thousand words). Still doesn't explain a difference between a 1 pace sized area spell and a 1 pace sized calling spell.

Honestly you could make a completely rocking mage duo. First person drops a hard to resist aoe reversed cantrip, second drops the nuke. But that's not the blaster archetype/fantasy. The example wizzy dropped minimum about 20 points on evocation, dweomer mastery, a +5 book, and a wand just to blast three random towns people 40 feet away. Both hands are full and we have the full chanting & waving & pointing going on to create this... 17x17 (man is that unintuitive) area full of fire just to throw a minor penalty to evade on the person in the middle. This is a dc 30 "major" spell and the result is 4/5 people have painful burns. He needs to cast that twice more to reliably kill more than one person.

The problem is this doesn't align with the common idea of 'blaster mage'. A bunch of character points (granted that reach wand is super generally useful) and we have to cast a dc 30 fireball spell three times to kill people. Now if you want to kill one person there's ways to combo reversed cantrips, a reverse buff on their vitality score, then slap them with a single wound. But that's a weird transmutation & stuff 2-round combo, not blasting.

That's what tbe origin of this was. Blasting. Average McExtra has 6 vitality & tenacity. You have to do 3 wounds to get them to disabled/dying. A +20 caster with a 4 point relic and +5 heirloom book is throwing around dc 30 fireballs for three rounds of combat before they expect to kill more than one person. That's not "blasting", it's giving people righteously nasty sunburns until they pass out and start to die.

Honestly I'm starting to think maybe slapping living spell or tie on some damage over time effect as being the real combat damage magics. Sure, staff of power a magic missile gives you the unlimited variable rifle (and +15 +15 or +20 +20 is a good hit/damage rate), but I was getting that with basic shooter/archer builds. Yes, you have some very strong buffs & debuffs. But those are

[Kish]

You know, I feel like people are coming at me from both sides in this thread; telling me that I hate any form of optimization but also trapping players by requiring optimization. Make up your minds you dang kids!

Kind of, for my part, yeah. To put it another way: Having read your system, your specific complaints about your players, and your stated means of dealing with certain builds, it appears to me that

1) You have made a system that is more crunchy than 3.5ed D&D or Pathfinder, with lots of detailed mechanics and very specific effects, and very few things described in less mechanical terms, like "this decreases your empathy" or "this causes the character to become gradually greedier over time." The closest I could find is the Vice/Virtue mental quirk, which causes a psychic wound--a specific mechanical result--whenever the character goes against the chosen vice or virtue. (Which, incidentally, gives me the amusing thought that the problem Loki describes in panel seven automatically accrues to anyone who takes Vice: Deceitful.)
2) You want the people playing this system to do so with an attitude I associate much more with White Wolf games than with anything crunchy. You describe any level of optimization in unambiguously negative terms: "I am going to turn a bit of a blind eye to it if it isn't too flagrant[...]even worse[...]one-note[...]"
3) At least one of your players (the one you call "new girl") has made and is playing a nonfunctional character. This means she consistently fails to do anything. This means failure to optimize has screwed her over.

Let me know if you disagree with any of these.

[Talakeal]

Basically something of a cross between a witcher and a cleric.

I haven't actually read the books, but aren't witchers supposed to be like fantasy space marines? Alchemically augmented super-human killing machines?

Yeah, D&D clerics are tricky in my system, or indeed most point buy systems, because D&D tends to make them grossly overpowered and let them do anything and everything as a sort of meta-bribe to convince someone to play the healer.

So the mageblade isn't actually for combat, it's more meant for out of combat utility. Basically, at it's end, it gives Susland access to a bunch of useful minor magical abilities. He can start a fire, maybe summon a bunch of rocks (depending on how Elemental Shank works with the Conjuration Magic Missile). Think of a witchers Signs, not true magic, but useful in a pinch. To be able to switch it to the different elements, I need proficiency in the relevent Occult skill. That's why it's set up the way it is.

As for the Charisma skills, my character isn't really focused on them in my game. He instead is built around battlefield control, and debuffing opponents. Things like throwing up walls of fire, or linking far away areas with portals, or freezing an opponent to slow them down a bit, using plant growth to lock them in place, ect. Since I couldn't see a solid way to go about that, I defaulted to buffing the party instead which relies on charisma. Any normal debuffing options required a successful hit, and Susland is bad at hitting.

You are allowed to make custom schools of magic.

Again, I don't know what exactly your powers are, but that is probably a more efficient way to do it. Or just drop all of the social merits and play a full on omni-caster.

But that said, I can't see him winning against a journeyman extra. Susland would need to roll a 13 to hit, while the Journeyman soldier would only need a 5. For Damage Susland needs to roll a 17, while the extra only needs to roll a 10. This is assuming Susland is using heavy armor, a Mace, and a Tower Shield, while the Journeyman soldier is using a heavy armor, and sword and shield. I just don't see Susland walking away from it alive.

Mana and destiny should give you the edge, although I haven't rand the numbers. Although this is very much a support character rather than a front-line fighter, and I imagine that the bigger a group Susland is part of the bigger an advantage he or she is; Susland + 4 journeyman extras should absolutely crush 5 journeyman extras as an example.

Switches it over to Intelligence instead of Occult, so it saves a bunch of attribute points. Runic anvil is also an option.

True. Although a runic anvil is probably a better pick, because subtle spells only alter probability, and so the odds that there are a bunch of unclaimed non-permanent eldritch mechanisms nearby whenever you cast it is virtually zero and thus the GM is almost certain to say the spell fails.

and your stated means of dealing with certain builds, it appears to me that.

So, the problem here is I don't know what you are referring to, and therefore can't respond without more info.

I literally don't know if you are saying I am too biased, not biased enough, or just inconsistently biased.


Again, my default reaction to a character that looks somehow problematic is to explain the potential pain points to the player (or players if it involves other people) OOC and then run the game world impartially and play NPCs according to their knowledge and motivation. And of course, small accommodations might be requested or granted by any party OOC, for example a kleptomaniac PC might agree not to steal from the party or a PC with a golden heirloom might ask for it not to be stolen by pickpockets.

1) You have made a system that is more crunchy than 3.5ed D&D or Pathfinder.

I feel like my game plays like a cross between WHFRP and Exalted. I wouldn't say its objectively more crunchy than 3.5, but it is comparable.

On fire blast; its a calling spell that says it affects a zone. And a zone is a pace is a square on the board. And people caught in/beside harmful callings get an evade just like an area spell. And enlarge doubles that. So that's why the note with the question, because I had to cross ref three chapters to try to figure it out. Either way you just drop the area to use actual fireball and everyone evades versus 20 instead of the ones at the center evading vs 24.

Fire blast isn't an area spell. Full stop. It doesn't have a radius and it isn't affected by enlarge. Anything that shares the zone with it takes damage. The term pace is never used in the spell.

On area; it says something like that but it says that in relation to partial zones. It also says your area starts as 1 zone. Another issue might be the assumption of a board with squares. I know they're the most common in many places, but a number of us prefer to run hex boards when/if we use them for a game. So starting with a 1 pace aoe, how do we hit... ah, radius vs diameter. Your 1 pace zone is a 2x2 square area placed in the middle to partially cover a 3x3 square. Needs a picture (thousand words).

When you cast an area spell, you choose any point on the board to center it. This is typically the center point of a zone, but doesn't have to be. Then you count the squares between a character and that point (always rounding partial squares to full squares) to see if any given creature / object is affected.

It should work exactly the same on a hex-grid, in fact even easier as you don't have to deal with the knowledge that diagonals are longer than straight angles.

I would say it is simpler to use squares, but for some reason people rage about the idea of cubical spell effects in 4E, and so even as a rounding abstraction its just not worth it.

Honestly you could make a completely rocking mage duo. First person drops a hard to resist aoe reversed cantrip, second drops the nuke. But that's not the blaster archetype/fantasy. The example wizzy dropped minimum about 20 points on evocation, dweomer mastery, a +5 book, and a wand just to blast three random towns people 40 feet away. Both hands are full and we have the full chanting & waving & pointing going on to create this... 17x17 (man is that unintuitive) area full of fire just to throw a minor penalty to evade on the person in the middle. This is a dc 30 "major" spell and the result is 4/5 people have painful burns. He needs to cast that twice more to reliably kill more than one person.

The problem is this doesn't align with the common idea of 'blaster mage'. A bunch of character points (granted that reach wand is super generally useful) and we have to cast a dc 30 fireball spell three times to kill people. Now if you want to kill one person there's ways to combo reversed cantrips, a reverse buff on their vitality score, then slap them with a single wound. But that's a weird transmutation & stuff 2-round combo, not blasting.

That's what tbe origin of this was. Blasting. Average McExtra has 6 vitality & tenacity. You have to do 3 wounds to get them to disabled/dying. A +20 caster with a 4 point relic and +5 heirloom book is throwing around dc 30 fireballs for three rounds of combat before they expect to kill more than one person. That's not "blasting", it's giving people righteously nasty sunburns until they pass out and start to die.

This is a separate issue.

I said a dedicated evoker will put out damage martial characters can only dream off, not that they will kill lot's of people in a single spell.

I would say that a caster in HoD can take down most stuff of their "level" faster than a similar character could in D&D, but because the game has a shallower power curve with less HP bloat, it doesn't look as dramatic when killing stuff that is much weaker than you.

If you want to kill stuff faster, I recommend using the optional open ended damage rules. That makes the game much more realistic and much faster paced. However, because the game doesn't have a lot of HP bloat, it also means that player characters and named villains can also go down in the blink of an eye.

Also, you should absolutely be treating random townsfolk as mooks rather than making PCs deal three wounds to them.

Also also, bale-fire is an evoker's friend.

Honestly I'm starting to think maybe slapping living spell or tie on some damage over time effect as being the real combat damage magics. Sure, staff of power a magic missile gives you the unlimited variable rifle (and +15 +15 or +20 +20 is a good hit/damage rate), but I was getting that with basic shooter/archer builds. Yes, you have some very strong buffs & debuffs. But those are

But those are what? What are they Telok? Where did you go....?

Joking aside, yes, summons and DoTs are very powerful. The problem is that they don't usually stack and the caster still needs something to be doing every single turn, and sitting back and rolling damage dice isn't good enough for most players.

and very few things described in less mechanical terms, like "this decreases your empathy" or "this causes the character to become gradually greedier over time." The closest I could find is the Vice/Virtue mental quirk, which causes a psychic wound--a specific mechanical result--whenever the character goes against the chosen vice or virtue. (Which, incidentally, gives me the amusing thought that the problem Loki describes in panel seven automatically accrues to anyone who takes Vice: Deceitful.)

Yes, social / personality mechanics are generally less crunchy to give people more freedom to RP their characters.

While Loki is doing it to the point of parody (like all player characters in Scion), I could easily see a situation where a dishonest enough person would refuse to tell the truth for fear of the emotional anguish it could cause.

2) You want the people playing this system to do so with an attitude I associate much more with White Wolf games than with anything crunchy.

I agree, although I wouldn't say that White Wolf games are universally anti-crunch. Exalted is extremely crunchy, and there are plenty of rules in cWoD that we still don't understand after a quarter of a century (resonance I am looking at you!)

You describe any level of optimization in unambiguously negative terms: "I am going to turn a bit of a blind eye to it if it isn't too flagrant[...]even worse[...]one-note[...]"

I don't think that has much of anything to do with optimization.

A character who can only survive on GM pity isn't really an optimized character.

I said that I am willing to ignore the logic of the setting / mechanics of the game if it makes it makes it more fun for the players as a group, but not if it gives one person a massive advantage or if it utterly shatters suspension of disbelief.

Saying you don't want your friends and family members targeted by enemies is a legit request, but if you bring your girlfriend into battle and she is a glass-canon DPS monkey (or even worse, you use her as a human shield) that is no longer fair.
If you ask me not to subject your character to fire attacks because you have PTSD from dropping a pot of boiling tea on your lap as a teenager, that's reasonable, but then if you also expect extra-character points for taking a critical weakness to fire, that is not.
If you ask me not to rob your character, that is probably fine, but if you then take a magical ring that renders you immune to all damage so long as it is on your finger, that is not.


Likewise, making a one-note character has nothing to do with optimization. It has to do with player boredom and spotlight hogging. If you want to make a guy who can only do one thing, that is probably not a great a character to begin with, but it is fine if you want to play him or her. What isn't fine is then getting bored and ruining the game for the other players when your one thing isn't the solution. You see this a lot with guys who make big dumb hack and slash characters who are great in combat but with no mental or social stats / skills, and then whenever the other players are trying to have a conversation or solve a mystery, they just start attacking people to turn the scene into a combat scene. As a less dramatic example, they tend to just either start whining or pull out their phone and tuning everyone else out; not as bad but still rude and disruptive.

3) At least one of your players (the one you call "new girl") has made and is playing a nonfunctional character. This means she consistently fails to do anything. This means failure to optimize has screwed her over.

Yeah, she is a bit of an odd case. She is doing what I think most people would consider "anti-optimization" and taking flaws and ability score arrays that negate her skills.

A mute orator, a blind lookout, a one armed man with a two handed sword, a colorblind painter, etc.

Or to use a D&D example a wizard with an 8 intelligence and an 18 strength or a fighter with an 18 intelligence and an 8 strength.

I still can't tell if she is trolling us or if she is just really bad at reading comprehension and too proud to help.

Again though, I feel like some people are mad at me for having a system that allows for deliberate anti-optimization.

But then, at the same time, you and some others are telling me that I hate any form of optimization and therefore... I like her character? I forced her to make this character? I should applaud her character? I am honestly not quite sure how the existence of a dumb anti-optimization character proves your point or even what point you are trying to make by bringing her up.

I'm back home at my computer so writing is easy again! Woohoo!

Me too! Congrats!

As for me finding sample characters interesting, you might be surprised. Once I found the Extras templates section, I was super interested to find that an animus 1 character is expected to be rolling with a +12 to their good skills, and a +6 to everything else. Likewise, a fighter is good at all 3 combat skills, and one additional skill of their choice. These are the exact benchmarks that I would look for when trying to make a character, and while I might push to a 13, it gives guidance that a +14 is of the table until I hit animus 2.

I wouldn't say that. PCs are way more unique and complicated than extras, and I would fully expect them to have way more diverse skills, both in terms of numbers and variety. I would absolutely expect to see +14s before animus 2.

It's not that we think that you hate any form of optimization, it's that optimizing in the game as you envision it can easily lead to characters being killed, or made unplayable, while not having enough system mastery makes the game frustrating. I will refer once again to the two examples of this: The pyromancer wizard that started this thread, and the character with the bow. One could solve their problems easy enough, but because they lack system mastery, they are unable to (seriously, it's a moderately cheap artifact to fix). The other will have their 40 point artifact taken from them:

At this point they are down over a third of their CP budget, and have nothing to show for it. And while I've seen some rules for getting lost points back, they generally are based around receiving double CP until the debt is cleared. At 40 points, that's 40 adventures until they catch up with the rest of the party, or 20 until they are back up to animus 1 effectiveness, assuming that their build wasn't focused around the artifacts, and can't work without them, leaving them with a bunch of useless CP in options that were meant to combo with the artifact, and are now gone.

Someone, I think Kish, flat out said up-thread that it is obvious I hate any form of optimization.

I don't know, I don't really consider having weaknesses to be an issue of system mastery or optimization. Maybe I just have an elitist view of the game, but it should be pretty obvious to most people what the weaknesses and limitations of an extreme build are just based on common sense.

But, at the same time, I don't think a game rewarding player skill is a bad thing.

AFAICT if you have a relic or heirloom stolen you just get back the full CP cost, so you aren't really out anything except time.

But yeah, bad things happening to you can happen with any build, trying to figure out how to minimize them is an essential skill for every player.

I've pointed out two above, but generally anyone that wants to play an archetype instead of play the system will suffer. If a character wants to play Legolas, and they focus on a bow build, they'll quickly find out that they are pretty useless for most fights. Remember, a character dumping all stats from 5 to 1 is equivalent is scale to an archer taking a -4 on their accuracy. They are going from an average chance of hitting, to being equal to the worst in the world. A mage that wants to pretend to be Gandalf and charge into melee with a sword and staff can be done, but if the player is lacking system mastery, they will die very, very fast, and find it frustrating.

These are what I mean by trap builds. They are options that you allow, and even have support for, but that when followed without a certain level of mastery, will result in a frustrating, un-fun play experience, even (or even especially) when the character is unable to live up to the archetypal examples that they wanted to imitate or iterate on.

I think you have a different definition of trap than I do.

The definition I am used to is when one option in a game is objectively inferior to another option. For example, in Magic a gray ogre is a 2/2 red creature that costs 1 red 2 colorless. A granite gargoyle is a 2/2 red creature with flying and pumping that costs 1 red 2 colorless. In comparison, the former is a trap option because it is objectively far worse.

I do not believe in a trap "build" because it isn't a prepackaged option; there is nothing there to trap you.

I do not believe there is anything wrong with the fact that some abilities synergies better together or that some characters require more skill to build / play than others.

Sure. But if that's the case, there is no reason to give them Character Points for taking a flaw is there? If they are just there for extra challenge, then giving a player CP for taking them actively works against their primary intended use case.

In principle I agree with you. In practice, its a social game, and people are likely to get upset if they feel someone else is over/under performing.

The primary purpose of a flaw is to create variety and diversity in both the mechanics and the setting, not to make for an overall weaker character.

As I said, it's not about the archetypes themselves, but rather the system mastery required for them to work. So I'll give you two, each one with restrictions based on a players lack of experience with your system:

1) Build as close as you can to a functional Legolas with the following restrictions: No Armor. Can only use a bow to make attacks, and is effective at melee range, or when firing into a melee. Good acrobatics and athletics. Can only build using rules found fully within in the first 3 chapters (though this does allow the items from Step F on page 9), this means no items, artifacts, spells, races, or combat maneuvers may be taken or enhanced by traits. Bonus: Do the entire character creation within 5 minutes to limit your ability to plan, and force you to put pen to page as recklessly as possible to simulate a player who knows the system much worse than you do.

I don't think different characters have different skill ceilings is a bad thing or a trap. It might well even be an advantage.

The game can do Legolas, no problem.

The game cannot do Legolas with a bunch of artificial restrictions that are not present in either the mechanics of Heart of Darkness or the fluff of Lord of the Rings. The latter shouldn't ever come up at an actual table.

2) Build as strong as a character as you can while taking at least 50 points of artifacts. Assume that at least 10 more points are spent towards the main artifact gimmick of the build. Then, when the build is over, remove all artifacts and enchantments, as they are stolen by powerful opponents. Have the result be at least as effective as a journeyman extra, as the player will be stuck with this build for a while, and they should be able to still play with their friends.

Ok.

4 Intelligence. 7 Charisma. 1 Strength. 3 Endurance. 1 Dexterity. 2 Perception. 3 Willpower. 1 Agility.

Major: Business, Leadership.
Minor: Resolve. Acrobatics. Fortitude. Expression.
Traits: Specialty: Song. Confident. Manipulative. Absent Minded. Primitive. Soothing Voice.
Relics: Earrings of allure + dirge + fisher's ring of amplify volume + medallion of heroism + magic standard of halo + whatever is left on fetishes for charisma skills.

Maybe take a few other flaws to shore up defenses or buy Empathic and Beauty. Could probably work with a lower intelligence and sagacious or specialty as well, but that might be poor RPing. Once the game starts take charisma to 10 and raise endurance, willpower, and agility evenly so the party doesn't have to work as hard at protecting you. Or just use your starting wealth / the rewards from your first mission to be an elixir of regrets like new fallen snow + transfigure to swap out relic for something else.

So then what is fluff? It is what can be freely changed in a system without it causing any issues to the game. In the first example, the game is stating that a character can get the benifits of being a viking while playing a short black haired warrior, because such details aren't important to the balance of the game. In the second, it is making clear that those details are important to balance, and thus shouldn't be changed. In the last, it makes it clear that the only part that is important to balance is the bonuses received to strength and resilience.

In a more political setting, the 'Undisputed Masters of Close combat' might not be fluff, as it could be more important than everything else on the sheet when it is used to pressure other nations into capitulating. If that was the case, taking this trait could allow a viking to intimidate any foe if they are in close as even a dragon is aware that they aren't as good in melee combat as the average viking. It sounds silly, but if you make it clear that part is mechanical, then players feel more free to play around with those options.

The argument you are talking about is a great example. If the glowing aura was separated out in some way (like say italics), then there wouldn't be an argument because players would know that part isn't important to the balance of the game, and thus goes with whatever is convenient to the caster. Just like if your Cataract spell had the part that said it can make illusions real in italics, it would be more clear that that is an explanation of what the spell does, but not actually the mechanics of how the spell works for balance purposes.

With that definition of fluff, there is no fluff in my system, and nothing should be in italics.

You could make a simple mechanical system which ignored common sense (like 4Es detractor's complain about it), but that isn't any RPG I am aware of. All of them have way too many exceptions and fuzzy rules. There are so many spells and magical effects that can affect something based on its description. Alignments and codes of conduct is all way too fuzzy to ever write concrete rules for, but it can all effect mechanics. Same with mind controlling spells or stuff like Bonds and Ideals.


When I was playing Lord of the Rings this weekend, I noticed that in a lot of their newer books they list out special abilities in the manner you suggest. First, I have to say that this requirement for one sentence necessitates a lot of unnecessary purple prose that most people just skip over, but second, it just doesn't work. For example, the balrog is immune to fire based attacks, but most fire-based attacks don't actually have anything in the rules mechanics that state they are such; all of the fire is in the names or italicized descriptions. And sure, if you had a ton of time and space you could cross reference every rule in the game with every other rule in the game and hope you didn't miss anything, but even then that makes for a closed off game as you can no longer introduce anything new to the game (and trying is just going to confuse people by referencing rules that don't yet exist).


Of course, even without a concrete fluff divide, you can still have problems with metaphor, generalization, poetic exaggeration, figures of speech, etc.

I really think this needs its own thread.

If players ever need to argue about the rules, I believe it's the system's designers fault. To me at least, clarity is king.

That's an impossibly high bar IMO.

I have never played a game, even something simple like Scrabble, Monopoly, or Poker that people don't get into arguments about.

I can't imagine a game as complex as an RPG that doesn't have fuzzy rulings, but even if it did, English isn't a precise enough language that some people can't read the same words and walk away with two or more different meanings, especially if one of them is making a bad-faith argument for their advantage.

This rule/lore isn't stated anywhere in the spell, so this is something else you have to fix. Remember, players can't read your mind. All we can do is go off what you've written.

It isn't in the spell, but it is in the general rules of magic in Chapter Six. The spell says do your best to work with the GM to come up with appropriate stats.

What counts as a different action? Casting it at a different target? Using a different set of meta magic? Or does it apply to any spell casting check? These are some things that you need to clarify when you update this rule.

Up to the GM.

I would generally say yes for a different spell or target, no for different meta magics.

I am working on clarifying it. Will probably take several drafts and still have a grey area for GM rulings.

At the very least, saying that their body is like that of a Kami's would at least give guidance. I don't know if you need a general set of rules, but for exceptions like this I think it's important. Especially considering the hoops a player has to go through to cast this spell and get use from it.

The second line of the spell says a force of nature is similar in appearance to a kami's elemental body; although again I suppose if you want to play rules lawyer that is just the appearance, not the biological processes.

For reference; kamis are described as building their body from any inanimate matter within the effected terrain including plants and the edifices of man.

Although there is still some weirdness about inanimate plants technically counting as living beings, I need to go through and clear that up.

It's actually not from the text, its from me talking with you just before I posted the build:

So as above when you responded about what an extras attributes would be, you said they were equal to the extras 'Bad Score.' So when I went to page 533 to look up a Paragon's Bad Score to find out what the attributes for a Force of Nature would be (As force of nature uses the Paragon Template), right next to it you can see that Eldritch Entity and Primordial both have bad scores above 15.

Exactly, it isn't a rule in the game. Extras don't technically have scores aside from what the GM assigns to them.

When I said generally, I wasn't thinking about spirits, who use different math; especially the primordials who outright play by a different set of rules.

Does this mean fusion is intended to be impossible to cast except on two PCs?

That is not the intent no. That's a side effect of me rewriting the extra rules more recently than the spell rules and not noticing the gap in the rules.

Force of Nature didn't. It started at 10, and then got +2 for each level of empower added to the spell with no listed cap.

Right, but force of nature doesn't have any attributes scores listed at all, so therefore it doesn't have anything to add +2 to, just like it doesn't have any mana or destiny or wealth.

But even more than that the rules state 'Inborn attribute modifiers and traits modify an extra’s scores normally.' This means that even a fourth circle spirit could hit a bad score of 16 in a stat with the right template applied to it, thus the highest attribute in the game would be around 25.

Could you please elaborate on this?

Because either you are misreading something or I mis-wrote something if this is the case.

Let's be honest, TO builds are always built on being technically correct anyway. That's the reason they aren't used, the GM is expected to take one look at it and tell the player to build something more in line with the power level of the game.

True. I am just saying that the assertion that any player can veto the spell isn't technically correct either; and that could come up in an actual game rather than in a TO forum discussion as I have had both PCs and NPCs cast that spell in the past.

[Jakinbandw]

I haven't actually read the books, but aren't witchers supposed to be like fantasy space marines? Alchemically augmented super-human killing machines?

Sorta I guess. I'm more talking from the perspective of someone who played the videogame. Thinking of them like a cleric wouldn't be far off though.

Yeah, D&D clerics are tricky in my system, or indeed most point buy systems, because D&D tends to make them grossly overpowered and let them do anything and everything as a sort of meta-bribe to convince someone to play the healer.

Honestly, when I was making them for my game, the hardest time I had was nailing down what a cleric was meant to be. Finally we broke it into 3 archetypes: The holy warrior that hunts monsters, the priest, and the white mage party support. Susland has the first 2 classes and has wisdom as his 3rd. It means his party support isn't as solid, but he's good at social from being a priest, can understand the world from wise, and has neat monster hunting abilities from Sacred Hunter.

I think my game sorta counts as pointbuyish. But anyway, I'm not trying to sell you on that.

You are allowed to make custom schools of magic.

Again, I don't know what exactly your powers are, but that is probably a more efficient way to do it. Or just drop all of the social merits and play a full on omni-caster.

Basically at level 1 I have 4 basic abilities:

Spoiler: The Text for Susland's Abilities

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Lived Experience
Your wisdom comes from not only past failings, but a willingness to learn from them. You never suffer disadvantage on any proficiency check using a free proficiency that you make. Reduce the cost of gaining a Free Proficiency by 2 TP. In addition, exert effort: Your proficiency checks get 1 base advantage.

(This makes it really cheap to pick up new skills, and I'm generally better with skills than most people as long as I have effort remaining. Good for short encounters, but less good when combat is likely to happen. Character has 3 effort)

Danger Sense
You have an almost supernatural capacity for sensing danger. You always have one action during a Surprise round. Exert Effort: Your Tactical Check gets 1 base advantage.
Burn effort when you or an ally would suffer a danger, or a negative event outside of combat: you may take a single action before that danger or event happens.

(Makes me better at hindering foes or aiding allies in combat, and I can't be surprised.)

Blessed Iconography
You bless an object meant to represent your faith, granting protection to those who carry it even if they do not believe. Burn Effort and choose an object: It becomes a single use charm that grants one of the following Effects:
- Gain a fact: ‘If this person would die, they are resurrected within 72 hours of their death.’
- Negate the wounds and stress from an attack that would down them.
- Gain a Fact: ‘If you would fail a check, you may ignore any dangers, surviving or escaping the situation.’
These charms only work while you know this ability. Attuning a charm requires a long rest or Burn Effort as an action, and only 1 may be attuned at a time. Additionally, you may instead spend a downtime action to create several (0) of these objects.

(A solid protection ability that I can hand out, probably my strongest support ability. This is what I was trying to replicate with the halo)

Elemental Signs
You are trained in simple and violent elemental manipulation
You gain a 1 load technique with the Specialist (Any), and Float Qualities. Specialist Any counts as the Elemental and Impairing qualities, except as a free action you may switch the condition it inflicts and its Element or Sub-Element to any you wish. Choose one keyword for this arm when you take this ability.
You must sustain effort to benefit from float quality on this arm.

(So in combat this is kinda an alternate weapon I can use, and it allows for a few interesting ways of shaping the battlefield, or inflicting conditions, but most things it can do, can be done in other ways that don't require magic. Out of combat, this allows the temporary summoning of any of the 6 prime elements, or the 21 sub elements in my game. This allows for cantrip level illusions, minor portals, and a bunch of other useful little tricks. As far as usefulness in the game so far, set your expectations at around the 'Prestidigitation' cantrip from 5e. Flavorful, and sometimes useful, but not as broadly useful as they first seem.)

Mana and destiny should give you the edge, although I haven't rand the numbers. Although this is very much a support character rather than a front-line fighter, and I imagine that the bigger a group Susland is part of the bigger an advantage he or she is; Susland + 4 journeyman extras should absolutely crush 5 journeyman extras as an example.

I won't directly argue there, just point out that for that role, there are far more optimal ways of pulling it off.

True. Although a runic anvil is probably a better pick, because subtle spells only alter probability, and so the odds that there are a bunch of unclaimed non-permanent eldritch mechanisms nearby whenever you cast it is virtually zero and thus the GM is almost certain to say the spell fails.

I mean, it depends on the GM. I would assume the chance of a landmine being in the middle of a place where people were fighting a current battle to be non-existant, so it sounded like it summoned stuff in to allow the spell to work, and it would only fail if the change couldn't be easily hidden in the scene.

I wouldn't say that. PCs are way more unique and complicated than extras, and I would fully expect them to have way more diverse skills, both in terms of numbers and variety. I would absolutely expect to see +14s before animus 2.

I would expect to likely see them, but at the same time they will be worse off than this extra in other areas to do so. Seeing as you've stated that a character's weaknesses should come up, there's a good argument that this extra might have an easier time of play, as they are equally paired against similar level foes, and they lack weaknesses that a GM would be looking to make matter.

Someone, I think Kish, flat out said up-thread that it is obvious I hate any form of optimization.

I don't know, I don't really consider having weaknesses to be an issue of system mastery or optimization. Maybe I just have an elitist view of the game, but it should be pretty obvious to most people what the weaknesses and limitations of an extreme build are just based on common sense.

If you believe that, you have a lot of rewriting to do. I think with all the discussions around the game, that it's very clear that players do not have such a grasp of weaknesses, and if you feel they should, you'll need to make sure that such things are made clear to them.

But, at the same time, I don't think a game rewarding player skill is a bad thing.

This is a very interesting philosophical question. Where I personally come down on it, is that player skill should only matter when the player has an opportunity to improve. Thus clever tactics at the table should be rewarding, but that clever optimization shouldn't. You can become more skilled at tactics and put them into play as the game goes on, but having to start a new character every few sessions as you learn and understand the system more just ends up with boring characters and a disinterested player.

Weirdly, as a CharOp lover, I actually believe that rewarding players for CharOp is a negative thing for games.

AFAICT if you have a relic or heirloom stolen you just get back the full CP cost, so you aren't really out anything except time.

But yeah, bad things happening to you can happen with any build, trying to figure out how to minimize them is an essential skill for every player.

I didn't see that anywhere, so if I could have a page number? Also, do you get Animus that you convert into ambrosia back as well? This is important for when a Permanency spell that has been cast is dispelled.

I do not believe there is anything wrong with the fact that some abilities synergies better together or that some characters require more skill to build / play than others.

I strongly disagree with this. Telling a player - Hey this is possible, and then having them be worse then if they hadn't tried because they didn't fully know the system or the setting, feels like baiting a trap to me. Here's a cool thing, oh look, you failed at doing it, and now you'll suffer for the rest of the game. It's much the same reason I don't like rolling for attributes tbh. An issue at character creation shouldn't preclude a fun character to play.

In principle I agree with you. In practice, its a social game, and people are likely to get upset if they feel someone else is over/under performing.

I'm confused, I thought just above this you said that you were fine with character types under performing if built poorly. Why is it worse for someone to under-perform on purpose than by accident? Why can't a skilled player take a few handicaps to bring their character down to the level of players that aren't as good at system mastery. If you're fine with players being able to make better or worse characters (and you said you valued freedom in building characters), then why not make it easy and clear how to build a substandard character. Put all possible main options at the same level of power, then have 'Over Powered' options that require GM approval to make stronger characters, and 'Under Power' options that allow a player to make weaker characters than expected. It would give the same, if not more freedom to the players, and it would be more honest.

The game cannot do Legolas with a bunch of artificial restrictions that are not present in either the mechanics of Heart of Darkness or the fluff of Lord of the Rings. The latter shouldn't ever come up at an actual table.

I mean, it has though hasn't it? I gave you that build challenge as a way to simulate someone attempting a build that they lacked the skill to make. From the perspective of someone who doesn't have time to read and memorize a nearly 600 page book, down to the smallest minutia (because later, you point out that there is a line of text around a hundred pages away from a spell that when interpreted in a certain way, could change how the spell works).

4 Intelligence. 7 Charisma. 1 Strength. 3 Endurance. 1 Dexterity. 2 Perception. 3 Willpower. 1 Agility.

Major: Business, Leadership.
Minor: Resolve. Acrobatics. Fortitude. Expression.
Traits: Specialty: Song. Confident. Manipulative. Absent Minded. Primitive. Soothing Voice.
Relics: Earrings of allure + dirge + fisher's ring of amplify volume + medallion of heroism + magic standard of halo + whatever is left on fetishes for charisma skills.

Maybe take a few other flaws to shore up defenses or buy Empathic and Beauty. Could probably work with a lower intelligence and sagacious or specialty as well, but that might be poor RPing. Once the game starts take charisma to 10 and raise endurance, willpower, and agility evenly so the party doesn't have to work as hard at protecting you. Or just use your starting wealth / the rewards from your first mission to be an elixir of regrets like new fallen snow + transfigure to swap out relic for something else.

Of course RLNFS requires GM permission. I'll wait on seeing the page that immediately allows all CP from a lost artifact to be regained instantly before I comment on the rest of the build. As it is though, assuming you can't respec. It will be too slow to escape from combat, and will then be easily grappled an killed, as GMs are supposed to make character weaknesses matter, and the character has only 1 strength and 1 agility. If the GM truly makes those flaws matter, I'm not sure that it would survive the first adventure.

Basically, your plan relies entirely on GM mercy.

With that definition of fluff, there is no fluff in my system, and nothing should be in italics.

Then this:

Spoiler: Cataract

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The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Cataract is used to turn deceptions into reality; it can change other illusion spells into real objects, shift a being's identity to match a disguise or an assumed role, or otherwise bring fantasies to life.

is not fluff, and is an actual effect of the spell. It can make an illusion of ambrosia real, because this isn't fluff, but actually what the spell does.

I've written and deleted about 4 differant paragraphs of responces to this, but I just leave it at this: This attitude really bothers me, rubs me the wrong way, and makes me want to take the most bad faith readings possible.

I will do my best not to do this.

I really think this needs its own thread.

Sure.

That's an impossibly high bar IMO.

Just because something is hard, or even outside our personal capabilities, doesn't mean that it's not a goal worth striving for. Settling for mediocrity because one doesn't want to aim for the moon is really frustrating to see.

It isn't in the spell, but it is in the general rules of magic in Chapter Six. The spell says do your best to work with the GM to come up with appropriate stats.

I'm going to need to see the exert, as I've searched both 'universal' and 'subconscious' and I'm not seeing either. I'm also not seeing it when I read that section of the rule

Up to the GM.

I am working on clarifying it. Will probably take several drafts and still have a grey area for GM rulings.

I see.

The second line of the spell says a force of nature is similar in appearance to a kami's elemental body; although again I suppose if you want to play rules lawyer that is just the appearance, not the biological processes.

Although there is still some weirdness about inanimate plants technically counting as living beings, I need to go through and clear that up.

If as you say, there is no fluff in your system, then yes, you'll need to write that section (and many others) out much more clearly.

Exactly, it isn't a rule in the game.

I'm sorry, I guess I just expected that when I asked the designer of the game how the rules worked, they would tell me the actual rules. Since you're arguing here that advice you give outside the book isn't to be followed, I'm really not sure where to go from here. If I can't discuss your intentions with you, without you pulling these Gotcha's it feels like there's not much point discussing things further, or trying to follow any rules changes you make, as following them is just setting myself up to be shut down by you.

That is not the intent no. That's a side effect of me rewriting the extra rules more recently than the spell rules and not noticing the gap in the rules.

But it is what the rules say, so going forward I will assume that any reference to attributes can only affect PCs

Right, but force of nature doesn't have any attributes scores listed at all, so therefore it doesn't have anything to add +2 to, just like it doesn't have any mana or destiny or wealth.

This is actually where you're completely wrong. Empower doesn't add +2 to it's attributes. It's much worse than that.

Spoiler: Force of Nature

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Each level of the empower metamagic provides the force of nature with a +2 bonus to all of its scores, including size rating.

So what do scores cover in the system? I think the most applicable quote is here:

Spoiler: 168

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An entry marked with a * can be taken any number of times so long as it does not bring a character's scores beyond a value that would be possible with key attributes between one and ten.

So from this, it seems that a Score, is anything with a number. But let's double check:

Spoiler: 553

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Extras use their good score for trained skills and their bad score for untrained skills.

So the Good and Bad Scores are Scores, and are thus effected. What else though is effected?

Spoiler: Also 553

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An extra’s animus score is determined by its template, with an equivalent number of base chakras.

So then, the Force of Nature that we would summon, rules as written, has an Animus Score of 25, with 25 open Chakras.

Since you've made it clear that listening to what you think of the rules in this forum leads to you Gotcha'ing me, I can only assume that this is the explicit intent of the game, and build around this.

Could you please elaborate on this?

Because either you are misreading something or I mis-wrote something if this is the case.

Doesn't matter, as you've made it clear that only PCs have attributes, and that anything you've said in this thread might just be misinformation.



I'm willing to discuss you system in the future. But only if you refrain from playing games just so you can protect your system. If you say something as it's designer, I need to be able to take what you say as truth, and you can't go back later and tell me that you were just messing with me.

So one last thing before I leave then, because I worked this out before you gave your reply, and it would be a shame not to share it.

Having inept is better than not having inept on a character. Each level of Inept increases the average result of a check for that proficiency by +0.5 of a point. IE: A skill of 0 will have an average result of 10.5. An inept of 10 will have an average result roughly a 15.5 by comparison. This is assuming you go through with the change you insinuated you were planning to make to the fortune dice system. I'll leave you to do with that information as you will.

[Telok]

But those are what? What are they Telok? Where did you go....?

Sorry. Family & time & stuff.

So, where was I?... Ah, fire blast. It reads as an area effect spell. You may not intend it that way, but it read that way. I spent a couple hours cross referencing and page numbering and it seems that a zone is a pace. So it the spell fills a zone with fire then it fills it with fire. Of course I also have a fondness for a magic system where stuff was split into the power (necromancy, pyromancy, chronomancy) and the method (conjuration, evocation, apportation). That system had a whole page of fireballs; pyromancy-evocation as trad, chronomancy-apportation to reverse the flow of time on some ashes you threw, necro-conj to summon the spirit of a dead bonfire. So "same effect by a different path" is something I trend towards there. But yeah, you need something to differentiate the zone/pace difference in area/calling because it reads the same.

On blasting: The journeyman level extra was called out as a typical person for pcs to interact with while minions and open ended damage are in optional sidebars. The idea of blaster is, when coming from D&D style & influenced games/crpgs, about fireball KOing or one shotting a bunch of non-trivial targets. This system doesn't do that. This makes it so a dc 40+ nuke is seriously non-trivial to build a character for and to pay for in action. And that dc 40+ nuke is what it'll take to make a D&D style fireball. That's where the blaster wizard complaint comes from, which leads to...

On describing the game: Don't compare Heart of Darkness to D&D. People have way too much D&D baggage, especially this site, to get much useful when they make D&D assumptions about stuff unread. Instead HoD has much more DNA from games like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Palladium than it does from D&D. Heck, I think it's closer to Mörk Borg than the current version of D&D. Although more accurately I'd say 1st level OD&D or hardcore AD&D 1e is still a bit north of Mörk Borg and HoD is well north of 1st level AD&D, but they're all a tighter range that's well south of WotC D&Ds. Having played starter characters in all the games in this paragraph except HoD, your game is closer to Palladium, AD&D, WHFRP, than to the last 20 years of D&D.