As someone who has been working full time, through everything going on in the world today, I haven't had the "benefit" of a sudden, unexpected stretch of free time. Admittedly, the turnaround time from the previous post is shorter than I usually do, but aside from a brief bit of conversation, I haven't found any opportunity to even think about TNP, let alone put pen to paper on it, since that last post.
So I'm realizing that I need to take a break; I can't see things changing in the immediate future, so the current logjam will just persist, and possibly even worsen.
Before I step away, I'll kind of lay out where I'm at (aside from rehashing the previously-mentioned obstacles with subtypes.)
First off, I want to say I really like the new regime for skills. I want to test it and make sure it "feels" right, but I'm optimistic about it. That being said, with the move away from d20, the game's design is sort of fracturing into two distinct halves. Why not staple the skill system onto a different set of combat mechanics? Those are the types of questions it starts to beg of me.
In the last couple of posts, it has become clear that the mechanical, crunchy side of the combat needs to be completely overhauled. The focus is shifting towards the "damage + effect" combo-making style of gameplay (in the vein of 4th edition D&D) and the status effects and conditions need to be built around a new paradigm (starting with disadvantage on skills, as one of it's foundations.) This effectively means that every combat feature in the game needs to be reconsidered. A game largely focused on hacking through HP, I'm beginning to realize, does not lend itself to the idea of using d20 (with minimal modifiers) for its combat resolution. So either that mechanic needs to change, or the game needs to be about something other than HP attrition. Whatever the approach, the designs would need significant renovations.
What it comes down to, is I'm seeing myself not having been able to put in the level of time and energy that would entail, since I restarted blogging. And I can make no guarantee that anything will change anytime soon, meaning the amount of work the game needs put into it, is probably not a realistic possibility right now.
I think there are probably two possible paths forward:
1) Scale the game back in scope, to a manageable level, and just push out the best product I can manage.
2) Shift focus to something new.
To be clear, in either case, I won't be blogging; any work being done will be behind the scenes, until I have something meaningful to report. Likewise, in both scenarios, I'll need to sit down, talk, and think long and hard about what I want to get accomplished, and what would make the most sense for a possible new project.
Building a completely different (probably simpler) combat engine, to work in tandem with the skill system, is the first branching path that springs to mind; what shape that takes will depend entirely on what else I can figure out. One such possibility might be unifying around the skill mechanic -- migrating combat away from d20 + class dice.
Really, finishing the game instead of doing something new, boils down to an exercise in managing the scope. If subtypes, combat powers, and status effects all need to be reworked or completely rewritten (in service of a particular gameplay ethos) that's a behemoth task. It also begs the question of whether or not (for example) the skill mechanics will still make sense for the resulting product. It's not long before we're questioning if it'd be easier to start everything from scratch -- so I think if this project is to continue, it'll have to be a case of "addition by subtraction."
I'll leave it at that for now. The TNP Discord will be kept open for anyone looking to join the discussion, so hopefully I'll see you in there.
Sunday, August 30, 2020
Friday, August 21, 2020
The Death of the D20?
I was looking over the existing monster math (from the previous draft of the rules) and I realized things were a bit off.
Specifically, for each PC in the encounter, your budget can include two Standard monsters -- which each having about as much HP as one PC (24-32 HP). In order for this to work within the goal of having combat last 3 rounds, the damage per round (DPR) for a PC needs to be 1/3rd of that total HP, for both of the Standard monsters. This works out to nearly 20 DPR. So what does this mean in practical terms?
Well, the way DPR is calculated, is by taking the average damage you can do on your turn (i.e. using class dice) and multiply it by your chance to hit; with a DC10, that means a d20 roll would hit 55% of the time. To make a long story short, this means you only deal about half of the average damage your dice would deal -- so to average out to 20 DPR, your dice need to average closer to 40 damage per round.
This is obviously way too high.
Oddly enough, the first solution that came to mind was simply axing attack rolls; this would mean taking your actions and simply dealing your damage, using your class dice. This quickly gets around the halving that results from permuting damage through an attack roll, meaning the monster math can remain (roughly) the same as it was. The alternative would be to simply lower the monster HP guidelines -- probably making it so Standard monsters and PCs are at a 1:1 ratio, instead of 2:1.
The third idea that came up in discussion would be to increase DPR by moving the class designs more in line with 4th Edition D&D, adding in encounter and daily powers (or something similar) to help boost damage. My assessment is that it would be a lot easier to implement and balance that, in the paradigm of weapon damage dice, rather than that of class dice.
In any situation where the attack rolls are kept in the game, what would need to happen for damage to increase, is for the hit chance to increase. This would mean using things like advantage, or the minor and major bonuses (using class dice.) I'm not sure I really want these bonuses to become so ubiquitous, though -- essentially making them a math tax.
As such, probably the solution is to make sure that bonuses from abilities, as well as from conditions and positioning, are well defined, meaningful, and readily accessible. For example, if there is a significant boost to hitting a prone target with a melee attack, then there needs to be worthwhile options for knocking enemies prone in the first place -- without further diminishing DPR, by spending your turn setting that up, rather than just dealing damage.
I really think this is the tack to take, since it encourages the players to be tactical, and likewise encourages me to build the system to facilitate that. It also reinforces the sort of 4e paradigm of "damage + effect" on abilities; your powers needs to always bee dealing damage to keep DPR consistent, but they should also be creating opportunities for your allies to combo off of, on their turns, in order to boost DPR.
---
As mentioned before, I'm hoping to get another post in before the end of August, so look for that on Sunday the 30th.
Specifically, for each PC in the encounter, your budget can include two Standard monsters -- which each having about as much HP as one PC (24-32 HP). In order for this to work within the goal of having combat last 3 rounds, the damage per round (DPR) for a PC needs to be 1/3rd of that total HP, for both of the Standard monsters. This works out to nearly 20 DPR. So what does this mean in practical terms?
Well, the way DPR is calculated, is by taking the average damage you can do on your turn (i.e. using class dice) and multiply it by your chance to hit; with a DC10, that means a d20 roll would hit 55% of the time. To make a long story short, this means you only deal about half of the average damage your dice would deal -- so to average out to 20 DPR, your dice need to average closer to 40 damage per round.
This is obviously way too high.
Oddly enough, the first solution that came to mind was simply axing attack rolls; this would mean taking your actions and simply dealing your damage, using your class dice. This quickly gets around the halving that results from permuting damage through an attack roll, meaning the monster math can remain (roughly) the same as it was. The alternative would be to simply lower the monster HP guidelines -- probably making it so Standard monsters and PCs are at a 1:1 ratio, instead of 2:1.
The third idea that came up in discussion would be to increase DPR by moving the class designs more in line with 4th Edition D&D, adding in encounter and daily powers (or something similar) to help boost damage. My assessment is that it would be a lot easier to implement and balance that, in the paradigm of weapon damage dice, rather than that of class dice.
In any situation where the attack rolls are kept in the game, what would need to happen for damage to increase, is for the hit chance to increase. This would mean using things like advantage, or the minor and major bonuses (using class dice.) I'm not sure I really want these bonuses to become so ubiquitous, though -- essentially making them a math tax.
As such, probably the solution is to make sure that bonuses from abilities, as well as from conditions and positioning, are well defined, meaningful, and readily accessible. For example, if there is a significant boost to hitting a prone target with a melee attack, then there needs to be worthwhile options for knocking enemies prone in the first place -- without further diminishing DPR, by spending your turn setting that up, rather than just dealing damage.
I really think this is the tack to take, since it encourages the players to be tactical, and likewise encourages me to build the system to facilitate that. It also reinforces the sort of 4e paradigm of "damage + effect" on abilities; your powers needs to always bee dealing damage to keep DPR consistent, but they should also be creating opportunities for your allies to combo off of, on their turns, in order to boost DPR.
---
As mentioned before, I'm hoping to get another post in before the end of August, so look for that on Sunday the 30th.
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Dog Days of Summer (2020)
Apologies for the lateness of this post; I will try and cram 3 posts into the month of August, so check for updates on the 21st and 30th, most likely.
To make a long story short, production has not gone along as far as I would have hoped. In largest part, this is due to the protracted unseasonably warm weather, making it difficult for me to sit down and focus on writing for any length of time. Mostly my at-home time since the start fo July consisted of either laying down with a fan pointed directly at me, or soaking in a tub full of cool water. Add to that some computer troubles, and I wasn't able to get much done over the break; what I did get started on, came pretty early into it -- I'll go over that now.
Archetypes & Domains (aka subtypes)
Part of the process of allocating the various subtypes to all of the classes, was to take the conceptual idea and actually spell out what that meant.
Specifically, it's something like this:
1) Class (and subclass) determine your possible power sources
2) Class Category determines your possible subtypes (either archetypes or domains)
Alright, so most classes get 3 or 4 options for power sources (this might be whittled down by subclass, but we'll set that aside for now.) For the sake of argument, let's assume class category only ever allows for one of the subtypes and not both. In practical terms, this means that every class will have between 6 and 8 possible "builds" -- not including differentiation based on subclass.
To make a long story short, there's just too much going on; particularly so, given the idea that each subtype is meant to function across roughly half a dozen classes. I spent some time working on the Paladin class in particular, and I found that even after adding previously-unplanned restrictions, there ended up being 8 different subtype options per subclass. Also, it became clear that domains would probably have to be tailored to each class, meaning the utility of recycling them would be lost entirely.
So probably what's going to happen, going forward, is one or more of the following:
a) Subtypes will be shelved, at least until classes can be ironed out, possibly longer.
b) Subtypes will be scaled back in number, by some method.
c) Subtypes will be dictated strictly by class, making it easier to (for ex.) have one archetype/domain from a particular power source, but not the other, on any given class.
Part of any restructuring might be a shift away from using certain Archetypes across multiple classes. The example that immediately springs to mind is the Adventurer subclasses (Scout, Skald) being reused as archetypes, for other classes. At first glance, it seems like it'd be alright, because Adventurer would also get subtype options on top of that... but it just seems to dilute the big picture. If we go with option a) as mentioned above, then we can focus more on ironing out Scout and Skald in the context of just one class, which I think will produce better overall results.
Class Dice in the New Ethos
One of the first things that needed to be tackled, was cementing the ways in which class dice would function, regarding some of the basic character math.
Acknowledging that balancing out the different dice against one another inevitably means that there can't be a "one size fits all" rule for most of these mechanics, what I set out to do instead was to have each class die essentially function as a "code" for these features. Reserves and Surge Value represent one linked pair of mechanics based on class dice, with HP and Engagment being another pair.
(For those unfamiliar, the necessity of a limit on Engagement sprouted out of playtesting; tanking was a little too easy if you could use the Engage move to simply corral all of the open enemies. So class dice were used as a cap on this action -- thus, tankier classes tend to have bigger class dice.)
From there, I've basically come up with 5 different expressions; each class will use one expression for Reserves and Surge Value, and one for HP and Engagement:
1d4
- Max HP: 24
- Engagement: 4
- Reserves: 8
- Surge Value: 4
1d6
- Max HP: 26
- Engagement: 6
- Reserves: 6
- Surge Value: 12
1d8 or 2d4
- Max HP: 28
- Engagement: 8
- Reserves: 8
- Surge Value: 8
1d10
- Max HP: 30
- Engagement: 10
- Reserves: 10
- Surge Value: 10
1d12 or 2d6
- Max HP: 32
- Engagement: 12
- Reserves: 12
- Surge Value: 12
So what does this amount to, in practical terms? Well, it allows us more flexibility in class design. One example would be the Rogue, with Assassin and Sorcerer subclasses; even though Rogue only has d6 as its class dice, the Assassin might use 1d6 for Reserves, and the Sorcerer might use 2d6 (to facilitate them having a reserve-burning mechanic) while both would likely use 1d6 for their HP and Engagement. Likewise, a class using d4 (like the Sage, for instance) can have one subclass (Wizard) that is more of a back-line role, and so would use 1d4 for Engagement, with the other subclass (Monk) being more melee-focused, granting it the 2d4 expression for its calculations. We can also do things like use d6 classes to be tanky, instead of having that role almost entirely lean on d10 or d12 classes.
There's even more possible customization, when it comes to classes that use two class dice. For example, the Cleric (d4/d10) might have a reserve-burning mechanic on its ranged subclass (utilizing the d10) while its melee subclass could be designed to use either the 2d4 or 1d10 expression, for HP and Engagement.
The other benefit to having most classes use two dice, is it gives us the option to lower the number of reserves for classes that would otherwise have 10 or 12 by default -- without us having to staple on reserve-burning mechanics, just for the sake of it. In addition, revising the mechanics such that spending a reserve simply restores your HP to its maximum (under most circumstances) de-emphasizes the importance of surge value, with regards to number of reserves per day. With these two ideas in concert, we're better able to flatten the amount of daily "reserve" HP that each class will have, while still having class dice form these mathematical foundations of these mechanics.
---.
I mentioned it in the TNP Discord, but one topic of discussion was the possibility of removing attack rolls from the designs; this will likely be touched on in a post sometime this month, so stay tuned for that.
To make a long story short, production has not gone along as far as I would have hoped. In largest part, this is due to the protracted unseasonably warm weather, making it difficult for me to sit down and focus on writing for any length of time. Mostly my at-home time since the start fo July consisted of either laying down with a fan pointed directly at me, or soaking in a tub full of cool water. Add to that some computer troubles, and I wasn't able to get much done over the break; what I did get started on, came pretty early into it -- I'll go over that now.
Archetypes & Domains (aka subtypes)
Part of the process of allocating the various subtypes to all of the classes, was to take the conceptual idea and actually spell out what that meant.
Specifically, it's something like this:
1) Class (and subclass) determine your possible power sources
2) Class Category determines your possible subtypes (either archetypes or domains)
Alright, so most classes get 3 or 4 options for power sources (this might be whittled down by subclass, but we'll set that aside for now.) For the sake of argument, let's assume class category only ever allows for one of the subtypes and not both. In practical terms, this means that every class will have between 6 and 8 possible "builds" -- not including differentiation based on subclass.
To make a long story short, there's just too much going on; particularly so, given the idea that each subtype is meant to function across roughly half a dozen classes. I spent some time working on the Paladin class in particular, and I found that even after adding previously-unplanned restrictions, there ended up being 8 different subtype options per subclass. Also, it became clear that domains would probably have to be tailored to each class, meaning the utility of recycling them would be lost entirely.
So probably what's going to happen, going forward, is one or more of the following:
a) Subtypes will be shelved, at least until classes can be ironed out, possibly longer.
b) Subtypes will be scaled back in number, by some method.
c) Subtypes will be dictated strictly by class, making it easier to (for ex.) have one archetype/domain from a particular power source, but not the other, on any given class.
Part of any restructuring might be a shift away from using certain Archetypes across multiple classes. The example that immediately springs to mind is the Adventurer subclasses (Scout, Skald) being reused as archetypes, for other classes. At first glance, it seems like it'd be alright, because Adventurer would also get subtype options on top of that... but it just seems to dilute the big picture. If we go with option a) as mentioned above, then we can focus more on ironing out Scout and Skald in the context of just one class, which I think will produce better overall results.
Class Dice in the New Ethos
One of the first things that needed to be tackled, was cementing the ways in which class dice would function, regarding some of the basic character math.
Acknowledging that balancing out the different dice against one another inevitably means that there can't be a "one size fits all" rule for most of these mechanics, what I set out to do instead was to have each class die essentially function as a "code" for these features. Reserves and Surge Value represent one linked pair of mechanics based on class dice, with HP and Engagment being another pair.
(For those unfamiliar, the necessity of a limit on Engagement sprouted out of playtesting; tanking was a little too easy if you could use the Engage move to simply corral all of the open enemies. So class dice were used as a cap on this action -- thus, tankier classes tend to have bigger class dice.)
From there, I've basically come up with 5 different expressions; each class will use one expression for Reserves and Surge Value, and one for HP and Engagement:
1d4
- Max HP: 24
- Engagement: 4
- Reserves: 8
- Surge Value: 4
1d6
- Max HP: 26
- Engagement: 6
- Reserves: 6
- Surge Value: 12
1d8 or 2d4
- Max HP: 28
- Engagement: 8
- Reserves: 8
- Surge Value: 8
1d10
- Max HP: 30
- Engagement: 10
- Reserves: 10
- Surge Value: 10
1d12 or 2d6
- Max HP: 32
- Engagement: 12
- Reserves: 12
- Surge Value: 12
So what does this amount to, in practical terms? Well, it allows us more flexibility in class design. One example would be the Rogue, with Assassin and Sorcerer subclasses; even though Rogue only has d6 as its class dice, the Assassin might use 1d6 for Reserves, and the Sorcerer might use 2d6 (to facilitate them having a reserve-burning mechanic) while both would likely use 1d6 for their HP and Engagement. Likewise, a class using d4 (like the Sage, for instance) can have one subclass (Wizard) that is more of a back-line role, and so would use 1d4 for Engagement, with the other subclass (Monk) being more melee-focused, granting it the 2d4 expression for its calculations. We can also do things like use d6 classes to be tanky, instead of having that role almost entirely lean on d10 or d12 classes.
There's even more possible customization, when it comes to classes that use two class dice. For example, the Cleric (d4/d10) might have a reserve-burning mechanic on its ranged subclass (utilizing the d10) while its melee subclass could be designed to use either the 2d4 or 1d10 expression, for HP and Engagement.
The other benefit to having most classes use two dice, is it gives us the option to lower the number of reserves for classes that would otherwise have 10 or 12 by default -- without us having to staple on reserve-burning mechanics, just for the sake of it. In addition, revising the mechanics such that spending a reserve simply restores your HP to its maximum (under most circumstances) de-emphasizes the importance of surge value, with regards to number of reserves per day. With these two ideas in concert, we're better able to flatten the amount of daily "reserve" HP that each class will have, while still having class dice form these mathematical foundations of these mechanics.
---.
I mentioned it in the TNP Discord, but one topic of discussion was the possibility of removing attack rolls from the designs; this will likely be touched on in a post sometime this month, so stay tuned for that.
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