Talk:Epic Path: Difference between revisions

From Epic Path
Jump to navigation Jump to search
No edit summary
No edit summary
Line 38: Line 38:
the reason I didn't want to do a flat number is it punishes the players in larger parties.  I don't think it should EVER cost more than 3 feats to ignore your party members.  Similarly, in a small party, having a flat number is too generous.  In the Monday game (a 5 player game), it would only cost 2 feats to completely ignore the other 4 players if each feat lets you exclude a flat 2 players.  As far as complexity, while I described this using a table to 'show my math', the feats wouldn't be laid out that way.  The first feat would say "if your party size is between 1 and 4, exclude 1; if your party size is between 5 and 7, exclude 2; if your party size is 8 or higher, exclude 3".  The second feat would just say "if your party size is between 1 and 5, exclude 1 more; if your party size is 6 or greater, exclude 2 more" (for the second feat, I was also going to say it always excludes summons, animal companions, and familiars automatically). The final feat would just say "exclude any ally".
the reason I didn't want to do a flat number is it punishes the players in larger parties.  I don't think it should EVER cost more than 3 feats to ignore your party members.  Similarly, in a small party, having a flat number is too generous.  In the Monday game (a 5 player game), it would only cost 2 feats to completely ignore the other 4 players if each feat lets you exclude a flat 2 players.  As far as complexity, while I described this using a table to 'show my math', the feats wouldn't be laid out that way.  The first feat would say "if your party size is between 1 and 4, exclude 1; if your party size is between 5 and 7, exclude 2; if your party size is 8 or higher, exclude 3".  The second feat would just say "if your party size is between 1 and 5, exclude 1 more; if your party size is 6 or greater, exclude 2 more" (for the second feat, I was also going to say it always excludes summons, animal companions, and familiars automatically). The final feat would just say "exclude any ally".


a completely different tack would be "you can exclude 1 for free, but each additional ally reduces the save DC by 1".  This is nearly the same as what we have now, but eliminates all the messiness of "reduce your caster level" and squishes it down to just a saving throw penalty.  However, I think all AOE spells have saves, right?


  if we wanted to kick these up a little, without making them too complicated, we could include the following:
  if we wanted to kick these up a little, without making them too complicated, we could include the following:

Revision as of 21:28, 28 August 2020

Feats With No Associated Class

Selective line of feats:  Robin mentioned that the current rules for selective are so complicated, requiring re-factoring of any spell based on how many people you exclude, on the fly, that she chooses not to take the feat.  I agree that it's complicated, so I want to simplify it, without making it trivial to exclude your whole party.
First, I think we should get rid of the various "selective channel", "selective bomb", "selective symphony", "selective spell" distinctions, and make it a single set of feats that applies to any AOE, unless that AOE specifically says it cannot be used with selective (such as the aoe weapon properties).
Second, I think it should be a set of 3 feats to be able to completely ignore your party.  My current thought is this:
Total Party Size Party Size Minus Caster First Exclude Feat Second Exclude Feat Third Exclude Feat
1 0 you don't need this feat
2 1 1 n/a n/a
3 2 1 2 n/a
4 3 1 2 3 (all)
5 4 2 3 4 (all)
6 5 2 3 5 (all)
7 6 2 4 6 (all)
8 7 3 5 7 (all)
9 8 3 5 8 (all)
10+ 9+ 3 6 9+ (all)
thoughts?
this is still pretty complicated, how about we just say that every time you take selective,, you can select two targets to take zero damage, and you can take the feat as many times as you want?  Simple, easy, tidy. Three feats will cover the huge majority of situations.  If you wanted to make it really good, first feat protects up to two, second feat protects up to five, third feat selects as many as you want up your character level. simple.

the reason I didn't want to do a flat number is it punishes the players in larger parties. I don't think it should EVER cost more than 3 feats to ignore your party members. Similarly, in a small party, having a flat number is too generous. In the Monday game (a 5 player game), it would only cost 2 feats to completely ignore the other 4 players if each feat lets you exclude a flat 2 players. As far as complexity, while I described this using a table to 'show my math', the feats wouldn't be laid out that way. The first feat would say "if your party size is between 1 and 4, exclude 1; if your party size is between 5 and 7, exclude 2; if your party size is 8 or higher, exclude 3". The second feat would just say "if your party size is between 1 and 5, exclude 1 more; if your party size is 6 or greater, exclude 2 more" (for the second feat, I was also going to say it always excludes summons, animal companions, and familiars automatically). The final feat would just say "exclude any ally".


if we wanted to kick these up a little, without making them too complicated, we could include the following:
 * first exclude feat: if your AOE still hits one or more non-excluded allies, you can prevent any secondary non-damage effects (such as status conditions) from affecting any such allies, but they must resist the damage effects on their own as normal.
 * second exclude feat: if your AOE still hits one or more non-excluded allies, they do not suffer any secondary, non-damage effects, AND they suffer only half damage as though they have successfully saved (this works exactly like splash damage; however, if this is to resist bomb splash damage, they would take half the splash damage).
 * third exclude feat: no need to spice this up; they can always exclude anyone.
  • revisit the notion of granting +1 stat point per tier after the first, if the numbers allow this. Leaving it out reduces dynamic range by 3, which may be necessary.
  • revisit custom BABs
  • revisit Base AC and AC progressions
  • if needed, allow armor enhancement bonuses on any item in the armor slot (incl. smallclothes, auric enhancer, etc.), but not armor properties or dweomermetals (except smallclothes)
  • Evaluate impact of ACP
  • Evaluate usefulness of Skill Basis (do we need it?)


Notes / To Do

  • need to revisit the Vehicle Combat rules at some point. Clean them up, simplify where possible, and remove language about multiple piloting skills, stat dependency on ship class, etc. Perhaps vehicles should perform like magic weapons (enhance bonus, properties, dweomermetal) that the pilot 'wields' to attack. This would allow the use of to-hit rolls, instead of maneuver checks for attacking. Try to make the system more like traditional combat... maybe figure out a way to remove facing.
  • update combat page to talk about ranged attacks, firing into combat, firing through allies/enemies (soft cover)
  • figure out a way to make the bailiwicks more distinct from their associated knowledge skills. In some cases, it's not bad (Spycraft vs Know:Local), but in many cases, it's ambiguous (Reason vs. Know:Logic; Naturalism vs. Know:Nature, etc.)
  • consider cross-referencing all the between adventures into each of the appropriate skills.
  • clean up weapon page tables, adding categories for their weapon groups, handiness, and size.
  • treasure idea: in addition to remnants, other currencies could drop (settlement currencies, magic item upgrades, eggs (for mounts), etc.), maps to other locations of interest, a way to spawn specific encounters. This would also be a good way to put single-use magic items into the game (which could be anything from a bottle of alchemist's fire to a scroll that calls a deific champion to help you for one round, or a genie that grants you a single wish).
  • We could also consider making 'civilized' versus 'uncivilized' treasure parcels for monsters (could be keyed off of the monster's INT stat, meaning no changes to existing monsters, just changes to the main template), which would affect whether some of the treasure was in coins, gems, trade goods, versus just 'sellable goods' (read: goopy bits).
  • update monster template to state (under xp and treasure) that 'x role counts as x monsters'
  • update monster template to account for adding a role to a monster with a modified # of attacks
  • update monster template to allow the addition of up to two patterns
  • update monster template to pull in role-only special abilities, or exclude them if the role isn't present.
  • update monster template to include special abilities that only show up at certain min or max CR's
  • update monster template to include a 'min CR' and 'max CR' field, which allows us to specify where the monster shows up in MMM.

Reese To-Do List:

action items for million monster machine:

  • come up with prefix names for each modified CR value (-2 CR to +5 CR) -- lesser, minor, common, greater, major, superior, elite, supreme (for example)
  • review all existing monster names, and all proposed monster names, to make sure our prefixes don't lead to really dumb, unreadable names (lesser greater whompus, for example).
  • move all proposed monster names to a discussion page; only actual monsters should be in the bestiary
  • strip all the roles out of every monster that has a role.
  • add language into the description that says "This monster is nearly always a <role> monster. It is highly recommended that this role be applied to it." or whatever.
  • recode any role-specific powers into new fields that are specific to roles-only powers. This will require me to create new fields for the template, but doesn't require a complete revamping of every monster.
  • trap damage table?
  • re-write perform skill to collapse it into a single skill (instead of subskills).
  • Perform: performance complexity - clarify to setting the CR of the song
  • same for entertaining an audience
  • need a note in the ability scores page (and probably the caster pages) that you can't get spells of a higher level than your class level allows, even with a high stat.
  • add new status conditions that inflict a circle penalty (or alter existing conditions to include it)
  • create a "circle 0" and update the various mana burning rules for it.
  • would like to go through the major numbers of the game (skills, ac, to-hits, damage, etc.) and list out each possible bonus type, their max bonus (for each type) and get a sense of our ranges.
  • Update Between Adventures section on Spell Research to clarify language about adding metamagic to a researched spell -- metamagic added /can/ increase the gross spell level above 17, just not be added as research to produce an infinitely metamagicked spell.


  • Character Sheet:
  • PDF Character Sheet (Fillable) -- yes, this will happen
  • create sample characters for each class, with planned builds up through level 5


  • Monsters:
  • create at least 10 per CR. Still need CR's 19 through 40, but CR's 1 - 18 are done enough for now.


  • Setting:
  • Cosmology of Creation page should be tailored to suit our view of the campaign setting. If we try to keep it 'generic', it will feel hollow.
  • decide how the many races factor into our default setting. Are all the races treated as normal citizens, or are some discriminated against (half-orcs, for example)? Are non-human races (in particular the oddball ones) sometimes born to human parents, or are they only products of their own purebred lineages?


Cleanup Tasks

  • Finish moving the following into their respective templates:
  • fighter tactics
  • Equipment pages -- finish them, clean out the stupid stuff
  • finish the Designing Skill Challenges section on the Game Master's Guide page.
  • add some notes to the Spells page, regarding GM's adjudicating 'fluff' vs 'crunch'.
  • Specific examples are direct damage (crunch) vs. illusions (fluff).
  • Rules for bonuses from fluff which give general 'not to exceed' values.
  • plus for caster level (+1 to +3), and plus for creativity (+1 to +2).
  • need to update / create page for monster types and subtypes.
  • need to review any broken links to subtypes that we don't actually want to define (e.g. azata)
  • create a "tactical" keyword and category that would identify feats, abilities, skill uses, etc. that are very dependent on a map, and wouldn't work well in a 'theater of the mind' game.

Bonus Systems

  • Settlements and Sieges
  • Epic Skill System
  • Followers / Leadership / Large-Scale War Rules
  • Auramancy / Blood Magic
  • True Dweomers
  • Prestige Classes
  • Artifacts
  • Traps (as enemy combatants)
  • Remnants

Printable Version

  • Need some cover art for a book(let)s. Open to suggestions...
  • leaning towards a 5.5" x 8" book size as our 'starter guide' for cons, ~80 half-pages, for everything: how to play, character classes, equipment, weapons, low-level magic items, status conditions, basically everything you'd need to play up to level 5-ish. Interior will not have art, unless we really want to commission some.
  • Needs to be everything you need to know to play the game (at low levels), without access the internet or the wiki.
  • shouldn't have links or other web-based 'features', and it will need a table of contents and an index.
  • Short appendix that describes some of the other features that are available in the complete game on the wiki.
  • Found some online print sites that will do this for about $10/book, so 20 of these per convention would be about $200 which doesn't seem crazy to me.
  • will give these out to anyone who plays through the module.
  • pre-generated characters on no more than 4 pages each, printed on cardstock?
  • Will give these out to anyone who played that class through the module.
  • should be designed as a good party mix, rather than just 1 of each class; assume somewhere between 5 and 8 players.
  • a module we can run in 4-ish hours that shows off the best parts of our game -- skills, character class uniqueness, dynamic and fun combats, including a 'threat' fight as the finale. Characters should probably be level 1, but I'm willing to consider up to level 3 if there's a good reason to go there.
  • needs to have good opportunities to role-play, opportunities to use skills in an interesting way, and some fun set pieces for the combat encounters.

Siege Weapons / Settlements Notes

  • review 'breaking objects' page, in light of changes to vehicle combat and removal of abstract encounters rules
  • siege weapons - how do they work with the vehicle combat rules?
    • unless we want siege weapons to continue to be cumulative forces, though it seems like people hated all the dice rolling of the abstract encounters
    • right now, vehicles will never penetrate heavy defenses and fortifications; the target DC's are way too high, as are many of the durabilities
  • add weights for all doors and such on the 'breaking objects' page, for purposes of the Might skill.

moving these links to here for future re-write/inclusions/expansion, possibly/probably as part of settlement pass

Bonus Types

  • Untyped Bonus
  • Armor Bonus
  • Armor Enhancement Bonus
  • Circumstance Bonus
  • Competence Bonus
  • Dodge Bonus
  • Enhancement Bonus
  • Feat Bonus
  • Martial Bonus
  • Material Bonus
  • Morale Bonus
  • Natural Armor Bonus
  • Racial Bonus
  • Resistance Bonus
  • Retraining Bonus
  • Shield Bonus
  • Shield Enhancement Bonus
  • Size Bonus
  • Training Bonus
  • Weapon Bonus
  • performance bonus (charge)
  • arcane bonus (charge)
  • divine bonus (charge)
  • dual bonus (both arcane & divine charges)

Possible New Character Classes

  • Physical Adept class (Fleshcrafter?) - arcane-powered melee, re-tool eidolon-style abilities as self-buffs
  • Mentat Warsage Storm Knight class - intelligence-based melee and thrown weapons user.
  • Toxotes - high damage ranged attacks, trick shots (possibly just create via new rogue talents?)
  • Galvanist
  • Seeker
  • Templar
  • Effigy (Artifact? Vestige?)
  • the character is an actual artifact, which is intelligent. The actual artifact is /somewhere/, though even the player may not know where. They have extended their consciousness into a remote effigy (moppet?) with which they interact with the world.
  • they can use their experience to augment their effigy, giving it better abilities
  • like a summoner or pet class, except that the master isn't present on the battlefield
  • Assassin
  • inflicts and spreads bleeds; can end all bleeds to deal that much damage to all enemies (even non-bleeding ones)

Reminder links to complete additional classes at future date

Interesting Links