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  nope, leave the rogue alone. the only thing I might advocate is a bit of a buff, if/when we upgrade the weapon damage properties.
  nope, leave the rogue alone. the only thing I might advocate is a bit of a buff, if/when we upgrade the weapon damage properties.
* weapon crit changes?  the crit mechanic adds somewhat less than 5 percent damage per 'crit point'. (it's 5 percent times the confirmation roll chance, which is usually made around half to three-quarters of the time, so each crit point works out to roughly 3 percent higher damage). A simple x2 weapon has one crit point chance per attack roll. A 19-20 x2 has two chances, an 18-20x2 or a simple x3 has three chances, etc.  we could do a little analysis and add in more new crit chances, like 16-20x2 (which is 5), or 14-20x2 (which is 7). this could be a modest buff to crits and all weapon damage, and give us a wider space to make the weapons less samey. (a falcata, for example, could be a 16-20x2 weapon)  as an example, a 16-20x2 (5 chances to crit per roll) adds about 12-15-20 percent weapon damage.  note that we could get very radical with this, and have very large critting weapons, like 16-20x4, which would lead to about a 50-90 percent buff to weapon damage, but man, that's a lot of rolls....  thoughts?


* True Dweomer fast cast difficulty should be lowered by one difficulty class, to reflect the lowering of their Strata. still like the bailiwick/ritual casting mechanic, and they have plenty of benefits (range/aoe size/multiple effects) to justify this roll, but it should be a lot easier.   
* True Dweomer fast cast difficulty should be lowered by one difficulty class, to reflect the lowering of their Strata. still like the bailiwick/ritual casting mechanic, and they have plenty of benefits (range/aoe size/multiple effects) to justify this roll, but it should be a lot easier.   

Revision as of 14:46, 16 October 2020


Feats With No Associated Class this category serves as a handy reference for old feats to be re-worked into potential magic items

cross-class balance notes:

  • ac: may need to increase bonuses granted by AC Bonus (preferred) and Shield Bonus items to narrow parity with Armor wearers. Can also remove the various Quenches if needed.
  • revisit Base AC and AC progressions - should be integrated into the 'survivability' pass of the intra-cass balance
  • 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
I don't think we're ready to talk about AC stuff yet.  Let's get to-hits/damage fixed to our liking first.
roger that, just taking some notes, this is gonna be a multi-variable 'thing' and I don't want to forget anything :)
  • damage: spells may be doing too much damage relative to melee. lowered strata, removed multispell. may also look at buffing melee? lots of work there. early swag: reduce speed, clarify velocity/dispatch. all the damage properties likely need a buff (adders increased by scaling x1.5, x2, x2.5 at 3rd/5th/8th is a possibility)
if we're not doing a lot of bonus attacks, do we think the narrower BAB will get us enough damage for weapon attackers, or do we need to also buff the properties? with the speed/velocity/dispatch changes, this is less urgent, and could be smaller. do we need it? i'm fine with chewing through all these and making changes, if we need to.
sweeping melee-wide change: narrow BAB.  instead of -5 per att, alter to -1,-2, -3, or -4.  BIG change, lets give it a think. narrower rewards less dynamic melee, wider rewards more 5-foot steps for positioning and combat maneuver use. can be different per class if we want, and is a simple way to implement custom BAB. remember, we've got the monster number pass coming after this.
alright, after sleeping on it, I think adding bonus attacks to all the melee classes is a BAD IDEA, since it will make them feel very samey, which is something I really tried to avoid when building the new 1.0 classes.  
roger, although I think if we used the mechanic for one or maybe two other classes in a weaker way, that seems like it'd be okay. YMMV.
As far as narrowing BAB, I definitely advocate using different numbers by class.  If the rogue is our baseline for damage, compared to the wizard (and I'm comfortable with the rogue's stated numbers being around half the wizard's), then we don't want to mess with the rogue.  
nope, the rogues is fine as-is. essentially, the rogues 'custom BAB' becomes a big pile of full BAB bonus attacks, with the extras tailing off at -5's. this gives them the best of both worlds, high damage and high dynamics.  which is actually very cool in my book 
If we're nerfing speed/velocity/dispatch, and/or removing some of their bonus attacks, then I'm okay with reducing their BAB gap will likely be necessary, but not to the same degree as, say, the prowler (who is currently at half the rogue's damage).
nope, leave the rogue alone. the only thing I might advocate is a bit of a buff, if/when we upgrade the weapon damage properties.
  • weapon crit changes? the crit mechanic adds somewhat less than 5 percent damage per 'crit point'. (it's 5 percent times the confirmation roll chance, which is usually made around half to three-quarters of the time, so each crit point works out to roughly 3 percent higher damage). A simple x2 weapon has one crit point chance per attack roll. A 19-20 x2 has two chances, an 18-20x2 or a simple x3 has three chances, etc. we could do a little analysis and add in more new crit chances, like 16-20x2 (which is 5), or 14-20x2 (which is 7). this could be a modest buff to crits and all weapon damage, and give us a wider space to make the weapons less samey. (a falcata, for example, could be a 16-20x2 weapon) as an example, a 16-20x2 (5 chances to crit per roll) adds about 12-15-20 percent weapon damage. note that we could get very radical with this, and have very large critting weapons, like 16-20x4, which would lead to about a 50-90 percent buff to weapon damage, but man, that's a lot of rolls.... thoughts?
  • True Dweomer fast cast difficulty should be lowered by one difficulty class, to reflect the lowering of their Strata. still like the bailiwick/ritual casting mechanic, and they have plenty of benefits (range/aoe size/multiple effects) to justify this roll, but it should be a lot easier.
ok, dropping the differential field then. should definitely make it an easier check, though

possibility: can we add an aoe 5/6/7 set of templates?

do you mean targets?  if so, it already goes to 7.  
well, dang, look at you being all awesome already. :)

If you need it to go higher, let me know. This is a relatively easy change.

nope, 7 should be plenty of range for the TD's, since spells only go to 4-ish.  or course, I have a 'thing' about 9.... :)
  • Evaluate usefulness of Skill Basis (do we need it?) looking at the large gap between Easy and Average here. any way to close that? current rules do not reward a single point in a skill very much. add a new diff column called 'skilled'? is this the old trained mechanic again?
when we mess with the skill DC's, we can do them all at once.  Any changes we make here have to be reflected in the character sheet, so I don't want to do multiple iterative changes.  We'll do everything at once.  Right now, we're collecting data on skill levels for each class we do an analysis on, so we'll have some baseline numbers to work with.
okies!

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