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New Build-Your-Own-Race Expansion is live!

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Post  Xel Unknown Mon Nov 19, 2012 6:40 pm

Well I'm hopefull that he'll end up making it a pure 8 point system cause that'd make so much sense, remove a LOT of the debuffing done, and add buffs to the races which I can only see as being viewed as overall a good thing for everyone.
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Post  Nehiel Mori Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:03 pm

We are debating both systems. 8 has an advantage because even though CM is by far the best 2 point traits more options is always a good thing. From my talks with Dan he's leaning towards 8 points but right now we are focusing on finishing up the polish on the destiny system. After that he intends to get back to this.
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Post  tygerburningbright Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:16 pm

You handed us something that is currently being desputed and you tell us that you will get to it later.
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Post  LoganAura Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:21 pm

Well destinies have actually been talked about for a whiiiiiiiiile, Tyger. Since the current Destiny choices are very limited.
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Post  Ramsus Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:36 pm

Xel Unknown wrote:And one easy way to reword a good deal is to make a line that says you can't take the racial traits more then once, unless it otherwise says so or something... And also I'd suggest adding that "We're good at Stuff" can't be taken along with a cutie mark. To replikate the whole Cutie-Mark or three trained skills thing we had before.

That first part, that it should actually say you can't take the same trait multiple times, is a good idea. I'd just assumed it was on there. We certainly don't want it to just be "I took four bonus utilities!" or "I took 8 extra skills!" or things like that.

That's second part though is actually a terrible idea. We're Good At This Stuff is a pretty useful addition, especially to certain concepts that require being trained in multiple skills (like your classic rouge or a ninja or whatever). Afterall even with that and a cutie mark you can only have training-like augmentation for 4 skills out of 11. You might pick up a 5th from I've Read A lot about it and that's still a lot of stuff you aren't excellent at.

Tyger, hold your horses. They're working on multiple things at once. They released this to us early so they could get opinions (and it's a good thing too!). They have lives and multiple projects going on at once. We can't expect constant feedback.

Edit: And I'm glad to hear that Dan's favoring the 8 points. =)
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Post  Xel Unknown Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:38 pm

That was why I just offered it as a suggestion... I feared there would be major flaws in my idea. And I thank you for pointing them out Ramsus.
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Post  Nehiel Mori Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:48 pm

I wish I could give you more about this but it wasn't my project. I did the destinies, the only work I did on racials was trait point balancing. Destinies are going through the final polish now and will get done soon (within days). After that the plan is to go back and revise this.
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Post  Xel Unknown Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:57 pm

And this was what I had hoped was going on behind the scenes. :3
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Post  RavenscroftRaven Tue Nov 20, 2012 1:05 am

tygerburningbright wrote:and so the hippogriff gets hit with a nerfbat once again

Don't worry Tyger. It isn't! Neither is the Earth Pony, nor the Baby Dragon. I'd say Flight, Weather-Crafting, and a Cutie Mark is entirely balanced!

...Wait, that's a pegasus? Don't be ridiculous, I think I know what a pegasus looks like. It has ponykinesis and wall-summoning, we discussed this one earlier... Razz That is one of the selling points of the "this is just another avenue for min-maxers": Nothing can get nerfed, since the only thing identifying you as your race is your word. A Fireborn, Spyrotechnics, Grandeur build isn't a Baby Dragon, it's a seapony that happens to breathe fire. This is my only worry, that it renders the concepts of "race" meaningless. Why have races if we have build points, after all? My only concern. I saw it would be addressed by StairC with a rule-zero stipulation in-text, so I am satisfied.

And I think everyone else here is too. It's really minor stuff now, so I'll duck out of the discussion before I make a real donkey out of myself (I believe those had Changeling's Trickery and Natural Form, from by build notes).

Also: Sorry for bein' abrasive earlier, it's a tough time right now as all my projects are coming due, so I'm a bit short.
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Post  Stairc -Dan Felder Tue Nov 20, 2012 1:29 am

*raises an eyebrow*

I truly have no understanding as to why people think that putting firebreathing on a race and calling it a seapony makes any sense, any more than sinking all your attribute points into precision with a 5 in knowledge and insisting that your character knows more than anyone else in the world.

You can claim wild things all you like, in any part of the system. It doesn't make it any more relevant. If the flavor you want for your character makes no sense, that's between your DM and you. And it certainly has nothing to do with the racial system - unless you want to try to start claiming that the attributes have the same problem, as do the destinies and the utility talents and the combat talents and the... Everything.

If you want to insist that your character is a master thief but has no ability to pick a lock, that's your problem. It's a ridiculous claim that anyone can make about any part of the system, the same as if they claim to be an amazing flier but have no ability to fly.

This argument really needs to stop being used about the racial trait system - unless you want to equally apply it to every other part of the system in the game (and obviously you don't).

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Post  XandZero2 Tue Nov 20, 2012 2:46 am

I don't mean any offense by this Stairc, but could you clarify what you mean so we know exactly what not to bring up again?

Are you saying that... you can't make the argument that something wouldn't make sense in this system because anything can make sense?

-Or is there more to it than that?
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Post  Stairc -Dan Felder Tue Nov 20, 2012 2:57 am

I mean the argument that can be paraphrased as follows.

"Being able to choose your racial traits when building your own races is bad because someone will choose traits that let them breathe fire and fly as racial abilities but still call it an earth pony."

This is patently ridiculous for the reasons I've explained. Anyone can try to create a ludicrous mismatch between what the game mechanics let them do and what they say their character can do. This isn't unique to the racial trait system, it's present throughout the entire system. People can always try to claim they're playing a character that makes no sense when you factor in what abilities they've actually taken. This can happen in any part of the system, whether attributes, utility talents, racial traits or anywhere else.

For example, I know of one player that tried to play a rogue disguised as a wizard and was upset at the system when he couldn't maintain the charade - as he couldn't cast the magic spells that a wizard could; since he'd never picked those spells.

Those kind of actions make no sense and cannot be regulated by the system in any case. If a player wants to do things like building a firebreathing, flying race and trying to claim it's an earth pony - then there's nothing we can do about that within the system. We also can't do anything about people trying to make a character with a 5 in knowledge and claiming that they are smarter than every other character in existence.

Unpleasant players can always try to do things that don't make sense. The racial trait system is no special exception to that.

To make things even more clear, I've included a note about unique races or racial swaps being something you should check with your DM with in the handbooks.

So, let's not keep recycling this argument. There's a lot of other good things to discuss about the racial system to make it better. This one's been worn out.
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Post  Greywander Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:05 am

Agreed. Honestly, I'm a little confused since, as I said before, it sounded like we all wanted the same thing, but were approaching it from different angles. I think we were focusing too much on where the other person was coming from rather than where they were going with it. I think this should be a satisfactory solution to all of us.

So new question: Let's say I want to design a new race, but the racial traits I want don't exist? For example, before this expansion came out, I designed a diamond dog race with a tunneling racial ability. I don't see anything like that in the expansion. Disregarding whether this would actually be a good racial trait for diamond dogs, how would we go about creating new racial traits? Obviously, we can just houserule stuff, but I'm more interested in expanding the system with balanced abilities. I suppose the real question is, what is the criterion you use to determine the point cost of a racial ability?
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Post  Stairc -Dan Felder Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:12 am

Greywander wrote:So new question: Let's say I want to design a new race, but the racial traits I want don't exist? For example, before this expansion came out, I designed a diamond dog race with a tunneling racial ability. I don't see anything like that in the expansion. Disregarding whether this would actually be a good racial trait for diamond dogs, how would we go about creating new racial traits? Obviously, we can just houserule stuff, but I'm more interested in expanding the system with balanced abilities. I suppose the real question is, what is the criterion you use to determine the point cost of a racial ability?

We're definitely going to have the ability to submit racial traits. The best way to go about it is to balance it based on the utility talents. A utility talent costs 2 trait points (though is really worth about 1.5 trait points in power, as the incredible versatility makes up for the difference - and we don't want races to just become a power-gamer's sink for more utility talents). Just base your racial traits around that and choose an appropriate number of trait points for the price. You can also compare it to other racial traits and their costs already in the system.
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Post  SilentBelle Tue Nov 20, 2012 10:58 am

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:
Greywander wrote:So new question: Let's say I want to design a new race, but the racial traits I want don't exist? For example, before this expansion came out, I designed a diamond dog race with a tunneling racial ability. I don't see anything like that in the expansion. Disregarding whether this would actually be a good racial trait for diamond dogs, how would we go about creating new racial traits? Obviously, we can just houserule stuff, but I'm more interested in expanding the system with balanced abilities. I suppose the real question is, what is the criterion you use to determine the point cost of a racial ability?

We're definitely going to have the ability to submit racial traits. The best way to go about it is to balance it based on the utility talents. A utility talent costs 2 trait points (though is really worth about 1.5 trait points in power, as the incredible versatility makes up for the difference - and we don't want races to just become a power-gamer's sink for more utility talents). Just base your racial traits around that and choose an appropriate number of trait points for the price. You can also compare it to other racial traits and their costs already in the system.

Yeah, not to mention that a bunch of us are willing to give our input if you are unsure of the level of power a racial trait has.
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Post  Dr Blight Tue Nov 20, 2012 2:04 pm

So what exactly are we doing with the racial points? 6? 7? 6+CM? are they gonna be the same for each game or still be 6 for pony tales and 7 for LL? Because 6 vs 5+CM is basically 6 vs 5+2=7. What about Ponykinesis? is it 1 point or 2?
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Post  Stairc -Dan Felder Tue Nov 20, 2012 2:24 pm

Promise to let y'all know once I've had time to really think it over and don't have 3 papers due all at once. =)

I'd like to consider all the angles before moving ahead in any direction.
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Post  Xel Unknown Tue Nov 20, 2012 2:27 pm

As of right now, we've got a 6 point system for pony tales and a 5+CM system for Living Legends.
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Post  Ramsus Tue Nov 20, 2012 3:28 pm

I think/am hoping we'll end up with 8 points for both.
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Post  Xel Unknown Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:35 pm

Ramsus wrote:I think/am hoping we'll end up with 8 points for both.
I'm hoping for that as well dude, I'm hoping for that as well...
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Post  Greywander Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:05 am

Actually... while we're at this crossroad, I'd like to ask what the difference is between a cutie mark/expert skill, and a normal trained skill, and if we even need to have both? I'm not saying we shouldn't, what I'm saying is that we're at a point where it would be easy to axe the cutie mark/expert skill altogether should we decide that that's the best way to go.

Expert skills were originally introduced with cutie marks in mind. It just made sense at the time. Now, however, we're strongly considering giving it to all races (by default, at least), and Living Legends doesn't even have cutie marks. In other words, it's not really a cutie mark anymore, it's just a slightly-more-trained-than-normal skill, and we just associate it, flavor-wise, with a cutie mark, if one exists.

My opinion is that we should keep them (then why am I asking?), because 1 expert skill + 2 trained skills gives more possibilities for customization than 3 trained skills. I'm guessing Stairc probably considered this already when he first created the cutie mark skill, but I thought it was worth bringing up. An alternative might be to simply distribute skill points one by one, instead of giving discreet 3 or 5 point boosts to particular skills, but I'm guessing he already considered that, too.

Also, one thing I should probably point out, if I recall correctly, a cutie mark used to be stackable with a trained skill, for a 3 + 5 = 8 total bonus to one skill. Not sure if that's still the case, but it probably shouldn't be anymore. Also, I'd like to put forth a motion to rename expert and trained skills to major and minor skills, respectively. For alliterative appeal. Or something. I don't know. I just think it sounds nicer.
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Post  Xel Unknown Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:07 am

I don't we're going to remove the Cutie Mark skills... Just we're going to have the options to choose one or not.
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Post  Ramsus Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:29 am

I.... don't really understand the point you're trying to make. Are you objecting to the way they're named? Because to me it wouldn't matter if trained skills were called Marmalade and CM/ES skills were called Buffalo Flavored. They're just labels for convenience of communication.

Yeah, CM/ES can stack with Training and Training can't stack with Training. CM/ES also gives the special extra awesome critical effect. Those things together make a really cool mechanic that isn't diminished by (most) everyone having it. I mean, have you ever seen someone cry out "nat 20!" and someone else go "meh, everyone gets nat 20's, what's so special about them?" I sure haven't, it's just a cool mechanic that brings more fun to the game no matter how many people have it.
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Post  Nehiel Mori Wed Nov 21, 2012 1:52 am

I really don't think they will go anywhere. Expert/Cutie Mark skills are cool because of the moment when you nat20 your expert and, as the handbook puts it "pick pocket the guards entire armor"
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Post  Greywander Wed Nov 21, 2012 2:47 am

That's pretty much my thoughts as well, but this wouldn't be the first time something's been removed from the system entirely. Since things have changed a bit since the system's inception, I thought it was worth reexamining this particular element because if we did want to remove it, now would be the opportune time. But, as I said, I think it's a good mechanic, and we should keep it.

Edit: I'd actually forgotten about Cutie Mark Criticals, though. Yeah, we probably want to keep those.
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