The P-Files (XandZero2's Game: Sign-up and OOC)

I'm not going to ask you to confirm this, Xand as that'd spoilers, but I'm fairly sure that the light negates their ability to split into two when killed.

The problem isn't that you are allowing non-combat options to effect combat... But you're having us basically being forced into having to use skill checks in combat. And that is what I personally do take issue with. Only time a Skill Check should be done in combat, is with an attempt to end combat early with just a single check. Or trying to avoid combat before it happens... Having skill checks be used in combat, really messes up a good deal of the system. Even more so when you don't share the full mechanical details of what was done.

Just sharing "flavor" doesn't mean you've told us the Mechanics of what just happened In Character. And that's why people seem to jump to the very conclutions that you seem to take offence with. WE don't have anything but "flavor" most of the time you give us, and flavor could mean ANYTHING mechanically, and we seem to automatically assume the worst it seems... Yet you seem to hate the idea of giving us "mechanics" data and just think putting out flavor will explain everything in a way we can easily understand. But no... It doesn't really work that way.

I'd like to note that Xand misrepresented most of what I actually said, ignored the conclusion DB & I reached, and ignored the entire reason why we were having the discussion in the first place. I found most of this pretty insulting.

Okay, so first off Ramsus, honestly, I find you extremely infuriating.

I'm really getting tired of your constant complaints over one thing or another, and I still find the way you communicate with me and the other players to be very rude whenever we don't agree with you. I didn't mean to be insulting in my last post at all, and I am sorry you took it that way. If I misinterpreted you, please explain to me what you meant. I read the last 200+ posts in the skype chatroom, and it seems you and DB agreed that environmental effects should be clearly stated combat talents? Things like:

[0] Lights
Target is blinded.

Am I right?

I also take it that you don't think players should be able to make ability checks during combat - and Xel agrees with you here too.

Okay, well I already mentioned how I don't have a problem with making skill checks during combat, and I don't see how making a skill check would really unbalance the system. I see the Pony Tales rules as more of a guideline, and less of a word of law. I also feel that by not allowing skill checks during combat, that's really putting unnecessary limitations on the game. PT is the only system where I've even seen a complete separation between combat and non-combat, and I just don't really like that idea. I find it senseless and awkward. If someone wants to do something besides the usual combat talents, I'm not going to stop them (as long as what they're doing is within reason - and they make an appropriate skill check for it). That way they can enjoy a fight in their own way, while others enjoy it in another way. Sometimes one way or the other will be more effective, and I don't think there should be a problem with that as long as one way isn't always the right way.

Something I might should do in the future though is be more of a stickler and limit players to either one skill check or one combat talent per major action. That's something I didn't do every round with Chitin in this combat, as I believe in one turn I might have let DB turn on a light, make a Persuasion check to taunt the nightmares, then make an Acrobatics check to dodge out of the way at the last second. I don't think I let him do quite that much, but still I should've allowed only one skill check per turn.

Xel, DB, and Ramsus - you also all seem to want me to give you the combat mechanics for any environmental moves you can make, but I am hesitant to do that. Why? Because if I just give you the mechanics for everything you can do, it kind of ruins the immersion of the RPG in my opinion. I think I'm going to have to explain myself better here, so let's go ahead and consider the current battle...

First off, this is the nightmares' ability:

Two for One
When a Mini-Clay is killed, roll a D6. On a 4+, instead of being killed, the Clay splits into two new Clays and loses all its PiPs.

Now, I knew that this ability was powerful. Since the nightmares had a 50% chance of coming back, statistically they would never die. One in two would split, and as long as I rolled average, they'd keep refilling their ranks naturally. I didn't know how balanced they'd be, but I figured that if they proved to be too powerful: A) You guys could flee, B) I could weigh the dice in your favor, C) Or I could have some other ways for you to defeat the creatures outside of normal combat. I had introduced the colt from a while back as one way to solve the fight (but I won't go into any more detail about that). Chitin found another way that was viable too.

What I decided the spotlights could do was this - once a spotlight was turned on and pointed at a nightmare, in two turns the nightmare would be destroyed and would not be able to roll for their splitting ability. I didn't think that was really super powerful, as the nightmares only had 1 HP to begin with. That typed though, how would I have explained that combat utility?

[0] Spotlights
If used on the same nightmare two turns straight, that nightmare is destroyed and it can't split by using an ability I never told you about?

Getting back to my original point, doing something like this, showing you guys the mechanics of an environmental combat utility, to me, it seems to ruin the immersion. Your PCs would have no way of knowing exactly what the lights actually do. All they'd know is what they could see, and after a little while shining light on the monsters, they'd see them get destroyed in a colorful way. In this situation, I really don't feel like I could've given you the spotlight combat talent without ruining the monsters' secret mechanics too.

BTW - If you were wondering why the two nightmares Chitin fought were destroyed by the lights, remember that the first one wasn't destroyed until turn 2 of having the light shown on him. I decided to let the second one get destroyed because had the idea to lure it into another light after making another two skill checks, which I thought was fair at the time.

I think that one major reason we're having a lot of issues here is because I value the roleplaying more than the mechanics. I feel like giving you the mechanics for everything you can do makes things too easy and too transparent. Combat's a kind of puzzle, and I feel like I should be able to give you enough clues in my IC posts without giving you all the answers.

First off I'll note that I feel the same way about you. I'm not really sure why you felt the need to bring it up though, since we were both already aware of this fact. (In fact, is there anyone who knows either of us on the forum who isn't?)

Well, we've had a lot of discussions about mechanics. I wish at this point you could just trust us when we say something doesn't work that it doesn't. It would also be nice if we could make criticisms without you taking them personally. The point of the game is to have fun. There's not much point in your deciding our complaints are bad to have since if you ignore them, we're still having that issue interfere with our ability to have fun.

There were a couple times in the discussion that I had with DB where I said that if someone doesn't want to be using the combat system, they could just not use it. It would be entirely possible to resolve conflicts, even combative ones, with the non-combat system mechanics.

The issue with combat being a puzzle is the issue with all puzzles but only 50 times worse. We have to be able to figure it out and honestly most of the time you aren't going to know until we're already in the middle of it if we're going to be able to or not. If we can't it's just frustrating. The more so when we aren't expecting a puzzle and thought we were just going in for a straight to the point fight.
Edit: Also, this combat system is actually very poorly designed for the "combat is a puzzle" concept.

You do realize I'm just trying to ask for the bare minimum for the mechanics issue, right? Because that's all I need... To help make sure I don't miss out on important info from that I gloss over while I try to read one's flavor, I never know what degree of info I'm going to view as important and what isn't. I just need that mechanics framework to start with before adding the flavor to make it look all the cool how things went.

And you aren't the only one here who enjoys the flavor... Just the flavor and RPing is just that without the important parts of the mechanics spelled out for us.

To me... I don't even seen the bare min, but just none of important info I kinda need to factor into my combat choices... Whatever few I do use.

@Ramsus, Xel.
In the interest of speeding things along, can you provide an example of what you mean using the current combat as an example?

Well, for example it's important to know what effect we're doing to the enemies, how many there are, how much each attack did (from them) (note that I don't mean the sum total of their attacks, I mean each individual attack as it's not beyond possible for GMs to screw up on things like resistance, vulnerability, or other effects and this is important for things like Punishing Blow and Slashback), if our attacks harmed them or not, when they make saves, when they make us suffer save ends conditions, the results of our conditions on them (like if they took damage from ongoing damage or not), if they're bloodied, etc.

It's really easier to list the things we don't need to know. Which would be enemy stats (HP, PiPs, traits, details of the talents outside of what the result of it being used was) and..... yeah that's actually all I can think of. I guess if we're including environmental bonuses then we wouldn't need to know specifically in mechanics terms which ones were available. We'd still need to know what those did after we used them though.

If we don't have all that information we really can't be sure of what is and isn't going on and if what we're doing is working or not.

Ramsus wrote:
Should I make separate rolls for everyone else too when I get around to them? (Btw, what's everyone at HP wise?)

26 at last count. Coffee's in pretty good condition at the moment.

Ramsus wrote:First off I'll note that I feel the same way about you. I'm not really sure why you felt the need to bring it up though, since we were both already aware of this fact. (In fact, is there anyone who knows either of us on the forum who isn't?)

Well, we've had a lot of discussions about mechanics. I wish at this point you could just trust us when we say something doesn't work that it doesn't. It would also be nice if we could make criticisms without you taking them personally. The point of the game is to have fun. There's not much point in your deciding our complaints are bad to have since if you ignore them, we're still having that issue interfere with our ability to have fun.

There were a couple times in the discussion that I had with DB where I said that if someone doesn't want to be using the combat system, they could just not use it. It would be entirely possible to resolve conflicts, even combative ones, with the non-combat system mechanics.

The issue with combat being a puzzle is the issue with all puzzles but only 50 times worse. We have to be able to figure it out and honestly most of the time you aren't going to know until we're already in the middle of it if we're going to be able to or not. If we can't it's just frustrating. The more so when we aren't expecting a puzzle and thought we were just going in for a straight to the point fight.
Edit: Also, this combat system is actually very poorly designed for the "combat is a puzzle" concept.

I've been meaning to respond to this post in particular. 

First off Ramsus, you asked that I warn you from now on whenever you were really getting on my nerves, so that's what I was doing with the "infuriating" statement. 

Fair warning.

Second, you want me to trust you every time you say something doesn't work? Why? I don't get an opinion too? It's attitudes like that that quite frankly piss me off. You're basically saying that my opinion doesn't matter because you know more about mechanics than I do. That's BS dude. You may be more knowledgeable about the mechanics, but that doesn't mean that I can't have ideas that work as well.

Also, I don't take your criticism personally and I'm not ignoring what you have to say. What I take personally is the way in which you criticize - and by that, I mean the way you talk. You talk to me and about me like I'm less than dirt sometimes, and it does deeply offend me. It saps my excitement for this game, and there's only so much of that negativity and abuse I can take. It makes me feel like I'm playing a game with a complete ingrate instead of a respectable human being. 

You seem to take it as a personal affront whenever I don't automatically agree with what you have to say - but again, I do have strong opinions too, and if you really want to change my mind about something, we should discuss it rationally. Even then, I still might not change my mind sometimes, but that doesn't mean I'm not taking your criticism seriously. Criticism is just criticism though, and if I changed for everyone who had an opinion (even when I didn't agree with that opinion), I soon wouldn't be enjoying the game myself. I am the GM for this game, so I at least have to be neutral about something before I make a change to it.

To be honest, I didn't think of this last combat as a puzzle initially. I'd decided I was going to throw some minions at you, and while making the minion stats, I thought I should try to make them unique somehow. The splitting idea struck me as a cool way to do that, but I also realized that splitting on a 4+ was pretty powerful. In retrospect, I could've toned the splitting ability down to a 5+ or even 6+, but that's the benefit of not giving players all the mechanics - it allows you to tweak things during battle. If I'd seen that you guys were going to have too much trouble with the nightmares, I would've thought of some way to tone them down - possibly by changing the roll for their ability, possibly by doing something else. That's what I've done in the past with my monsters and plan to do again in the future. If something is too strong or too weak during play, I'll often adjust it mid-battle. That's just the way I run things as a GM. Since I'm not an expert on challenge ratings of monsters and I usually don't have mock-up battles beforehand, I often just play battles by ear. 

I did make at least one way to finish the battle without having a straight-up fight (and I planned to give you guys hints about it throughout the battle if need be), but I was still intending to give you guys the option to complete the battle through standard means. It was going to be tougher - but it wasn't meant to be impossible. When DB thought to mess with the spotlights though, I thought you guys would be fine so I didn't change anything. I didn't think you would start complaining so strongly about the party being useless - because in my eyes they really weren't. They were causing a good distraction for one thing, and a lot of the time in a movie, book, TV show, etc - the guys causing the distraction are the ones that get all the attention because they're in a real life-threatening situation (while the guys setting the trap or whatever are oftentimes doing their thing off-screen). At times, causing a distraction can be as - if not more - important than directly killing the bad guys.


As for Xel, what bare minimums do you want?


I do give you guys the damage you take, the statuses you get, the number of enemies, etc.


That seems like the bare minimum to me. Also, if I'm describing the creatures' skin starting to boil, you can at least safely assume that they're being affected by something in some way. In the future, I might could do something like this I suppose:


[0] Spotlights
You turn on a spotlight and shine it at one of the creatures. It seems to cause some discomfort. Wonder what would happen if you turned on all the spotlights at once?


Is that what you're looking for? In the last battle, I wouldn't have wanted to give away much more info than that - and I wouldn't have given away even that until after Chitin used the first one on the creatures and saw what effect it had. 

If that's what everyone wants, I can do that much.

Well, Xand, to start, I think that there's a reason they separated the in and out of combat mechanics, and that's because they don't work very well together, unless it's to preemptively end a battle. I think we're all having issue with the idea that you can use, basically, out of combat rolls as combat rolls, and the two are balanced completely differently, and the thing about that trap simile is, the guy who laid the trap ends up  with all of the credit for the win, even if the distractions did a lot of work, not to downplay DB's contribution or anything.

As for the mechanics over flavor, I feel like we do need basic mechanic listings under all the flavor you like, so that we know how to react in the best way our characters would. I know I'm not very experienced with game design, so I may be very misguided here, But it just seems like the ultimate issue we were having was that, nobody wants to be known as the distraction, Everyone wants to contribute to a situation beyond, get beat on until the important one can do the important thing. And that's why all the combat mechanics are, ultimately, balanced, save for the usual OP ones in every design document.

Subjectz wrote:Well, Xand, to start, I think that there's a reason they separated the in and out of combat mechanics, and that's because they don't work very well together, unless it's to preemptively end a battle. I think we're all having issue with the idea that you can use, basically, out of combat rolls as combat rolls, and the two are balanced completely differently, and the thing about that trap simile is, the guy who laid the trap ends up  with all of the credit for the win, even if the distractions did a lot of work, not to downplay DB's contribution or anything.

I really disagree with this.  The distractions are just important as the trap.  The trap wouldn't work without the distractions, or at least not nearly as well.

Also, are we really keeping score on this?  If not, than I don't think it matters.

Personally I FEEL OFFENDED at having my combat be turned into me being nothing more then a Distraction... I DIDN'T ENTER COMBAT TO BE AN SIDE NOTE TO THE WHOLE COMBAT EVENT! I wanted to take names and kick flank! The problem with Skill Checks... Is that either you're likely to balance things to end up with either the combat option or the skill check option to overshadow the other, in fact I'd say YOU HAVE TO make one or the other overshadow, which in this case, the Skill Checks overshadowed the combat options. Which is what I feel happened. Hell I think that's why Cabro whiched to a skill check as well. If anything I feel like I should've just nto even bothered with my combat moves, but just trying to figure out some skill checks to do to help things. Cause those totally seemed to be not only with less risk, but overall work faster, and get better payouts... Even if you up the risk, or lessen the rewords... THEY'LL BE A HELL LOT FASTER then combat options. So either they'll become worthless or be overused quickly to the point that the combat side of things is worthless. They basically are not built to mix...

Also I must state on this "need more mechanics data" issue, to me the pure Mechanics GIVE CONTEXT to the flavor. (I believe the term is "Rollplay" in Tabletop. I enjoy using it, and helps me with building flavor to fit the mechanics, and helps with reacting to if the attack was a lucky low hit, or if one got really hit hard by a heavy hitter attack. Sure, there isn't any need to give us the dicerolls that were made, but personally I think it adds to the combat helps with the proper RP reactions should be made.) So here's a list of improant mechanics that might be worth sharing with us, not all of this you haven't given us, and I believe Ramsus did state some of these already:

• Number AND listing of Enemy Targets in combat: This isn't always the same thing as just telling us how many enemies there are in combat. (like with the whole eight mini-nightmares thing) Because some enemies might have different HP factors, or have optional targets to hit to effect the combat somehow. It's important. 
  
• Damage dealt to Enemy: Being told just simply in black and white that "yes you did hurt it" just rewards the players to let them know that the enemy is being harmed. Equally informing us when we DON'T harm the enemy is just as important for if you withhold this info, we might never realize that something wrong is going on and have no reason to run when to you the GM the players should've ran away, but instead just kept attacking despite not really harming the foe. (overall, I think this combat was kinda vague on the issue if we were really harming the enemy any. Personally I thought we where killing them like we where dealing some with Astorides Enemies that were just splitting apart being weaker and closer to death as the fight went on.)
  
• Save Ends Effects we bestow upon the enemy: You must note if the save ends were made, and if not, what effects they are suffering form. I'd even extend this to non-save ends effects and how they're dealing with how long it'll last. Even if it ended just on the enemy's turn that you are posting, this minor reminder helps us.
  
• OTHER Important mechanics related outcomes: Such as oh a trait just got triggered, or if a reaction talent was used... Or if the whole combat has changed mid-fight with the enemies going into some new different mode. If the enemies are healing somehow, be sure to point it out that they've healed for some reason.
  

Cardbo wrote:

Subjectz wrote:Well, Xand, to start, I think that there's a reason they separated the in and out of combat mechanics, and that's because they don't work very well together, unless it's to preemptively end a battle. I think we're all having issue with the idea that you can use, basically, out of combat rolls as combat rolls, and the two are balanced completely differently, and the thing about that trap simile is, the guy who laid the trap ends up  with all of the credit for the win, even if the distractions did a lot of work, not to downplay DB's contribution or anything.

I really disagree with this.  The distractions are just important as the trap.  The trap wouldn't work without the distractions, or at least not nearly as well.

Also, are we really keeping score on this?  If not, than I don't think it matters.

Well I don't know about you, but I don't like the idea of my character being a footnote in another character's contribution, and I think Xel listed my issues with that really well.

"Being a Distraction" is only a good fallback if either the Player or the Character had signed up to be a distraction... Which I say NONE of us did when we where going into this combat. I believe we all had just wanted to have fun using the combat system. Not get outdone by the one player who was only doing skill checks while the combat played out.

Personally the whole Skill Check thing makes me feel like I was WASTING my time with my combat moves...


And on a random note: I really dislike all of this "edit the enemies mid-fight" thing the more I think about it... It just stikes me as cheap, to both sides. Having the PCs LOSE a fight is a good thing for the campaign. And somehow having a fallback plan to a TPKO happening is always wise I'd argue. The only time a TPKO is a bad thing is if it happens too often. PCs shouldn't always win fights, in fact try to aim that it was always possible that the Party could've lost and the Campaign would've still gone on somehow.

Xel Unknown wrote:"Being a Distraction" is only a good fallback if either the Player or the Character had signed up to be a distraction... Which I say NONE of us did when we where going into this combat. I believe we all had just wanted to have fun using the combat system. Not get outdone by the one player who was only doing skill checks while the combat played out.

I will glady be a distraction if the team's success requires me to be a distraction.

Cardbo wrote:

Xel Unknown wrote:"Being a Distraction" is only a good fallback if either the Player or the Character had signed up to be a distraction... Which I say NONE of us did when we where going into this combat. I believe we all had just wanted to have fun using the combat system. Not get outdone by the one player who was only doing skill checks while the combat played out.

I will glady be a distraction if the team's success requires me to be a distraction.

So will I... But I don't like finding out I was a Distraction when I was wanting to fight my own battles to the end. Which was all what this fight ended up being... Everyone who wanted to fight things. Got overshadowed and made footnotes of the combat, by Blight who solved the issue of the enemies still being alive.

Xel Unknown wrote:

Cardbo wrote:

Xel Unknown wrote:"Being a Distraction" is only a good fallback if either the Player or the Character had signed up to be a distraction... Which I say NONE of us did when we where going into this combat. I believe we all had just wanted to have fun using the combat system. Not get outdone by the one player who was only doing skill checks while the combat played out.

I will glady be a distraction if the team's success requires me to be a distraction.

So will I... But I don't like finding out I was a Distraction when I was wanting to fight my own battles to the end. Which was all what this fight ended up being... Everyone who wanted to fight things. Got overshadowed and made footnotes of the combat, by Blight who solved the issue of the enemies still being alive.

The way I see it.  Do we all still get the same XP regardless of individual actions?  If this was not the case, I could see that this would be very unfair, but since this isn't the case, I don't see the problem.  If we could've rolled a boulder onto the  enemies and got the same XP for fighting them via the combat system, I'd be perfectly fine with it.

Cardbo wrote:

Xel Unknown wrote:

Cardbo wrote:

Xel Unknown wrote:"Being a Distraction" is only a good fallback if either the Player or the Character had signed up to be a distraction... Which I say NONE of us did when we where going into this combat. I believe we all had just wanted to have fun using the combat system. Not get outdone by the one player who was only doing skill checks while the combat played out.

I will glady be a distraction if the team's success requires me to be a distraction.

So will I... But I don't like finding out I was a Distraction when I was wanting to fight my own battles to the end. Which was all what this fight ended up being... Everyone who wanted to fight things. Got overshadowed and made footnotes of the combat, by Blight who solved the issue of the enemies still being alive.

The way I see it.  Do we all still get the same XP regardless of individual actions?  If this was not the case, I could see that this would be very unfair, but since this isn't the case, I don't see the problem.  If we could've rolled a boulder onto the  enemies and got the same XP for fighting them via the combat system, I'd be perfectly fine with it.

It's not an XP issue... But a "are we having fun" issue... For me, it's not fun having one's combat feeling like it was a bad move...

Xel Unknown wrote:And on a random note: I really dislike all of this "edit the enemies mid-fight" thing the more I think about it... It just stikes me as cheap, to both sides. Having the PCs LOSE a fight is a good thing for the campaign. And somehow having a fallback plan to a TPKO happening is always wise I'd argue. The only time a TPKO is a bad thing is if it happens too often. PCs shouldn't always win fights, in fact try to aim that it was always possible that the Party could've lost and the Campaign would've still gone on somehow.

Xel, you misunderstand me. I never said I was against a TPKO. There can still be TPKOs with my method of GMing. What my method does is allow me to balance underpowered or overpowered monsters mid-fight so that they can be at the level of challenge I imagined for them. 

For instance - the Box Cars fight. 

I intended for Box Cars to be a very difficult battle for you guys, but one that you could win. I wanted that fight to be really dramatic too - which it wouldn't have been if I'd gone with my initial stats for him. Initially, I was only going to give Box Cars 30 HP and his main PiP generating ability (which was basically his version of Swords Dance) was only going to generate +3 PiPs. He was also going to be able to use his Parry move without a once per turn limit.

After the battle got started however, I first had to change the Parry to 1 per turn to satisfy your concerns, I then had to triple Box Cars' HP, since you guys were rolling like gods, and finally I had to up his PiP gain to +5 for his Swords Dance because the fight was going so fast and he needed more PiP generation in order to keep up with your damage outputs. 

If I hadn't changed Parry you guys would've been miffed, and if I hadn't buffed up his other abilities you would've murder him in 2 rounds. How anti-climactic would that have been?

The reason I alter stats during combat is so that fights can be more fair and be more climactic - but it's not to avoid TPKOs. I wasn't pulling any punches with Box Cars, and if you guys had failed against him in the end, that would've been that. 

-Although, I will also say this about the Box Cars fight. In that fight, I did actually reward you guys for roleplaying if you remember correctly. When Ramsus came up with that crazy interpretation of Second Sunrise I had Box Cars get Stunned, and when Whisper actually closed her eyes and remained perfectly still, I had Box Cars fail to spot her. No one complained about any of that then, and the rewards I gave at that time are not much unlike the rewards I gave DB for quick thinking this time around. 

As an aside, I have no idea why you seem to want a TPKO Xel. As a player, you should do your best to avoid that because the repercussions often won't be to your liking. That said, again, I'm not against TPKOs, and I do make plans for if they happen.

EDIT: On a final note, I have to admit, editing enemies mid-battle is not something I ever intend to stop doing. It's something I've always done when I GMed, and I will warn you now, it's one thing I know I'm never going to change. I don't consider it cheap in any way, and it's actually a lot more work than just making one set of stats and saying "Do or Die Time!" It's meant to enhance the RP experience, not detract from it.

Xel Unknown wrote:

• Number AND listing of Enemy Targets in combat: This isn't always the same thing as just telling us how many enemies there are in combat. (like with the whole eight mini-nightmares thing) Because some enemies might have different HP factors, or have optional targets to hit to effect the combat somehow. It's important. 
  
• Damage dealt to Enemy: Being told just simply in black and white that "yes you did hurt it" just rewards the players to let them know that the enemy is being harmed. Equally informing us when we DON'T harm the enemy is just as important for if you withhold this info, we might never realize that something wrong is going on and have no reason to run when to you the GM the players should've ran away, but instead just kept attacking despite not really harming the foe. (overall, I think this combat was kinda vague on the issue if we were really harming the enemy any. Personally I thought we where killing them like we where dealing some with Astorides Enemies that were just splitting apart being weaker and closer to death as the fight went on.)
  
• Save Ends Effects we bestow upon the enemy: You must note if the save ends were made, and if not, what effects they are suffering form. I'd even extend this to non-save ends effects and how they're dealing with how long it'll last. Even if it ended just on the enemy's turn that you are posting, this minor reminder helps us.
  
• OTHER Important mechanics related outcomes: Such as oh a trait just got triggered, or if a reaction talent was used... Or if the whole combat has changed mid-fight with the enemies going into some new different mode. If the enemies are healing somehow, be sure to point it out that they've healed for some reason.
  

^I feel like this list is a tad bit condescending Xel. I know about the first three well enough. You don't have to give me a long-arse definition out of a Webster's dictionary. I will admit that I wasn't keeping the best track of the save ends in the last combat, but that was because you guys were taking those nightmares out pretty quickly, and when they split they lost whatever safe-ends they were suffering from (because they were becoming new enemies). 

As far as "OTHER Important mechanics related outcomes," I can try to be a bit more specific with environmental abilities like the spotlights, but anything the enemies do is going to be explained through flavor. I'm not going to tell you that that Hydra has Regeneration 10 or the big bad just gained a +5 bonus to damage and a bonus against save-ends. Instead, I'm going to give you flavorful clues, describing how the Hydra's flesh is quickly knitting back together or the big bad just grew double his size and sprouted spikes-streaked black-metal armor. If you're confused you might need to read the flavor more carefully, or simply ask me for clarification.

Well, Xand? What about my post?

Also Xel, I think I understand how you feel about the last fight. Basically, you just don't feel like you contributed enough, am I right? 

Well, I'll admit that the last fight didn't go as well as I'd hoped, but I don't think the use of skill checks was what made things go wrong. I think that if I'd limited DB to only making one skill check per turn things would've been more balanced. I also feel I need to have the monsters continue dealing damage to a player without giving them an option to roll acrobatics or athletics to dodge attacks - unless the player spends their entire activation doing nothing but rolling to dodge. 

Ramsus, Xel, and now Sub too I suppose - I know that you guys think that putting skill checks into combat is a bad idea because the PT system wasn't designed that way - but just because something was designed one way, that doesn't mean it couldn't work just as well another way. Ramsus himself has admitted that the combat system is weak as it is. I also don't want to stop players from looking for creative things to do during combat, but reward them when they think of something that's truly clever. 

I think that what I really need to do is just find a way to more smoothly integrate the option for skill checks into the game.

EDIT: Also, which post do you mean Sub? I didn't specifically respond to you yet, but I think I responded to your ideas in-general... or did I miss something so far?

Never mind, that last one covered all my relevant points. Thank you.

Alright guys,

I've received a number of PMs, on Skype and the forums, from everyone except Cardbo. All these PMs have dealt with the same subjects - namely skill checks in combat and combat flavor vs. combat mechanics.

All the messages have gone something like this:

 
“After discussing it for some time together about what’s been going on, we’ve all come to an agreement.

We feel it’s for the best non-combat and combat mechanics not be mixed. Skill checks happening in combat can be abused too easily. That wouldn’t be fun. Also, please describe mechanics in ways that are more clearly understood. Flavor can mean anything and doesn't tell us what we need to know. I'd really like to see environmental combat options but, we need to be able understand what they do, at least after we use them, if not before.”
 


First off, I would have preferred it if you guys had also asked Cardbo about his opinion. He is part of this campaign after all, and it still bothers me how he gets left out of the loop because he doesn’t use Skype.
 
Secondly, on the topic of skill checks in combat,
 
It is good to see you guys come to a compromise, but remember that I still have to agree with this compromise (as does Cardbo too) – and if I’m to agree with the first half of your compromise, I’d like to make some slight changes to it. I am okay with avoiding most skill checks during combat, but I would like to have the option to attach skill checks to some – note: some (not all, most, half, etc.) – environmental items and effects in order to “unlock” them as viable combat utilities.
 
Why?
 
Because I feel this would open up more options for the party without unbalancing combat. I also want to be free to provide environmental options that aren’t active from the start of combat, but that can be activated over time.
 
Consider the spotlights from the previous fight. I know that no one seemed to be a fan of them, but bear with me.
 
Chitin had been officially out of combat when she activated the spotlights, and I’d required a skill check – either Mechanics or Arcana – to get them working properly. The skill check was there for a reason. The lights weren’t working because of a magical influence that had dampened them – and if Chitin had been in combat and unable to make skill checks, she wouldn’t have been able to turn the lights on at all.
 
Now, you guys might be thinking – good, it would’ve been better that way. It wouldn’t have unbalanced the fight.
 
-The thing is though, the main issue with the lights seemed to be that you guys thought they were too powerful (which would be true with or without a skill check to activate them). Thus you felt overshadowed by the lights (again, not because of the skill check, but because of the ability of the lights).  The skill check didn’t unbalance the fight, it was the light effect itself that did. Once Chitin passed that one skill check however, the spotlights were unlocked for anyone to use. I didn’t require further skill checks, and anyone could’ve gone up to utilize the spotlights’ ability.
 
Now, I had a long discussion with DB last night, and he brought up two reasons why even environmental-based skill checks would be problematic.

 
1) Trying to do a skill check in combat, which is much more hectic than just doing one out of combat, would logically mean that the DC has to be higher.
2) It completely seals those actions off to any party member without the right stat bonuses

 
I own that the DC would be higher to make a skill check in combat, but it would still be possible to do – and it wouldn’t be any harder to set a DC for than anything else.
Also, as far as point two goes, there are multiple ways to avoid that becoming a factor.
 
One way is to allow for multiple skill checks that can complete the same test – like Mechanics/Arcana in the spotlight example. Athletics/Acrobatics and History/Persuasion are just two other examples for different skill checks that could feasibly accomplish the same results – thus allowing a skill check to be open to more of the party.
 
Another way is to make the skill check unlock an ability for the entire party – not just the player who passed the check. I can go back to the spotlights again here, as once Chitin passed her check, anyone had access to them.
 
All in all, I hope that if I only allow skill checks for unlocking environmental combat options in certain situations – then that could be an acceptable compromise for everyone. I wouldn’t allow skill checks to dodge, to grapple, to blow up the Death Star, etc. – but if I could call on skill checks to unlock environmental options, especially options that couldn’t be active from the start of combat, I think it would only improve the gameplay overall.
 
That typed, on to the second part of your concerns,

 
“…please describe mechanics in ways that are more clearly understood. Flavor can mean anything and doesn't tell us what we need to know. I'd really like to see environmental combat options but, we need to be able understand what they do, at least after we use them, if not before.”


 
The best I can do here is say that I will try to be more clear. I’ve already explained how I GM, and that’s with heavy emphasis on RPing and flavor. Flavor doesn’t mean “anything." It's there to describe the scene and - hopefully - make it come to life, and I won’t sacrifice my play style to give mechanics that spoil a fight (like the full effects of the spotlights in the last battle – though in cases like this I will at least confirm that your attacks seem to be having an effect). I will try to give you mechanics details as far as damage and status effects go however, and if I miss something, you can always ask me about it if you’re confused. Keep in mind that it’s especially difficult to keep track of every Save-Ends and what have you when you’re dealing with not only 8+ enemies, but also an NPC.  I was kind of overwhelmed in that last combat, and I’m sorry that I forgot to mention the effects of certain save-ends and whatever else I might have missed. Still, as I noted, if you’re confused about something – ask.
 

Hopefully you guys can find all of this acceptable. I’m still open to negotiations on the first point, but I’m adamant about the second. Let me know what you think – and keep in mind, no matter what you may think of me, the end goal here is for all of us to have fun. That’s always been my goal and it always will be.