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Conjurer's Choice
d8: You may immediately grant up to two conjurations you control 1 energy each. If you have no conjurations at the moment, you gain 1 energy.
d10: One of your conjurations may immediately take a Standard Action.
d12: As a free action you may immediately summon a conjuration with a discount of 2 on the energy cost. This cannot reduce the cost below 0.

and

[+1] Hugs - Standard action
Your opponent feels loved.

Hayatecooper wrote:[+1] Hugs - Standard action
Your opponent feels loved.

That would be a +3, I think. Most "turnskips" are. Can it target creatures, allies, enemies? Does it give a "avoid combat" skill check bonus?  

Hmm... Perhaps it could be made into a rather useful ability if slightly reworded.

[+1] Hugs - Standard utility
Target enemy with 5 or less hp (current) skips its next turn (DM may say whether the ability can be used on a target). Twice per battle, you may use this ability against a creature with higher hp.

[+1] Hugs - Standard utility
You and target ally gain 1d8 regeneration, lasting until either take damage.

[-1] Hugs - Standard utility
Target creature is prevented from making "save ends" saves until the end of your next turn.

What about something like this?

[+3] Hug
Target creature feels loved. If it's an enemy, it suffers a -2 penalty to damage on its next attack. If it's an ally, it gains 2 temporary hp.

So is it an utility or an attack? =P

...I kinda wanted people to focus more on the conjuration one(Cause I think it's worth it and cool)
but I'm ok with Stairc's version of Hug.

Ramsus wrote:So is it an utility or an attack? =P

Clearly it's the most attacky attack of attack.  

Conjuration special is definitely a great idea. But I don't foresee any special moves being added to the system soon - Kindulas and Nehiel are talking about revamping the specials to make them more balanced. They probably won't want to add any more until they figure out the existing ones (though I could totally be wrong).

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:Conjuration special is definitely a great idea. But I don't foresee any special moves being added to the system soon - Kindulas and Nehiel are talking about revamping the specials to make them more balanced. They probably won't want to add any more until they figure out the existing ones (though I could totally be wrong).

Personally I think they should focus on fixing the specials they've got... Sure they're overall quite awesome. But they're no way balanced. And they were built before some of the trigger all specials items where given to this system, and some of them kinda don't work as great with that.

Right. Specials were originally just designed to be "not broken" - in a much smaller combat talent pool for the one-shot adventure I was running. Most of the early stuff was just a quick check to make sure it wasn't entirely broken, not trying super hard to work out mathematical models to make sure it's balanced. Now it's a larger, enduring game - we really should do that. But... *sighs* going to involve redoing probably every single combat talent that rolls dice in some small way.


*groans*

I'm going to come out RIGHT NOW and say that 'redoing every single combat talent that rolls dice' is an extremely poor way to try and balance specials. Unless you've looked at every possible thing with the specials THEMSELVES before deciding that the only way to balance the mechanic as a whole is to alter EVERYTHING ELSE, you probably shouldn't do it.

If you HAVE looked at all that and still decided on such a course of action, you STILL shouldn't do it; instead, make a more specific official thread where the community at large can work out the generalized balance issues with the prospect of specials before you start messing with talents again.

You seem rather down on the prospect, so even if you DO feel it urgent you might want to excuse yourself. If YOU don't want to do it, and others don't want you to do it, then there's a fair chance you shouldn't be doing it...

All things considered, I assumed hyperbole.

Actually, Z2 - you aren't considering the implications.

If the specials are not balanced - if there is no clear formula that determines what a special is worth - then we have no way of knowing the value of just rolling a d10. Surely the value would be "The Value of your D10 Special divided by 10" to account for the chance of triggering your 10 special. Everyone familiar with critfisher knows that simply rolling dice provides value, due to the chance of triggering your special. We don't have a formula that tells us how MUCH value it provides. This means that our talents, which are based on making sure the average-damage is fair, are actually imbalanced. Because 4d12 might be 26 average damage, but really it's, "26 average damage AND 4 chances to trigger your 12 special". Thus a talent that deals 4d12 damage is worth more than one that deals 26 damage exactly. The question is how MUCH more. That needs to be reflected in the pip cost.

This is further complicated by the fact that the specials, currently, aren't created equal. Every specials was originally balanced by comparing them to one another, eyeballing it and saying, "yeah... that looks about right". When we figure out what special moves should be worth, that'll tell us what rolling a specific die is worth and we'll have to adjust all the talents accordingly.

Further, if we go by sheer probability, getting a 12 on a d12 is only 1.7% less likely than getting a 10 on a d10. That means, if we were to just treat rolling a d12 as worth no more than rolling a d10, that the 12 on your special move would have to be only 1.7% more powerful to be balanced. Naturally, that *isn't* what currently happens. 12 moves are way better on most special moves than 10s or 8s. That means a talent that deals 1d8+2 damage is *less* valuable than one that deals 1d12 damage - despite the fact that they're both dealing the same amount of average damage. These differences in value need to be reflected in the pip costs.

This is why revamping the special move system would by necessity, if we care about balance at all, lead to revamping everything that rolls dice. Likely the changes would be minor in most cases, tweaking a few pip costs and so on.

Frankly, doing all that might finally be enough to call the system Pony Tales - 2nd Edition.

I think you're gonna need an updated Boons thing and a Monster Manual to actually call it 2nd edition.

If we consider the original a first edition, updating it would be huge enough call it a second... But until there's a monster manual and a real rules compendium (preferably improved boons too) I wouldn't consider it a complete edition.

Am I missing something? Because it seems like once you choose values for each special, there's just a little math and a lot of grunt work. I just picked values and did some scribbling, and I think I have a set of rules for increasing costs (for my given values). These rules should work in most cases, though there will probably be some special cases (like electrocute, for example, where you have to add several different crit values together, and thunderstorm, which has to scale to a cost of 1 pip per effect).
Basically, I set each critical to produce an effective equivalent to paying a set number of pips.

d8: 2 pips, the equivalent of a [+1] standard.
d10: 4 pips, the equivalent of a [-1] standard.
d12: 6 pips, the equivalent of a [-3] standard.

Every d8 you roll has, in addition to whatever the normal talent does, a 1/8 chance of granting you 2 pips. On average, every d8 you roll is really granting you 1/4 or a pip. So 1 or 2 d8s should not increase the cost of a talent, but 3-5 d8s should increase the cost of the talent by 1 pip.

The same math for a d10 means that each d10 you roll, on average, grants you 2/5 of a pip. So every 2 d10s should increase the cost of a talent by 1 pip. (this rule breaks down at about 6d10, but I've yet to see a move that does that much damage, so it is an acceptable rule.)

The same math for a d12 means that each d12 you roll, on average, grants you 1/2 of a pip. So every 2 d12s should increase the cost of a talent by 1 pip.

These three rules would function for a majority of all combat talents that need tinkering. It would take some scrutiny, but mostly it would just take time. Heavens knows I've already thrown my lot in for doing grunt work in the name of more balanced special moves, so I'd be up for making the edits if nobody else wants to.

If I were to do that, after we decided on the numbers and defined the official version of these rules, I would make a copy of the combat talent book. Within my copy, I would edit every move that the rules tell me to. At any point where the rules have to be interpreted or further calculation is necessary (The aforementioned electrocution, or perhaps Furious Rage), I would note my math or my logic with a comment appended to the talent. When I was done, either with a section or with the whole book, I would open sharing to everyone and send you guys the link.

This process doesn't seem difficult. Just a touch lengthy. But once the rules are in place, with one person working from the bottom of the doc upwards and one person working from the top down, it wouldn't take a painful amount of time. it would actually be a bit fun. But you guys built the system, I just rent it. So why is this such a big problem, other than the sheer amount of work required, which can be split*?
*You could actually split it up by combat talent class, and give one class to each regular member on the forum who volunteers. That would make it go by real fast, and we could review each other's work for errors and whatnot. Assuming I'm not missing something big, this doesn't seem all that bad.

EDIT: It's also worth noting that to avoid rounding problems like a d12 being worth exactly 1/2 of a pip, we could choose numbers like 7 and 5 that wouldn't evenly divide into the given number, to avoid rounding errors.

sunbeam wrote:Am I missing something? Because it seems like once you choose values for each special, there's just a little math and a lot of grunt work. 

 Nope, you get it exactly. It's the sheer amount of grunt work involved that's causing the groan. Have to go over every combat talent, trait and item that rolls dice and readjust them all to fit the new math. It's not going to be complicated once the new specials are decided on and designed, just going to be a lot. There's also a few other revamps we might want to do at the same time ([+1] and [+2] pip powers are currently balanced more by feel than by math for example).

So we take it slow, and do it right. Okay, that works. Just keep this in mind, for the grunt work:

sunbeam wrote:
You could actually split it up by combat talent class, and give one class to each regular member on the forum who volunteers. That would make it go by real fast, and we could review each other's work for errors and whatnot. Assuming I'm not missing something big, this doesn't seem all that bad.

We could sort items by gold cost and item slot, and trait by "class/specialization" as well. So whenever you guys make some decisions, we're here to help with most everything.

That'd be really neat. Probably take a LONG time to explain the ins and outs of balancing the combat system to everyone - but taking on some more people that could help with rebalancing could really make our lives easier and the thing come about faster. Of course, we'd still need to confirm everything is balanced (so wouldn't save a huge amount of time) but it'd lay great groundwork for the future too.

Ok, well here's what I think. I think we should completely forget he ever brought up specials, and the fact that they are unbalanced, and generally pretend this conversation never happened.

Barring that, if you're sooo desperate to have a 2nd edition before the 1st is even finished, then how about you just do the Specials. Find out what the equations and maths and whatever are needed to balance the equation, and use it to bring the Specials inline with the talents, not the other way around. And if all else fails, if all of the talents have to be reconciled with each other for everything to make sense... then get new math. Seriously, I've said it a few times- the numbers you're running aren't Constants governed by the laws of Physics, they are numbers you made up (or someone else made up and you borrowed). You can change them. Use what is established as an end result, and solve for x until you get something that works, instead of tearing down and reworking everything else around what you think x should be.

I was just thinking recently that the Special Moves, one of the more unique and cool aspects of the system, were also one of the only remaining parts that haven't been revised yet. If there's a good mathematical formula to evaluate things with, I'd be happy to volunteer with sunbeam to do some of the grunt work calculations.

Bronymous wrote:
Use what is established as an end result, and solve for x until you get something that works, instead of tearing down and reworking everything else around what you think x should be.

If I've followed Dan's point correctly, he's saying that you can't do this – at least not in a consistent manner, because the distribution of dice per cost is inconsistent.

It's like trying to solve the equations
2x + 6 = 10
2x + 6 = 8
– there's no value of x that will hold for both equations.

Bronymous wrote:Barring that, if you're sooo desperate to have a 2nd edition before the 1st is even finished, then how about you just do the Specials. Find out what the equations and maths and whatever are needed to balance the equation, and use it to bring the Specials inline with the talents, not the other way around. 

That'd be nice, but it would result in d12s that are almost imperceptibly stronger than d10s (less than 2% stronger) which wouldn't be very exciting. It also doesn't solve the problem that the current talents aren't appropriately priced *relative to eachother* due to the presence of die-rolling. Frankly, it'd be easier to make specials balanced and cool to a constant number and then rebalance everything else to that than any other method. This way, we can just pick an arbitrary number for the special move value that works for us and looks cool to players, then rebalance things to fit it, instead of trying to solve for X when there's literally over 200 variables (every combat talent, trait and weapon is a variable).
 

And if all else fails, if all of the talents have to be reconciled with each other for everything to make sense... then get new math. 

Precisely what we're talking about doing. =)


@Philadelphus - Great to hear you're up for helping out. With you and sunbeam plus the dev team, this might not be such a chore after all. And you're entirely correct as to why we can't reset the special moves to what the talents would prefer. It's really several different problems. The special moves aren't balanced compared to one another and, due to the value of rolling dice not being factored into existing combat talent balance, the combat talents aren't balanced compared to one another. These problems can only be solved be reworking both systems - can't solve it by reworking only one.

Then start nerfing the stuff that hasn't been nerfed yet to bring it in line with the stuff that has been overly nerfed already. That may be where someof the discrepancy might be coming from, and might make x easier to find.

Basically, if my damage rolls take another nose dive, then you guys are heading the wrong way. Just sayin.

Bronymous wrote:Then start nerfing the stuff that hasn't been nerfed yet to bring it in line with the stuff that has been overly nerfed already. That may be where someof the discrepancy might be coming from, and might make x easier to find. 

How is that related to the issue of there being the unaccounted "how much is a die roll worth" variable in the system? It has nothing to do with nerfing some vague thing you don't mind being nerfed - the issue is that there's a systematic discrepancy between combat talents and similar because there's a variable involved that hasn't been accounted for.