Re: Official Errata Suggestion/Discussion Thread (changes you'd like to see made)

[ZamuelNow]

I got curious and looked at a lot of the weapons. Some of the issue may be that a lot of them are zero cost, + moves, minor actions, or some combination. That may be skewing the gold costs and per battle availability a fair bit. Some weapons, like the validly complained about conjurations, would be aided in an adjustment to their availability.

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

There's a core reason why there are a lot of [X/Battle] abilities in the system. Having them be [X/Battle] means the following...

We can make sure they have a clear ceiling of power. This means that we don't have to nerf them into the ground because a few builds can use their over the curve abilities a bazillion times more than normal. It's like how King of Fools could trigger any number of times per turn... Which in the right build I used once resulted in a high probability of over a billion special move triggers. It also used to have 2 prerequisites before you could take it. Restricting it to only triggering once per round (or is it once per turn? either way, the point is the same) meant that it wasn't insanely uber-broken anymore *and* we could make it better for the average build that wasn't trying to abuse it - making it take fewer prerequisites. Also, consider Duelist - the little engine that makes multi-attack builds soar (along with similar effects). If we were to make Duelist a 2/battle attack boost - we could up it to deal a whole extra 1d12 damage on your normal attack. Making it unlimited - it's a huge element of the most powerful attack builds with only 1 extra damage per attack (2 for the higher version, so really more like 1.5 each on average).

In short, abilities (like better-than-normal combat talents) that can be used over and over again need to be balanced with the imagination of what they'll look like in the super-optimized build. Otherwise things break and we have to go change them. This means that the benefits have to be *very* small compared to a "use X per battle" ability. It's also hard to make sure it's balanced right, particularly because new things come out that can break things which were previously safe. Just look at Granite Axe... Widely considered the least exciting weapon. Then it's scalable "+X damage, where X is your temporary HP" broke in half when the 30-temp-hp armor came out. 

So, it's a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot easier to make things...
1) Better for normal builds that aren't trying to go crazy with optimization - since we can afford to make them more powerful (with a ceiling).
2) Harder for an optimizer to run away with the system.


There are some other reasons too, but these are the main reasons why there are so many [X/Battle] things in the system.


Sidenote: It's still a ton of fun to build with things that don't have X/Battle limits - because the possibilities feel endless. We're working on a side-project right now that is built to focus on the fun character-building side of things for combat rather than accessible or balanced gameplay (and a lot of the most nutty combos we had to cut from this system are going in there). It's going to be built for customized arena challenges, where you try to defeat insane combat scenarios that you can customize in difficulty to your group's power. Everything will be very, very broken - the question will be if you can keep increasing your score by finding ever-more-broken things. A lot of cool ideas that we either can't include in PT, or just want some fun testing out first, are going to go into there.


EDIT - Didn't read all the points, was in a rush so just wanted to lay out an answer to the basic question. Feel free to reiterate any question this didn't cover.

[ZamuelNow]

A lot of the issue comes down to individual items and how they don't feel worth it. It also seems to fluctuate per version. Skype version of Orb of Holy Light and Orb of Infinite Fire feel far too easy to kill off for their in battle effects and the gold cost. Their tabletop version aren't summons at all but rather blocking terrain that act as indestructible sentries of healing/damage. Cheaper too. As far as the Duelist example you gave, some people simply like consistency as opposed to spike damage. The variety should be there for both sides.

[Fury of the Tempest]

Lets just count the number of weapons that aren't X/battle, shall we?

There are 33 weapons. 9 of which aren't X/Battle talents, though 2 others do provide a passive benefit.

That's about 30% of the weapons. Considering these are called 'weapons' mainly, they don't exactly feel like weapons. Instead, they feel a lot more like wands.

I can understand people using the 'wands' on purpose, and the X/Battle weapons are easier to construct, but getting more actual weapons would be a great addition to the game.

[LoganAura]

While I agree having something that isn't an X/day would be awesome, from a design perspective it makes sense why there isn't. I mean say if Boomstick wasn't a X/Day but instead a -2 or something. If someone has a high enough PiP count, they can fire off, say Ignite, regularly on three enemies and chip away at their health.

[Fury of the Tempest]

... That's already establish Logan, no need to repeat what we know...

[LoganAura]

My apologies. Just seemed like you guys had glossed over that to me.

[Crystalite]

But it would also be combinable with certain things that alter the amount of talents you get over time. For instance, by definition this is able to be comboed with Personal project, because it is an active effect instead of a passive. But then it is replaced, and is either limited in the respect that it must be replaced by an active effect, or it breaks open. Then there's Changeling's trickery. Using that, a character may end up with multiple cases of extra UTs by way of Racials. If this were selected, you would then have to determine and rule if, when you transform and use this talent, does the replacing talent stay for the rest of the game? Or does it reset to I Remember Now every time you change back?

It's intention of being 1/game makes it volatile and hard to rule in these respects.

Personal Project is not applicable to I Remember Now!, because Personal Project specifies either Magic, At Will, X/Day, or X/Session. My new talent is none of these; it's X/Campaign.

Changeling's Trickery/True Shifting depends heavily on the GM's rulings for it. My GM ruled that you can only shift into prebuilt races (both official and group canon races, like Sea Ponies) with specific pre-defined traits. Meaning you could only have I Remember Now this way if the group had a race that started with it by default. Even then, my ruling would be that, once used, the new talent is what you get after you transform from then on.

I do agree that it should not be taken multiple times (Our group has since tried it; it wasn't pretty.) A longer prep time might be useful, but maybe not ten whole minutes. I dunno.

Another issue, if it can't be taken more than once; once it is used up, can you take it again at level-up? I should think so.

[conantheghost]

Changeling's Trickery/True Shifting depends heavily on the GM's rulings for it. My GM ruled that you can only shift into prebuilt races (both official and group canon races, like Sea Ponies) with specific pre-defined traits. Meaning you could only have I Remember Now this way if the group had a race that started with it by default. Even then, my ruling would be that, once used, the new talent is what you get after you transform from then on.

I would agree with that. When you finally use IRN, it is forever() replaced by your selection, one way or another.

Another issue, if it can't be taken more than once; once it is used up, can you take it again at level-up? I should think so.

I would argue no, and make it a character-creation talent only. It represents hidden/unrealized potential or growth. During the course of the game you don't "unrealized" potential but actual cool things you can do! This would also solve the above problem, so you could never take the talent using another talent or racial combination.

Making IRN a specifically character creation talent would make it virtually impossible to abuse while maintaining the usability perfectly.

[Xel Unknown]

[-1] Caltrops - Minor Utility
Until the end of your next turn, any creature that attacks you suffers 1d4 damage.

I've been thinking about Caltrops move here, and I think at least upgrading it to loss of life effect, or have it bypass resistance, if we gotta keep the d4 would be a good buff for this talent. Also the following rewording can help make it's effects more clear.

suggested rewording:

[ZamuelNow]

Personally, I still think the best buff would be to simply allow it to be used on any ally rather than just yourself.

[ZamuelNow]

With Magecraft being heavily adjusted and optional in the new system, base Arcana could stand to have its skill description updated.

Arcana: Knowledge and control of magic. This ranges from identifying a spell being cast and detecting the presence of magic in an area to minor manipulation of some spell effects.

This also means The Stare could be moved from Persuasion up to the Horse Sense attribute level and implementing the two Yee-Haw/The Stare counterparts suggested a while back by Ramsus for the other attributes.

Magic Interrupt Talents:

[Philadelphus]

I personally don't think we need a Horse-Sense level +20 interrupt, given that, without Magecraft inflating the value of Arcana, Persuasion and Perception are the two most valuable skills in many campaigns. Beside, Yee-Haw! works over two Attributes as-is (Athletics in Brawn and Acrobatics in Precision), so we still wouldn't have one for each Attribute (and nothing covering Endurance).

I like the symmetry of the idea you're proposing, but the problem is that the four Attributes and the skills assigned them are not entirely symmetrical in value

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

I honestly wonder if Persuasion is a necessary skill. In gameplay it seems to come down to, unless carefully controlled by the DM...

1) "Everyone else shut up, let Bob talk - his Persuasion is really high."

2) "The minister slumps over his daughter's corpse. His eyes are red with weeping and rage. When he turns to you, there is murder in his eyes."
"I'll calm him down."
"What do you say?"
"Calm down, we didn't do it. Persuasion check."
"Okay, that's a pretty pathetic argument, but I guess it'll get you a +0 bonus. Roll."
"Natural 19, I have an 18 in persuasion, that's 37."
"... He calms down."
"Whew, good job Bob, we almost had to roleplay there."


A good DM can get around these issues, especially by providing substantial bonuses and penalties to what a player says during a persuasion check or (and this is odd flavor-wise) by letting anyone say anything they want but only requiring the Persuasion character to roll. However, the core mechanic encourages both these scenarios and it requires DM effort to get around them.

Fundamentally, I've found making what the players actually say the most important thing rather than their persuasion score has several benefits.

1) Persuasion isn't necessary as a social tank. It's no longer a checklist thing people feel they have to have in the group.
2) All players can equally contribute to social encounters. Imagine how boring it'd be if during each combat it made tactical sense for people to say, "No one do anything! Let Bob fight, he's got the best combat build." Combat would be extremely boring.

However, I think that rolling for checks is important in diplomacy. It shouldn't be pass/fail, there should be some risk included. We can make this work by having the bonuses/penalties to the roll come from what you say rather than a skill check. DCs on persuasion would therefore be much lower than currently, because players wouldn't be able to have a +18 persuasion check, but this would hopefully put more emphasis on the actual roleplaying being the most important part.

Note: Not saying we'd just yoink persuasion out of the current system and call it good. Obviously, this idea would only work in the context of a larger skill redesign (which many players have mentioned would be nice to cover some of the existing holes).

[Fury of the Tempest]

That... is the problem with something like diplomacy/persuasion, it can be hard to regulate...

In D&D, 3.5 especially, it was very easy to have builds with super-high diplomacy so they could convince enemies to ally with them if they didn't Nat 1

[ZamuelNow]

Beside, Yee-Haw! works over two Attributes as-is (Athletics in Brawn and Acrobatics in Precision), so we still wouldn't have one for each Attribute (and nothing covering Endurance).

Wha..?  I thought it was Athletics and Endurance since that's what the Brawn Attribute covers and that's what's stated in the ability:

Yee-Haw:

I've already made my thoughts known on Perception but it's not getting changed.  Even with that, Endurance still needs to explicitly state it can resist magic, Mechanics still needs to note it's manual dexterity, and Streetwise is still horribly worded.

---

EDIT: Just saw the Persuasion stuff. Considering the examples:

1) Try to not have scenarios where that's possible, often as simply as having a NPC who wants validation from the group as a whole.
2) That doesn't sound like a +0. Considering the situation at hand, that would be worth negatives and/or it would trigger other penalties.

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

EDIT: Just saw the Persuasion stuff. Considering the examples:

1) Try to not have scenarios where that's possible, often as simply as having a NPC who wants validation from the group as a whole.
2) That doesn't sound like a +0.  Considering the situation at hand, that would be worth negatives and/or it would trigger other penalties.

1) Still a DM tax and makes the persuasion score of the single person less relevant. If the point is to involve the group without the single person's persuasion score being a big deal, then it's probably more elegant just to prevent the situation in the first place without counting on DMs to design adventures with that in mind (we're trying to make their lives easier after all).

2) Theoretically, there must be such thing as a +0. Feel free to substitute whatever example you would feel would be a +0. The point is, regardless, that the persuasion score made roleplaying irrelevant. If the solution to that is to put a lot more added emphasis on modifiers, without being able to count on a high skill check to let you effectively skip the roleplaying, then it seems to be a further endorsement of the idea that persuasion-as-a-skill is unnecessary.

[Fury of the Tempest]

I know its up to DM's.... but I don't think its that hard. For no.1 have the people the PC's are talking to address the others and no.2 put the DC at 100 or give a penalty.

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

I know its up to DM's.... but I don't think its that hard. For no.1 have the people the PC's are talking to address the others and no.2 put the DC at 100 or give a penalty.

So once more the suggestion is to have the DM solve all the existing problems by effectively making the single persuasion score irrelevant (via talking to everyone or making the modifier to what you said insanely high).

If that's the case, again - why bother having a persuasion score? We can accomplish the objectives of making everyone equally relevant to a conversation and emphasizing what people say rather than what they roll in two ways.

1) Make sure the system is built around that. Don't bother with a persuasion score and focus on modifiers to what people say.

2) Trust DMs to solve the system's problem via various workarounds.

Naturally, the problems can be worked around by a good, conscious DM. But why should they *have* to be, and why should we make a DM's job harder? It just seems that 1 is a more efficient way to go about achieving those objectives. It might come along with other problems though.

[Fury of the Tempest]

Because in my suggestions. The high persuasion modifier still has a big part to play in the scenario's. It isn't completely ignored/removed, its still relevant. Its just not game-break relevant.

[ZamuelNow]

My problem with the second example is that it feels like a player who is purposely trying to not actually play the game.

Persuasion has multiple other uses than just the examples given. Ranging from lying to entertainment arts (something hard to portray unless the player actually has said skill). There's also the whole Persuasion vs Perception counter to each other.

[Xel Unknown]

As somebody who has been able to dimpomancy myself out of chains... With a 5 in that stat. I don't see the problem... Then again, my agrument was mostly "My friends are free, I can stop them from doing more damage if you let me go..." Also said party members were three alicorns and I was at the time an Unicorn...

But yeah I can agree that having a min-maxed persuasion stat, you are godly powerful in any campaign. It might be good to find a way to not remove it's power too much, but more work to helping people be promped to RP by rewards and junk by RPing. I personally don't see there being any real downside to having low persuasion, though low persception is painful...

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

There are definitely other skills bundled up into persuasion. But so far, everyone seems to have provided examples of people getting around or ignoring the core issues via roleplaying when they had to. Xel's example is nice and solid.

Seems we agree that the examples I posed are issues and that more emphasis should be put on what you say when roleplaying than the static number on your sheet. The question isn't whether a DM can work around these issues presented by the system, we know they can (good DMs can work around almost anything). The question is whether having huge bonuses to persuasion be in the system *encourages* roleplaying and our design goals.

Zamuel brought up that Persuasion can do other things besides simply talking, but those things could be represented by a new skill in the theoretical skill revamp (if they need one at all).

[Zarhon]

As far as all the skills go, there are pretty much zero abilities that use History or Streetwise, whilst there are an abundance of abilities that rely on/boost persuasion, perception, or Athletics/Acrobatics. It's biased towards characters with high sense.

It sort of automatically makes a character with low values of Perception/Persuasion have large number of talents that are too sub-par for them to take (due to unreliability of having to roll those skills to use the abilities, or their bonuses/benefits not being enough to bother against a specialist) - they get a meager option of abilities to use compared to a perception/persuasion master. Anyone with high "sense" can pretty much optimally benefit from 90% of the talents (the 10% being athletics skills, and possibly arcana stuff).

And if you make a history/streetwise specialist (that isn't a magic specialist, at least), you find yourself with virtually no options - Nothing for historians, nothing for street-savvy sneaks. Healers also get the short end of the stick - a single talent that does nothing but provide a static bonus.

Mechanics and stealth also have a limited option of things to benefit from (stealth mode is pretty much a must-have for anyone that wants to not suck at stealth, or that doesn't have the unseen destiny, whilst mechanics has only one real booster ability in the form of nimble hooves, the rest being delegated to abilities that outright make machines or let you shape terrain without major rolls).

[ZamuelNow]

I don't think the skills and attributes are in a bad enough spot that they'd need a full revamp.  It more feels like some need updated descriptions and perhaps better support through more ability options.

EDIT: Basically what Zarhon said.

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