Breaking the Unbreakable

You could still try it with the dazed effect and a cap of 8-10. Or you could have it be something like

[0] Daredevil's Rush - Standard Action
Take Xd8 Damage and become dazed(save ends). You only take half damage if any die comes up 8 (I still like it being on 1 personally, but hey whatever). Gain X pips at the end of your turn. X cannot be higher than 10.

thematthew wrote:You could still try it with the dazed effect and a cap of 8-10.

Nah, there's no way that'll be balanced. It'll still be better than All or Nothing by a huge margin too.

Or you could have it be something like

thematthew wrote:[0] Daredevil's Rush - Standard Action
Take Xd8 Damage and become dazed(save ends). You only take half damage if any die comes up 8 (I still like it being on 1 personally, but hey whatever). Gain X pips at the end of your turn. X cannot be higher than 10.

I thought of this but it just is making the power more and more complicated while only patching the problems. The bare fact of the matter is that no power should be giving you that many pips and be at all feasible to use. Think of it like time walk in MTG. Each 3 pips is basically a free turn, and if the drawbacks can be mitigated...

So the point you're making is.....? That you want to remove Daredevil's Rush entirely? Because that's the only option the way you're saying things. If you don't think doing a bunch of damage to yourself which requires your allies to spend their pips to mitigate (and your own turns if you're willing to slow things down another turn) is enough of a drawback, I can't imagine what would be.

Capping it at +5 or even +6 means the cost outweighs the reward (just like it does with All or Nothing, though to a lesser extend), especially with the dazing.

The only cases where All or Nothing has any effect is when you almost nullify the drawback or having traits that allow you to still be in the fight at -15 hp. Honestly, neither of those options are even worth the cost unless you're already in the single digits of HP. And even then it's still questionable as you're wasting combat talent slots on a high drawback, only useful in specific circumstances, plan where you could just have something else that makes your combat build function better.

Edit: Stairc, the way to mitigate the drawback of Daredevil's Rush involves other people using their turns to do so. So like I said before, it's not a matter of effectively gaining free turns. It's just a way to basically shuffle around who has the pips.

Yes, Daredevil's Rush can't continue to exist as a power that can give you [+8] or more pips in a single turn. I'm worried about the ramifications of that a lot more than I'm worried about double damage. The only options that yet seem somewhat feasible are...

[+X] Daredevil's Rush - Standard Utility
You suffer Xd8 damage. X cannot be more than 5.

And...

[[+X] Daredevil's Rush - Standard Utility
You suffer Xd8 damage and are dazed (save ends). X cannot be more than 6.

The second destroys combos with Gather Energy, which is a good thing (though a shame - as I like those combos) but also gives a ridiculous 6 pips. The question becomes if a 50% chance of being dazed for a full round (which can be mitigated with boosts to saving throws and similar too) and 27 expected damage is a fair price to pay for gaining a free turn worth of pips.

Either way, these powers are both - I would say - better than All or Nothing. Damage can be dealt with pretty easily. Traits and Items can kill the drawback, though one-use effects like Iron Shield and Perfect Defense are at least giving up the ability to use it to stop an enemy's attack.

The advantage of these designs is that they are both elegant and nowhere near as broken as previous versions. However, I'm still not comfortable with their power level. Upping the damage dice seems like a dangerous trade-off, as it's going to let players trigger better specials and if you're surviving this kind of power... You're probably preventing the damage altogether anyway.

Without hurting allies as well or lowering the pip boost further, both of which are extremely unappealing, it's difficult to see how to make the power saner. I suppose the [+6] one could have a chance of stunning you. Regardless, I'd be willing to give both of these options a try in playtesting, though I still think that they're just better than All or Nothing - which I would like to make the gold standard for [+5] powers. You aren't supposed to gain that many pips at once, so if you do it has to require jumping through a LOT of hoops to make reliable.

So, not satisfied yet. But closer.

Of course they're better than All or Nothing. All or Nothing is horrible. The drawback is over the top and it's only useful (without being a complete munchkin) in incredibly narrow circumstances.
Edit: On on top of that, it's incredibly questionable if the extra pip is worth it even in those circumstances.

Do you mean you'd get rid of the damage potentially being halved? Because that punches +6 pips worth of it right into "why the heck are you even doing this?" territory. Also, I thought the idea was just that you'd be Dazed for one round, no save. That'd be better than making it stunned (save ends).

You can be satisfied with it meeting your standard for power but, you're just ignoring what the cost of mitigating the +8 pip version means for the party as a whole, and you're making the talent into something nobody will want to take. So that'd leave you and people who don't think anyone should take Daredevil's Rush as the only people satisfied. Whoop de doo, you might as well have just removed the talent entirely instead of letting people get tricked into doing something that's horrible (kinda like you're still doing with Paranoia and Dazzling Performance's d8 crit, since you refuse to modify them in any way the even lessens the chance of their only effect on combat being the monsters gaining free pips).

Ramsus, just because you don't want to take something doesn't mean that no one will want to take something. And the fact that powers you have claimed that no one will like are often quite loved by many playtesters (Paranoia is very popular among multiple people in my groups alone despite its questionable power level and people enjoy using it a lot, for example) might make you want to reconsider your iron-clad stances on these things.

After all, I know that many players (including myself) enjoy playing with powers that look terrible and are terrible but have ways to turn the drawbacks into an advantage. It's fun to come up with a build that does reasonably well, or even fantastically, by using moves that seem terrible or that people have written off as weak.

Furthermore, you seem to think that a [+5] move should be something that is efficient and viable in the average build. This is not the case. Like the beloved Progenitus in MTG, or the very fun Phyrexian Dreadnought - some abilities only work in certain combinations. We don't want [+5] moves to be reasonable, they should come with such disadvantages that you do NOT want to use them unless you're building around them. [+4] is a drawback you can reasonably accept, but [+5] is supposed to be far and away too much without a specific build.

You seem to have this point of view that if something has a drawback that is too steep for you to enjoy, it might as well be removed from the system. You often say this, but this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of player psychographics. Some players like playing with talents and building around them exactly BECAUSE they look terrible, and it's a challenge to make them work despite that. My own articles written on Magic the Gathering and my own deckbuilding track record for competitive events are almost always in this vein. We aren't just designing for effiency-focused Spikes. We're also designing for Timmy (who loves big effects like, "It's Over") and Johnny (who loves doing wacky things in combinations that other people don't think of).

Here, you can take a look at the article I referenced here. It's one of the best and most admired Mark Rosewater has ever written.
Basic Player Psychographics

The best part is that if you don't like a talent because you think it's not powerful enough, you don't need to put it on your character.

Now, I do like the idea of dazing without a chance to save until the end of your next turn. That's a nice way to make the [+6] one a bit weaker... Though all those pips at once still scare me. The fact that he won't be able to use minor actions or interrupts is minor in team-based builds, but I'd feel comfortable putting that up for playtest.

So here's the new talent. Thoughts?

[+X] Daredevil's Rush - Standard Utility
You suffer Xd8 damage and are dazed until the end of your next turn. X cannot be more than 6.

It's well known that people will take things that work horribly, just because they seem cool. This does not mean it's ok for you as a designer to make things work poorly and not care. I can't control what people will do but, you are intentionally making poor choices available where it would be simple to make those choices fair instead of arbitrary punishments for taking things you deem not worth your effort to make fair.

Is there a cap on that version? Or is it intentionally uncapped?

Edited to cap at 6 (infinite would be ridiculous, as you could just go +9999999999999999 and trigger your special a bazillion times.

And still you seem to misunderstand player psychographics Ramsus. You really might want to check out that article, it explains it very well. Every designer should read that article really.

I'll summarize one point though.

Some players like winning with sub-par talents in innovative ways. If you don't design sub-par talents, these players won't be able to enjoy themselves.

And since people can take whatever they want, you aren't forced to take talents you think are sub-par, there is no good reason to ruin their fun.

O.......k. Maybe that's true. I don't know anyone like that but, let's assume those people exist. (That's not to say I think everyone is a super efficient power gamer but, I don't know anyone who intentionally takes bad things because they are bad.) They can just take a sub-par array of talents instead of talents that are sub-par themselves without inadvertently tricking people who don't understand the mechanics perfectly into taking talents they thought were good that aren't. Problem solved.

*shrug* I still think +6 is not worth the drawback personally. It means you're still taking enough damage that you need to seriously mitigate the incoming damage and do some significant healing afterwards, to the point where overall the team is likely to suffer a net loss of pips. Not mitigating the incoming damage is no longer an option as the damage doesn't have a chance of being halved on it's own so that amount of d8's is highly likely to KO you. So assuming someone in the party halved the damage you take and someone else heals you for a decent amount of health, you then still are at about half health (maybe) and the net gain for the party was maybe a single pip with a whole lot of risk for a complete loss of all your pips and all the pips put into support that character. The risk is still too high for the reward.

Edit: Actually, nvm. Without it having a chance to halve the damage it would be pretty questionable if it was worth the risk at +8 pips too.

Ramsus: I think what Dan means is people who focus on moves that have a huge drawback, like It's over. Combat is normally done by round 5 after all, so someone like what Dan means would possibly try to get that done as early as the can, alone. Like in my case, I think It's over at level one isn't that good because you don't have the traits to help strengthen your combat.
But I would LOVE to find some way to pull it off during turns three or four, especially if I do it on my own without someone else helping me. And I don't mean just using Draw Bloods since that's boring.
... you know, thinking about it, I could do Gather energy, double trance (13), Gather Energy, draw blood & It's over. Very dangerous and that'd be really cool if I could pull that off~
^This kind of player is the type dan is trying to please. Trance, Draw Blood, and It's Over are all subpar talents in my opinion, but this type of combo would be excellent if it was able to be pulled off~

Uh, logan... I made the initial build which could do It's over on turn 3... alone... Turn 2 if it had 1 friend...

26 pips is feasible at the end of turn 2, 20 pips isn't even hard.

Yes, but that's a lv 2 pony before considering the edited Daredevil's rush. This is a completely viable level 1 build without involving items.

Edit: wait wrong guy.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:
So here's the new talent. Thoughts?

[+X] Daredevil's Rush - Standard Utility
You suffer Xd8 damage and are dazed until the end of your next turn. X cannot be more than 6.

I can abuse this more than the old version. You removed the minimum damage clause along with the half damage clause.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:Some players like winning with sub-par talents in innovative ways. If you don't design sub-par talents, these players won't be able to enjoy themselves.

And since people can take whatever they want, you aren't forced to take talents you think are sub-par, there is no good reason to ruin their fun.

Kinda like prod from Worms, I guess...

Anyway, I was thinking more about double damage, and then I remembered that Midnight's Blade exists...

[-10] Fangs of Cerberus - Standard Utility
For the rest of the battle, you are dazed and your attacks deal double damage during your turn.

For Comparison, Midnight's Blade:

Pros over Midnight Blade:
- Damage
- So Much Damage
- ALL THE DAMAGE

Cons over Midnight Blade:
- Higher Cost
- Perma-Daze
- No rerolls on ones
- Random; may actually do less damage than Midnight Blade
- Domination will ruin your day

See, I understand now. I don't have to balance double damage as its own separate entity in the system, I just have to balance it for its competition, in this case Midnight's Blade. I need the player to ask themselves "Should I pick X or Y? X is stronger, but Y is safer and has more utility." It's a choice of preference, and while I may need to make some changes should something make it too dangerous (*cough* Gather Energy *cough*), but I think this is the way to go...

I can see no way this can fail*...

*Oh God everyone is going to find some way to break it...

Paper Shadow wrote:
[-10] Fangs of Cerberus - Standard Utility
For the rest of the battle, you are dazed and your attacks deal double damage during your turn.

Given the sheer ability of people to generate large piles of pips, possibly for others to use, this is a terrible idea.

Consider the person rolling out of bed with this, Midnight's Blade, Wild Abandon, Meditate, and Siphon life.

Turn 2 they can have 2 friends channel mind their MB and WA while they Meditate, then turn the following turn they get CMed again for FoC so they siphon life for (1d8+1d12+2d6+6) damage and they just need someone to On my Mark them every other turn to be able to hit that hard every turn.

Note that this is not even remotely efficient, just an example of what it could do basically.

The only real problem with Daredevil's Rush is how it interacts with extra actions. This is solved easily by adding the daze effect and forcing you to be only able to use it on your turn as your first action. Using All or Nothing as a balancing point is a terrible idea, it doesn't work for anything but very specialized builds. Your balance point should never be something designed to be used for very specific builds and avoided like the plague in others.

A balance point should be one that makes people cringe when they realize what it is going to do to them, but they are willing to suffer for other things. This is why Trance is so much better than Psychic Surge, and why Dark Bargain is a good plan if you happen to be building your character around high numbers of self debuffs, but in my eyes Trance is a better +4 balance point than DB ever could be.

In summary, I think that there should be a balance point for high pip talents, but considering AoN as a comparable talent to Daredevil's Rush is a bad plan.

Paper Shadow, that is exactly the kind of terrible thing I meant when I said you can't balance double damage.

No, it's not terrible. Don't have time to explain now (running a game) just wanted to let you know Paper Shadow that I don't think it's as bad as people are saying. =)

*facepalm*

Edit: Just so this post has some actual content.... Fangs of Cerberus + Channel Mind. Oops, I just broke the entire combat system in half with like two characters. Sorry about that?

Dan, I didn't even have to go out on a limb to make a team that abused that like crazy. Like, practically autokill something every round crazy. With a little work I could be doing it on turn 2, and that turn to kill is I gain 1 pip and kill 3 dudes lololol.

I think there's something to consider: A few of these builds you guys have been making and are 'broken' involve making someone else do what you want. When do players really do that?
Also: Channel Minds means only the PiPs of the user, not both of the player's PiPs. Just so you guys know.

I know all about channel mind. And when a team gets an idea in their heads to make the GM suffer, they have either the best teamwork ever (make the GM cry by ruining all his plans) or are as hard to manage as herding cats (ruining all the GM's plans by... oh hey, butterflies!)

For example, we're planning to release an item that doubles all your damage as a passive effect. We're going to price it at about 6500 gold, because combat is expected to last about 5 rounds on average - and we'd rather overprice than underprice. 1000 Gold worth of items is supposed to be worth spending about 1 standard action, so an item that doubles all your damage should double the effectiveness of all your offensively oriented turns. Taking 5 turns with this item will yield double results - or a net gain of about 5 rounds... Which is 5000 gold if you try to take full advantage of it each round. But we'll price it at 6500 gold just to be safer.

This double damage effect is certainly fair or close to it.

Edit - Naturally thematthew, I don't think the power is balanced yet. It's calling the idea terrible that I object to. That's unnecessarily negative and stifles ideas.

I'm not saying that double damage is unbalancable. I'm saying that in a game where hp remains relatively static an effect that doubles the damage you deal needs to be scrutinized very very carefully. All in all, I would rather people spent time doing other weird shit abilities that don't involve just a straight 'your numbers get bigger' effect. For example, a power that instead of dealing double damage auto duplicates your attacks onto a random enemy, thus giving you the double damage you want but it also makes it more interesting than just a straight doubling of the number.

Logan..... what? Insinuating that somehow we're incapable of reading or something is kinda rude. You realize the entire point of the combat system is to encourage teamwork right? Are you implying that assuming people will have any ability to work together as a team is outside the plausible bounds of the mechanics?

Edit: Gotta agree. That's boring. As a GM I would laugh so hard at one of my players suggesting they were allowed to buy that item. There's no way it's comparable to anything else. It's way off the power scale (and I am very worried if it isn't for new items you're planning on introducing). I make no apologies for stating that something is terrible when it is. I would very happily stifle the idea of doubling damage as it's harder to balance than you seem to grasp and isn't in any way fun.

Why not have both? Double Damage on one enemy, or moving the attack to another enemy. The last one seems a bit like Boomstick, only a little different though.