Utility Talent/Racial Trait overhaul/revamp - New "Abilities" system

Arguably, it could be partially handled by taking the prep time manipulation options from Magecraft and allowing all skills to use it.

In thinking about whether or not Many Tongues should come back, I started contemplating whether or not it needed restructuring or any sort of prerequisite.  In that, I came up with a possibility though no clue if any would be interested.

Language:

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:I know this is really difficult to implement, but while we're revamping the abiltiy system a "variable cost" system might be cool.

Like, instead of talent A costing 5 minutes of preparation time and talent B having a limited range or application, both talents would have a specific amount of time they'd cost, a specific limited range or application, and at least one other cost to use that talent like maybe spending a magic point or taking a penalty to a certain check until their next extended rest, and the player could pick which limitation their powerful abilities would have, to create a character who is super-powerful but takes time to do things or a different one who's less powerful and does things interesting.

...that sounded even harder out of my head than it did in it. I'll still throw this idea out here in case someone likes it and thinks of a way to revamp it, but darn.

If I understand what you're saying...

Have the core part of the ability have a reduced cost (always 1 point?), and allow players to spend additional points to increase the power, range, duration, casting speed, area of effect, and number of uses per day. This would be neat, as it would allow customization of abilities, although I feel it would be much, much harder to balance. I feel like it would need to be standard that getting enough upgrades automatically reduces the casts per day, requiring you get spend more points to get more casts per day.

Greywander wrote:

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:I know this is really difficult to implement, but while we're revamping the abiltiy system a "variable cost" system might be cool.

Like, instead of talent A costing 5 minutes of preparation time and talent B having a limited range or application, both talents would have a specific amount of time they'd cost, a specific limited range or application, and at least one other cost to use that talent like maybe spending a magic point or taking a penalty to a certain check until their next extended rest, and the player could pick which limitation their powerful abilities would have, to create a character who is super-powerful but takes time to do things or a different one who's less powerful and does things interesting.

...that sounded even harder out of my head than it did in it. I'll still throw this idea out here in case someone likes it and thinks of a way to revamp it, but darn.

If I understand what you're saying...

Have the core part of the ability have a reduced cost (always 1 point?), and allow players to spend additional points to increase the power, range, duration, casting speed, area of effect, and number of uses per day.  This would be neat, as it would allow customization of abilities, although I feel it would be much, much harder to balance.  I feel like it would need to be standard that getting enough upgrades automatically reduces the casts per day, requiring you get spend more points to get more casts per day.

No, although that's a good idea too.

I mean more like...some talents have the cost of a magic point to use, or the cost of a preparation time of a minute or whatever. I was thinking more like at character creation, talents that have a cost have instead a list of potential costs...like, say, Talent A might cost a minute of prep time, or a magic point, or a penalty to Persuasion checks, or a specific range. When that talent is chosen at character creation, the player chooses one of these costs, which becomes the cost that one character needs to pay to use the talent.

Category Suggestions:
-Burrower and Webspinner for Woodsman
-The element born abilities for a new category called Elementalist.  Possibly move Element Master there as well.
-I'm wondering if Utility Belt category should be broken up due to how massive it is.

Wording revamp suggestion:

Forcefield Rewording:

Minor pet peeve about the doc: Could the font size/style, and general ability formatting be altered to match those of the other official docs (so copying/altering them and adding flavor is hassle-free)?

-How does the new Element of Magic work with preparation times? The old one had them count down within Magic's activation time which made a few unusable.
-Considering the new point based setup, why is Advanced Telekinesis split from Telekinesis instead of being an upgrade?
-What is the current cost breakdown for boons and destinies with the new system?
-Suggesting a new category, Fateweaver, to accommodate the racials added to the main document that manipulate rolls.
-In light of the needed loss of its passive stat boost, a proposed buff for Eagle Eye:

Eagle Eye Buff:

ZamuelNow wrote:Category Suggestions:
-Burrower and Webspinner for Woodsman
-The element born abilities for a new category called Elementalist.  Possibly move Element Master there as well.
-I'm wondering if Utility Belt category should be broken up due to how massive it is
...
-How does the new Element of Magic work with preparation times?  The old one had them count down within Magic's activation time which made a few unusable.
-Considering the new point based setup, why is Advanced Telekinesis split from Telekinesis instead of being an upgrade?
-What is the current cost breakdown for boons and destinies with the new system?
-Suggesting a new category, Fateweaver, to accommodate the racials added to the main document that manipulate rolls.
-In light of the needed loss of its passive stat boost, a proposed buff for Eagle Eye:

Eagle Eye Buff:

-Those are sensible suggestions, I've moved the remaining abilities and made the Elementalist category. Utility Belt is definitely getting large, isn't it? It's kind of the go-to place for stuff that doesn't fit anywhere.
...
-Element of Magic should work the same way as before, it still requires prep times. It now has a 10 minute duration rather than 5, though, so it should render a few more abilities available.
-Advanced Telekinesis used to be an upgrade of Telekinesis, but it got specifically split into its own separate utility talent a while back and I just left it when I ported everything over.
-Destinies are worth 2, 3, and 8 utility talents, so that's 6, 9, and 24 points. I'm not sure what the equivalent value is for boons, I know there's been talk about potentially removing them and replacing them with something else due to just not being as fun a concept as they sounded in theory.
-That could work. Let me just think it over and see what would go in there.
-That sounds good. In fact, I added a slight clarification to Eagle Eye, so it now reads like this:

Eagle Eye (1)
You take no penalties to your Perception checks from weather or atmospheric conditions such as smoke, fog, rain, etc. You can also clearly see small objects and fine details up to a mile away.

Apologies to everyone else waiting for answers, this week was really busy for me. This is all still very much on my mind, and I plan to get some more work done in the next few days.

Edit: AProcrastinatingWriter, could you perhaps post an example of what such an ability as you're proposing might look like? That would help me understand it better, I think.

Philadelphus wrote:Apologies to everyone else waiting for answers, this week was really busy for me. This is all still very much on my mind, and I plan to get some more work done in the next few days.

Certainly understandable.  I think I personally need to be careful since my reading speed skews my expectations of response times.

-Advanced Telekinesis used to be an upgrade of Telekinesis, but it got specifically split into its own separate utility talent a while back and I just left it when I ported everything over.

Fair enough.  It does technically have differing applications than the standard.

-Destinies are worth 2, 3, and 8 utility talents, so that's 6, 9, and 24 points. I'm not sure what the equivalent value is for boons, I know there's been talk about potentially removing them and replacing them with something else due to just not being as fun a concept as they sounded in theory.

They might not get mindblowing responses but I'd hate to see boons removed outright.  The concept of gaining things as a team isn't a poor idea in itself.

-Element Master disappeared.  I'm assuming it was in the process of being moved and accidentally got deleted?
-As far as a new Fateweaver category, I'd suggest the following (and their upgrades) be moved to it:

Fateweaver Candidates:

-Suggesting Call Out be moved to the Woodsman category.
-What's your opinion of the proposed rewording of Forcefield's description? (above post) Likewise wondering about bringing back Many Tongues in a new form and revamping Found It?
-Dazzling Wings is still using the old Brawn/Precision wording.
-Requesting a return of the Green Hands/Hooves, Minimize Sunderblade, and Audiomancy utilities.
-Considering some of the discussion in the errata thread, I'm going to make an official request for adding the magic interrupts for the other two attributes. Both could stand to have more abilities and the incoming revamp of Magecraft lessens one of the original concerns with the concept.

Magic Interrupt Talents:

One thing to note is that we don't want to port *everything* over into the new system. The original document got rather bloated with various redundant or confusing/difficult-for-the-dm abilities mainly for the sake of adding more content.

Then I suggest, you start working on a topic to help explain and debate how to either fix such things for the GMs... Or at least allow people to try and see the stuff that are on the chopping block that aren't going to be ported over. Or we try to help figure out how to solve the issue with this thing. Also such a task would help people get a feel for the power levels of the new point system for future building of talents.

I can see and agree with both concepts. Redundancy can be an issue (I figured that's why a few things didn't come back, I can see Element Master not returning despite feeling it serves a niche) yet we need more info on what should and shouldn't go into the new system from a design standpoint. There's also the issue of disagreeing with what actually does and doesn't cause an issue, especially when compared to other things already available in the update. I can't see Green Hooves as being more broken than Arcane Eye's upgrades without serious creativity.

Green Hooves problem might be from it being GM dependent on just what reactions it gets to doing such a thing with plants...

> There's also the issue of disagreeing with what actually does and doesn't cause an issue, especially when compared to other things already available in the update. I can't see Green Hooves as being more broken than Arcane Eye's upgrades without serious creativity.

That's because Green hooves doesn't have anywhere NEAR the sheer combo potential that Arcane Eye does, lets' look at both talents.

green hooves:

Compared to the Arcane Eye Tree

Arcane Eye Tree:

Straight of that bat you can see that these are two very different things. Green hooves is a stand a lone talent, it's not built to be combo's(Well with as specific things) and it does some pretty fun things on it's own Revitalizing plants(I Revitalize poison joke, or combo it with a character who can detach limbs via mechanical and really mess with people, can also be used for regrowing trees to make them climbable or good enough material to create bridges(Combo's with fabricate 'goodbye rotting wood') also the basics of revitalizing food, water, saps, flowers for medications and what have you.

The accelerated growth can also help with all of the above, but allows for stupid things like poison ivy traps, tree to destroy houses, instant fruit for a starving town, really really annoying the dog who keeps pooping on your flower bed) and all kinda of sily things. While Green Hooves lets you do a lot of cool things, it;s not broken, Arcane Eye however gives you one thing is assuredly is.


Arcane Eye
>You can move the eye up to a hundred feet away from you, it can fly and move through walls.
>Archmage’s Eye (3)
Prerequisite: Perceptive Eye
You are considered to have line of effect for the use of utility talents through your Arcane Eye in addition to line of sight – effectively meaning that you can use your utility talents through your Arcane Eye.

have fun being able to use ANY of your talents at a range of up to 100 feet from you, through walls, with decent perception bonus's, undetected. This combined with Teleports "Hi, steal items k thanks" IS CRAZY. I mean, it's begging you for a master thief character(Which.. I may have done..). Stand outside home, scout around with invisible eye, find shiny, teleport into your possession, leave. Also, just the amount of utilities that don't have a range allows this to be pretty abused. (I should build a character that utilizes this with things like Dirty look or Pyrotechnics, heck nothing stops you using this to just RANDOMLY shove dazzling wings on someone..for whatever reason you would do this. Also combos great with Telekenisis, and Telepathy(Note that it says creatures you can see in 1000 feet).


So, Zameul you are right, Green Hooves while strong is NOT more broken then the Arcane Eye upgrades.

Haven't people been playtesting these talents and traits for a long time already? That's sort of the point of open beta.

However, as for custom-porting, it's easy.

A utility talent is worth 3 points under the new system. 1 trait-point for racial traits is worth 2 points. You can port anything over as a DM and then tweak the cost to be balanced as you see fit. It just might not be officially endorsed.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:Haven't people been playtesting these talents and traits for a long time already? That's sort of the point of open beta.

Most have been playing these campaigns...as campaigns.  I think some of the purely combat campaigns have sometimes acted as beta but not the full storylines.  There's any number of reasons ranging from being mid campaign when things were added to the system to simply not having a character concept in mind that can use a specific utility.  Plus, there's the matter of varied perceptions and self fulfilling prophesies.  "This looks weak so I won't use it" and thus things don't get used or tested.  Probably half the reason why the disparity in the skills went on with little discussion for so long.  While I fully understand you are busy with various projects, I invite you to join a pbp campaign as a player.  Perhaps seeing things from a different lens might help in viewing player opinions on some things.

1) I was responding to Xel's post saying that we should playtest anything being considered for removal (for some reason it didn't tell me there had been new posts after that, which created some confusion as to what I was responding to). I found the implication that this would somehow be different from what has already occurred to be strange. Of course, specific discussion of specific abilities that people feel should be cut or added would be great too. More perspectives are very helpful, we'll just ultimately have to make some tough decisions to cut the chaff.

2) Not everything that is currently absent from the abilities doc is not going to be added later. Perhaps things already in it might be removed too. Phil just put together enough of a document to playtest characters with. My post was just to clarify that not everything should be automatically added into the new system.

Note: One ability that I like a lot as flavor and uniqueness but that causes LOTS of headaches for DMs? Cursefield. I honestly don't think that should exist as an ability. It just makes DM lives difficult and can ruin great cinematic moments. The cool factor is high, but the headache factor is terrible.

No... Not "playtest" but actually TELL US stuff that might be on the choping block in a new topic built for such a chat. We might be able to help fix whatever issue that you feel is big enough to worrent removal. Or at least try to agrue for why not to remove something. You know how some people might feel like the Devs just do whatever they feel like doing don't care anything about us the Players and fans of their system? The fact that you all seem to not want to come forward with us your "helpers" here on a huge issue like removal of ANYTHING in this system just be something you guys just do in privet putting and just wait for the fireworks of us getting upset that something got removed without us having any way to avoid such a thing or even play a part in seeing if removal was needed.

Xel Unknown wrote:You know how some people might feel like the Devs just do whatever they feel like doing don't care anything about us the Players and fans of their system? The fact that you all seem to not want to come forward with us your "helpers" here on a huge issue like removal of ANYTHING in this system...

1) Read my above post please, in which I specifically agree that discussing these things with you all is a good idea.

2) I really couldn't care less about the conspiracy-theorist people that think we spend dozens of hours of our time trying to improve the game... But don't care about the players and fans of it. What these people think we do this work for, or have these long discussions for, I have no idea. Maybe they think there's an evil-free-rpg branch of the Illuminati. All I do know is that whenever I hear these ludicrous statements, it makes me want to work on the game less.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:

Xel Unknown wrote:You know how some people might feel like the Devs just do whatever they feel like doing don't care anything about us the Players and fans of their system? The fact that you all seem to not want to come forward with us your "helpers" here on a huge issue like removal of ANYTHING in this system...

1) Read my above post please, in which I specifically agree that discussing these things with you all is a good idea.

2) I really couldn't care less about the conspiracy-theorist people that think we spend dozens of hours of our time trying to improve the game... But don't care about the players and fans of it. What these people think we do this work for, or have these long discussions for, I have no idea. Maybe they think there's an evil-free-rpg branch of the Illuminati. All I do know is that whenever I hear these ludicrous statements, it makes me want to work on the game less.

My apologizes... I guess I must've somehow missed that. Totally nat-1ed my sense check on reading today.

Also I am equally sorry about bring up that topic again.

No worries. It's cool.