I've never used Stone Armor personally.  And you know I don't trust Defensey sets those due to my workbenchy ways.  Fire armor is a resist set.  I won't delve into CoX specific ramble.  Though I will say, form my casual gamer experience, that Regeneration with a side of light protection (and vs status) is low effort 'keeps you in the fight' WAAAAAY easier than 'resists nigh half of all damage but no regeneration'.
  I still don't trust 'you either take no damage if you're lucky, or get one shotted'. dodgery <.<

  I suppose your outlook on AC could apply to all four DnD defenses.  Though there seems to be a much heavier emphasis on Vs. Wills thrown around like candy for high end enemies.  AC as doesn't feel as relevant for the 'big' stuff.
  For the most part, the only thing AC will protect against are Melee basics, with the occasional non magical Ranged basic.

  Venca? Orcus? Zero vs AC attacks.  Though to my surprise Venca is one Vs Will and the rest are Vs Reflex... So.  Not only is 'I'm a fighter/paladin so I have good AC!' meaningless, so is Fort defense.
  Quick sum up of a stack of Big Name Gods, no Vs AC at all except for a basic melee(with extras).
  They got Vanca, Lolth, Bahamut and Orcus.  But no Entry for say, Kord or Bane or Grummsh.  I would imagine if they did, they would have a surprising abundance of not vs AC 'weapon' attacks ;D

  Meanwhile, Ye Fighter is with only a few exceptions, nothing BUT vs AC.  And even the high end enemies of Squishy Wizardlyness will have AC that makes yours look like a Joke, if your bathrobe wearing Party members haven't done that already. Yeah,  get what you were trying to go for, but still had the burning need to point out 'AC is basically a Joke defense in the end for PC's. Relevant NPC's will still get AC high enough to deal with Weapon people.'

---

  On to some attempts at practicality.  The 'this is the mechanic, same for everyone.  apply looks as desired' is always a good thing.  One of the good points (in theory listed) of HERO.  It can gets tricky when element compared to physical damages start getting involved on some level.  Best to keep things simple as possible for what 'kinds' of damage there are.

  I'm still unsure what 'harder to kill' method would be 'best' to identify a character as a 'tank' type in the mechanical sense.  'Harder to hit' can be a joke if the bit of you that's hard to hit is never around (part of my obsession with balanced defenses + quirky methods protection. for all my issues and flaws compared to the min/maxers, the GM's of Champions mush had no option to take me down but raw, unbalanced FIREPOWER that would have vaporized their lv 30 equivalent GMPC's if it hit them... I got so good at that mindset it's why they GM opinion shot down my ninja speed, normal damage tank).
  Meanwhile, having good damage resistance can still lead you just getting hammered by guns brought out to hurt the tanks.  Which reduce non tanks to a fine mist.

  And with TRUMP/etc Defenses where Damage and hit are the same thing and your only hit with the leftover numbers... Well, refer to the stomping of the party tanks in Metro. 25/25 defenses, hit for 34ish damage.  That needed an attack total of 59.  The high points of offense +(Doc Occult and Dirt Demon) are +25's Trumped.  IG is +16 Trumped.  If that bug had +25 offense total, Drawing three kings (assuming trump and lucking out in a suit bonus) still wouldn't be enough to cause that much damage. Aces are 1's, Jokers are 0s.  This means it was physically impossible to do that much damage unless the boss bug had better Ability+Skill than the best of the PC's. Even if the "Drew really well".
  I'm gonna point that out next time they ask about combat balance in that game or say 'oh, we just drew REALLY well'.

  One point, which will be tricky but also important.  Tanks vs Tanks.  Their capabilities need to land at a point where they are strong enough to actual do damage, or otherwise inconvenience eachother.
  Otherwise, you'd just have Tanks ignoring any and all attempts at drawing aggro by Tanks.  Oh, your SS/WP tank is Jabbing the Mechwalker? That's nice, I'll just goosh your teamates while I ignore you now.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:30, Wed 02 Mar 2011.

Many good points.

-No single enemy should ever have the firepower to 1-shot the glass cannon PC, much less the TANK!
-Tanks should be able to do good enough damage to matter.  I'm reminded of a Star Wars Minis fight I once played.  Yzong Vong boss tank guy vs another Yzong Vong boss tank guy.  They punched and punched and punched.  HP hardly ever budged.  Opponent player: "Screw this.  You win.  I don't care.  This is boring.  It's like they're fighting with feather dusters!"
-Never build into a game system a defense score that doesn't matter.

I approve of all these points.

One thing I disapprove of as far as game systems go is the "spike damage" concept of criticals / trump draws / extra dice with 6 on the wild.  No game should allow you to blow up the death star with a blaster pistol.  So criticals are out.

One system I'm thinking of is "wounds" where you have 3 "wounds" you can take, but you can receive no more than 1 wound in a round ever.  A damage loss cap if you will.

As an example: The "superminions" from Dark Visions.  Didn't matter if you critted or did a million damage to them, they still take 2 hits to take out.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:57, Wed 02 Mar 2011.

Tim: "No point to striker types then"
Chris: "This is an *exaggerated* example."

Conversation ensues, I don't remember it readily enough to type it while distracted by TV, but suffice it to say, I'm posting this to keep Joe from wasting his breath on that particular argument.

A couple of options came up.  One was an ouch "cap" meaning "after taking 25 hp damage, you become invulnerable for the remainder of the round."  This means if two slayer type monsters are gunning for you, and one does 20hp damage to you, the other can do at most 5 damage, no matter how well he rolls.  By way of reminder, nothing says monsters have to have all the fancy powers that PCs do.  (Example, most lvl 2+ monsters don't do +1d6 damage on a critical like most lvl 2+ PCs do)

Another idea was inspired by the deathpledged gnoll:

Claws of Yeenoghu (healing)  Encounter

Trigger: The gnoll first drops to 0 hit points.

Effect (No Action): The gnoll regains 5 hit points, gains 1 action point, and gains resist 15 to all damage. At the end of its next turn, the gnoll drops to 0 hit points.

Last monster in the fight got a moment of glory.  The entire party focusing fire on this bad boy, but the most we could do is 3 damage.  Of course it's counter attack missed just before it dropped, but the point was still made.  A mechanic that nearly guaranteed that this gnoll cannot be 1-shotted.

Another option considered was: normal hp mechanics till a person would be dropped to 0 hp.  Once per encounter, if an attack would take a player to 0 hp or fewer, the player will instead be at 1 hp.  This gives them the chance to pull a Terdisas.

There's probably other ways of dealing with the issue, such as simply giving players so much HP that there's no way they can be 1-shotted.  (Standard FS in Trump is way too few.)  Just need to decide which would be the most fun.  Player's choice?  Build all of the above into the mechanic?  Get 1 of the above by spending a feat on it?

What does "easy" mean?  Here's a scenario that came to mind.

Jim is a high school grad that lives on his own.  He didn't to well in algebra, but he aced P.E.  He enjoys hanging out with friends, watching basketball.  Well he also has a guilty pleasure: anime.  His buddies think anime is dumb.  Especially stuff like Totoro.  And tonight at the same time as the Celtics vs the Tarheels game is the cartoon network's showing of Totoro.  Fortunately, his buddies invited him over for the game, so he can record the anime at home.  But he's never actually programmed the darn thing.  He gets home at 5:30 and the game starts at 6.  He's got 20 minutes if he doesn't want to miss tip-off.

DC challenge: 6.

Jim has an INT score of 10 (+0 mod) has no training in VCR programming.  Problem is, this isn't D&D, and he's rolling a d6.  So he has a 1 in 6 chance of success.  Time to read the manual.

It's a VCR manual.  It may be slightly helpful, but... it's a VCR manual.  After 5 minutes of skimming, he's now got a temporary +1 bonus, doubling his chances to 1 in 3.

Each attempt costs him 5 minutes of time.  For each attempt, he gains an additional +1 bonus for a maximum of +3.  Decent chances of success, but judging from the frustration people brag, a 50/50 chance for a first timer in a hurry after only 2 previous tries is generous.

Someone with previous experience would have a +5 mod.  Meaning it's impossible for them to fail.  Even in a rush.  So is a DC 6 considered "very easy?" "easy?" "moderate?" or "hard?"  Depends on who you ask.

We want a simple game system. Simple will mean less realistic. Period. More realistic will mean complicated game mechanics. Period.

For VCR Jim, VCR is not easy. Period. Therefor the DC should be high for him.

Chris believes thus: Joe believes "easy" means "guaranteed success."

Here's another example, but from my own personal experience: Singing skill.

My mom has an *average* singing voice. Meaning she sings on key well enough for people to not wince, but not awesome enough for people to say "wow, you can sing". However, her ability to pick up on a song is also what I suspect is average. Meaning, she has to hear a song about two dozen times before she can START to sing it correctly.

Me? I sing well enough, that people actually demand to hear me sing, invite me to the choir, tell me "i hate you" because of jealousy. My ability to pick up on a song is pretty good. I hear a song not even once and can pick up on it mid-song. Lyrical memorization is hard for me, though. (My friend Josh could memorize lyrics after hearing them once. But his singing is below par to an almost annoying level.)

I can go to choir practice once and if the song is an easy one, I'm ready to sing it. Choir songs are more difficult than most songs, though, because you have to harmonize, learn your part while hearing other people learn their parts.

Given the above info, here is a real example of testing said skills. I ask my mom to sing a line from "Still Alive" from the game Portal. The line is "And the science gets done and you make a neat gun for the people who are still alive."

All I wanted my mom to do was sing that line. Just that single line. It took a dozen takes for her to sing it. And that's AFTER I went over it with her a few times. She kept singing it wrong, forgetting words, etc. Not ragging on my mom, but it goes to show how things go in real life. To me, I thought it such an easy thing to do that I thought just about anyone with a tolerable voice could do it with little to no practice.

Easy is not auto-success. People in real life after a lifetime of walking still trip over their own feet.

"But this is a game. Not real life." That's true. But when we are talking about "Succeeds picking a moderate lock every time without so much as a dice roll", we are entering the realm of "why is there a DC at all?" Why bother calling it moderate or even call it easy? Why not just call it unlocked?

I know the feeling. I would like Emerald to auto-succeed in stealing the watch off someone's wrist whenever she feels like it. But sadly, that enters the realm of auto posing. Which is what these stats are for, isn't it? What if Eli HAD won that fight with Mittens by simply putting her to sleep?

When Emerald stole Mittens' sword from her while she was busy threatening Bridget's life, I pointed to my thievery check and the fact I even picked up the "Fast Hands" power to reflect Emerald's awesome thieving skills. But even though my skill would have defeated Mittens' perception easily, and with a take-ten would have defeated an epic tier DC. Yet, after the fact, Chris says something to the effect of "technically, by the rules of "no pvp without consent", I could have had Mittens notice and keep Emerald from doing that." Which initially pissed me off to no end because to me it was like saying "technically, Mittens could withstand a punch from Unicron if Unicron was a player character", but he was right. At any point, I could have had my characters NOT fight. But RP didn't let me prevent them.

But that's PvP. What about Player v GM? The reason for dice and mechanics is to allow auto-posing. "My character kicks the butt of an army of ninjas" *roll dice* "....or not."

So what counts as "easy"? In my estimation, here is what should happen:

Emerald is hit with a poison that takes an "easy" DC 6 to get over it. Emerald takes 10. Doesn't matter that her skill is 0, that will cure her. But she needs time to rest to do this.

Next example: Emerald is in combat! Her bluff skill is 7, but it takes a DC 10 to gain combat advantage. She can't take-ten. So she rolls the d20. It comes up 2. She didn't succeed. Sorry about her luck. It was not really an "easy" check, partly because it's in combat and partly because Emmy didn't specialize in that skill. But outside combat, Emmy could pull some nice bluffing.

To summarize, in my opinion, "under 10" IS easy since you can do it without fail as long as you aren't mid-battle.

Always able to do, no matter what the circumstances means you are AWESOME at what you do. Yet Chris gets the impression from Will that anything less than AWESOME is "a retard who can't tie his shoes". How you two deal with that is up to you. I have spammed this post way more than I should have.

  Yeeaaaah.  But 'easy' is WAY more wonky in TRUMP than DND.
According to trump, Easy is '10'.  10 is also MAX HUMAN Ability. you would need to be the smartest of Humanity to be guaranteed to figure out something 'easy' from smarts alone.  And easy is the second tick on their difficulry chart (below that being Trivial.  Requiring 5 Ability for guarantee, when 2 is average human.)  'average' is 15. Challenging is 20.

  So, we have come to something actually considred a 'challenge'.  To be guaranteed on a challenge you either need twice the Ability of Max Human, or be Max Human plus over twice 'average training' in the relevant skill. 'best in the planet' skill is listed as 20.  Hmmmm, 4 is average training, 20 it best in planet. and 15 is 'average' DC?
  25 is Difficult. 30 is extremely difficult.  You were already in the realms of Hypercompetenc acording to stats way back at 'average'.

  Incidentally? 'superhuman' is 40.  You enter 'superhuman' with an ability of 11... but no, you need to be Four times 'max human' to qualify for that kid of challenge on ability.

  DnD it's a bit more clear cut with 'easy/medium/hard'.  Ignoring my oft ranted about scaling with level situation/mismatched DC to level stuff (lol, High paragon DC's on a level 2 trap).  That's WAY more clear cut, and it's more clears its for 'challenges'.

  My more vauge outlook there is like this.
  Easy: someone untrained has good odds, Party will not be screwed if nobody picked up the training or has a high enough relevant stat'.
  Medium: someone with training or equivalent relevant stat has good odds'
  Hard: Someone with training on top of natural ability should have good odds.  This can fall apart with less 'active' skills.  High Dexterity along with high acro to cross that wire thin tightrope? duh.
  ...But to find there is an intelligence barrier to how much of a Monster Manual your character could have read?  Doesn't seem as reasonable.
  Tim gave a good example as well.  7 on a d20 when in a rush for something 'easy' you are not trained in?  Yes, that is easy.

  TRUMP 'easy' IS assuming training, in this case a relevant 'trump' bonus that lets you 'roll' two d13's instead of a single one.
  Remember 'normal' human is 2 stat, 'normal training' is 4 skill.  Even when you are twice the ability of an average human on top of average training, you STILL can't autosucceed an 'easy' challenge. Or, you could auto 'easy' if you were an average human with twice the average training...

  So yes. to me, 'Easy' does NOT mean 'stacks of requirements to pull off'  When 'Easy' requires you to be have extensive training, it makes any higher DC even more outlandish.
  And TRUMP is a leveleless, improvements cost craploads due to multipliers game.  Your 'best' skills Stats will rarely to never see improvement because of the cost (22 CP for Emmy to raise her Spades by 1)

  You also get further sidelined by the many and varied 'it doesn't matter how high your ability is, you can't do this.'.  Every time my Rogues/Hackers in video games come across Doors or Hacking bit that pops up 'you need a key to open this. A key an illiterate barbarian could get', I figure the IC rouge/hacker would want to stab the nearest person.
  Yes, I get that 'plot locks' are there so you don't find yourself unable to continue the game if you didn't make a rogue/don't have one in a party.  But when all Lockpicking does is make it so you can get a few extra common items to sell for change, and maybe a Rogue specific sidequest or two if you are lucky, it makes you wonder why you bothered.

  So yes, while I may obsess over 'competence' in my characters, You will never see me getting something like 'skill focus' (Matt's +per/insight feat I got because it lets me use Wisdom for initiative), because if you can't handle lockpicking as a Dex primary with Thievery training, you're never going to be able to handle it no matter how many feats or BG bonuses you cram in.

  My 'you are a retard who cant tie his shoes' outlooks are from the frequent, ala Trump fact that if you are the best in the planet, you will still fail something considered 'Medium/average'.
  An ace Rouge isn't an ace Rogue at all, if they are only able to accomplish Rogue things because they have bountiful magic Bling and a stack of 'raise my basic competence plz' feats.
  You ARE awesome.  But awesome isn't enough to succeed in anything significant.

  I can never find the 'New DC's chart' in the DnD articles archive.  But I know for a fact that it's endgame DC's were MUCH higher than the ones listed in the GM's guide's origional, +5 higher than what Errata says they should be numbers.
  Someone with a starting Int of 20, with Training in Arcana, at LV 30 ends up with ah +29 Arcana...  That will FAIL a take-ten against Origional 'medium' DC.  In the earlier Errata'd down DC? Medium is 28... So being 20 Base stat + training only BARELY let's you take-10 a Medium.

  And now hard DC's are higher than Origional 'whoops, too high' GM guide listings.  So, once more... Being the best in goddamned mortal existence Is only good enough to take ten something 'easy'.

  That is not *censored* easy. You are not a retard who can't tie his own shoes', you are the best across multiple planes of existence.  And you still don't cut it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:03, Fri 04 Mar 2011.

This touches again on my facepalm regarding houseplants having a 5 in 20 chance of being able to tightrope walk, bash down a door, unlock a treasure chest, etc.  The d-20 just leaves WAY too much to chance regarding skills in my opinion.  The d-20 would make a little more sense to me if PC skill modifiers STARTED at 20.  Meaning at best, luck is equally important as skill.

Back to the topic at hand.  To be clear, it is critically important to define "easy" "medium" and "hard" in terms of "compared to what?"  I'm thinking of defining everything in terms of "compared to a couch potato."  Because a couch potato can tie his own shoes.  Can fix a sandwitch.  Can change a lightbulb.  An innumerable stack of challenges that are so mundane for him that he has a 1 in a million chance of failing.  That seems like a good starting point for defining "Trivial."  If a couch potato can do it no prob, it's trivial.  No roll needed.  No mechanic needed to represent that 1 in a million chance of failing.

Dice and skill mods only need to come into play when there's a significant chance of failure.  Russian roulette would be a good starting point.  1 in 6 chance of blowing your brains out.  A significant chance.  Challenges that are this likely should be given DC 2.  You have to roll under a 2 to fail.

And on up the scale of silly impossible, being sure that such words as "moderate" aren't given to challenges like "juggling flaming sharks while tightrope walking in a hurricane."

The simplicity of the game system should be reflected in the lack of in-game math necessary to move from round 1 to round 2.  I've no problem with lots of game creation headscratching to arrive at that point.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:52, Fri 04 Mar 2011.

Made up my mind to make the game system based off 2d6.
The following are the probabilities of getting a result "or better" on 2d6
2: 100.00%
3: 97.22%
4: 91.67%
5: 83.33%
6: 72.22%
7: 58.33%
8: 41.67%
9: 27.78%
10: 16.67%
11: 8.33%
12: 2.78%

Based on this, I want to make a DC table that reflects how likely it is to succeed with a raw, untrained, untalented person relying entirely on luck to accomplish some task.

A thought occurred to me on a simple method to set DC challenges that are so astronomically impossible, that they'd be appropriate for those ridiculous flights of fancy from players such as "I blow up the Death Star with my blaster pistol fired from Endor."

DM: "Ok.  Simply roll a 12 on your 2d6 seven times in a row."

Chances of succeeding that is one in 78 billion.  For slightly more likely feats like killing a dragon with a can of peaches thrown at his head, roll 12 six times in a row.  A chance of one in 2 billion.  So on.

Believe it or not, a GM allowed the killing of a dragon with a can of peaches on a crit on a d-20.  Makes for an amusing story, sure, but...  I'm not in favor of allowing nigh impossible things happen on a mere 1 in 20 chance.

  I can understand 'you succeed vs the unwinnable' being disallowed.  Just so long as you don't have to suffer spectacular failures either.  "You botched your Perception Check.  You are blinded"  "What? Why?"  "Uh, I don't know. Maybe you had an aneurysm or something?"

  I'm less personally familiar with 2d6 based percentile chart styles, but could work?  So long as you don't go the opposite direction of 'juggling chainsaw sharks is moderate' and make every effing thing higher than your established 'chart' for what players should deal with at their level range.  And not based entirely on if someone has a 'Trump' skill or Skill Focus Feats+max stat+item bonus.
  Things keep getting listed as 'harder than hard'.  Apparently regardless of System.

  Yeah, as usual, Don't make a DC chart only to use is as a basis of 'how much HIGHER than the chart should I make this?'.  Even if the default chart is full of impossible to pull off unless you dedicate your whole existence to it DC's, if it remained consistent that's still make it a better System than 'We listed these passable DC's but decided to ignore it'.

  And this isn't even going into expectations of Setting or character potential.  Metro is a SUPER HERO game...  And being well past 'peak human' means you are only safely capable of 'Average'.  While the Average Human doesn't even have the basic built in Statistics to pull of 'Trivial' on ability alone.
  Something a touch wrong when Wombatgirl can't pull off Batgirl acrobatics, and Charles Atlas Plus can't lift barbells according to DC listings.

Yea crit fails are definitely out.  The whole reason for 2d6 instead of a, say, d12 is the probability for getting "average" results is far greater than getting "super bad" or "super good" results.  But a roll of 2 on 2d6 perception I agree shouldn't blind you.  And it shouldn't mean you miss the firetruck with sirens and flashing lights about to run you over.  A roll of 2 with no modifiers simply means that you do "as un-spectacular as possible."  Example: a kid makes an ash tray out of clay.  Rolls a 2.  Result: the ash tray looks like it was made by a kid!  *GASP!*  But if said kid rolled a 12, the ash tray wouldn't look like it was made by Michaelangelo either.  Rather, it'd be as good as an untrained kid could possibly be expected to do.  Maybe even looks like it was made by an adult with some skill.

In other words, I don't want the difference between 2 and 12 to be the difference between cripple village idiot results and god-like results like the difference between 1 and 20 is in the D&D world.  "A 20 always hits" bothers me.  It means that if you were to get enough fairies to throw peas at a dragon, the dragon would die of blunt force trauma.  >.>

Ok so for a couch potato to pick up a bow and shoot at a target 30 yards away...

A roll of 2 misses the target entirely.
3: hits the edge of the target.
4: hits the outer ring.
5-11: hits rings increasingly close to the center.
12: bulls-eye!

An Olympic archer steps up and fires.

A roll of 12 is obviously a bulls-eye.
A roll of 11 probably bulls-eye too.
Considering that 30 yards is considered one of the easiest possible targets, what kind of roll would he have to roll to not hit a bulls-eye?  WOULD a 2 be a not bulls-eye?  Would we expect a skilled archer to hit the center 99 times out of 100?

How far would the target have to be before he starts missing the target entirely?

What if Robin Hood or some other legendarily accurate archer were to compete?

Maybe the "cap" is the guy's skill level. So if he has a skill of, say, 5, then he can miss on a roll of 5 or lower? Obviously, that wouldn't be the final rule, but the idea being that the skill doesn't add to your roll, just shows what your roll results would dictate.

Mini rant about game system getting in the way of fun.

d6 space.  Team of PCs vs badguy dark jedi and his minions.  Tim's character in the first round rolls his to-hit roll.  Hits!  Then he rolls damage.  Not enough to damage to get through the badguy's damage resist roll.  20 or so minutes later, it's Tim's turn again.  Same thing happens.  20 or so minutes later, it's Tim's turn again.  Same thing happens.  AGAIN.  By then, the rest of the team takes out the badguy.  Tim's character may as well not have been in the fight at all.

Ordinarily, in the d6 system, if you roll 6 on your wild dice, you get an extra wild dice.  Roll 6 again, and you get yet another.  And so on.  Till theoretically, if you're lucky enough, you can destroy the death star with a blaster pistol.  Roll a 1 on the wild, and the GM decides whether you shot an ally, your gun blew up, or simply take the next highest dice out of your roll.

So the philosophy is to punish you MORE if you're already unlucky, and reward you MORE if you're already lucky!

AAAARRG!

I want to reverse this philosophy.  Where if you miss the bad guy, your next roll gets bonus dice.  It's very cinematic if you think about it.  Protagonists only go on a missing streak to build up to a super awesome attack.

[Team] Lucky Kitten: in an ideal game system, two players with identical characters...
[Team] Lucky Kitten: one player is a lucky player and rolls well often.
[Team] Lucky Kitten: the other notsomuch.
[Team] Kyle Crookes: Well, in that case you can only blame the unfeeling dice.  so while it sucks for player B, well, it sucks for playe rB
[Team] Lucky Kitten: how much more damage should the lucky player deal than the unlucky one.  expresed as a percentage
[Team] Kyle Crookes: if you WERE going to instal some sort of 'mercy' bonus, it would have to have a decnet enough delay to not just make a case of 'we'll just spam low to hit attacks to build up a bonus'
[Team] Lucky Kitten: should the spread between the unlucky player and lucky player be HUGE like it is in DnD?  or less huge.
[Team] Lucky Kitten: well... assuming there's no goodies built in for unlucky players yet
[Team] Kyle Crookes: honestly cant say.  hits should matter, so if 'oh, I missed, whatever' is a factor then clearly hitting isnt that great
[Team] Kyle Crookes: *minimizes so he can edit map without it wonking out*
[Team] Kyle Crookes: and opening muck
[Team] Lucky Kitten: your take, tim?
[Team] Shelly Urser: For an entirely new system or for modifying DnD?
[Team] Lucky Kitten: new system
[Team] Lucky Kitten: the "six knuckle" system
[Team] Shelly Urser: I've always been a strong supporter of "bad luck dice rolls man should not be punished for being born"
[Team] Shelly Urser: Our friend JD has horrid rolls. Maybe hits 10% of the time. Doesn't matter the game, it always happens (even a game where the lower the number, the better, he winds up rolling high). This means he is punished for being born.
[Team] Shelly Urser: This should not be
Joe says, "if we were cloning DnD, I'd say 'second miss, +1 to at-wills.  third miss, +2 at will +1 encounter.    fourth miss. +3 at will +2 encounter +1 day'"
Lucky says, "i also don't want unlucky player to feel like they may as well not even play because in 10 rounds they did 0 damage."
Shelly says, "My opinion is that Unlucky player should deal 100 dmg and Lucky player should deal 100 dmg."
Shelly says, "If you are lucky in life, fine. You pick up a $10 bill at random off the street once a week. Life is good. If you are an unlucky person, you drop your eggs onto the floor at least once a week and frequently stub your toe. That's all fine and good. Real life is not in anyone's control. But a game IS. And is meant to be fun, an escape from reality. When having fun, people shouldn't be punished for being the wrong race, the wrong gender, or the wrong level of luck. To allow bad luck to punish a player is similar to saying "you take a -10 penalty to your rolls because you're black" because unlucky people are just BORN that way."
Lucky says, "interesting"
Joe says, "This is ironically part of why I usually use 'human or bust'.  Could I please pretend being human is awesome?  I get enough 'humananity sux!' opinions heard in RL,  don't need to hear it from people pretending to be 'better' species."

Shelly says, "I am unsure if my love of auto-hit powers is purely from the "otherwise there is a chance to miss" factor. So if I played a game where I hit all the time, I don't know if that alone would make it more fun. But in my experience with Champs, I remember enjoying the auto-hits despite enemies getting the same privilage. Conversely, when I miss in CoX, no big deal until it's a "miss 4-5 times in a row" streak. So I have a very interesting idea out of nowhere..."
Shelly asks, "Namely imagine this: I auto-hit with Magic Missile. But in this game ANY power is autohit. My next turn comes up. I am not allowed to use magic missile because I used it last turn. So I use, I dunno, Cloud of Daggers. Now, next turn, I can use Magic Missile, but not Cloud of daggers. Catch my drift?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:38, Thu 18 Aug 2011.

Writing down brainstormed ideas list
-Dice decide powers available in a turn.  Con: less strategy.
-Each miss increases chance to hit.  Con: still a to-hit mechanic.
-In a system where you normally auto-hit, the player can choose to allow their attack to miss in exchange for extra character points / mechanical reward of some kind.  (perhaps a separate point pool that can later be used in combat like in dresden system)
-Fighting Spirit as a way to deal with critical existence failure.
-JD acting out being poisoned as a great example of bad stuff happening to character being a huge part of the fun in RP.
-d6 has wound levels where you take penalties after certain amounts of damage are dealt to your character.  perhaps better would be a system where said penalties are voluntary, but you gain a cp or something as a reward for taking said penalties.
-or, in order to resist status effects like stun, you can spend a cp (emulate inspiration) or have a class ability like defiance.
-perhaps encourage an NPC tag-along that doesn't get PC percs to contrast how good the PCs have it.
-perhaps system designed so PCs auto hit, but monsters have to roll to-hit.
-contrast the frequency of missing in CoX to the frequency in DnD (no matter how much you min-max)
-subtract your level from enemy level, that's your DC to-hit.
-BESM's weapon attack: a system for building a custom power.  the more damage, the more expensive the power.  also costly: aoe, doesn't target allies, immob, hold, stun, ongoing damage, short "animation time," save ends.  defects: interrupt-able, deflect-able.
-things that call for to-hit mechanic: called shot, high distance attack.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:43, Fri 19 Aug 2011.

Thoughts on redundancy.

Tim's character Raichel is a paragon level monk/sorc.  Striker/striker hybrid.  Does good damage.  My character Mittens is a paragon level mage.  Pyromancer not that it makes much difference.  Mittens does more mod damage than Rai and has much bigger blasts.  The other striker in the team, a warlock, does less damage than Rai.  So damage wise, Mits the mage is pulling most of the team's weight.  Kersploding several monsters for monsterous damage every turn.

When working on AUSA characters, I started comparing the many different kinds of defenders, leaders, strikers, and controllers.  Especially at-will powers.  One common thread among defenders was an at-will that grants the character THP.  One thread among leaders is an at-will that grants a save throw with other powers that buff allies.  Among strikers, similarities began to break down, but usually the idea was to do approximately 4 more damage to a single target than a defender or leader.  Controllers, of course, deal about 5 damage less than a striker to a single target, but they have multi target capability.  If they hit 2 targets, they're at least on par with a striker in damage, if not already better.  3 targets, and they're outclassing strikers without even trying.  And on top of that, tend to have extras built in that enfeeble foes.

So that lead to thoughts about redundancy.  Enfeeble foes?  That's more or less the same as buffing allies.  A -2 to foe attacks is the same as a +2 to all allies defenses.  And buffing allies is what leaders are supposed to do.

Defender: Survival, keep enemies off allies.
Leader: Heal allies, buff / enfeeble.
Striker: Deal about 50% more single target damage than defender.
Controller: Multi-target, dishing out about 100%+ more damage than a defender.  Also buff/enfeeble.  Also can be built to have defender like survival.

Of course, any build can dip into other roles, but... Redundancy.  This is, of course, just looking at at-wills, but still.  With the value of "keep it simple, stupid" in mind, I've decided that for AUSA anyway, I won't even give players the option to pick controller.  Instead, I'll have a Striker that can multitarget.  Ranger with twin strike, for example.  That way there won't be a possibility of a wizard racking up 100 damage in one round while the striker only did 33 on a crit.

But regarding building a game system from scratch, I want to avoid overmuch role overlap.  For example, if I were the one building the 'Ruin Staff' I would make it a "Sorcerer's Staff" and have the Property: Can only be used by a pure sorcerer.  Or something to that effect.  There will be a class for defending, dealing damage, and team support.  The damage dealer class will be the one that can do multitarget damage.  Defenders and team supporters will only mult-target with effects, not damage.

...Yes... Yes it Does make a difference.  A) Mage, so THREE At-Wills without being Human (And being a Mage, you get the entire wizard power selection to choose from instead of usual stock essentials class powers).  B) Damage bonus to Fire along with not having to worry about enemy fire protections.

  No Pyromancer is going to take the soft control powers.  Also, The Raichel that you are comparing her to is a Hybrid.  Pure Sorcerer, or at least picking the AREA Sorcerer powers for your hybrid picks would outdamage even a Pyromancer by a LOT, especially at later levels.  Secondary Mod+2 at lv 11, and Secondary Mod+4 at lv 21 for Sorc Bonus DMG (compared to flat +1 per tier bonus), plus they will ignore preferred element resistance of a good enough number to get by unless it's broken amounts of resistance.

  This isnt to say pure control with low 'damage' cant do some crazy stuff.  Just look at lv 2 Mage Shale.  But then, thats heavily because Enemy Melee Basics are broken.

  As for Warlocks, they seem to suffer a same situation as Corrupters.  They get listed as ranged damage, but are really 'sorta ranged damage but you have a bigger focus on effects'.  you can do some crazy things with a Warlock, but thats mostly CHA/Charm locks.  Ye Old Infernal 'meant for Blasting and damage' is indeed lackluster there.

  Also, if YOU are the ones writing a character sheet for other people to use at a Con, then give the controllers low damage controller powers then like Beguiling Strands (close blast 5 vs enemies, INT mod DMG, push 5).  Emphasize the 'control' over the damage.  If you hand someone a controller that outperforms the Strikers, well, YOU BUILT IT THAT WAY.

  Calling a Pyromancer a Controller, and saying it makes no difference that it's a pyromancer mage us dumb.  But the sort of dumb of 'It says Corrupters are a ranged damage focus so that means I do big damage! *does laughable damage, and overkills when one more attack would finish an enemy regardless.  More teammates scream for their speed boost and other ally buffs.*'

  Don't do 'pure sorc only' items for things like staff of ruin and such.  That's bad.  Just look at those 'Druid only gloves of +1d10 Damage when target grants CA when in beast form. by the way, we have a beast form that makes multiple enemies grant CA'.  though yes, that IS more of the trend of 'Controller labeled classes getting damage buffs above strikers'.

  If your 'role' based class thing goes through, then having a damage buff item ONLY for the 'already does most damage' class would make things even more crazy.

EDIT: Tim: I agree that saying being pyromancer makes no difference is dumb.  But you shouldn't have said Chris was stupid.
me: ...you just agreed with what I said was dumb though, the kind of dumb a game tricks you into like corrupters=Damage. what gives?
Tim: Oh, I never actually read the post. Chris just told me about it.
me: *fist through wall*
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:41, Fri 04 Nov 2011.

So you didn't get to the part where botching casting magic lowers your stats, and anything stronger than "candle flame/baby Strength/Self Range" is non instant, 1 turn cast is "Hearth/Weak Adult/Tough range", etc.

The actual casting process, as you complain, falls victim to vague and samey wording pile leaving you scratching your head what effects what, only being sure "If you fail, multiple stat damage".  I am still hazy on just what a fetish even IS (totem item? I vaguely recall the term for such used in old shadowrun book I had)

skipped that part, yeah.  go figure.  >.>

I remember the magic system was the one thing Liz said she didn't care for.

Liz: "but there was a separate thing released that makes changes to the magic system."

Byron: "Yeah. And they were changes you and I would have made anyway, so we figured we'd just go with that."

Liz: "But we don't need to worry about magic for now."

Or something like that. Also remember Liz saying it felt like the guy who wrote this really didn't care much about magic and just kinda threw rules for it in there as an afterthought.

I know it, I know it! Wait, you already said what it is:( Yeah a fetish would be a totem item, though I've also seen them be things like voodoo dolls.