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All the time.

2 (13.3%)

Sometimes.

9 (60%)

Only when there's a new release.

2 (13.3%)

Never. ((get out))

2 (13.3%)

Total Members Voted: 13

[Rolepgeek]

Kaotaro
-snip-

As for how it would work; I'd rather her have sort of a power-system, since she technology based, where she's continually getting MP, but she has to delegate where it goes and what it's used for. She would have some mana-capacitors, for emergency boosts to power, and there might be stuff she has to charge her MP up for/afterwards back up from, but that's the basics of it. Moves are interlinked with one another, so she has to use, say, Supercharge! a couple times before she can use X other move. Building up different pieces of equipment consumes 'MP' as maintenance of the construct, modes might begin draining her reserve supplies, etc.

Hey smurf

I respondededed.

[Kansa]

See, the problem is, when there are shittons of characters like this, it's pretty impossible to balance anyway if they're all there at once. Plan the encounters in advance, make them suitably challenging, fudge the rolls if necessary to help the story progress, and split the party. So much easier to deal with when they're by themselves.

Having multiple characters who can just come up for a battle is something I would change if I was in control and making encounters suitably challenging is difficult due to the reasons I pointed out above.

Splitting the party becomes impossible when there is no balance on what PCs can do.

[Empiricist]

I'll leave it to smurf, though generaly I am not thrilled by characters getting their own rules custom made. it's only more work for the GMs, harder to balance in regard to other characters, and generaly just a hassle. the more exceptions are made, the more people will want some too

You could always use Piecewise's "whack-a-mole" method where if it proves to be too unbalanced, the universe suddenly experiences something that negates the usefulness of it. Like the invention of something that can home in with great efficiency at changes in void essence to nullify the advantages of flea transformation. Or something happening in the void that alters and limits the ability to shapeshift, like how Nodoka's birth resulted in gates and limited Void-Creation traffic.

[smurfingtonthethird]

Kaotaro
-snip-

As for how it would work; I'd rather her have sort of a power-system, since she technology based, where she's continually getting MP, but she has to delegate where it goes and what it's used for. She would have some mana-capacitors, for emergency boosts to power, and there might be stuff she has to charge her MP up for/afterwards back up from, but that's the basics of it. Moves are interlinked with one another, so she has to use, say, Supercharge! a couple times before she can use X other move. Building up different pieces of equipment consumes 'MP' as maintenance of the construct, modes might begin draining her reserve supplies, etc.

Hey smurf

I respondededed.

It has to be balanced so that you aren't constantly pooping out mana. Mana regen is very, VERY overpowered.

I'll leave it to smurf, though generaly I am not thrilled by characters getting their own rules custom made. it's only more work for the GMs, harder to balance in regard to other characters, and generaly just a hassle. the more exceptions are made, the more people will want some too

You could always use Piecewise's "whack-a-mole" method where if it proves to be too unbalanced, the universe suddenly experiences something that negates the usefulness of it. Like the invention of something that can home in with great efficiency at changes in void essence to nullify the advantages of flea transformation. Or something happening in the void that alters and limits the ability to shapeshift, like how Nodoka's birth resulted in gates and limited Void-Creation traffic.

Yeah, I'm a fan of whack-a-mole too.

[Rolepgeek]

It's meant to be a fluid resource rather than a hard one, such that I have the same amount of Power to spend on various things every turn, but I can't have everything. Or something. The flat mana cost just seemed weird for things like creating magical constructs, and a continuous cost would cause her to run out really fast, even with 30+ some mana.

The inner quote is a link to her character sheet, though.

[Rolepgeek]

See, the problem is, when there are shittons of characters like this, it's pretty impossible to balance anyway if they're all there at once. Plan the encounters in advance, make them suitably challenging, fudge the rolls if necessary to help the story progress, and split the party. So much easier to deal with when they're by themselves.

Having multiple characters who can just come up for a battle is something I would change if I was in control and making encounters suitably challenging is difficult due to the reasons I pointed out above.

Splitting the party becomes impossible when there is no balance on what PCs can do.

I never said control every action the PCs make. You have to be subtle about it; it is by no means impossible. See what makes each character tick, play to that, call out the players if they try metagaming to get out of it.

And also, it's actually fairly easy to split the party by certain means if you really want to, regardless of balance. At least so long as they aren't balls shittingly powerful(which also doesn't make for a good story, just like supposedly perfect balance).

And again, tailor the encounter to the people who are supposed to be participating in it. A 20% difference in power isn't going to make it difficult to balance shit.

[smurfingtonthethird]

...Wait a minute, that's basically female Kaiser! Except Kaiser is a genetic aberration as opposed to someone in a mech suit. As long as your character isn't too OP, you're on a trial basis until I can gauge you abilities.

[Rolepgeek]

...Wait a minute, that's basically female Kaiser! Except Kaiser is a genetic aberration as opposed to someone in a mech suit. As long as your character isn't too OP, you're on a trial basis until I can gauge you abilities.

Cool. She's meant to have some incredibly powerful shit, but she has to focus on it for a couple turns to get there and can't keep it up for long ((Ex:One-Girl Artillery Batallion needs like three turns to charge up, and can be held for maybe two turns most of the time. Besides it rooting her in place without doing (much) for armor.)). The rest of it is meant to be meh. Some of her equipment that she builds will probably use magic for damage(as in most of it because it's all a techno/magical construct), too. But I think that would probably fall under Negligible or Small, in most cases. And most of her stuff is just using up a portion of her Power whilst active/attached.

Detached parts dissolve/disintegrate/fade over time, as the magical nano-fairies keeping it together die without a food source. Or something.

I'll balance her abilities compared to her power supplies later. Blah.

[Kansa]

I never said control every action the PCs make. You have to be subtle about it; it is by no means impossible. See what makes each character tick, play to that, call out the players if they try metagaming to get out of it.

And also, it's actually fairly easy to split the party by certain means if you really want to, regardless of balance. At least so long as they aren't balls shittingly powerful(which also doesn't make for a good story, just like supposedly perfect balance).

And again, tailor the encounter to the people who are supposed to be participating in it. A 20% difference in power isn't going to make it difficult to balance shit.

I never said that you did say that. Just that if I was running the game I would make it so that people with multiple characters can only use one in a battle.

All you need is a method of teleportation, then all attempts to split the party are completely in vain as they can just all bunch up together and fight as one no matter how hard you attempt to do it. Not every battle is going to be in a place where they have anti teleportation technology.

It is really difficult to tailor a battle to the people's strength who are supposed to be participating it when you don't know that in advance. There is little way to actually tell who will be competing in a battle before the battle actually starts and even then you will probably be taken by surprise by new people deciding that they want to fight the final boss as well.

The main reason we made V3 in the first place was exactly because of the lack of balance that had taken control in V2, I would rather that we not go back to that.

[Empiricist]

Or we could just add in some sort of cosmic entity that enforces balance that hammers people back into line as necessary so that people can't bitch about how there's no explanation for characters being rebalanced story-wise.

[Rolepgeek]

I never said control every action the PCs make. You have to be subtle about it; it is by no means impossible. See what makes each character tick, play to that, call out the players if they try metagaming to get out of it.

And also, it's actually fairly easy to split the party by certain means if you really want to, regardless of balance. At least so long as they aren't balls shittingly powerful(which also doesn't make for a good story, just like supposedly perfect balance).

And again, tailor the encounter to the people who are supposed to be participating in it. A 20% difference in power isn't going to make it difficult to balance shit.

I never said that you did say that. Just that if I was running the game I would make it so that people with multiple characters can only use one in a battle.

All you need is a method of teleportation, then all attempts to split the party are completely in vain as they can just all bunch up together and fight as one no matter how hard you attempt to do it. Not every battle is going to be in a place where they have anti teleportation technology.

It is really difficult to tailor a battle to the people's strength who are supposed to be participating it when you don't know that in advance. There is little way to actually tell who will be competing in a battle before the battle actually starts and even then you will probably be taken by surprise by new people deciding that they want to fight the final boss as well.

The main reason we made V3 in the first place was exactly because of the lack of balance that had taken control in V2, I would rather that we not go back to that.

To the first; I meant, if there's seven players with all seven characters there, it's hard to balance fights for that much stuff.

To the second; untrue. Why would they teleport there if they didn't know they were being attacked? Or simply run two fights simultaneously, make it an unwise decision to teleport, etc. etc. You can't just give up because they have an ability that makes your job tougher.

To the third; that depends on how well you incorporate and pace your plot to insure everyone is where they're supposed to be at the start of the fight.

I'm not saying that some amount of balance isn't a good thing, but there isn't much of a reason to have everyone weigh exactly the same on the power scale. Not least of which is because that's boring. Super-powered ambivalent entities that really don't give a shit one way or the other or can only help indirectly are often staples of high fantasy. Maybe not everyone's comfortable playing that, but that's why you can have multiple characters. If things are stacked against you, it's all the more satisfying when you tip the scales, ain't it?

[Rolepgeek]

Also, what's goin' on now/where are people doing things that could conceivably introduce them to new characters in non-facepalming ways?

[Empiricist]

I don't think anyone has tried having their character wander into an unrelated combat encounter and getting involved. That could work.

[smurfingtonthethird]

SERT, at the moment, is acting as a temporary 'fist of the GM', to help me balance fights where applicable. I'm trying to lessen their involvement in things.

I'm also pretty sure every fight so far in the game has set something far worse in motion, with maybe the exception of the nonsense in the outback. One of them will be very, very depressing. The other will lead to good old fashioned violence.

Easy way to introduce yourself... if you're young enough, you could be a student at Griffith, which gives you a few characters to meet. Otherwise, just go punch SERT in the face, and they'll dump you on one of the extant PCs, like how Marie got Talia.  Even though neither of them are one *shakes fist*

[Rolepgeek]

I had been wondering about the unrelated fight thing, if only something like the PCs arriving or noticing it and getting involved(seems less-facepalmy to be discovered, than to discover).

Griffith might be interested; a high school or college?