going point by point through your last two spoilers here.
Thank you! I appreciate the detailed response. Though, in the future, it would be really nice if you could quote what you're responding to, similar to what I'm doing here. It makes the conversation easier to follow, and makes it less daunting, at least for me. '-.-
magic stamina involves one's ability to repeatedly use ones magical ability. Will is one's strength of character. the two are not identical in use or in effect. I would require hard or medium hard numbers in order to remain consistent in how magic stamina played out. without them, I would easily over and underestimate the amount of stamina a character had left at any given time. Unless you have a better idea. I agree that it is probably an unnecessary stat though.
I believe this is really just semantics. We've discussed how Dar's Will affects how much mana he has left, and how tired using magic leaves him. I'm pretty sure Egan just meant to add a skill that acts identically to how will currently acts in that particular respect, and felt that 'stamina' described it adequately. The name is really irrelevant--the suggestion was to move that function from stats to skills.
(Though, yeah, this topic is likely pointless, as neither of us think it's a good skill to add.)
body size does govern melee, whether it is implicit or explicit. making it explicit eliminates confusion.
Or adds confusion. Take, for instance, the fact that Dar has -1 or -2 "body size", yet he's more a more effective combatant than many full-sized characters. Yes, body size does affect things, but it affects things
less than many other skills--and adding it as a skill necessarily implies it's equivalent to the others.
Additionally, a small size isn't entirely a penalty. You might note that out of all my characters, Dar is the largest one, and every one of them has good magic. Partially, that's because I happen to like character concepts that necessitate small size, but it's also because the benefits of a small size can outweigh the penalties. Making size grant additional stat or skill points would essentially be giving bonus skill points to characters who would be making use of small size benefits anyway.
A human with the same spells as Noir would not be a half dragongodling. They would be a human. Just like Aylia is not as powerful as reggie, though reggie could not tap into that power all that much before he succumbed.
Theoretically, yes. In practice? Most of the benefits Reggie or Noir gained over a 'normal' lookalike were more fluff than crunch. A clever player could play a wizard with heal/darkblast/flight about as effectively as they could play Noir. The difference is that Noir has more interesting reasons for having the spells than a wizard who researched them. A uniqueness stat penalizes that, saying that if you want to have a particularly interesting backstory, you must take penalties.
Dar is a talking cat. That would gain uniqueness over a human druid who just wildshaped into cat form semi-permanently, yes? It certainly wouldn't be less powerful, I don't think.
I did understand that the discussion was primarily about the skill system and ubiquitousness and power of magic. I simply expanded that conversation, based on a) my original intention and expectations of the game, and b) some other comments that you guys have made over the course of the year and a half the game has been running. there is nothing wrong with that.
Sure. In hindsight, I overreacted a bit--it felt like you were just ignoring all the stuff we were talking about as irrelevant, while saying this
other stuff was important. Yeah, I was reading behind the lines a lot there--sorry for that.
Reducing melee to one stat is a reasonable idea. As is splitting magic into multiple. If the number of skills equals out, great. otherwise, I feel it would be wise to also edit the stats, so that we do not have one leveling scheme for skills and one for stats.
Frankly, I don't understand the reasoning why this is a problem; you're using a nearly identical system to Einsteinian Roulette, but where ER had seven stats and seven skills, OL has eight of each. Why would having seven skills again be such a flaw? It clearly works well enough with either number--hell, I'd argue it actually works better with the original seven, at least with skills. All the eight-skill arrangements I've seen have been easy to build three -2 penalties into without taking actual penalties.
I don't particularly want to make people restat. I only would rebalance if it seemed that the system was unpopular, or if a given rebalance gained traction with the players.
Absolutely agreed.
perhaps, instead of saying "vague generalities, we could say "magic and mundane skills" so that ranged attacks, whether by bow or by magic missile, would be governed by the same ranged skill. This means that magic users can't use their magic as a catchall skill to overwrite all other skills. I think it is like this already, but it may not be. as you've said, there are workarounds.
The problem, I believe, is that it's hard to justify a lot of magical ranged attacks as using a "ranged" skill. An aimed lightning bolt certainly makes sense, but what of a storm spell which drops lightning bolts
everywhere? Or a "summon flying lightning elemental" spell? Teleporting an AoE bomb? Mind Control? Animating and changing the grass that people are walking through, to trip and poison them?
It seems like making
all these use the ranged skill would be rather hamhanded. They're using a lot of different paths to achieve the same thing--attacking someone who's a distance away. The better route, IMO, is to simply require a "Magic Precision" stat which affects all spells, no matter how they achieve the desired effect.
I think the need for specializations helps offset the isue of one skill being op - it's more like two skills, since specializations determine how the magic works, too.
Specialization is required for all characters, though. Practically every mundane combatant has a spec in their favored weapon, sometimes multiple. Worse, magical specs are safer and more effective than nonmagical specs; would you say Dar's jumping or stealth specs have even approached the utility of his buffing spec? Or that Mordred got more use from his longsword spec than his telekinesis or lightning ones? Aylia, with shifting vs longbow? Ebony, with "Spellcasting" (which allowed healing, utility, and offense) vs "Crossbows"?
Feel free to bring up any characters with both a mundane combat and magical spec who got more use out of the former. I honestly can't remember any.
I don't think I forced myself into the conversation in a thread I created for a game I GM about a system I borrowed in order to run that game. I feel like I was invited.
Apologies, that was a poor choice of words on my part. You
were invited; my problem was that by nature of your position you carry far more weight than everyone else in the discussion. If you don't acknowledge a portion of the topic, that comes across to me as you feeling that it's irrelevant. :\
I don't particularly want to rebalance, though I am not exactly opposed. sometimes shaking things up is a good way to stir the pot and spark some ideas, dialogue, and growth.
Agreed. I think system balance is way less important to OL than a lot of games, as it feels more focused on RP than gameplay. Heh, in that respect, magic will always be "overpowered" in the sense that it's trivial to make a unique character by granting them magical superpowers.
...Also, from what I've seen, it seems like there's a majority in favor of maintaining status quo. That kinda makes this whole discussion pointless in a practical sense, but thanks for having it anyway. I greatly enjoy this.
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Topic: Omega Legion: Omega Base (Read 291955 times)