Article - Items: Balance and Cool Stuff

[Drakefyre]

Article - A General Item Overview

 

When you first get ahold of the editor, a little jolt goes through your brain. Now it's you with the power, and you can make your own scenario for people to play. And with that scenario, you can include super-powerful weapons to combat the super-powerful monsters, and all in a low-level scenario.

 

But that's not what scenario design is about. What happens when the party leaves that scenario at level eight with weapons that would make a level 50 party drool? This article has two parts - balance/avoiding Monty Haul, and creating cool items. And while the first is not nearly as fun as the second, it's much more important.

 

What is Monty Haul? A Monty Haul scenario is one where the party is given the opportunity to acquire items that would be unbalancing if placed in another scenario of the same level. It's okay to make powerful items to give to the party, but there's a difference between powerful and unbalancing. In a low-level scenario, an iron greatsword is a powerful and awesome weapon, but it's not unbalancing.

 

Editing that same iron greatsword to give it 10 defense, resistance to all elements, and +2 AP, while keeping it at the same base damage, crosses the line from powerful to unbalancing. Even though the two swords will do the same amount of damage, one will wreck all of the combat in another scenario. If the combat in your scenario requires a sword of this sort, then maybe it should be toned down (or the sword should be taken away at the end of the scenario).

 

Of course, it's still possible to create cool items that are balanced for the scenario's level and the combat within it. The first thing to do when creating combat items is to assess the level of the scenario and the difficulty of the combat. Most likely, you'll want the combat to still be difficult and challenging, and the weapons and armor should not give the party an unfair advantage.

 

When creating a weapon, it's important to take several things into account. Should it be one-handed or two-handed? The most powerful items should be two-handed, since it's good to create a dilemma for the player regarding whether or not s/he should take the powerful greatsword or a smaller weapon and a shield. If you create a good shield, it makes the choice even tougher.

 

Another thing to take into consideration with all items is weight. The party has a maximum carrying capacity of 350 stones, and making better items heavy, you're creating another dilemma for the player. They have to make space to fit this new item. Still, weight should be realistic - swords shouldn't be over 60, armor shouldn't be over 100, etc.

 

Something else that Blades of Avernum lets us do is assign any skill to use for weapon strength. The default is melee weapon, but setting it to Mage Spells or Nature Lore could make for some interesting weapons for mages or rogues. Since any skill can be used, weapons can cater to more people than just fighters.

 

A very effective way to make an average weapon into a powerful artifact in your scenario alone, but that is not really special in another scenario, is to give the main boss a weakness that the weapon exploits. You can do this with a custom item state in the scenario script, or you can do the easier (and less interesting) thing and make the evil baddie either undead, demon, reptile, or Vahnatai, and use abilities that do extra damage to those species.

 

Alternatively, you could make an armor that blocks the main attack of monsters in the scenario but has a disadvantage that makes you vulnerable to the big boss but not his henchmen. The possibilities are endless.

 

In general, combining advantages and disadvantages to make an item level-appropriate will be enough to keep the party guessing, unless they come into your scenario with overpowered weapons. In that case, there's a lot that we can do as designers, including completely redesigning the item set to make it weaker (which is a lot more interesting than stronger) after we strip a party of all of its items.

 

Forcing a party to go through a scenario with only the weakest items provides a challenge and may be appropriate, based on the premise of the scenario (ie a shipwreck or something similar). It's in that case that making items weak can still make them appear strong, compared to the item that they got two towns ago that seemed strong then. As a player, I've always liked the added challenge that brought to a scenario.

 

If you don't want to be too mean, you can always return the party's items at the end of a scenario, but it's certainly not necessary.

 

Items offer a lot of possibilities, especially now that they can call states in the scenario script. Explore them.

[Imban]

Corollary -

 

Scenarios in which you mess with the party's stats or items could be fun in BoE. However, and I find it difficult to stress this quite enough, you should probably not do this in a non-Low-level scenario.

 

Messing with stats is almost guaranteed to unbalance or ruin a party that goes through your scenario, especially if your player loses or gains a lot - please, don't feel the urge to do this in a non-Low-level scenario.

 

Meanwhile, items are more shaky ground. You're not going to permanently ruin a party by nuking their items, but I'd be annoyed if I permanently lost any and all cool items I had when I played your scenario. If you're going to return all the items at some point, feel free to steal a party's inventory. However, if you're not, your scenario might be better-suited for Low-level parties.

[Drakefyre]

You may also want to add it to the readme file for clarity.

[Alorael at Large]

Keep in mind that powerful and cool are not synonymous. Items with amusing drawbacks are often even better than a bigger cleaver, because they aren't unbalanced and they are noticeable.

 

—Alorael, who also likes items that are good for specific purposes. For example, a knife that regularly drains your spell points and that is based on intelligence for damage would be annoying, but put it in a town where your spell points regenerate and having too many kills you and it becomes an advantage.

[The Creator]

I like the Stick of Earthly Pleasure from Nature of Evil.

[Lilith]

I don't remember finding that, but it sounds obscene.

[The Creator]

Really low damage, but it slays priests.

[Custer]

Problem I can see with that is this: Who uses the Priest monster type, anyway? Outside of the Arena, I wouldn't predict it being too widely-used.

 

The name is a good, sound reason for keeping the item around, though.

[Lilith]

Alec, the final boss in one of the plot branches of TNoE is a priest.

[Imban]

Does it slay them or does it SLAY!!! them?

 

(Are we talking Slays Priests 2 or Slays Priests 10 here? )

[Aran]

Some basic math can be useful when balancing the damage values of a weapon. (I'm assuming from the documentation that damage and other variables are still determined using the xdy + z model, where you throw x dice with y sides each and add z to the result.)

 

The minimum is always x + z, where as the maximum is xy + z. The average result is at x(y+1)/2 + z.

 

So if you have 2d7+4 (two seven-sided dice, adding four to the result), you have a minimum of 6, an average of 12, and a maximum of 18 points.

 

It is easier to decide whether a damage setting is reasonable if you have the values in those terms.

[spyderbytes]

And bear in mind that average damage is the most important stat, in comparing weapons, followed by minimum (as you can never do LESS damage than that on a hit), and then max (as it will be rare that you actually do that much).

 

IOW, placing a weapon that has a higher max damage but comparable (or even lower) average is not really overpowering. In fact, if the player isn't savvy, he may brag about the phat lewt you gave him without realizing it's really not any better than what he was already using--if even as good.

 

Drakey (or someone)... I want to see an article (or series?) with pointers on how to make sure a dungeon is challenging for a party of the recommended level. That's what I'm having the most problem with. Especially since I'm not much of a tactician--I most often play these types of games on Easy (sad but true!). So right now I'm kinda just figuring if a dungeon has about a 50/50 chance of besting my party or my party besting it, on Normal, I've balanced it OK.

 

-spyderbytes

[ThirdParty]

My understanding is that weapon damage is computed as follows:

 

( it_bonus + level of it_weapon_skill_used + (strength for weapons or 1/2 dexterity for missiles) ) dice of size it_damage_per_level

 

It is reported in game as:

 

"[ it_bonus]-[ it_bonus * it_damage_per_level ] + it_damage_per_level Levels damage"

[Rufo]

As BoA takes place in a magical world, a possible way of getting rid of the scenario's major weapon would be to link it to the last boss in some way. Technically I guess it could be done by editing the boss' death state. In the plot it sounds just great if the Great Sword of Justice is split to pieces when you use it to slay the Great Dragon of Evil. That way you'll not need to bother about if the major weapon isn't good for other scenarios.

(The bad thing about this is that you for the best effect must have the major weapon to kill the bad lord/lady/creature/whatever, which will make the Final Battle a bit boring. However, I'm sure there is a way to solve that.)

[Lilith]

If you're going to take items away at the end of the scenario, be sure to replace them with items that are at least moderately respectable. Leaving the party to enter their next scenario without any weapons at all is just cruel. (Falling Stars in BoE had a bad case of this; several of the best weapons in the scenario were stripped away and not replaced upon finishing the scenario.)

[spyderbytes]

Along the lines of this discussion, I have a town where the party must avoid being seen by the guards and certain officials. At one point, they find a cache of guard uniforms, and have the chance to (imperfectly) disguise themselves.

 

To the discussion at hand: I can't decide whether it would be better to make the uniforms really nice protection (and quite encumbering for the low-level party you're supposed to be playing the scenario with), or appropriate to the low-level party (e.g., essentially fine leather-ish with a different icon). For story purposes, they'll want to get out of them as quickly as they can, either way.

 

Any thoughts?

[Imban]

Well, if it's platemail, you shouldn't give it the stats of fine leather. You should give it statistics appropriate to what it is.

[spyderbytes]

Good point.

 

Actually, I decided to sidestep the issue and let the party find a cache of the distinctive cloaks the guards wear, instead. The whole idea is to give the party a disguise that's likely to work if they're spotted from 50 yards, but hasn't a chance of working if they're face-to-face with a real guard.

[The Creator]

Sounds kinda like that bit in The Forsaken.