AIMhack Postmortem: Selos and Blood Marsh

[Nioca]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

So would wizards get these too? Because how would we draw an arbitrary line between "fighters" and "wizards"? If they have points in Martial, are they a fighter? If they have points in any magic skill, are they a wizard? How would that work?

Who says a line would need to be drawn? I don't see why a battlemage couldn't have both spells AND martial abilities. This sort of thing would likely balance itself out; Yes, a battlemage would have both martial abilities and spells. However, because their martial skill isn't as strong, their abilities aren't as strong, and because they've got a martial focus, their spells likely won't be as strong and they'll likely have fewer spell slots.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Nioca

Originally Posted By: Dantius

So would wizards get these too? Because how would we draw an arbitrary line between "fighters" and "wizards"? If they have points in Martial, are they a fighter? If they have points in any magic skill, are they a wizard? How would that work?

Who says a line would need to be drawn? I don't see why a battlemage couldn't have both spells AND martial abilities. This sort of thing would likely balance itself out; Yes, a battlemage would have both martial abilities and spells. However, because their martial skill isn't as strong, their abilities aren't as strong, and because they've got a martial focus, their spells likely won't be as strong and they'll likely have fewer spell slots.

How about instead of basing it off level, you base it off of points in the requisite Martial skill? Perhaps skill/2 would be how many abilities you got, and so forth. That way you wouldn't have a level 12 wizard with a half dozen abilities even though he's only got 2 points in Staves.

[Nioca]

Two reasons: First, it inspires people to pump whatever Martial skill they have like crazy. Second, because to actually get any abilities, you'd have to follow a mindset like the one presented in my first point and blow skill points like crazy.

 

Furthermore, while yes, the wizard with 2 in staves would have a lot of abilities at high-level, with only a two in staves, none of those would be very powerful. Or powerful at all, really. So, ultimately, it'd be the same as not getting any at all.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Nioca

Two reasons: First, it inspires people to pump whatever Martial skill they have like crazy. Second, because to actually get any abilities, you'd have to follow a mindset like the one presented in my first point and blow skill points like crazy.

Remind me why this is bad again? You were saying that this doesn't encourage generalization, but if you're getting abilities, then you can just use those to diversify your combat and perhaps noncombat prowess.

Also, can we please just bite the bullet and call them "feats"? Because I'm tired of juggling abilities, perks, battle diciplines, and so on, when there's a nice word with all the connotations we want already perfectly formed.

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: Nalyd

Well, why ever use anything but those abilities?

I think the idea would be always using the abilities, like the way a mage always uses spells. Think of fighters as mages who only cast spells at close range. With really sharp wands.

What's kinda weird is how spells per day is based on intelligence, but fighting abilities known is based on skills. How about abilities known is based on skills in some way, while abilities memorized is based on STR/DEX/INT? Or should it just be INT, to make it useful for fighters as well?

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Also, kan plz have metamagic for wizards? Because metamagic is awesome

Isn't the stamina system already a form of metamagic? You can spend stamina to make an attack more accurate/powerful. Wouldn't be too hard to spend stamina to increase range, blast radius, or whatever.

(For those not in the know, metamagic is a class of abilities that allow mages to alter their existing spells (for instance, always dealing maximum damage, or having the effects last twice as long, or being able to cast a certain spell without speaking or moving). In systems that have spell levels, this is usually represented by increasing the level of a spell. Mages can a lot of low-level spells in one day, but only a couple high-level spells. Of course, in AIMHack there's no limit on spells per day, so we need to use another finite resource -- like stamina.)

EDIT: The simplest way to have spells and 'combat manoeuvres' not depend on skill levels is to let each character choose a new ability (either magical or martial) every n levels. That way, it's easy to support magic-only characters, martial-only characters, and characters who dabble in both, all without influencing how skill points are spent.

[Triumph]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Or should it just be INT, to make it useful for fighters as well?

That might be interesting. Magi already have good reason to invest in Strength (HP!). Fighters have no reason to invest in Intelligence (unless they have some other skill to which want to give bonuses, but even then it's less efficient than just putting skill points in said skill).

Of course that leaves poor neglected Dexterity which...doesn't offer all that to fighters OR magi.

[Nioca]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

I think the idea would be always using the abilities, like the way a mage always uses spells. Think of fighters as mages who only cast spells at close range. With really sharp wands.

Actually, it's more of a way to spice up fighters, rather than have abilities replace normal weapon usage entirely. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather not have to have an ability just to shoot arrows off my bow.

Quote:

What's kinda weird is how spells per day is based on intelligence, but fighting abilities known is based on skills. How about abilities known is based on skills in some way, while abilities memorized is based on STR/DEX/INT? Or should it just be INT, to make it useful for fighters as well?

I suggested this before, and it received lukewarm reception at best. Probably because it starts entering difficult territory when you base martial off of stats; if you base it off of STR, archers get screwed. Base it off of DEX, and melee fighters get screwed. Base it off of INT, and fighters of all kinds get screwed because they have to spread stat points out even further just to keep status quo.

Quote:

EDIT: The simplest way to have spells and 'combat manoeuvres' not depend on skill levels is to let each character choose a new ability (either magical or martial) every n levels. That way, it's easy to support magic-only characters, martial-only characters, and characters who dabble in both, all without influencing how skill points are spent.

Ick. That is... not good. If I'm reading correctly, what you suggest would either:
A) Grant abilities of this type to both fighters and mages, thereby inflating the power of the already rather powerful wizards even further.
OR
Base a wizard's spells off of a similar ability style system, which practically nerfs wizards into oblivion.
Neither is a good option.

[Dintiradan]

I was going with option B. After level one, wizards only learn a new spell and fighters a new ability every Nth level -- say, every odd level (maybe less often for non-Sarachim campaigns). Do mages pick up new spells more often than that currently?

[Lilith]

I think I'm inclined to say that if a fighter wants to Do Cool Stuff like attack multiple enemies in one swing I'd rather let them say they're trying it and handle it on a case-by-case basis unless there are particular manoeuvres they're consistently using. (Actually I'm almost inclined to let magic work that way too: if you want to stretch the applications of spells in creative ways, I generally won't penalise you for attempting it unless it seems like you're going to make another player's abilities redundant.) But the idea of explicitly defined combat manoeuvres isn't a bad one, all the same.

[Nioca]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

I was going with option B. After level one, wizards only learn a new spell and fighters a new ability every Nth level -- say, every odd level (maybe less often for non-Sarachim campaigns). Do mages pick up new spells more often than that currently?

That might work (emphasis on "might"), but the thing is, Spellcasting's working fine already.

Anyway, to answer your question, yes and no. Mages usually start with about 5 spell slots (with 5 intelligence), varying up and down between 3 (Anthony Block, Mage Fighter) and 8 (Eva Roe, Evoker/Conjurer/Abjurer). Depending on how the player levels the character, they could get a 3 or 4 spell slots over the course of a campaign, or they could get none. Depends on how high a priority the player puts on Intelligence and additional spell slots. However, the thing is, mages can switch their spells out whenever they get some time on their hands, so if a spell turns out to be a bit of a dud, or if they level up and raise their magic skills, they can switch spells out for something more useful. In short, a mage can technically have up to 18 or more spells, but unless they have INT to match, they just can't have them all active at once.

The problem is, locking a mage into permanent abilities and only getting a new ability every other/every few levels is that they're stuck with whatever dud and low level spells they have when they started, which also take up space that could be used for better spells. And if you get a multi-classed mage like Eva Roe... well, suffice it to say that you'd start feeling constrained very, very quickly.

In short, with a fighter, the abilities would count as extra bonuses. They could still just switch to regular enemy-whacking whenever they pleased. With mages, however, there's no base alternative to switch to, meaning that a mage with a poor selection of starting abilities would effectively get neutered for the entire campaign.

[Slawbug]

The Riddle of Steel tabletop RPG has an interesting magic system where any magic-user can shape whatever effect he desires, but there are various dimensions involved and increases the flexibility/power on each increases the difficulty/cost of the spell. You might want to look at that

[Rowen]

Are you talking about how some spells require rare/hard to find regiments to cast?

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Rowen

Are you talking about how some spells require rare/hard to find regiments to cast?

I was considering trying to give Kurex a few powerful spells that required expensive material components, long casting times, etc, but then decided that 1. I had no chance of that flying and 2. It contravened the personality of the character. That said, I think it would be interesting to try that, although I guess that's what epic spells are for,

[nikki.]

Epic bump:

 

Click to reveal.. (Esstra's Epilogue)

After her journey through the Bloodmarsh, and in particular the final battle with Yunelias himself, Esstra left Risis a little more sure of her faith. Communicating with, and feeling the presence of Mariona had set her heart somewhat at ease, though there still lingered a sense that the future still shrouded the real key to her happiness.

 

She spent a while travelling from town to town, island to island, helping out where she could, spreading the word of Mariona where she felt that it would be received, always searching for a final peace but never reaching it. Of her former travelling companions, she heard nothing. Occasionally, she would seek to find out any news of them, but the nostalgia soon passed.

 

After a few months of moving around, Esstra finally settled down, providing healing and spiritual guidance in a small temple in a small town on an unimportant island, preparing herself mentally for the greater journey she would embark on before too long.

 

Sorry for the delay, Eph.

[Ephesos]

Oh snap! That means I can update my site with the compiled epilogues from Selos and Blood Marsh! Oh wait I just did.

 

EDIT: Also, *boom*