Keywords vs Damage Types

The last half-dozen or so posts reinforce my view that effect-swapping based on keyword change is much easier at the individual character, player-to-DM level than at the whole ruleset, publisher level!

pemerton said:

The last half-dozen or so posts reinforce my view that effect-swapping based on keyword change is much easier at the individual character, player-to-DM level than at the whole ruleset, publisher level!

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That won't stop me from trying!

AbdulAlhazred said:

That won't stop me from trying!

Click to expand...

And I wouldn't have expected it to!

Does your rules set systemise conditions/effects beyond the relatively narrow scope of the 4e conditions list?

I haven't really focused on that, partly because I'm still playing around with variability of effect depending on the check value you achieved (levels of success) which is a whole other variable. Plus we've kind of settled on fewer but more significant effects. You may only use a couple of powers beyond at-wills in a fight, maybe none in a specific fight, but when you do unleash them they tend to have a more significant effect on the course of action. You can achieve some level of variation by variable effect, plus some 'spend a vitality point' kinds of tricks, and perhaps codifying some of these substitutions, as I've touched on here.

Powers remain central, and their effects are intended to be fairly consistently adjudicated, but there's definitely more consistency, so if you want to achieve a novel effect, you would generally need to invoke some novel narrative course of action, via a different power source, a new technique (IE a new power, which could be had from a boon perhaps) etc. There's of course always the option of 'page 42' kinds of solutions as well, exercising skills and possibly rituals or other resources to do something different, which will generally engage the SC system.