Primitive Screwhead
First Post
Morrus, feel free to say this is too far off your track for inclusion.
Idea #1:
Issue: well defined conflict resolution is primarily physical combat with weapons, armor, defenses, hit points, and healing. There is a lot of crunch involved in defeating enemies.. and this is good.
However, social conflict and true mental conflict are less well defined. Social conflict is left to hand-wavy opposed skill checks or just a flat skill check. True mental combat doesn't exist. Even the condition 'Charmed' is only 'the target can not attack you' and, oddly enough, is not in any of the Psionic powers. 'Suggestion' is a Psionic power, but is very weak on the crunch.
Due to the lack of crunch, an NPC has to have a high Mental defense to be resistant to the suggestion of 'sell this item at half price'. A charismatic 'snake oil' salesman probably won't have a high mental defense.
Idea:
The well defined conflict resolution for physical combat can be mirrored for mental and social conflicts by adding some of the things that are currently missing: weapons, armor, hit points, and healing.
Mental combat: Used to convince someone to take a short term action.
use the current mental defense. Base the mental hit points on Str plus Int (min of 5). This hit point pool refreshed for each encounter. The 'weapons' and 'armor' would be standard actions that could be expanded with exploits. So a 'Bargain' attack would deal damage based on Chr or Rep.
'Armor' would be exploits that grant soak against certain attack types. 'Not for Sale' could grant 20 soak against Bribe attacks.
Psionics and Magic attacks can be used against mental hit points in order to set Charms, Suggestions, and Geas effects.
This means our snake oil salesman can have a normal mental defence but be 'strong willed' and have a SOAK versus suggestions and charms.
Social conflict is used for long term changes in relationship, agreements, treaties. Situations where 'buyers remorse' has to be avoided
use LOG + WILL + CHR + REP divided by 4 as a social defence, with social hit points equal to LOG + CHR multiplied by 2 (min of 10).
Similar to the mental weapons and armor, standard actions and exploits fill out the crunch. However social conflict is usually played out over hours instead of minutes. Scenes of 'attend a masquerade ball' are backed by the social attack of 'befriend' against the Duke. Unfortunately the Duke is a xenophobe {5 soak versus social attacks by non-elfs} so it might be hard for the dwarven party to succeed.
Why split mental and social? It allows for mental domination and charms to be effective and useful in a limited fashion. Since social conflict is resolved over hours and days you need a higher level charm effect to be useful and you can have keen bargainers that don't make good nobles, and vice-versa.
Idea #2:
Improved monster design similar to 4e's scaling method via hit point variance. You already have the start of this, with animals having double normal hit points. I suggest a scale where the hit point multiplier is part of the creature design.
Trade off powerful attacks for a reduction in the multiplier, since the basic concept is to balance the expected damage to the PCs against the longevity of the monster.
This can be fleshed out with actual templates for different types of monsters, yoinking the leader/brute/lurker/etc 4e concepts as well.
Thats all I have for now!
Idea #1:
Issue: well defined conflict resolution is primarily physical combat with weapons, armor, defenses, hit points, and healing. There is a lot of crunch involved in defeating enemies.. and this is good.
However, social conflict and true mental conflict are less well defined. Social conflict is left to hand-wavy opposed skill checks or just a flat skill check. True mental combat doesn't exist. Even the condition 'Charmed' is only 'the target can not attack you' and, oddly enough, is not in any of the Psionic powers. 'Suggestion' is a Psionic power, but is very weak on the crunch.
Due to the lack of crunch, an NPC has to have a high Mental defense to be resistant to the suggestion of 'sell this item at half price'. A charismatic 'snake oil' salesman probably won't have a high mental defense.
Idea:
The well defined conflict resolution for physical combat can be mirrored for mental and social conflicts by adding some of the things that are currently missing: weapons, armor, hit points, and healing.
Mental combat: Used to convince someone to take a short term action.
use the current mental defense. Base the mental hit points on Str plus Int (min of 5). This hit point pool refreshed for each encounter. The 'weapons' and 'armor' would be standard actions that could be expanded with exploits. So a 'Bargain' attack would deal damage based on Chr or Rep.
'Armor' would be exploits that grant soak against certain attack types. 'Not for Sale' could grant 20 soak against Bribe attacks.
Psionics and Magic attacks can be used against mental hit points in order to set Charms, Suggestions, and Geas effects.
This means our snake oil salesman can have a normal mental defence but be 'strong willed' and have a SOAK versus suggestions and charms.
Social conflict is used for long term changes in relationship, agreements, treaties. Situations where 'buyers remorse' has to be avoided
use LOG + WILL + CHR + REP divided by 4 as a social defence, with social hit points equal to LOG + CHR multiplied by 2 (min of 10).
Similar to the mental weapons and armor, standard actions and exploits fill out the crunch. However social conflict is usually played out over hours instead of minutes. Scenes of 'attend a masquerade ball' are backed by the social attack of 'befriend' against the Duke. Unfortunately the Duke is a xenophobe {5 soak versus social attacks by non-elfs} so it might be hard for the dwarven party to succeed.
Why split mental and social? It allows for mental domination and charms to be effective and useful in a limited fashion. Since social conflict is resolved over hours and days you need a higher level charm effect to be useful and you can have keen bargainers that don't make good nobles, and vice-versa.
Idea #2:
Improved monster design similar to 4e's scaling method via hit point variance. You already have the start of this, with animals having double normal hit points. I suggest a scale where the hit point multiplier is part of the creature design.
Code:
multiplier description
1 weakling/minion
2 standard humanoid
3 strong/elite
4 Standard animal/monster
5 Solo monster
6 Tarrasque offspringTrade off powerful attacks for a reduction in the multiplier, since the basic concept is to balance the expected damage to the PCs against the longevity of the monster.
This can be fleshed out with actual templates for different types of monsters, yoinking the leader/brute/lurker/etc 4e concepts as well.
Thats all I have for now!
