Deconstructing class abilities for purchase with XP

[Umbran]

Do you own this or are you speculating like me?

Reasonably educated speculation, given similar issues with other point-buy advancement systems.

The basic problem is simply that flat numbers for ability costs cannot take synergies between abilities into account. The effectiveness, and thus the value, of a particular ability depends upon what other abilities you have. But there are too many abilities to make a workable system that takes these synergies into account. This leads to potential for abuse, and variation in balance between characters made with the system.

Not that this makes the product a bad idea. It's simply a choice between greater flexibilty or more controlled balance.

 

[Driddle]

... there are too many abilities to make a workable system that takes these synergies into account.

There are some who would say that those originally designed "synergies" are unbalanced or (dare I say it?) broken to begin with. That "balance" is merely an illusion given legitimacy by nothing more than the WotC printing presses.

Not that I'm one of those people who would say such a thing, mind you. But if it were true, then an individual element-purchasing system would be no worse than leveling.

 

[Conaill]

A point based breakdown of all the class, skill, feat, and other abilities of the d20 system has been out and up for free download since May or so of 2003.

Here:
http://www.guardiansorder.com/games/d20/srd/

It gives -everything- a point costs, and assumes 10 points per level. 100xlvl XP equals one of these points.

It's also available in both soft and hardcover published books, with a revised version of the hardcover coming out in theory this last month, so I would say any day now.

So Sigil... How does your new pdf compare to the BESM approach to deconstructing class abilities? Is it based on this one, or did you develop yours independently. (I'd find it hard to believe you didn't at least know about BESM, it made quite a splash when it came out...) What are the main differences?

 

[The Sigil]

Reasonably educated speculation, given similar issues with other point-buy advancement systems.

The basic problem is simply that flat numbers for ability costs cannot take synergies between abilities into account. The effectiveness, and thus the value, of a particular ability depends upon what other abilities you have. But there are too many abilities to make a workable system that takes these synergies into account. This leads to potential for abuse, and variation in balance between characters made with the system.

Not that this makes the product a bad idea. It's simply a choice between greater flexibilty or more controlled balance.

A beautifully put answer. The problem with trying to account for synergy is that as you add abilities, the total number of combinations grows exponentially - there are 2^N possible combinations where N is the total number of abilities "in play" to choose from.

When N is small, this isn't a problem. When N is big - say, like 50 or so (roughly the number of class abilities available to the "Core 11" alone), the number of combinations is huge - on the order of 1,000,000,000,000,000 (that's one quadrillion, for those scoring at home). There's simply no way to handle every possible combination - heck, devoting one sentence to each combination would result in a text file so big it couldn't even sit on your hard drive! You handle the combinations that jump out as those that can obviously lead to "broken" results, and then just have to say, "GMs, use your best judgement on the rest."

--The Sigil

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

I like the point buy system, but for a completely different use. I like using them to create custom classes for my own homebrews. I sit down and tie them together in what I think are interesting ways (and are balanced as well as I think they need to be) then present them as the standard classes for my setting. In this way it helps me create very different classes than normal without the worries of so much abuse. If a player really wants a new class, then I let them work one up and I will look it over and see if it fits in my world. I do, however, make them create a class, not just buy whatever they want as they go.

My two cents

 

[The Sigil]

So Sigil... How does your new pdf compare to the BESM approach to deconstructing class abilities? Is it based on this one, or did you develop yours independently. (I'd find it hard to believe you didn't at least know about BESM, it made quite a splash when it came out...) What are the main differences?

To be honest, I haven't really checked out BESM. I knew BESM released an SRD, and I knew it was an anime-based game, and since I have little interest in Anime (that's not title Record of Lodoss War) and less interest in Anime RPGs, I didn't think to check it out... and I certainly didn't realize it was a point buy system until it was pointed out in this thread.

When the link was posted in this thread, I followed it and looked at their Chapter on Feats. From the looks of things, they handled things much differently than I did. Their system, for instance, prices Feats at 2 points each (which IIRC from the post earlier, should translate to 200 XP each). I handled most things with escalating costs - your first Feat, for instance, runs you 50 XP; your second Feat 100; the third 300, the fourth 600, and so on. So I would say right there is a significant difference; I charge you more to increment from +3 to +4 than I do to increment from +1 to +2. I haven't checked out the rest of BESM yet, so I can't speak to how well they match up (or don't). This "extra cost" is done for two reasons - one, it helps things "match up" to the XP Curve set by the Core classes, and two - it helps mitigate the effects of synergy (since it's more likely that picking up a fifteenth Feat gives you synergy with another Feat you already have than picking up a second Feat does).

And I have actually found that one of the things I *have* to do as a game designer is exercise a bit of "willful ignorance." For instance, I put of buying - or even browsing through - Mongoose's Quintessential Bard until I was finished with my final revision of the Enchiridion of Mystic Music... to make sure I developed things independently. These days, I pay attention to reviews of products, and have to decide (a) "is it something I like," and (b) "is it something similar to what I'm doing - or planning on doing?" If it's not (a), I don't buy it. If it is (a) but also (b), well, I have to delay my purchase until I'm done so as to not run into any problems of claims that I derived from the product without properly crediting it. Anyone who audited my bookshelf and my hard drive and my ISP records can tell you I haven't seen BESM until today - the day AFTER my product is released and thus a day too late for any infringement.

The method I used to create Buy the Numbers was actually to sit down with an enormous Excel Spreadsheet and set up all of the equations with everything determined except some constants I fed into the equations. When I got results where most of the time, building a "Core Class Character" of level X (and I tested levels 1-20) with these rules fell into the "normal" XP range, I stopped plugging numbers. It was about a 3-month game of trying to balance about a dozen equations, some of which I had to "guess at" as I went along.

You can never have a "perfect" match, I don't think - characters just don't get a lot of abilities at certain levels (like 13th) and get many at others (at 12th, for instance, you get a feat, and ability score increase, and all your saves get bumped, in addition to any other stuff your class is giving you). But I tried to get close enough.

--The Sigil

 

[The Sigil]

I like the point buy system, but for a completely different use. I like using them to create custom classes for my own homebrews. I sit down and tie them together in what I think are interesting ways (and are balanced as well as I think they need to be) then present them as the standard classes for my setting. In this way it helps me create very different classes than normal without the worries of so much abuse. If a player really wants a new class, then I let them work one up and I will look it over and see if it fits in my world. I do, however, make them create a class, not just buy whatever they want as they go.

My two cents

You know, this is also an excellent use for the product, and one I hadn't quite thought of. Nice work!

--The Sigil

 

[Conaill]

From the looks of things, they handled things much differently than I did. Their system, for instance, prices Feats at 2 points each (which IIRC from the post earlier, should translate to 200 XP each). I handled most things with escalating costs - your first Feat, for instance, runs you 50 XP; your second Feat 100; the third 300, the fourth 600, and so on. So I would say right there is a significant difference

Well, it looks like BESM's XP cost does scale with level. True, you could spend all your points at first level on feats and get 5 feats for 200 XP each. But if you were to pick one feat each level, the first one would cost 200 XP, the second 400 XP, the third 600 XP, and so on.

The main difference with your scaling seems to be that it's quadratic, rather than linear. If I understand it correctly, that means you couldn't make a character like a Fighter which gets about one feat per level, because eventually those feats would become prohibitively expensive. Seems like a linear scaling would make more sense in that case...

And I have actually found that one of the things I *have* to do as a game designer is exercise a bit of "willful ignorance." For instance, I put of buying - or even browsing through - Mongoose's Quintessential Bard until I was finished with my final revision of the Enchiridion of Mystic Music... to make sure I developed things independently.

I have to admit I'm not a game designer, but I am a customer. And as a customer I have to say that I really, really dislike this way of designing games in an OGL environment!!

OGL is supposed to encourage standardisation, reuse, and building on top of existing work. Putting on "blinders" like this seems diametrically opposed to the OGL philosophy. So what if someone else has already made an OGL set of rules that partially overlaps with yours? Borrow what you like, discard the rest, and build on top of that. That's what the OGL is for! Instead, now we're stuck with two separate and *incompatible* rule sets.


I first ran into this situation with Bastion Press' "Alchemy & Herbalists"... I had noted that their material was totally out of whack with other published alchemical preparations (including the ones in the PHB!). I asked the author, and he flat out stated that he intentionally tried to ignore any other alchemy sources. Result: A&H is totally, completely, utterly incompatible with anything else, and I for one am not going to touch it with a 10' pole!

For context, I've played a gnome alchemist for well over two years now, and I've collected various alchemical preparations and rules from a wide variety of sources (25 sources and close to 300 alchemical preparations at last count), so I know whereof I speak. The vast majority of those are reasonably balanced and work well with each other. A&H is the one big carbuncle of an exception...


Ok... just had to get that off my chest...

 

[The Sigil]

I have to admit I'm not a game designer, but I am a customer. And as a customer I have to say that I really, really dislike this way of designing games in an OGL environment!!

OGL is supposed to encourage standardisation, reuse, and building on top of existing work. Putting on "blinders" like this seems diametrically opposed to the OGL philosophy. So what if someone else has already made an OGL set of rules that partially overlaps with yours? Borrow what you like, discard the rest, and build on top of that. That's what the OGL is for! Instead, now we're stuck with two separate and *incompatible* rule sets.

I agree with you completely... but here's the problem...

Some publishers go out of their way to make sure you can't borrow their stuff easily - usually through obfuscated PI statements. Basically, it's sometimes hard to tell exactly what is OGC - and thus "usable" - and what is not. And if you grab stuff that is not - well, you're in copyright trouble. There are several publishers whose OGC designations have been quite clear and precise, and I'll purchase their products without a second thought. Those whose OGC designations are dodgy or unclear - even in the slightest - don't get my business for the simple reason that I can't afford a lawsuit.

Also, my gaming budget is somewhat limited and I have to have SOME filters to rein in my spending.

--The Sigil

P.S. - I will PM you with some extra thoughts on this that are not relevant to the discussion at hand.
EDIT: Er, I would, but you have PM disabled.

 

[The Sigil]

I have to admit I'm not a game designer, but I am a customer. And as a customer I have to say that I really, really dislike this way of designing games in an OGL environment!!

Consider also that some of us game designers don't have an unlimited budget and can't afford to purchase every supplement that comes down the pipe, whether we want to or not!

Believe me, if I had the money to purchase every RPG supplement, I wouldn't be writing them. My wife and I have a little understanding - any money I get from writing RPG supplements is my "RPG money" to fuel my RPG habit. But I don't spend "our money" on my RPG habit.

It's actually a good thing - when I see a lot of products that I want, I have to make a contribution to the community (by writing one myself) first.

--The Sigil