Dice Pools, Grades, and Difficulties

[Morrus]

Basically the D&D 4E approach.

So, the system doesn't work with that approach well. Let me explain why from the design viewpoint.

Defenses are derived stats. They come about naturally as a result of core stats. If one were to assign 4E style monster roles, those would have to affect the core stats and consequently filter through to the derived stats.

The system is more granular than that though. The core stats (attributes and skills) from which the defenses are derived are very granular - you can literally choose any combination of 8 stats and tons of skills. Having some choice of 4 roles override all that granularity is counter to the very premise of the system.

If you want to design a striker type (or a brute type, or a skirmished type, using the 4E names for your suggested roles) you do so by assigning appropriate attribute scores and skills. You'd need core templates which guide the attribute and skill allocation. The last thing you want to do is spend time carefully assigning attributes and skills, and then basically ignore all that in favour of 4 monster types.

I hope that explains why that sort of mechanic isn't in the game. It's not an accident. Monster roles are not there for deliberate reasons.

 

[Angusto]

Hi Morrus, my group is experiencing something similar to the original questions about defences earlier in this thread. In short, a regular comment during our games is that there is never any point in trading die for damage or effects because the monsters defences are usually equal to their grade. The group is being encouraged to use positional advantages such as flanking, crossfire, etc but that usually only gives them a couple dice to trade with. Also, on the flip side of that, it is almost impossible to trade dice for monsters since the players almost always have defence pools equal to the pool limit. Granted, this may just be because the members of my group tend to buy ranks in defensive skills but even still.

All this said, we are having a major combat encounter next week so that will be the real test of what's up now that we have all the latest rules. I'll let you know how it goes but any input you can give me before then would be much appreciated. Thanks

 

[Morrus]

Hi Morrus, my group is experiencing something similar to the original questions about defences earlier in this thread. In short, a regular comment during our games is that there is never any point in trading die for damage or effects because the monsters defences are usually equal to their grade. The group is being encouraged to use positional advantages such as flanking, crossfire, etc but that usually only gives them a couple dice to trade with. Also, on the flip side of that, it is almost impossible to trade dice for monsters since the players almost always have defence pools equal to the pool limit. Granted, this may just be because the members of my group tend to buy ranks in defensive skills but even still.

All this said, we are having a major combat encounter next week so that will be the real test of what's up now that we have all the latest rules. I'll let you know how it goes but any input you can give me before then would be much appreciated. Thanks

I'm not sure what I can add beyond what has been said in this thread already. Perhaps encourage them to spend LUC dice? I mean, basically it's down to monster design and their DEFENSEs, and which monsters are being used. Luckily, the Bestiary isn't out yet, so all the discussion in this thread will help factor in; maybe try lowering monster DEFENSEs a little and seeing how that works? You can certainly pull a couple or more d6s out of positional stuff.

Monsters don't trade dice an awful lot in my games mainly because it's extra stuff to track. That's definitely more a player thing. Not to say they can't, but it's not my go-to approach.

The beauty of the system, I think, is that you can just go ahead and do that and not upset any balance-reward equation, because the XP reward is based on how easy/hard they found the encounter, not based on a creature's statistics.

 

[Angusto]

I'm not sure what I can add beyond what has been said in this thread already. Perhaps encourage them to spend LUC dice? I mean, basically it's down to monster design and their DEFENSEs, and which monsters are being used. Luckily, the Bestiary isn't out yet, so all the discussion in this thread will help factor in; maybe try lowering monster DEFENSEs a little and seeing how that works? You can certainly pull a couple or more d6s out of positional stuff.

Monsters don't trade dice an awful lot in my games mainly because it's extra stuff to track. That's definitely more a player thing. Not to say they can't, but it's not my go-to approach.

The beauty of the system, I think, is that you can just go ahead and do that and not upset any balance-reward equation, because the XP reward is based on how easy/hard they found the encounter, not based on a creature's statistics.

Thanks for the suggestions Morrus. I am already implementing your suggestion about the lower defences and will make the suggestion to them about LUC dice. The reason I mentioned monsters trading dice is that with SOAK and the low damage output of monsters, it becomes very hard to hurt players enough unless I artificially increase their damage. I suppose on some level not hurting players a lot is probably a good thing but I feel that it is unlikely a player will ever die during combat at the moment. As you said, it is somewhat dependant on what monsters you use which is why the combat encounter next week will be the real test as it is against a group of "trained soldiers" so tactics and "pack" bonuses will apply.

 

[Morrus]

Thanks for the suggestions Morrus. I am already implementing your suggestion about the lower defences and will make the suggestion to them about LUC dice. The reason I mentioned monsters trading dice is that with SOAK and the low damage output of monsters, it becomes very hard to hurt players enough unless I artificially increase their damage. I suppose on some level not hurting players a lot is probably a good thing but I feel that it is unlikely a player will ever die during combat at the moment. As you said, it is somewhat dependant on what monsters you use which is why the combat encounter next week will be the real test as it is against a group of "trained soldiers" so tactics and "pack" bonuses will apply.

I'm not entirely clear on what you mean. You're saying that in your game your monster DEFENSEs *and* your player DEFENSEs are too high? Or that their SOAK is? It's hard to comment without seeing the exact situation. What sort of SOAK scores are your players peddling?

 

[Morrus]

So, I just whipped quickly through the Humans section of the online bestiary, and using MDPx4 as the upper limit, tweaked the DEFENSE values. Most of them didn't need tweaking as their DEFENSE scores were lower than that anyway, but there were a couple which go lowered a bit. Try them, and if that seems to work, I'll do the same with the other monsters.

If that's the case, the same restriction would have to apply to PCs and their DEFENSE scores.

[Edit - did it to all the monsters; only took a few minutes. Most didn't need changing. Now a character officially has a 50% chance of hitting an equivalent grade monster, assuming both are optimised to their mx dice pools for attack and defence.]

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Basically the D&D 4E approach.

Actually more like the 2e approach with high/med/low save progressions but turned into a cap.

My reasoning behind using 'roles' is that AGI is king resulting in high melee defense and high ranged defense. With the roles applied you ensure that each monster has the rock-paper-scissors built in for players to adjust their offensive tactics against. Each role has a weakness to attack.
Most of the monsters in the bestiary are Melee {with some Brutes} and the high/med/low caps often only trim the highest defense in much the same way your scrub of the bestiary results panned out.

I see no need to do the same for the PC defenses because the encounters can include creatures of a higher grade {with the higher MDP cap}, and generally if you focus on defense you will still have a 'low' score in there somewhere.

 

[Morrus]

Actually more like the 2e approach with high/med/low save progressions but turned into a cap.

My reasoning behind using 'roles' is that AGI is king resulting in high melee defense and high ranged defense. With the roles applied you ensure that each monster has the rock-paper-scissors built in for players to adjust their offensive tactics against. Each role has a weakness to attack.
Most of the monsters in the bestiary are Melee {with some Brutes} and the high/med/low caps often only trim the highest defense in much the same way your scrub of the bestiary results panned out.

Yes, I understood it. I hope I've managed to successfully explain why I feel it isn't appropriate for this game, and how DEFENSEs are derived stats. If you want a "Brute" you need to design a creature with "Brutish" attributes and skills, not just create a monster and slap a "Brute" template on top. It's a very different design philosophy.

Of course, you can play the game how you wish. But that's very different to the basic granular design premise of WOIN. But anyhow, YMMV and all that. I think we like different types of games, but that's OK.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Yes, I understood it. I hope I've managed to successfully explain why I feel it isn't appropriate for this game, and how DEFENSEs are derived stats. If you want a "Brute" you need to design a creature with "Brutish" attributes and skills, not just create a monster and slap a "Brute" template on top. It's a very different design philosophy.

Of course, you can play the game how you wish. But that's very different to the basic granular design premise of WOIN. But anyhow, YMMV and all that. I think we like different types of games, but that's OK.

Actually I think we are talking past each other, with text based communication and terms getting in the way of meaning.

Yes, granularly design your monsters and build your brute using attributes and skills.. just like you would design a brutish PC using attributes and skill.

But then there is an artificial cap placed on offensive capability via the MDP, the purpose of which is to reduce swingyness caused by variations and increase the 'fun' factor of the game.

My recommendation isn't slapping a template on a monster, but adding an artificial defensive cap whose purpose is to reduce variation and increase the 'fun' factor of the game. Giving the PCs the choice of attacking against and estimated 30% to hit, 50% to hit, or 70% to hit depending on the enemy target and type of attack selected.
The 'special' category includes those creatures {including brutes} that you don't want to be too hard to hit because they are harder to hurt... and these would be ... umm.. special.

This also gives the GM a better idea of whether a given monster would be appropriate to include in an encounter. With the artificial cap on defenses you can still plug in an 8th or even 9th grade critter against a group of 5th grade PCs. Even if their High defense score is out of reach of the MDP capped offensive rolls of the PCs, they have a chance at the Med or Low defense scores.
-- which often time would be Medium or Low anyway based on stat/skill and not capped by the artificial defense capping anyway.

Finally it gives someone who is designing a monster the freedom to design pretty much however they want while limiting the chances of creating a creature that is too much for the players.
Granular design requires much more system mastery from the designer, which is good.. but I don't have that system mastery and I don't want my game on Friday to turn into a TPK because I messed up in building/converting the monsters.
I tend to use published modules, which means I am converting a lot of 4e monsters right now... see my efforts so far at this post ** not adjusted defense scores

 

[Morrus]

Well, in the long run, monster design is completely freeform. You can totally do it that way if you want to - the guidelines are guidelines, not hard and fast rules. If you want to you can just make up numbers from scratch; that's still a legal monster. You can make a monster with 50 MELEE DEFENSE and 10 RANGED DEFENSE or vice versa if it fits your image of the monster's capabilities.

So however one approaches monster design, it's just the final result that matters. I personally think if you have to adjust the monster at the end to fit the role you envisaged for it, you need to go back to the start, as you didn't correctly assign attributes and skills. The guidelines in the book are just one set of tools for arriving at your end result.

The best controls are just human eyeballs - make your monster, eyeball it at the end, and if you think some of its stats are off, or a bit too high or low, just adjust them. If you want to be strict about it, you can document it by ways of a custom exploit. Exploits, after all, are basically ways to break the rules.