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<blockquote data-quote="Bill Zebub" data-source="post: 9612102" data-attributes="member: 7031982">For somebody with an avatar named &quot;Theory of Games&quot; and not &quot;Opinion of Games&quot; this post seems light on game theory and heavy on opinion.&nbsp; Why exactly is it &quot;bad, bad design&quot;?&nbsp; What makes it a &quot;dog-water magic system&quot;? One potential argument would be to compare spellcasting to non-spellcasting, e.g., &quot;By gating spellcasting success behind a caster roll rather than a target saving throw, it reduces the success rate low, compared to non-magic actions.&nbsp; For example....(insert actual game math illustrating the point).&quot;&nbsp; If you have such an analysis I would be interested in seeing that.Alternately, you might have compared it to spellcasting in other games and argued that when you math out success rates, the number of spells per day that casters get is too low to be fun (compared to some other game system you want to use as a baseline).&nbsp; But if you were to do that, you would find that virtually all Shadowdark casters (except very low level ones who roll terrible stats) get more spells on average compared to D&amp;D casters.&nbsp; And...here's the kicker...that's before you even factor in missed attack rolls or passed saving throws in D&amp;D.Now, maybe you just don't like systems where spellcasting checks are required.&nbsp; That somehow even if a spell misses its target it still feels like you at least cast a spell, and so you'd rather have the check come after the cast instead of before.&nbsp; And that's fine.&nbsp; We all have our preferences.&nbsp; But if that's the case maybe you should express it as your preference, and not as a fact of good/bad design?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Bill Zebub, post: 9612102, member: 7031982"] For somebody with an avatar named "Theory of Games" and not "Opinion of Games" this post seems light on game theory and heavy on opinion. Why exactly is it "bad, bad design"? What makes it a "dog-water magic system"? One potential argument would be to compare spellcasting to non-spellcasting, e.g., "By gating spellcasting success behind a caster roll rather than a target saving throw, it reduces the success rate low, compared to non-magic actions. For example....(insert actual game math illustrating the point)." If you have such an analysis I would be interested in seeing that. Alternately, you might have compared it to spellcasting in other games and argued that when you math out success rates, the number of spells per day that casters get is too low to be fun (compared to some other game system you want to use as a baseline). But if you were to do that, you would find that virtually all Shadowdark casters (except very low level ones who roll terrible stats) get more spells on average compared to D&D casters. And...here's the kicker...that's before you even factor in missed attack rolls or passed saving throws in D&D. Now, maybe you just don't like systems where spellcasting checks are required. That somehow even if a spell misses its target it still feels like you at least cast a spell, and so you'd rather have the check come after the cast instead of before. And that's fine. We all have our preferences. But if that's the case maybe you should express it as your preference, and not as a fact of good/bad design? [/QUOTE]

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