Paging Scurvy_Platypus (Everstone Questions)

[jdrakeh]

Everstone Monsters:
Yeah, it looked like the Monster Level was their way of renaming CR. I've actually got half an idea regarding this, but I'll talk about it in just a second...

No, no, I think you misunderstood me. In the BESM d20 core book there aren't any rules for creating monsters, only characters (and, as in D&D, characters have levels which are a rough approximation of CR). The rules for CR in BESM d20 (via the Monstrous Manual) came later. The monsters in Everstone appear to have been created using the core BESM d20 rules only and, thus, they're technically characters (hence why they have a level, rather than a CR). That said, yes, there is a little discrpency between BESM d20 levels and D&D levels, though I'm not too worried as they don't seem to be off by that far.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

*nod*

No, I understand you. I think I just expressed myself poorly.

I'm kinda curious to try statting out an Everstone monster explicitly, just to get a feel for how they did it. If they really did build it exactly like a character (base of 40 starting points, +5 per level) then it suggests some interesting possibilities, kinda along the lines of Palladium Fantasy with something like a third of the critters potentially being playable (subject to GM discretion).

The Monstrous Manual.... I dunno about this thing. While I'm glad they included the standard CR, as well as the CR based on points spent (Monster instead of Character), I'm not quite sure about the accuracy of the point-based method overall.

As for the discrepancy between BESMd20 and D&D character...
I'm not entirely sure about how much discrepancy there is. Given that Everstone then diverges, I want to at least poke at it a bit before I start pushing the combats.

Everstone hands out the HD based on race, classes have the BaB progression of a Wizard unless they explicitly purchase it higher, classes only get 5 CP per level instead of BESMd20's default of 10, and the iconic classes (the Magi) all have innate magic.

The feeling I get off of Everstone is that it was made with the desire to start the game rockin', and then try and balance the power ramping up and having groovy stuff. Cutting the CP awarded in half looks like a pretty deliberate attempt to slow things down and smooth the level of play. Also the fact that the classes are explicitly given Attributes seems like an attempt to guide the overall game progression as well as making it more like the D&D sort of game that people are most likely to be familiar with.

My purpose in posting the CR for the player races above is two-fold.

The first is for anyone reading over the Everstone book that says, "Hey wait a minute!!! It looks like the Golems are seriously better than Everstonians. Shouldn't there be some sort of an LA or some way to balance them out? What's to stop the entire group from playing Golems, especially since it looks like they're allowed to become Magi ?!?!?"

Yeah, the races are a bit scattered around in terms of their potential combat/conflict effectiveness (which is really what the complaint boils down to). The Everstonians are slightly better than the default assumption for humans in D&D (which are CR .3) and the Fey (without the additional Racial Attributes they can buy) are doing a bit better than the Dwarf in D&D, which I've seen called "strong" for an LA+0 race. Warforge are often felt to really be an LA+1 race, and you can clearly see that the Golem is a powerhouse.

The other purpose relates to the first one, and that's combat and XP.
The whole point to trying to "balance" races through things like XP penalties, Level Adjustment and so forth is so that nobody feels particularly cheated in play. In terms of combat, it sucks when one character is constantly outshone by some other one that's a funky race with cool powers.

The simple approach to things is to simply assume that a class level is worth 1 CR and not worry about it. Add on the additional CR from the races involved, and now you've got a base idea for how strong the party "really" is. If you want to "look under the hood" as it were, you can do a similar thing for the classes, and get an even closer guesstimation.

In handing out XP, I really want to try out the idea of handing out XP based on how much of a challenge the encounter _really_ was for the group, instead of the usual "X creature is worth Y experience because of the abilities it has". If it doesn't work, then I'll just go with some other approach.

 

[jdrakeh]

*nod*

No, I understand you. I think I just expressed myself poorly.

I'm kinda curious to try statting out an Everstone monster explicitly, just to get a feel for how they did it. If they really did build it exactly like a character (base of 40 starting points, +5 per level) then it suggests some interesting possibilities, kinda along the lines of Palladium Fantasy with something like a third of the critters potentially being playable (subject to GM discretion).

Ah, I think that there must be some info missing from the Stingy Gamer edition of BESM d20 that you're using -- the full version doesn't limit you to 40 starting point but, rather, provides alternate point totals based on campaign power level (not the same thing as character level). I suspect that this is how the Everstone monsters (and some of the classes) were created, accounting for the point total discrepancies that you mention.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Ahhhhh. Now we're getting closer to being on the same wavelength.

I'm relying on Everstone for the character creation and everything, and simply referring back to the Stingy Gamer Edition for clarification of Everstone bits.

Page 44 of Everstone is where you come up with your ability scores. That's where I get the 40 CP number. You're supposed to generate your ability scores "as found in the d20 Player's Handbook" (since Everstone and BESMd20 are sporting the d20 logo). Once you've done that, you get to figure out how many CP your abilities are worth. Divide your ability in half and deduct that many points from a pool of 40; or do it Everstone's way and for every 2 points in an ability deduct 1 point from the pool. You'll get to the same place either way.

If you go over 40, you're supposed to reduce your abilities down until you reach 40.
If you're under 40, you can either use those points to buy racial attributes (assuming you're playing something like a Fey), buy class attributes, or background feats.

Unlike regular BESMd20, you don't purchase your race you pick it just like D&D.

After you've done that, you spend 15 CP (assuming you start characters at 3rd level as it's suggested) on whatever (5 CP per level).

So characters are built on a default maximum of 55 points, although if you wanted to be a stickler you could say that whatever race a person picks is "free" points, since they don't have to buy the race. With this kind of setup, Everstone really is trying to clamp and smooth out the potential power curve, as well as make the game look much more like the D&D sort of game that people are used to seeing.

Now something interesting to note, is the CP totals.
BESMd20 notes that the default d20 classes needed to add up to 200 points. The BESMd20 classes are also built for that.
Everstone characters get 100 points (5 CP per level).

Now, I _think_ this is a bit deceptive, as Everstone does cost stuff below BESMd20. For example the Moon Magi Teleport is 3 CP per rank, maximum of 4 ranks which will get you 100 miles. BESMd20 costs it as 5 points per rank, maximum of 6 ranks, and you can go a million miles at that rank.

But BESMd20 also makes you make a skill check to be able to teleport beyond the "safe" distance. Everstone doesn't make you do a check, and instead uses the "safe" distance as the range of the teleport.

Of course, instead of rolling the dice a player could (and probably should) simply buy their ability scores. That way they get the exact character they want, and they can leave themselves some extra CP to buy whatever that way.

Of course, it's also not a large leap for a GM to decide to tweak the kind of game they want by fooling around with the points. Higher number of CP for character generation, more CP per level, and you can probably start making stuff look like Rifts.

Everstone seems to have taken BESMd20, and flipped a bunch of switches and then closed the lid. It _looks_ a lot more like standard D&D in terms of classes having explicit attributes to pick from, and of course you can buy feats as normal so it winds up letting people still use their other d20 books. But for those wanting to, you can reach behind the curtain and still tap into the open possibilities of BESMd20. Like using the Gun bunny for an Arcane Archer or something.

Part of what keeps me pumped about Everstone is that I really like how it truly seems to have treated BESMd20 as a toolkit, and gone from there. Kinda like what the Lone Wolf RPG did with d20. Another d20 implementation that seemed to pass under most people's radar, but that's for a different thread.