Power Source Differentiation

[Saeviomagy]

Arcane has its own drawbacks as you have pointed out already. Nuke everything quick and then you need to go back and rest. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Yeah, but that's far more effective than "start the fight, pfaff about for 4 rounds building power, then do stuff".

If the entire party is arcane, they will pretty much operate how a party operate now, but they'll say "we take a short rest" a lot more.

If anyone in the party is not arcane, then they'll be at a significant disadvantage.

 

[Sadrik]

Tribal spirit's and flavorful rages that emulate totems... its a totemic thing.

Hmm, perhaps it does make sense to have them Attune to their totem spirits. So they no longer get themselves into a huffy, they let a totem spirit get them into a huffy. Interesting flavor...

 

[Sadrik]

Yeah, but that's far more effective than "start the fight, pfaff about for 4 rounds building power, then do stuff".

If the entire party is arcane, they will pretty much operate how a party operate now, but they'll say "we take a short rest" a lot more.

If anyone in the party is not arcane, then they'll be at a significant disadvantage.

I agree with you. The capacitor method is the best. They do not need to build up, they can sustain without any problems using power after power after power. None of the others can do that. I think I would like to change that and go with a "ritual" mechanic for the arcane guys. Something to do with:
Wizard performs complex ritual to get power to work.
Swordmage performs complex sword dance to get power to work.
Artificer completes a arcane gadget to get their power to work.
Bard does a complex performance to get their power to work.
Sorcerer moves to the psionic focus method.

Bottom line is capacitor method is out and arcane ritual method is in. So now to come up with the right mechanics to make it somewhat balanced with the others...

It would be kind of neat to tie it into the ritual system already established. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Garthanos]

quick idea the power takes more than one action to perform... ie conjure the mana, form the mana, release the mana.

Rituals take longer and have associated components... something like the above could make longer... still useable in combat.

Bringing magic / components back in to the spell casting

The components can be reuseable for at-will powers...for encounters they become tainted and require small purification rituals (no cost) after the battle.

If you take away a wizards components his powers are at -1 on damage and -2 on attack.

 

[Garthanos]

duplicate

 

[Sadrik]

quick idea the power takes more than one action to perform... ie conjure the mana, form the mana, release the mana.

Rituals take longer and have associated components... something like the above could make longer... still useable in combat.

Bringing magic / components back in to the spell casting

The components can be reuseable for at-will powers...for encounters they become tainted and require small purification rituals (no cost) after the battle.

If you take away a wizards components his powers are at -1 on damage and -2 on attack.

Alright take a look and see how that sits with you guys. It really plays up the components and the ritual nature of their magic. Now they are not endless in their power and they will become fatigued during a long battle. Conceptually I think the ritual thing rocks, however I am not sure I like the limiter of gaining a penalty to their arcana roll - ritual fatigue - meh.

Please critique these further.

Also note that I removed the power source descriptions, they are almost down the line power source-wise but there was enough cross over that I removed the tie.

 

[Garthanos]

Alright take a look and see how that sits with you guys. It really plays up the components and the ritual nature of their magic. Now they are not endless in their power and they will become fatigued during a long battle. Conceptually I think the ritual thing rocks, however I am not sure I like the limiter of gaining a penalty to their arcana roll - ritual fatigue - meh.

Balance is a tenous concept .. however since you are replacing the current method of limiting things with a new method, you have to compare what you are proposing to what exists currently... how many uses of what comes out of your rules typically... For the arcane rites and component method. beings it is probabilistic, what are the most likely number of uses at various levels? (mean and standard deviation values.) and how does this change over the course of conflict.. does it stay fun is obviously a subjective question ... does the new progressive chances of failure... increase the tension?

 

[InspiredOgre]

I REALLY like this idea... But its too complicated for my group...

I also see a potential for it you may not...

1) By allowing more uses for dailys and encounters, you decrease the slog-like feel of combat (Dailys and Encounters do more damage) And though that did not appear to be your intent, opening up the use of each individual power more than once per encounter or day does achive this.

2) It answers the nagging question "Why cant I use this level 1 encounter spell more than once? Id even be willing to give up my higher level encounter spells to do it!"

So, for my group, I was considering useing an un-modified capacitor style... (BTW, I get your trying to make this work, but deleteing that old capacitor style from the post (instead of hiding it or something) is kinda meh.)

Anyway, in order to make it work for me, I decided to make a spreadsheet to see the relative power of each level based on the value you assigned to Encounters and Dailies.

I did this by adding up the encounter spells a person is able to use on a given level, then multiplied it by 2.

For dailies, I did 5.

And for utilities, I made a best guess... Most are dailies, I think, but some are encounters and some are even at-will... So the abitrary average I came up with (totally off my head) was 3.5.

Here are the values I came up with.

[spoil]1) 7
2) 10.5
3) 12.5
4) 12.5
5) 17.5
6) 21
7) 23
8) 23
9) 28
10) 31.5
11) 33.5
12) 37
13) 37
14) 37
15) 37
16) 40.5
17) 40.5
18) 40.5
19) 40.5
20) 45.5
21) 45.5
22) 49
23) 49
24) 49
25) 49
26) 52.5
27) 52.5
28) 52.5
29) 52.5
30) 52.5[/spoil]

So, the idea is, on a purely capacitor style basis, you need that many points to average out to the least same potential on a daily basis (Least, because encounter powers can refresh a theoretically huge amount of times on a given day... The figures I came up with assume encounter powers are used once per day... But that was fine with me, because I just wanted to ensure the value of "capacitor points" I give my players based on their level was not LESS than the minimum value of their potential before the change)

Anyway, I am having a hard time coming up with a value. I have tried Level (lvl), Lvl*2, Lvl+biggest ability score, and all sorts of values... Im having a hard time coming up with a workable value, I figgured Id ask you.

BUT, I see now your going away from the capacitor model..

As such, my work is less helpful to you.... However, the power values per level may interest you.

(Your way off, btw.... your reducing maximum power per day by huge amounts at higher levels... Except the adrenaline model, which has no cap.)

 

[InspiredOgre]

Okay, so with further thought, I reduced the abitrary value of utilities to 3 (even if they are mostly dailies... they are also mostly not damage dealing abilities.)

The result is that Level + Biggest Score, for folks who have an 18 at level 1 and increase that score every chance they can....

Is pretty good.

The PCs have a LOT more power at levels 1-5, but since they have so few powers to choose from, Im okay with that... levels 6-30 average out to having 2.3 more points than they otherwise would have.

They are only ever under budget in levels 12 and 13, but even then, they are only shy 1 or 2 of these expected points.

These are the actual values per level (again, assumeing an 18 score and that they improve that score each level they can.)

19
20
21
23
24
25
26
28
29
30
32
33
34
36
37
38
39
41
42
43
45
46
47
49
50
51
52
54
55
56

I wish that you could use a spoiler bbcode here.

 

[Sadrik]

Welcome to the boards!

I REALLY like this idea... But its too complicated for my group...

Agreed, I think in my group there would be a sentiment of why even bother. Your trying to take out the gameyness at the cost of making everyone weaker.

1) By allowing more uses for dailys and encounters, you decrease the slog-like feel of combat (Dailys and Encounters do more damage) And though that did not appear to be your intent, opening up the use of each individual power more than once per encounter or day does achive this.

The only problem is that their are some powers which are out-of-whack powerful and to many these powers are only viable by limiting them to 1 per encounter or 1 per day (as per the standard rules). If you don't mind going through and altering these powers so that they do not get "spammed" as the only power to get used, I then think the capacitor model will work. Things like stun lock, hyper damage dealing powers etc.

2) It answers the nagging question "Why cant I use this level 1 encounter spell more than once? Id even be willing to give up my higher level encounter spells to do it!"

I agree, it would be nice to be able to do this. However, again if you give the ability to "spam" the same power over an entire encounter their will be little diversity of powers. This is why I limited adrenaline to be used after giving and taking damage, why rites are limited by a skill roll, and why pleas are limited to a roll as well. Basically I don't want powers to be used every round, then if the player wants to "spam" at least it will be broken up and stun lock and damage nova won't happen every round.

So, for my group, I was considering useing an un-modified capacitor style... (BTW, I get your trying to make this work, but deleteing that old capacitor style from the post (instead of hiding it or something) is kinda meh.)

I'll throw it back up there.

Anyway, in order to make it work for me, I decided to make a spreadsheet to see the relative power of each level based on the value you assigned to Encounters and Dailies.

I did this by adding up the encounter spells a person is able to use on a given level, then multiplied it by 2.

For dailies, I did 5.

And for utilities, I made a best guess... Most are dailies, I think, but some are encounters and some are even at-will... So the abitrary average I came up with (totally off my head) was 3.5.

So, the idea is, on a purely capacitor style basis, you need that many points to average out to the least same potential on a daily basis (Least, because encounter powers can refresh a theoretically huge amount of times on a given day... The figures I came up with assume encounter powers are used once per day... But that was fine with me, because I just wanted to ensure the value of "capacitor points" I give my players based on their level was not LESS than the minimum value of their potential before the change)

Anyway, I am having a hard time coming up with a value. I have tried Level (lvl), Lvl*2, Lvl+biggest ability score, and all sorts of values... Im having a hard time coming up with a workable value, I figgured Id ask you.

Something you may consider on this is that the psion always had the advantage over the sorcerer, the reason is, they could maximize their point potential throughout the day. What I mean by that is the sorcerer often might at the end of the have a bunch of first and second level slots left. A psion did not have that problem he could drop his powers and squeeze out all that potential. Often this fact made the psion much more powerful (in my mind at least). I think you see were I am going with this. It is ok that this underpowers the characters because the added flexibility is huge.

Okay, so with further thought, I reduced the abitrary value of utilities to 3 (even if they are mostly dailies... they are also mostly not damage dealing abilities.)

The result is that Level + Biggest Score, for folks who have an 18 at level 1 and increase that score every chance they can....

Is pretty good.

The PCs have a LOT more power at levels 1-5, but since they have so few powers to choose from, Im okay with that... levels 6-30 average out to having 2.3 more points than they otherwise would have.

They are only ever under budget in levels 12 and 13, but even then, they are only shy 1 or 2 of these expected points.

These are the actual values per level (again, assumeing an 18 score and that they improve that score each level they can.)

This works. The only concern is with spamming the same power over and over. Perhaps you can insert a "cool down" period for powers. So that when a power is fired it cannot be immediately be re-upped. Perhaps encounter cool down is 1 round and daily cool down is 2 or even 3 rounds.

You know the capacitor model is not looking all that shabby with cool down in place...