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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jdrakeh" data-source="post: 3626592" data-attributes="member: 13892">Well, for starters, you make two more dice rolls to resolve the effect of a fireball in True20, which seems a bit counterintuitive for something billed as less complex than standard D&D <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> More importantly, however, the manner in which you illustrate a fireball is not, by a long shot, the only way to model such a spell in True20 (which might be part of the problem). Let's look at the Quickstart rules, ostensibly created to show off the system's versatility and ease: First, to actually ignite or create a fireball, the an Adept needs to make a successful Fire Shaping check (Difficulty 15). That's one roll for the caster, pretty simple. The mage can increase the size and intensity of the fire (or fireball) by making another Fire Shaping check at a difficulty of 10 + 1 per square foot of increase. Every two square feet increases the fire’s damage potential by +1. This makes a total of two rolls for the caster, should they choose to cast a more deadly fireball (and I'm not sure why they wouldn't), plus a 100% variable potential modifer to both the roll in question and the forthcoming Toughness saving throw. The mage can move objects with the power of his thoughts. The Difficultyof the Move Object check is based on the mass of the object (I suspect that a ball of fire weighs less than two pounds, so a base Difficulty of 10) and whether or not you choose to risk fatigue. A fatiguing use of Move Object can move ten times the mass listed on the table (so 20 pounds at Difficulty 10, up to 2,000 pounds at Difficulty 40) and doubles the listed damage.Regardless of whether fatigue will be risked in order to double the listed damage from impact (+1), we have another roll for the caster to project that ball of fire and a +1 adjustment to the forthcoming Toughness saving throw. We also have a further potential adjusment of +1 to the Toughness savig throw if, in fact, fatigue is risked. Now, that only allows the mage to attempt throwing the fireball. Whether or not it actually hits. . .To hit an opponent with the fireball, a ranged attack roll is required. If successful, the fireball deals impact damage based on the Move Object skill check (see above) and  the intensity of the fireball as previously determined. Since using Move Object is a move action, you can move an object and strike with it (as a standard action) in the same round.So. . . another die roll for the Adept. The good news is that the mage's player is, for the most part, done rolling dice at the moment. Anyone hit with a damaging attack makes a Toughness saving throw. Thisis a roll of 1d20 plus Toughness (which measures the ability to avoid orshrug off damage) plus any modifiers from armor.Now the target of the spell gets to make a Toughness saving throw modified by at least two variables, and up to four variables based on choices made. The use of some powers puts a strain on the adept’s mind and body. When an adept uses a fatiguing power, the player must make a fatigue save; this is a Will saving throw against a Difficulty of 11 (for the powers of a 1st-level adept).So. . . at least one, possibly as many as three Will saving throws for the mage in question. So. . . for a 1st Level adept to cast a fireball using the default True20 Quickstart rules, takes. . . <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">At least four rolls for the caster, possibly as many as seven. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">One possible roll for the target, with at least two alterations and possibly four.</li> </ul>Now, as one of my players mentioned, this makes for very flexible magic (the player has control over nearly every individual aspect of the spell) with added efficiency costing tangible player resources (fatigue) and a real possibility of spell failure occurring (due to the multi-step casting process). This is all good and all part of why we looked at True20 in the first place (i.e., all of these features were part of the advertising buzz).What is not good (or at least what wasn't good for us) is the vastly increased complexity that comes with implementing such freeform casting during actual play. Something billed as being 'simple' and 'fluid' ended up being a monumental chore for us due to the multiple dice rolls and variable bookkeeping. We had the flexiblity to create pretty much any kind of spell effect we wanted, though the cost for customization was complexity that dwarfed that of D&D. Which is not what we wanted. Our hope had been that some of this would diminish once we started using the full rule-set (which some of it did, as per your own example), though plenty of fiddly emulation issues continued to crop up when attempting to duplicate other aspects of D&D where powers were concerned. In the end, the versatility of True20 was great, though it came at too high a cost in complexity for my players and I. Ultimately, for us, D&D emulated D&D better than True20 did. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />[Edit: I guess the real issue was that the more we tested True20's boundaries, the more unamanageable it became. Our group would have been fabulous stress testers for GR. We found that if we stuck to stuff as written, it's fairly manageable. When we started using it to emulate other things (which is what is was ostensibly designed for), it burst at the seams under the weight of actual play complications where powers were concerned.]</blockquote>

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