Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Breaking Star Games" data-source="post: 9848263" data-attributes="member: 7042067">I've really only resonated high complexity when I want a tactical combat sub-system that is full of meaningful, balanced choices in both building the character and in choosing your actions in the combat (and I'd probably prefer a computer RPG doing the brunt of the effort). Pathfinder 2e stands out time and again as I try other 4e-Successor games like Lancer, Icon and Gubat Banwa. The 3 Action economy with the penalty to just spam Attacks is pretty huge. Though I think PF2e should sell itself as a grittier premise when you get knocked unconscious and brought up, your next turn may look like picking up your weapon, standing up and getting Reactive Strike'd in the face - it doesn't always match that heroic style it often sells. A lot of spells don't have that show-stopping presence of Icon, 4e or Draw Steel, but instead every round of combat, I feel like I can looking through my options.And on the other side is giving the GM tools to understand and create interesting encounters. GMs don't really have the bandwidth to properly playtest things, so having a good understanding is pretty important.I could imagine games that focus on Chases and Space Combats doing a similar complexity, but I don't see this in practice. Often I see kinda complicated sub-systems that aren't very fun to play. Chase Systems with like 3 choices and way more rolling than the drama is worth. Often, I turn to a more open-ended Clock and GM rulings for a lot of things as my personal preference over systems that are either boring to play or easy to optimize (looking at Night Black Agent's Chase system and 5e's combat)Less on topic, but I am running it, so its on my mind - Mythic Bastionland combat shows where a system can be open decisions but not too complex and very fast. This has been a huge innovation to find that middle ground that a lot of games have left sour for me like FFG Star Wars or Savage World trying to be fast but I didn't feel like I had meaningful decisions in combat.</blockquote>

Verification