Abilities

[Random Code]

However I must insist that while we can keep the changes to the current system limited, they cannot avoided completely.

That made me chuckle when reading the rules below it. With those changes the system is nothing like what it was. Not saying its bad but you've basically just built a completely new resolution system.

A few specific questions...

What dice are you rolling against these increased target numbers?

What about disciplines that don't have overlap with your skill list? How do these factor in to the newly created target numbers for tasks? Do they get half their rank as bonus, a full rank bonus, a reroll, full rank bonus plus a reroll?

Why do they scale (or give bonuses) differently to disciplines that have skill overlaps?

 

[Plageman]

However I must insist that while we can keep the changes to the current system limited, they cannot avoided completely.

That made me chuckle when reading the rules below it. With those changes the system is nothing like what it was. Not saying its bad but you've basically just built a completely new resolution system.

If you want to keep the current resolution system you'll run in a scaling problem when getting to MagnaKai Ranks. The current difficulty range is usually set between 4 (low-moderate) to 9 (high-difficult) but at rank 10 or higher you get a bonus +5 and more... And of course if you don't have a Discipline, you may get a situational bonus at best.

What dice are you rolling against these increased target numbers?

d10 as per core rules.

What about disciplines that don't have overlap with your skill list? How do these factor in to the newly created target numbers for tasks? Do they get half their rank as bonus, a full rank bonus, a reroll, full rank bonus plus a reroll?

Why do they scale (or give bonuses) differently to disciplines that have skill overlaps?

There is a misunderstanding here. Disciplines do net give a bonus anymore. Instead if you have relevant Discipline, you get to roll twice and chose the best result out of them.

Example: Steel Fox a Rank 5 Kai Lord want to track his prey. The GM ask for a Perception skill check. Since he has the Tracking Discipline, Steel Fox player will roll two dice, chose the best one and add 2 to the result. Had he been Trained in Perception he would have added his full Rank of 5 to the result instead of 2.

 

[Random Code]

There is a misunderstanding here. Disciplines do net give a bonus anymore. Instead if you have relevant Discipline, you get to roll twice and chose the best result out of them.

Example: Steel Fox a Rank 5 Kai Lord want to track his prey. The GM ask for a Perception skill check. Since he has the Tracking Discipline, Steel Fox player will roll two dice, chose the best one and add 2 to the result. Had he been Trained in Perception he would have added his full Rank of 5 to the result instead of 2.

There's no misunderstanding on my part. Remember, I was talking about disciplines that do not map to a skill. So, for example Mind Over Matter... What do you do in these cases? You've increased the TN ladder but have removed bonuses for disciplines so you effectively cannot succeed at anything other than a moderate action (or lower) that's associated with such disciplines as there is no relevant skill to add to the action. Now it may be that you want to make all of those auto-successes but I can think of many instances where that doesn't have to be the case.

 

[Random Code]

If you want to keep the current resolution system you'll run in a scaling problem when getting to MagnaKai Ranks.

Not necessarily. That issue didn't exist in the gamebooks so why do you think it will now?

Previous actions that were challenging to a Kai Initiate just become trivial to a Magnakai so are effectively auto-successes. So, in other words, the scale of the adventures, action difficulties, and power levels all shift along together and therefore there are no scaling problems. That's how I'd do it and I reckon it will be something like this that will get released for the rules.

I'm assuming you think your system solves the problem by taking a starting Magnakai character as rank 13 (he has 3 starting disciplines) rather than a Magnakai of rank 3?

This still gives you a problem with your scaling, I believe, as your actions become trivial very quickly. For example, a Kai with 5 Magnakai disciplines (rank 15 in your world) would be able to succeed at an Impossible task 20% of the time, assuming applicable trained skill and discipline. So, you quickly run out of relevant steps on your TN ladder, whereas my solution above moves with the power level of the game and its characters.

 

[Random Code]

Difficulty

Very Easy___3
Easy_______6
Moderate___9
Difficult_____12
Very Difficult_15
Challenging_18
Heroic______21
Impossible__24

Appreciate its rough but these look off by some degree, to me, so you'll want to revisit. I think what you're basically saying with this is that a Kai Master (rank 10) with the applicable trained skill (and discipline) has only a 40% chance of success at a Challenging action? What do you define as a challenging action?

 

[Plageman]

You've increased the TN ladder but have removed bonuses for disciplines so you effectively cannot succeed at anything other than a moderate action (or lower) that's associated with such disciplines as there is no relevant skill to add to the action.

Let me repeat it again, then.

You get the 1/2 rank bonus on every action you make even if you're not trained in the skill, even if you don't have the Discipline.

If you are Trained in the skill, you get the full Rank Bonus.

If you have the Discipline you roll two dice and get the better result out of two.

This is what written in my original post and what I explained for you after.

You always get 1/2 Rank as a bonus. Let me repeat it again, always.

So, for example Mind Over Matter... What do you do in these cases?

Roll two dices, get the best out of the two and add 1/2 Rank.

In the current untested skill list there is no related skill but I guess it would be possible to create a "Self Control" Skill that would use to stay focused, avoid distraction and resist contest of wills.

Should such a skill exist then the Kai Lord Trained in it and using Mind over Matter would roll two dice (because of his Discipline) and add his full Rank to the result (due to being trained in the relevant Skill).

I'm assuming you think your system solves the problem by taking a starting Magnakai character as rank 13 (he has 3 starting disciplines) rather than a Magnakai of rank 3?

The "problem" I have is that if you get to MagnaKai rank 3 then your Discipline bonus will be "reseted" to a lower value than it was at Kai rank 10 and I don't like this idea.

It also create three tiers (Kai/MagnaKai/GrandMaster) "Difficulty" structure that I find to complex to handle in game.

Imagine than a group of characters try to sneak passed by a group of Elite Drakkarim guards.The group is of MagnaKai Rank 3 (but not composed only of Kai Lords) some characters have Discipline of MagnaKai level allowing a bonus to Stealth Tests, others have a Kai Discipline allowing a bonus to Stealth Test and some have no Disciplines at all.

What bonuses would you give ?

This still gives you a problem with your scaling

Yes, maybe. I did not run any test and they may need adjustment. Feel free to propose a new difficulty ladder.

Appreciate its rough but these look off by some degree, to me, so you'll want to revisit. I think what you're basically saying with this is that a Kai Master (rank 10) with the applicable trained skill (and discipline) has only a 40% chance of success at a Challenging action? What do you define as a challenging action?

I'm not sure of the problem here. Is it just a naming convention problem or a probability problem ?

If its the first case, then you can go with alternate naming convention like the one used in Dragon Age RPG
Routine (3) > Easy (6) > Average (9) > Challenging (12) > Hard (15) > Formidable (18 ) > Imposing (21) > Nigh Impossible (24)

If it's a probability issue I think that some difficulty should be reserved for higher Rank characters to underline their progression. A Rank 10 Kai Lord has "just" mastered all 10 Basic Disciplines after all :lol:

Still with the Trained skill and Discipline he get to roll twice and keep the better of two results PLUS he add his full Rank of 10. A MagnaKai starting character at Rank 3 get a +13 !!!

Another option would be to reduce the the number of Difficulty slots to Easy, Average and Difficult but scale them according to the Rank progression, like what was done in DD4.

 

[phantomdoodler]

Some interesting ideas here. I think , its clear that if you want to add a little crunch, you do have to alter the task resolution system, which i think is perfectly fine if that is what you want to do. As it stands, the system doesnt factor skills, so if you introduce them, you have to change target numbers to compensate. For example, in my example above, I had to add 5 to the difficulty, because the abilities were rated 0 to 9, so 5 could be considered an average, With hindsight, i think this range is probably too much, and 1 to 5 would be easy to manage. I may be inclined to try a rating from -2 to +2, assuming that most players had 0. If a player want to be good at something, they have to compensate by taking a negative value.

I am not even sure if you need to provide skill lists. The players could make them up:

For example, a Grey Bear the Kai Lord wants to personalize his character, so chooses:

Strong as an oxen +2, Stubborn -1, and Slow -1

In any situation where brute strength is important, the player may add 2 to the roll. In any social situation where the character is negotiating, or bargaining, they must subtract 1, due to their inflexible nature. Grey Bear also, due to his lumbering frame, must subtract -1 to all rolls involving speed

Each quality that the player chooses should reflect some intrinsic quality of their character, such as their personality, mental abilities or physical make up. Since these things cant be learned as such, they are never improved, and shouldnt clash with Disciplines, since they are learned abilities. So a player couldnt choose weapon master +2, because that is obviously a learned ability, and represented by other disciplines. But they could choose Nimble, which could effect a range of situations involving agility and balance (and would stack with a discipline that provided such a bonus)

 

[Plageman]

I'm not sure that there is some need to put penalties on the player character just to balanced the bonuses they get. The FATE system use a notion of Aspect which can played both a advantages and hindrances to the character's actions.

To get you example of being Stubborn, it could called in by the player to resist mental domination (advantage) but also by the GM to spice up a Diplomacy Test.

 

[phantomdoodler]

Thats a possibility. Acts like traits in mouseguard. The only problem with that is that the Gm has to make sure they penalize as much as award the player (i would certainly forget this if each player had 2 or 3 traits as my memory is rubbish!). Incidently, a player could choose Stubborn +2, and Stubborn -2 if they considered it a useful ability at times, but a negative at others (it may be better to define them differently, so Strong Will +1, Stubborn -1). The reason to include penalties is that the system assumes every one has a value of zero. Some characters will be better, some worse. If you wanted to have a trait Hunchbacked, save for an interview for a freak show, it would be difficult to make that a positive trait. Same for positively described traits such as Lucky at cards

And of course a Gm could still reverse the bonus, if they felt a positive trait could be used negatively, or vice-versa.

 

[Random Code]

In the current untested skill list there is no related skill but I guess it would be possible to create a "Self Control" Skill that would use to stay focused, avoid distraction and resist contest of wills.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at... You haven't got an applicable skill for all discipline coverage so those disciplines won't be able to achieve the same levels of success as others (that have a related skill).

Should such a skill exist then the Kai Lord Trained in it and using Mind over Matter would roll two dice (because of his Discipline) and add his full Rank to the result (due to being trained in the relevant Skill).

You could also look at making Mind Over Matter (and similar abilities) a Willpower based discipline and therefore the degree of success of the action would be defined by the WP spend. Then you don't need to expand out the skill list.

It also create three tiers (Kai/MagnaKai/GrandMaster) "Difficulty" structure that I find to complex to handle in game.

It does yes, but lots of systems with variant power levels do similar things, particularly super hero ones.

Another thing to remember is that by increasing the skill range and its impact on TNs you're reducing the impact of the dice roll result. Personally, I don't think that's a bad thing at all as more predicatability allows for better scenario/challenge building on the part of the GM. That may not be something you and others want though so should be considered.

Imagine than a group of characters try to sneak passed by a group of Elite Drakkarim guards.The group is of MagnaKai Rank 3 (but not composed only of Kai Lords) some characters have Discipline of MagnaKai level allowing a bonus to Stealth Tests, others have a Kai Discipline allowing a bonus to Stealth Test and some have no Disciplines at all.

What bonuses would you give ?

Personally I'd always remember that you're playing a Magnakai level game and that the difficulty is set at that level. Therefore bonuses should only occur with the relevant Magnakai discipline.

So, only one of the above PCs would get a bonus to their dice roll (ie, the one with the Magnakai equivalent stealth discipline). The one who has the 'standard' stealth discipline would get a straight roll (no modifier from rank), the other (with no stealth) would be penalised with a negative modifier to their dice roll.

Yes, maybe. I did not run any test and they may need adjustment. Feel free to propose a new difficulty ladder.

I'm not sure of the problem here. Is it just a naming convention problem or a probability problem ?

Those two questions are both intertwined and it really depends on how you want to run your game, I'm afraid. If you want it superheroic and to reduce the number of tasks requiring dice rolls to resolve then you'll want to quickly run towards the higher end of your ladder from a probability point of view. What I'd suggest is establishing a standard difficulty for a standard game (ie, initial disciplines not Magnakai) and work out from that with other levels of difficulty. The higher up the ladder, do the same for your Magnakai level games. ... Lets not think about Grandmaster ones yet!

You can build the TN ladder after you have the rest of the rules mapped out so I wouldn't worry too much about it. The advantage of that is also that it allows you to test the impact of your various rule sets and modifiers.

Another option would be to reduce the the number of Difficulty slots to Easy, Average and Difficult but scale them according to the Rank progression, like what was done in DD4.

Which is what I suggested above (a scale based on the tier of the player characters), isn't it? Or are we not quite understanding each other?

Anyway, hope at least some of that helps!

 

[Random Code]

I am not even sure if you need to provide skill lists. The players could make them up... <snipped for brevity>

I think that's a more preferable and elegant solution to skill lists. To be honest though, I think you already have it pretty much bang on with your talents rules, above.

 

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I'm not sure that there is some need to put penalties on the player character just to balanced the bonuses they get. The FATE system use a notion of Aspect which can played both a advantages and hindrances to the character's actions.

To get you example of being Stubborn, it could called in by the player to resist mental domination (advantage) but also by the GM to spice up a Diplomacy Test.

This too.

 

[phantomdoodler]

I can't see anything in your post that states what aspects you actually like about the LW system. Which is fine but at the moment you're critiquing the narrow focus of the classes and how once they get to their highest rank there is no real mechanical variation to the standard class options. That's fine. It is a problem if you want more options.

Well, i like the system because its like the books, and doesnt, like the d20 version, feel inaccurate. I just think it needs tweaking to satisfy my gm and players style (they like plenty of choice). Its certainly not easy, I admit that, and with a rules lite system such as Lonewolf, there is an obvious danger in adding too much and losing the feel and heart of the game. Still, because i have such great affection, and nostalgia for lonewolf, I am happy to make a few attempts until i have something more to my and my players tastes.

 

[phantomdoodler]

I think the Talent system looks fine at first glance and a lot like what you originally went with in previous threads. They aren't game breaking and still give focus to the 'disciplines' of the classes. All that you need to be careful about here is not making there usage too ubiquitous and make sure they don't steal the thunder of a particular class or specific class discipline - assuming you want to maintain those setting and system fundamentals.

When i finally get my heroes of magnamund, i can fine tune these talents, so they dont step on metaphorical toes, which I agree is important to preserve the role of the classes

I may also reintroduce the tier system for the kai disciplines, or at least look into that as a way of creating diversity. A possible way of doing this, rather than award half rank bonuses straight off, is when you increase a rank, you gain a new discipline at +0, and you increase all other disciplines you have by +1, up to a maximum of +5. So a fifth rank character will have their first discipline at +4, their second discipline at +3, their third discipline at +2, their fourth discipline at +1, and their fifth discipline at +0 (instead of all of them at +2).

I guess a character with +0 in a Discipline, can only perform the rudimentary aspects of the discipline

I may also dabble with the idea of multiclassing. I dont see why a character couldnt be , say, a 3rd rank Kai lord, 2nd rank Knight of the white mountain (again would need to check heroes of magnamund). Obviously, you would use the classes rank to determine any Bonuses, rather than the combined, and you couldnt revisit your first class after leaving it, unless the gm permitted that.

 

[Plageman]

In FATE Aspects exists in addition to the Skills. I have no knowledge of a game system except LW that has no skills at all, but I'm not omniscient :lol:

Most "Cinematic" game system use a short skill list with most them applicable in multiple situations. Thats what I'm aiming to do but as you pointed it may lack some of them.

Talents as proposed are great to translate background notes to crunch while keeping the Discipline-as-Skill system intact.

I've started to read through the Heroes of Magnamund book. I have not finished reading it but it looks like most of the "Outdoor" Classes get Disciplines who can easily translate as skill bonuses. The "Spellcasting" and "Fighting" classes are having a more difficult time justifying Discipline bonuses imho.

I think that an expanded article on designing tests and assigning bonuses would really be great. Since the current system put all emphasis on the player's characters there is no "skill contest" as it exist in other games. Instead the GM is supposed to set a difficulty accordingly (see the Archery Contest at section 340 in Kingdom of Terror).

Also there some occurrences in the gamebooks where three kind of results can happen: total failure, minor success, full success.

BTW I used project Aon zip files to check how the books handle the bonuses. Bonuses from having Disciplines never get higher than +3, even in Book 12 !

Still this work because M. DEver is better storyteller than I am and it is a solo gamebook where you don't have to handle different characters