From: Rannou@info.polymtl.ca (Patrick Rannou)
Subject: Re: Why are their level limits?
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada
	<1992Aug26.181636.12337@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu>
	<1992Aug26.220054.695@ccsvax.sfasu.edu> <66993@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 05:40:14 GMT

In article <66993@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccoprdj@prism.gatech.EDU (Jorge Diaz) writes:


   In article <1992Aug26.220054.695@ccsvax.sfasu.edu> z_copeab@ccsvax.sfasu.edu writes:
   >> class choices). 

   >	I want penalties that make sense, not penalties that are slapped
   >together for 'game balance' (that ugly phrase again) so that T$R can claim that
   >game worlds would be humanocentric.

   But the problem is that you can't have penalties that make sense.  There
   would be no game balance at all.

Depends: HOW do you DEFINE game balance???

I defined it as each PC being just as much "useful" to the group as any
other AT ANY GIVEN level. Thus, elfs arent; game blaanced according to my
book: they are much more "powerful" than the others at low levels, and then
at the highest levels they are much LESS powerful, making them balanced
only around name level.

   Why can't wizards wear armor?  They don't know how to put it on.

   Fine.  Wama (Mystra rest his soul)!  Get over here and put this plate mail
   on me.

Try RoleMaster. ANY character can learn ANY skill. It's just that the price
may vary from skill to skill. The class is just a way of saying "this
character as preferences for these skills, and thus will leanr some skills
easier than others simply because of his way of life".


   Why can only thieves pick locks?

Because AD&D isn't skill based. Even if it's class based, you can still do
it. Add a house rule, and say that ANY character can try to pick lock, just
say they've got say "1% at first level, 2% at second, etc...", but once you
start doing this you have to do it for ALL skills, that's why it's so much
easier to make the game skill based right from the start.

I'm having a few ideas on game design: the GM puts a "nominal price" (or
use the suggested default depending on the current setting of the campaign,
be it "hack n slash", "storytelling", "mystery", etc...

Then he make classes (or use the suggested ones), putting percentages for
each skill according at how god the guy is with that skill, how easy he
tends to learn it, etc... the norm is 100%.

Now, if the nominal price is 36 and the guy has 200% in that skill, then he
must pay 18 experience points to get one skill level in that skill.

It's more complcated than that (prices vary from level to level, stats
affect skills, etc... ) but basically the final price is the multiplication
of all effects...


   I'm not a thief by profession, but I could
   learn to pick a lock if I really took the time.  Why aren't there lock
   picking/trap finding/trap removing non-weapon proficiencies?

Because T$R is stupid and just can't imagine rules to be more uniform
instead of having five sets of rules for the same thing depending if you
are doing an action because you have the class, the skill, are casting a
spell, are using an innate hability, or are using a magic item, or
whatever.

   Because
   they don't want everyone able to do those things.  That's what a thief
   does, and if everyone else could do them, no one would choose to be
   a thief.

Yeah, but if skills were "affected" by class, then it would make sense to
try to specialise in the things you're good at, but would not prevent you
from knowing a lot of other things. The more spread you are, tough, the
less good you are at them. An "adventurer" splitting his points betweeen
fighter, thief, mage and cleric would surely become a jack of all trade and
master of none.

   Why can only fighters specialize in weapons?  Because since the poor
   bastards can't do anything else spectacular, they have to have
   *something*, or no one would want to be a fighter.

   Why can clerics not use edged weapons?

That was removed in AD&D2 when oyu use a "priest from a particular mythos"
rule. And when you do thast, try to choose a priest of peace next time...
guarantee you'll have a hard time wearing robes and having only a net or
lasso for weapons, especially if it's an hack n slash campaign!

   Because their deities don't want
   them to shed blood?  Hey, have you ever been hit in the face with a mace?
   :-)
   Besides, the deities don't have any problems with their paladins shedding
   blood.

Depends. If it's GREEN blood, OK, go for it man!

   Notice that all my examples are class-based instead of race-based.  That's
   because the class restrictions (IMHO) are the most ridiculous of all.
   But hey, we live with them, in the name of game balance....


Why don't you remake the AD&D rules if they turn you off so much?

Designing a simple system, copied directly from AD&D manuals but using
skills instead of classes is not such a big task. I'm planning to do it
when I get bored as much as you seem to be. I'll even make it work with
LESS die rolls, if possible, or QUICKER die rolls.

Example of things I might try to do: Rool the same type of die for
surprise, initiative, hear noise, to hit, etc, in order to lessen the dice
exchange during the game. I'll go for a D% roll, since it's easy to read,
rolls less long than a D20 (hate those dices rolling off the table), has 5
times as much precision, and offers simple decimal calculations.

And I might also try to combine the to-hit roll with the damage roll in a
single roll, although that might prove... tricky... but quite interesting.
The concept of "critical hit" would then really make sense when you roll a
100 for mega damage, or when you need a 40 to hit and roll 40 in the first
round for slight damage,m and 90  in the second round for biggie damage,
you just know it's better than when you roll as in AD&D for a (needing 9+
to hit) 9 and roll (long sword., strength, magic) 12 hit points of damage,
and then roll a 19 for only 5 hit points of damage.

 RoleMaster AKA ChartMaster is BAD because it uses:

1) Open Ended Rolls in a now-linear/regular/smooth fashion.
2) A different chart for each weapon, instead of the same chart for any
given weapon and simple rules for handling the difference between two
weapons by simple arithmetics directly on the table.
3) The critical hits didn't follow a linear prograssion at all. Say, you
roll 33, this means you've just barely hit the other in the A critical hit
stage. You roll, 96%, he;s hit for mega effect, knocked out. Now, you
attack huis friend, you roll a stunning 96%, you roll the critical hit,
roll 33%, he's hurt but still fighting good.

Now, I really WANT to make a system in which when you'`re going to roll for
an attack, you feel like those gambling guys, you feel the tension as you
WISH to roll high, because you know that when you see a big number coming,
you`ve got him good! Amd that if you really roll low, you made a bad mistake.

With AD&D, or even somewhat with rolemaster (because critical tables are
used for over half of the attacks that DO hit), the tension is far less on
the two rolls because when you roll the hit, you know that there is a weak
correlation between the value you roll and the damage you make. And when
you roll for damage, a critical, or a fumble, you already know where you
stand, and have laready set your hopes according to what you know.
Combining to-hit and damage (along with any "parry" and "armor" effects
from the opponent) into a single roll make it better because you :

1) lose a lot less time rolling dices. I simply hate it when a player
waits for my attention to roll the to hit, rolls, say I hit", then waits
until I ask him to roll for his damage to  roll them. That was bad enough
waiting the first roll...
2) Condense all the tension into a more climaxing roll because you know
that anything might happen, based on the pure luck of the roll.
3) Get to become better at mental clculation (side effect). ;-)

Also, I don't recomment making the attcker do a roll AND making the
defender do a roll also. Takes too much time, gives the problem of adding
complexity to synchronize both rolls (you just can't let every player
roll), and most of all there can be as much fun from having the destiny of
his PC hang in the hands of someone else. There is a great sense of
insecurity when you look at another person roll a die that might determine
your fate, pretty much in the same way that a character feels insucure when
an attack comes his way. Of course, you lose also something: diversity of
actions, because knowing how well the defender fared is important, too.

But althought quite desirable, this added detail has a cost: the
combination of the two results into one means that the two
"attacker/defender" comparison won't be very linear. Either you adjust the
results to account for the triangle shaped probability repartition and
complicate mental calculations by a great deal (when you combine two dices
probability repartition, you get a triangle), OR you let calculations
simple and get as a result that most of the time the fighting result will
be in the "middle range" of "A hits, but B parried, or A hit for low
damage", or if A is much better than B: "A nearly always hits for low to
meium damage", or of B is much better than A "A very rarely hit, and if he
does it's mainly low damage. mostly, B parries of A misses completely.

With the rules I want to do, complicated calculations wouldn't be so
complicated after all: a calculator would still be needed, but the
underlying formulas would mainly be only multiplications (or division when
you want a negative effect). Most of these would be made pre-game time,
leaving only two numbers:

For each attack mode -PC health status combinaison, an ATTACK FACTOR,
and similarly for each defense mode - PC health status combinaison, a
DEFENSE FACTOR (including DEX, size, armor, weak spots, etc...).

Of course, unless I do the game for use with a computer, I'll have to limit
myself to make a compromize between the flow of the game (time used for
rolls and mental math. Heck, I can have one single table to show the result
of mutliplications. That should go faster than typing on a calculator of
doing it mentally. And it's ONLY one table for ALL actions. Like, don't
leave home without it!) and the deversity of the possible results.

I still want to take into account things like bleeding, being hit in
specific parts of the body, but not going like RoleMaster about it, saying
"hit in the ankle" and things like that. I'd preferable classify it has it
in <importance level> part, say, hit in vital part for example could be
interpreted as the head, heart, or groin, depending on the position of the
attacker asnd defender.

Anyway...


Ciao...














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/---------------------------\
| Patrick "Paradak" Rannou. |
| Rannou@info.polymtl.ca    |
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