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KilledWithStyle

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Posts posted by KilledWithStyle

  1. Posted

    Hey, if you are a GM like me (or perhaps a player searching for a better option) you have realized that races are awesome but EXP mods are stupid. I have argued with this problem for a while and for the longest time I had just been giving out EXP in gobs of where I wanted to campaign to end.

     

    You see -5 EXP penalites begin to look WORSE than +1 level mods. Hell even -1 EXP penalties begin to look worse than a +1 level mod. It depends entirely on how much EXP is given per session, but eventually an EXP penalty character is going to be worse than a level mod character. (Sorry Pure Sylvain, you have it the worst)

     

    So I decided to take a good look at the system. I argued that a -10 EXP penalty should be EXACTLY the same as a +1 level mod. The book creator never said what an EXP penalty to extra DP should be, but he DID say that a +1 level mod is 100 extra DP spent on powers. And I have just guessed that a -1 EXP penalty is the same as 10 extra DP. (or roughly around that) If it was 20 DP for every extra EXP penalty, a Duk'Zarist Nephilim would have a +1 level mod. Which it does not. If it was less than 10 DP, there would not be enough DP to make this worthwhile. There is my reasonsing behind EXP penalties and how much "extra" DP a race has.

     

    So beacuse a level mod increases the EXP needed by 25 to get to the next level compared to the last, and my goal was to have 10 EXP penalty be exactly the same as a level mod, I came up with my factor of 2.5. Now if other Brilliant individuals want to assign their own ratio of EXP penalty to a +1 level mod, go ahead. If you know your excel, you can read through and figure out where I used that.

     

    So with a +1 level mod, it takes 125 instead of 100 to get to level 2+1, and it takes 150 instead of 125 to get to level 3+1. This compounds over the levels. I just took that compounding effect and applied it to the EXP penalty.

     

    Without further ado, I present to you the revamp:

    https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxYiOqE1Mt0VOUFsSEF4LUNVUEk/edit

    (click file -> download in google docs, as you cant edit it online)

     

    The file is simple to read. You have 3 editable positions:

    YOUR level mod:

    YOUR EXP mod:

    Average EXP per session:

     

    Using these 3 values, my doccument will calculate for you the new rules for how much overall EXP you need as well as how many sessions it will take you. It will also calculate for you the number of sessions for the OLD system and how much EXP you really need before the EXP penalties kicked in.

     

    If you play around with the values, you will quickly realize that the new system works much more logically compared to the EXP penalties.

     

    So with a 0 level mod, -5 exp per session, and 20 average EXP per session,  it would take you 50 Sessions to reach level 6 using the OLD system. Compare this to a +1 level mod, which would only take that person 44 sessions (43.75 actually) to reach level 6. REMINDER: a +1 level mod is SUPPOSED to be worse than a -5 exp penalty.

     

    But with the new system, the above example would only take 41 sessions (40.6 actually) to reach level 6. So it is worse than no EXP penalty, but better than +1 level mod.

     

    I have expanded this to work with any level mod and any EXP mod. The "compare this to" section is just a set of static level mods to compare to.

     

    Also If after all this arguement your GM still does not do this. Get 3 CP worth of EXP bonus per session. It WILL be worth it.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    I did use ONE house rule. If you go to level 15 on the EXP table, notice how it says each level beyond that is only +450. But all levels before that were increasing by 25 each. So the difference between level 1 and 2 was 100, but between level 2 and 3 was 125, and between level 3 and 4 was 150 (and so on.) I simply Extend this pattern beyond level 16. Thus it takes 475 EXP to reach level 17, 500 EXP to reach level 18, 525 EXP to reach level 19 and 600 EXP to reach level 20. (and so on.) I doubt your campaign will reach level 15+, but if it does there might be a difference between the two.

  2. Posted

    Ejud said:

    I have the book and am currently in the process of translation when I went back to the announcment and saw that it said stuff about altering reality with your character's will or something like that, does anyone know which chapter that is, or if it was cut like the Artifact creation rules were?

    *sigh* Despite the "discussion" that is being had here. They are talking about the magic spells and psychic matrices (namely the matrices.) I believe there was additional psychic spells?

  3. Posted

    And yet, I have seen players win in the poorest position BECAUSE of the 6 extra trade goods. Those trade goods can mean the difference between: an extra space dock, a extra technology, or a new fleet to take over more spaces. The truth was that player used those 6 goods to a major advantage to achieve this secret objective early and get to mecatol rex which he kept for the rest of the game quite effectively.

    Sure 6 goods does not seem like much, but early game bonuses add up quickly. You guys also forget that because there are indeed players that are closer to each other, there will be naturally more good planets that are closer to them. This results in the ability to play a good early game. Poor players will have disadvantages in those locations, but I always make sure an experienced player is put in those locations to help achieve game balance.

  5. Posted

    Hey, long time supporter of this game just wanting to know what optional rules does your group ALWAYS play with, sometimes plays with and never plays with. I decided to make a list of these with our group, and since the new expansion is adding so many new elements I also am implementing a system to allow players to choose which ones they want. I also took the liberty of deciding on which ones will be chosen upon in the next expansion.

     

    I want to know if this seems about right for most groups or if they play with different sets of optional rules. If so, I would enjoy to read what you guys play with.

     

    List of optional rules ALWAYS played with:

    1) Sabotage Runs
    2) Race Specific Technologies
    3) Shock Troops
    4) Space Mines
    5) Facilities
    6) Tactical Retreats
    7) Flag Ships
    8) Mechanized Units
    9) Wormhole nexus
    10) Artifacts
    11) Custodians of Mecatol Rex

    List of optional rules sometimes played:

    1) Age of Empire (with Imperial 2)
    2) Which Set of Strategy cards
    3) Which set of Victory Cards
    4) Preliminary Objectives
    5) Mercenaries
    6) Political Intrigue
    7) Heroes
    8) Fall of the Empire (only if 5 or 7 players)

    List of optional rules NEVER or RARELY played:

    1) 14 Victory Points
    2) Extended map
    3) Distant Suns
    4) Final Frontier
    5) Simulated Early turns

  7. Posted

    JCHendee said:

    miles601 said:

     

    If you feel the game is dragging out, go for the win.

     

     

    Yeah, that's the ticket... it's only a knockout if you fail.

    Plus loosing your gold, Plus loosing your highest cost item, Plus while you are wounded or fatigued you roll fewer movement dice.

    Many little things go a long way to fearing the reaper.

  8. Posted

    Well first of all if the people at FFG are releasing based off of book release, we wont see this for a while (even assuming that the release schedule is sped up)

    However I would really like to see how they increased combat (and to a lesser extent the secondary abilities) if only because that is the part my group said was the worst/most difficult part to learn about the game... I am probabaly just a bad teacher. I am guessing character creation wont remain changed too much, I really do like the idea of giving the players tons of points to coustomize themselves.

     

    Question: Is this an addition (like pay 20 bucks and get the changes) or is this a whole new core that I will have to pay 50 bucks on? (or do you know) *sigh* Most likely its going to be an other 50 bucks that FFG drains me of.

  9. Posted

    miles601 said:

     

    Out of curiosity, what size group do you typically play with?

    I play with 2-4 and can't really recall running out of experience tokens.  When we first started playing we were much more conservative and let each other level and gear up a bit more (sort of a mutual unspoken agreement that we'd give everyone a fair shot before taking on reds)  As we got to play more the "race" to take on reds certainly sped up.  I tend to shoot for 4-6 experience tokens before I take on reds (depending on how lucky I am with gear).  I like to add 2 tokens to my characters "primary" attack stat and like to add a token to my "off" stats and a wound or 2.

     

     

    Geez, you must be lucky. We play with 5 or 6 players, but I usually find we level up about 3 or 4 times in each stat before one of us thinks of attacking reds. I guess I could try what you are doing... Its just we phear the reaper. When you die it sets you, as a player, further back than I would like.

    Also in reference to the gear, it really depends on which quests come out for players early on. We either find players are starved for gold (because they have to constantly heal up using what rare amounts of gold are on the table) or players have too much and are not able to find good gear through the market stack. Either way it forces players to level a few more times rather than getting good gear.

     

    One exception to that was last game we had a familiar out that allowed one player to do a market step if he was within 2 spaces of a city. Somehow he was in his own corner (where no one was) and he was constantly moving good items into the city stack. This created a strange situation where he had no money (because he had to constantly heal), and all the best items that he could not buy.

  11. Posted

    To answer miles601's question. We, as a group, tend to find that leveling each area equally results in builds that allows us to win with little problems. And as a result not one token really disappears, its just we often find magic and mind gone while no one even bothers with stamina or health. This becomes especially true if someone picks up a character where a boost in one attribute results in boosts of others or easier battles due to a combat ability (looking at the new Dungeon Quest heroes in particular)

    Its kinda nice to see some discussion about this topic and to see that others are not unified about this topic (means it really is not clear about what is true; also meaning I was right to question it). However I wonder if there is an official answer somewhere/somehow.

    But for now I am sticking with not parts limited, simply because in the rule book it only really says one specific object is limited and that is the adventure jewels, including rules about who decides what when one is not able to place all jewels.

     

     

     

    OH! And jewels was never a problem with me also. I have the big box expansions of Midnight and IOD, so I never really had a problem with those to begin with.

  12. Posted

    In Runebound it seems that when you run out of parts for most things you will just find some sort of replacement counter to use for that space, adventure jewels being the only exception. Now I have played many games and if things are playing right there is really only one thing that our play group runs out of and that is level tokens. To go around this I would often just say put an exhaust token on the counter that needs that additional level.

     

    Now this would not be an issue normally, but I noticed that the melee counters double each of the other counters in number. This probably means that melee is "expected" to be picked twice as much, or the level counters are parts limited and we have been playing it wrong. So I guess my question is, are the level counters parts limited?

  13. Posted

    What he is saying is each of the mages are casting shields on each other so that way in case they fail, the other can dodge. It sounds good, but you have to keep in mind that there is a -40 to the roll for defending an other player (I made sure to look this one up this time) See page 93 under COVERING ORDERS.

    When a shield does fail, it gives the covered player a chance to dodge using the original attack roll that the attacker used.

  14. Posted

    Cultadium said:

                        Thanks ILOVECHEESE and yeah being retroactive didn't seem normal to me either but I had to check and make sure.                                               So I guess the shield rules make spellcasters pretty darn squishy any advice from the spellcasters out there? How much dodge is needed or is it better just to risk biting the dust

    (and thanks for answering kill your reply made me realize how confusing things would get if you failed to block with a shield and it still blocked part of the damage)

     

     

    Yes well I misread that paragraph because I have never used psychic or magical shields. I read (somehow and accidently) that the shield would always be hit. So I was lying out the possibilites. Huge mistake.

     

    But as a further note for the part asking about your dodge level: The magical demo characters in the GM Toolkit actually do not put any points into block or dodge. The exception to that is that Warlock, Warrior Summoner, and Warrior Mentalist have developed their block abilities (as they should.) Keep in mind that the shield that you may or may not use will be enhanced by your ability of the Projection. Projection is the attack and defense ability of that class. So a Wizzard with Magical Projection of 100 (with no offset) has the equivilant of 100 attack in magic and 100 defense using magic assuming he is using a spell for that purpose.

  16. Posted

    The way magical shields (or any type of shield that uses life points like that) is one would roll for the shield's defense while the attacker rolls for offense. Any result is shown in the attack table in the book. (ignoring any counterattack result). After that is done the shield suffers in addtion (and only the shield) the base damage of the weapon no matter the result the weapon always deals base damage to a shield. Now many things can happen for this

    1) The attack was stopped: (either no damage on the table or counterattck)

    No reason to worry about anything here. You have defended and the shield suffers base damage.

    2) The attack was stopped, but the shield was destroyed through the weapons base damage

    Well that sucks, but you can always try to cast an other later. And any damage that was not dealt does not suffer to the person behind the shield.

    3) The attack was not stopped.

    Sucks even more. The shield will suffer base damage + The attack table damage

    4) The attack was not stopped and shield is broken.

    The damage that will be dealt to the character behind the shield will be:

    if base damage > Shield HP AND the defender is the caster, the one behind the shield will suffer whatever the attack table says he suffers

    if base damage < Shield HP AND the defender is the caster, the one behind the shield will suffer Base damage + Attack Table - Shield HP worth of damage.

    If base damage > Sheild HP AND the defender is someone else, the defender defends against the attack normaly

    If base damage < Shield HP AND the defender is someone else, ................

    Well this last one is hard to define. I mean sure the shield managed to stop the attack a bit... But according straight up to the rules it states that the defender gets a chance to defend normaly. Normaly against what?  the new difference between the enemy's original attack value, or the original attack value minus the shield's defense level? This one is hard to define for me. Going by the base rules: yes  a defender will get an additional chance to defend himself. In addtion as a house rule I would allow reduced damage by however much the shield defended in addition to the base damage.

     

     

     

    Now as for the natural bonus, if a stat increase (or decrease) allows your bonus to go up (or down) so the natural bonus will as well.

  17. Posted

    What I hope this is would be a token to show that they are going to release these more often (I am thinking original book release date(s)) and will come out with the others sooner. I will buy this book not for the extra rules (allthough nothing stopping me from using it), but I will be buying it for the world. It don't know about the rest of you... but the world has me the most intrigued out of all of the books.

    I am also looking forward to "those who walked among us" which if I remember correctly will add things like new Nephilim and have a large monster list. Sorry ki domminions, but I just find new races more interesting rather than what constitutes Ki abilities.

  18. Posted

    What you have to keep in mind is no matter what class you choose, you will only use about half the information of the first two sheets.

    Invocations are summoning contracts. Look at the second part of the summoning chapter. As for "projectiles" that is used for keeping track of the number you have in your inventory.

    I do not have a completed character sheet to show you, all I can show you is my modified character sheet and say that the information on the first page that I show is the "needed" information no matter what class you are. These character sheets have a few updates that I am working on. For instance the psyhic is missing psychic potential (which is needed). But what you have to keep in mind is that out of all 4 pages, you will only use two or three total pages of information(at most) of the character sheet on the website.

    http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=85&efcid=3&efidt=330470

     

    In short: Dont bother filling out everything, there will be much useless information. Instead focus on what the class you are developing needs.

  19. Posted

    Yes. Also keep in mind this is not just the "cost" of the spell but how much he puts into the spell to begin with and if he fails or not. So say if he uses fire ball at 120 zeon and fails. Well he still tried to cast a spell above 100, so he would loose 1 fatigue.

  20. Posted

    Oh wow those look really nice.

    I am auctally not using photoshop, but a thing called foxit editor. Its a .pdf editor and it is able to take the individual images and allow me to move them around. This first draft was just me moving around the different parts to where I felt comfortable. It looks like you are several steps ahead of where I have started. Also it looks like we have decided on doing some of the same design choices. (heh)

    Yeah I like looking at this and see that other people agree with seperating the different parts that are needed for each different character. I am taking a look at yours and seeing what I can do.

    Also you say most of my lines are cleaner, but when I was editing these items, I just eyeballed many of the different parts about where to put them. (heh)

     

    Thanks for the documents and suggestions.

     PS: For bought spells I will just print of the spell sheet that is in the support section of this website. It includes plenty of room to fully describe the spells.

    Also your link reminded me that I have a google account also.

    http://docs.google.com/#folders/folder.0.0BxYiOqE1Mt0VZWI0NmQ0YjAtMjczYy00NTBjLWIxMzMtNWNhYTk4ZGNkYjFh

  21. Posted

    The people in my group had been a bit upset about the character sheets, saying 4 pages was just too much to look at. So I decided to make my own coustom character sheets.

    I figured that most of the problem was that no matter what class you chose, there would be some ambiguity to the sheet as you would not use every space. I started by moving each group of diciplines to seperate sheets and then reducing the main sheets to two pages. This creates the situation where each character will only have to print off the pages he needs to use. I did not make combinations for all the classes (such as a magic/psychic combination), however I plan to finish that out after I iron out these 4 pages.

    This is an initial draft and not final. However these pages are kinda the way I am going. I would like some comments and suggestions as you come up with them. I also plan to release a Character Sheet v2 where I add some of the fixes that I made for these, but I would like to know what is good in your eyes.

    http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4BBL4N2G

    or

    http://docs.google.com/#folders/folder.0.0BxYiOqE1Mt0VZWI0NmQ0YjAtMjczYy00NTBjLWIxMzMtNWNhYTk4ZGNkYjFh

     

    Notes:

    ==Character Sheet Redux==

    I set to remove as much as information as possible on the first page such that the most relevant information was at the front. Followed by the player's equipment in the back. However, I was not able to properly find a place to put the Martial Arts. I may switch this with the modules unit on the first page. I also added a circle that was needed for DP spending on the "life points" bar.

    ==Ki==

    Two things changed. First I gave Ki and accu. circles for Development Point Spending and second I added some larger ability boxes. I dont know about you, but when I made a few I was constantly running out of space. I added the large boxes and small boxes (probably about half each)

    ==Magic and Summoning==

    I originaly decided to make Summoning its own sheet, but then I realized that most of the page will be blank (as you will see in psychic in a moment). This page suffers from much white space, but I think it makes it look simple. Such that a person can grab it and easily find his information that he needs. Any ideas about what to fill here are appreciated.

    ==Psychic==

    Main problem: Lots of white space. No one ever plays a psychic in my group, so I have no clue what to put here as much as the others. However, What I did is I added a box for the current FreePP. Then I extended some of the boxes. (psychic diciplines now has 8 boxes). I left much room for "notes". I think this looks a bit sloppy, but I would like many ideas about what to use this space for.

  22. Posted

    We have to look at whats NOT on the "upcoming" list to know exactly what is going to be released.

    One of the big boxes has to be gears of war, because its been "in development" for so long. My guess for the small box is "WoW: Scions of Darkness" as SoD has been advertised, but never put on their website. As for the second big box, I have absolutely no clue. Lets just say that the second big box will be a completely different intellectual rights game that FFG has not done before.

    If all 3 games are somthing different alltogether, then I really would be stumped.

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