Hello, this is my first post here. I shadowed this forum for a bit and it looked mature and helpful so i decided to join.

Anyway, i have already designed an RPG, the culmination of about 12 years of playing console RPGs and homebrew pnp RPGs with my friends and some strangers. I've tried to make the game, Amalgam (which explains my username) as easy to get into and simple to understand as possible, but i've met some individuals who still don't quite get it. So now i'm looking to create a second version of the game that is even simpler, while still nuanced enough that people who DO get it won't be bored.

The current released version can be found here in the Documents section.
http://www.scytherpg.webs.com/

The problem i'm coming up against now is that i'm afraid that endgame combat will take too long, as the Health of the Characters/Monsters grows at a rate much faster than Damage does.

So you don't have to read through the pdf to find it, here's how damage is calculated:

Attribute (Strength for example) + Weapon dice (1d10 for example) = Damage output.

Damage does get mitigated by Protection (armor and natural toughness) before being subtracted from Health (the total of Vitality and extra points spent each Level.)

I'm contemplating lowering the number of points players may spend on Health per Level, but i currently have that number of points being the same for every Level, including the starting level.

The consequence of this is that the last two games i ran had player characters collapsing in the first hit or two. This might seem realistic, but the game is supposed to have a cinematic hero feel to it; when heroes take damage it lowers their pain tolerance and endurance rather than actually injuring them. Heroes are supposed to be just a cut above your average Joe.

So, assuming a hero had above average Vitality (10) and above average Strength (10), but also had 5 points to divide between Endurance (Health) and Vigor (Spell points), assuming this were a strictly Melee character, he'd likely put all 5 points on Endurance giving a total of 15 Endurance.

This is all for Level 1.

So, assuming an average villain, also Level 1, has average everything (around 8 Vitality and Strength with 5 points on Endurance) using an ordinary Longsword (1d10 Dmg) would do anywhere between 9-18 Dmg. Even without a Critical Hit (damage multiplier) there is the potential to one-hit-kill the hero.

I don't have any kind of bestiary or monster manual, i make the enemies the same way i make the player characters because i find the method so quick.

Zoom forward to Level 10 (the cap).

Hero
Endurance 69 (5 points/level+Vit)
Vitality 19  (1 point/level past first level)
Strength 10
Longsword 1d10

Villain
Endurance 58
Vitality 8
Strength 17
Longsword 1d10 (18-27 Dmg) for an average of 22.5 Dmg per successful attack.

Assuming no damage mitigation: 69/22.5=3.06 hits to kill.

Does this seem too quick to anyone? I originally had it to where players had 20 points to play with between Health and Vigor per level. So assuming the same characters as above:

Hero Lv 1
Endurance 30

Villain Lv 1
Average Damage 13.5

Hits to kill: 2.2

Too quick?
-----------------------
Hero Lv 10
Endurance 269

Villain Lv 10
Average Damage 22.5

Hits to kill: 11.95  (if i'm doing my math right)

Does this seem to take too long? :huhsign:

Am i making sense? :duh:

Any advice would be much appreciated.

As an aside, i'm currently working on removing the current Skill System from the next iteration of the game. Many skills will work in relation to the core Attributes of the characters. This has lead to a few revisions with the Attributes as well. For instance, Eloquence is now tied to Mind, and Cunning is tied to Wisdom (formerly Will), Perception has replaced Dexterity as the Ranged Attack Attribute and doubles as an actual Perception skill. Agility is taken out and Dexterity is now the Melee Attack Attribute. Not that this is going to matter to anyone who hasn't already played it.

Quote from: Amalgam;570333Hello, this is my first post here. I shadowed this forum for a bit and it looked mature and helpful so i decided to join.

Anyway, i have already designed an RPG, the culmination of about 12 years of playing console RPGs and homebrew pnp RPGs with my friends and some strangers. I've tried to make the game, Amalgam (which explains my username) as easy to get into and simple to understand as possible, but i've met some individuals who still don't quite get it. So now i'm looking to create a second version of the game that is even simpler, while still nuanced enough that people who DO get it won't be bored.

The current released version can be found here in the Documents section.
http://www.scytherpg.webs.com/

The problem i'm coming up against now is that i'm afraid that endgame combat will take too long, as the Health of the Characters/Monsters grows at a rate much faster than Damage does.

So you don't have to read through the pdf to find it, here's how damage is calculated:

Attribute (Strength for example) + Weapon dice (1d10 for example) = Damage output.

Damage does get mitigated by Protection (armor and natural toughness) before being subtracted from Health (the total of Vitality and extra points spent each Level.)

I'm contemplating lowering the number of points players may spend on Health per Level, but i currently have that number of points being the same for every Level, including the starting level.

The consequence of this is that the last two games i ran had player characters collapsing in the first hit or two. This might seem realistic, but the game is supposed to have a cinematic hero feel to it; when heroes take damage it lowers their pain tolerance and endurance rather than actually injuring them. Heroes are supposed to be just a cut above your average Joe.

So, assuming a hero had above average Vitality (10) and above average Strength (10), but also had 5 points to divide between Endurance (Health) and Vigor (Spell points), assuming this were a strictly Melee character, he'd likely put all 5 points on Endurance giving a total of 15 Endurance.

This is all for Level 1.

So, assuming an average villain, also Level 1, has average everything (around 8 Vitality and Strength with 5 points on Endurance) using an ordinary Longsword (1d10 Dmg) would do anywhere between 9-18 Dmg. Even without a Critical Hit (damage multiplier) there is the potential to one-hit-kill the hero.

I don't have any kind of bestiary or monster manual, i make the enemies the same way i make the player characters because i find the method so quick.

Zoom forward to Level 10 (the cap).

Hero
Endurance 69 (5 points/level+Vit)
Vitality 19  (1 point/level past first level)
Strength 10
Longsword 1d10

Villain
Endurance 58
Vitality 8
Strength 17
Longsword 1d10 (18-27 Dmg) for an average of 22.5 Dmg per successful attack.

Assuming no damage mitigation: 69/22.5=3.06 hits to kill.

Does this seem too quick to anyone? I originally had it to where players had 20 points to play with between Health and Vigor per level. So assuming the same characters as above:

Hero Lv 1
Endurance 30

Villain Lv 1
Average Damage 13.5

Hits to kill: 2.2

Too quick?
-----------------------
Hero Lv 10
Endurance 269

Villain Lv 10
Average Damage 22.5

Hits to kill: 11.95  (if i'm doing my math right)

Does this seem to take too long? :huhsign:

Am i making sense? :duh:

Any advice would be much appreciated.

As an aside, i'm currently working on removing the current Skill System from the next iteration of the game. Many skills will work in relation to the core Attributes of the characters. This has lead to a few revisions with the Attributes as well. For instance, Eloquence is now tied to Mind, and Cunning is tied to Wisdom (formerly Will), Perception has replaced Dexterity as the Ranged Attack Attribute and doubles as an actual Perception skill. Agility is taken out and Dexterity is now the Melee Attack Attribute. Not that this is going to matter to anyone who hasn't already played it.

Without checking over your math or the rest of your system and just going by the results you have at the end I'd say 2.2 hits is not too fast depending on the percentage chance that someone hits. If its 50% that 2.2 to death occurence can turn into 5+ swings (more or less depending on how many swings in a turn you get). On the other hand close to 12 hits to take something down (at best) is way too long and unless lengthy higher end combats are your goal then you probably want to up damage or lower health.

Thanks!

Yes, these calculations were assuming 100% accuracy, which would never happen in a real game.

Accuracy is dependent on varying factors, of course changing by method of attack (melee, ranged, magic).

So, again assuming average Dexterity for melee (:

Dex+Weapon Bonus (Longsword)+1d20
8+1+(1 to 20)=10 to 29 (avg. 19.5)

Melee evasion utilizes Dexterity as well

Dex+Shield Bonus (Buckler)+1d20
8+1+(1 to 20)+10 to 29 (19.5)

However the Attacker has a slight advantage, as a hit will be landed even if the totals are tied. Soooo.... about a 50.5% chance to hit? Not sure on that.

12+ hits sounds right for a bossfight, but not for an average fight.

The solution i'm looking at right now is to have the starting health be sufficient to sustain 2-3 hits, and then have the increase be lower per level after that.

Weapons can be tempered and reforged, magically imbued, or the moderator can just give players better weapons as the game goes on, but i'm trying to avoid the MMO/JRPG effect of weapon bloat.

Quote from: Amalgam;571403However the Attacker has a slight advantage, as a hit will be landed even if the totals are tied. Soooo.... about a 50.5% chance to hit? Not sure on that.

12+ hits sounds right for a bossfight, but not for an average fight.

The solution i'm looking at right now is to have the starting health be sufficient to sustain 2-3 hits, and then have the increase be lower per level after that.

Weapons can be tempered and reforged, magically imbued, or the moderator can just give players better weapons as the game goes on, but i'm trying to avoid the MMO/JRPG effect of weapon bloat.

If the attacker has advantage on a D20 positing even attack vs defense then attacker has a 55% chance. If you're going for 12 + hits for "boss fights" then you still want to adjust for the very high chance that you're going to have a 50%+ miss chance from the characters. If you want to avoid MMO/JRPG bloat I highly suggest that you limit the necessity of having "better weapons" to compete in the game. Please do not make the D&D mistake of making +1 swords.

Now I don't have time to read your document yet. It's the middle of the week and I like to spend my extra time working on my own project but this weekend I'll have time to give it a more serious look over.

No +1 swords... good to know there is actually a playerbase against that sort of thing, because it was the direction i was leaning toward.

Actually, while i haven't done that yet, i HAVE toyed with weapon enhancement in the form of magic stones with elemental properties, such as fire damage, HP drain, etc... and those properties would place extra damage onto the mundane damage of the weapon itself. But even that would have an upper limit, you can't mix different elements or have more stones on a weapon than the weapon has sockets for them, etc...

I suppose one way to avoid weapon bloat would be to avoid HP bloat as well. If HP doesn't go up per level, there's no need for fancy weaponry. But HP gain is part of the reward psychology of a game. So perhaps only a miniscule amount per level, instead of 10 or 5, make it 2 or 1. Characters would get tougher each level, but not insanely so.

Thanks again for taking the time.

Quote from: Amalgam;571847No +1 swords... good to know there is actually a playerbase against that sort of thing, because it was the direction i was leaning toward.

Actually, while i haven't done that yet, i HAVE toyed with weapon enhancement in the form of magic stones with elemental properties, such as fire damage, HP drain, etc... and those properties would place extra damage onto the mundane damage of the weapon itself. But even that would have an upper limit, you can't mix different elements or have more stones on a weapon than the weapon has sockets for them, etc...

I suppose one way to avoid weapon bloat would be to avoid HP bloat as well. If HP doesn't go up per level, there's no need for fancy weaponry. But HP gain is part of the reward psychology of a game. So perhaps only a miniscule amount per level, instead of 10 or 5, make it 2 or 1. Characters would get tougher each level, but not insanely so.

Thanks again for taking the time.

First off, no problem. I don't mind trying to share the knowledge I've picked up since I myself first embarked down the long and terrible road of making my own game. Take everything I say with a grain of salt though because I am not a professional that gets paid to make anything and because my data got fucked on my project I don't even have a ready thing to show off (though I'm trying to get together some help for the rewrite)

Anyways, having HP scale with level is fine as long as you have damage do to. Avoiding weapon bloat is super easy. There are at least two ways I can see you going about it. 1) Make them unnecessary, This should be important. A character should be effective with or without a flaming sword. 2) Make them rare. You can come up with a reason (I'm sure) why finding magic shit would be hard in your campaign. Both of these combined would make individual flaming swords much more cherished and worth being searched for while avoiding the "toss away the old sword for the new" kind of playstyle.

I still plan on reading your stuff more thoroughly this weekend but for now I'd ask why do you want to avoid "weapon bloat" and how exactly do "boss" enemies work (Shorthand please).

ouch, yeah, a friend of mine recently had several of his hard disks and backup drives corrupted suddenly, losing almost all of the game he had developed, except for the draft of a character sheet that i happened to have on my computer.

Ok, weapon bloat and bosses.

I want to avoid the bloat of weapons for a couple reasons.
-i think it'd be nice if the weapons one picks up at the beginning of the game will remain relevant and useful for at least half the levels, if not all the way to the level cap.
-i think it's realistic.
-i had started down the weapon bloat path early on and found it to be tedious and difficult to balance if players were able to buy anything from the list at a low level.
-it's annoying to have fancy weapons on a shopping list not available because of the starting coinage limit.

I did forget to mention, however, that there were previously some skills involved that increased a character's natural damage output in general, and weapon specific. Something i'm considering carrying over into the next edition.

Bosses are pretty much regular monsters with more health, unique strengths, and hidden weaknesses.
Regular monsters are created the same way as player characters, done so on purpose so i can crank out a new enemy in just a few seconds if need be.

If you want a mini-boss, make it a level or two above the party's average level, and if you want a real boss, give it some extra HPs.

Pretty simple i think.

EDIT: So far the only enhanced weapons i've put into play were part of plot progression of sorts, similar to the Zelda games. Search an abandoned temple and find a magic macguffin and note telling the party where to go next. Inevitably the macguffin they found will be useful when they get there.

Quote from: Amalgam;571904\
-i think it'd be nice if the weapons one picks up at the beginning of the game will remain relevant and useful for at least half the levels, if not all the way to the level cap.

Again that's something I can understand, It can be done best in the fashion I outlined. Make progression come 100% from something other than equipment and you're about there. I'd suggest tying it to level in whatever way is appropriate for your game. If you're going to make it a skill (I don't suggest it) then make multiple and point out how necessary they are.

Quote-i had started down the weapon bloat path early on and found it to be tedious and difficult to balance if players were able to buy anything from the list at a low level.

It's a common issue you would run into as long as wealth = power.

Quote-it's annoying to have fancy weapons on a shopping list not available because of the starting coinage limit.

I found it more annoying to have to cap wealth at all so that Players weren't trying to shake the trees for more wealth in order to try to get ahead.

QuoteI did forget to mention, however, that there were previously some skills involved that increased a character's natural damage output in general, and weapon specific. Something i'm considering carrying over into the next edition.

Again I don't suggest tying it to a skill or having it be weapon specific. Tying it to a skill makes that skill a tax, and depending on the bonuses/abilities tied to skills makes people try to make that skill blow up as early/as fast as possible disregarding other, more flavorable, skills in the process. If you tie it to a weapon you discourage changing weapons throughout the campaign and lock players into a specifc weapon/fighting style choice throughout the campaign. That's fine if you want to do that but I have a feeling you may want something a bit more freeform. Weapon specialization should be something you should be able to choose to have not have it be a necessity.

QuoteBosses are pretty much regular monsters with more health, unique strengths, and hidden weaknesses.
Regular monsters are created the same way as player characters, done so on purpose so i can crank out a new enemy in just a few seconds if need be.

If you want a mini-boss, make it a level or two above the party's average level, and if you want a real boss, give it some extra HPs.

Pretty simple i think.

This is about how I did it myself so depending on the actual results you came up with I potentially have nothing to add.

EDIT: So far the only enhanced weapons i've put into play were part of plot progression of sorts, similar to the Zelda games. Search an abandoned temple and find a magic macguffin and note telling the party where to go next. Inevitably the macguffin they found will be useful when they get there.[/QUOTE]

Hi Amalgam,
 
On the health issue I'd say about 3 hits to kill is a good number as well. (You can maintain the ratio with levelling up fairly easily e.g. if its +3 HP per level, add +1 damage per level). The only real problem with that is that if PCs and NPCs use the same system, they'll need multiple shots to take out as well, at least until level bonuses to damage catch up.
 
I'd say 12 to take out a villain at high level is definitely way too much (if the hit rate were down to 50% that would mean 24 to kill...and if armour is reducing damage that would I suppose increase it even further (and then throw in traits like Nigh Immortal...)
 
Did have a look at the whole RPG. Interesting since you rarely see a game that combines multiple core mechanics these days; even rarer to see combination d20/dice pool. I'm actually not morally opposed to that, though this sort of thing does seems to be out of fashion these days.
Anyway, on a readthrough I generally didn't have too much trouble understanding it and it was fairly fun to read (good art too). Various things I noticed on a quick readthrough:
 
*The section about calculating Endurance, Vigor and Vitality was a bit confusing on an initial read since these are all synonyms (and then a bit later there's a Toughness as well).
 
*For the skill system I'm not sure I grasp how 'sets' work i.e. on level up are you meant to choose just one ability from the new level's skills? The main critiques I would have of the system would be
-ability scores provide no bonus to skills.
-the way critical successes/failures are calculated has fairly wonky probabilities, since extra dice increase both # of 10s and # of 1s.
Chance of a critical failure is 10% regardless of difficulty with 1d, anywhere from 1% to 17% for 2d (depending on difficulty), from .1% to 27% at 3d, and that was as far as I'd worked it out.
Chance of critical success is 10% at 1d, 17% at 2d, 22% at 3d and peaks at at about 7d (28%) then decreases again slowly if I'm calculating it correctly - its chance of 10 on N dice, multiplied by the chance of not rolling a 1 on the remaining [N-1] dice, since one of the dice can be assumed to be a 10 and so not a 1 i.e. =(1-(0.9^N))*((0.9^[N-1])).
(Anyway, sorry about the detour into math).
-I wasn't quite sure how opposed rolls (e.g. Eloquence vs. Cunning) are supposed to work; compare highest single dice roll for both sides? If it ties, would you compare 2nd highest rolls, and would a critical success win against a normal success?
 
*Other minor nitpicks here would be the bashing weapons ignoring armour, and don't really like Dex adding to ranged weapon damage (It works, but I prefer Str to modify base damage and then the to-hit roll to modify damage somehow). Levelling also looks like it takes awhile since the amounts go up double each level. Oh also, the Dragon race Tri-blast power (pg 23) doesn't have a listed damage.
 
Anyway, hope this helps - not to discourage, do keep in mind that I'm very very nitpicky with regard to game mechanics and given half a chance will rant at length about the flaws of any game system you could care to name.

@MGuy
thanks for the input, i'll have to tinker with some ideas for increasing damage per level, but i want to avoid anything resembling BAB (i know it's attack and not damage) as much as possible.

That being said, i might go for a 2 point increase per level for damage output, which could be divided between Melee/Ranged/Magic however the player chooses. This would be on top of whatever Attribute serves as the Base Dmg, and the weapon.

So for example, i just leveled up, i get to increase my Endurance and Vigor (Health and Spell points), and can choose to put 2 points on Melee Dmg, or 1 on Melee and 1 on Ranged (or magic if i were a spell caster)

This is something else, the points spent to increase Endurance per level are the same points spent on Vigor, so there is a trade off, and not everyone will likely allot their points the exact same.

So maybe 4 points for End/Vig, and 2 points for Mel/Rng/Mag? On top of the 1 point per level for Vit/Str/Dex/Per/Min/Wis.

The thing here is that you can increase your Endurance with Vitality because Vit is the base for Endurance (and Wisdom is the base for Vigor), but only 1 point per level, and if you do, you sacrifice raising another Attribute, such as accuracy or damage, etc... Also, the difference between Endurance and Vitality is that Vitality is similar to Constitution (more to the point, they are the same) as it is your poison/disease/survival stat, so not raising it can bite you in the long run.

@BSJohnson

Wow! thanks for reading it. Did it take long to get through? I know it's shorter than most RPG manuals i've seen...

Glad you liked the art, i designed it myself.

Some of the problems you've outlined i've already seen myself, and are part of the reason i'm working on a second edition.

In the new edition the Attributes are changed some:

Vit - same
Str - same
Dex - Melee accuracy instead of ranged accuracy and dmg. Also stealth related.
Perception - ranged accuracy and dmg. also searching related/anti stealth.
Mind - same, but now also Eloquence related.
Wisdom - same as Will, but now Cunning related/anti Eloquence.

As you can see, Agility is gone.

The problem of confusion between Endurance/Vigor/Vitality is something i'm hoping to rectify in the next edition. Vigor was originally Spirit, but someone pointed out that their natural assumption about Spirit wasn't what it actually was intended for.

With Skill Sets, you get everything at the rank you earn. Everything!

This is also something i'm thinking of changing however, going back to the practice of single Skill learning, but based on a mechanic vastly different from point buy, and hopefully more flexible.

In the next edition i'm thinking of having Skills be addons to the Attributes for specific tasks. For example, anyone can make a Dex check to sneak, but people who have trained a Sneak Skill get a bonus to their Dex check when sneaking.

lol! you lost me with the math for crit fails/passes, but i'll take your word for it. I'm planning on doing away with that entire mechanic in the next version.

With opposed rolls, the "person-whose-turn-it-is" (otherwise known as the attacker) always wins ties. So, if it's your turn and you are using Eloquence (attack) and you tie with someone's Cunning (defense) then you succeed (but optionally play it as though they believe you, but barely). But if you are using Cunning as a means to solve a riddle or puzzle in a dungeon that is not part of an opposed roll, then you win on a tie against the Difficulty Rating then as well.

Bashing only ignores what could be considered Flexible Armor. Basically your chainmail, scale armor, leather armor, etc... are designed, historically, to deflect blades and points, but due to their flexible nature will buckle under a crushing blow. As such, Partial and Full Plate armors resist Bashing weapons because they have no flex or weave.

I could probably turn down the exp requirement per level, but i had left it high because i only have 10 levels at the moment. I had originally planned 20 levels, but ran out of ideas for traits... (maybe it shows)

Good eye on spotting the Tri Blast. I think the assumption when i wrote that was that it would be identical to the Gas Sac from Level 6 (1d6Fire Dmg/turn). Something that needs to be stated specifically in no uncertain terms.

I understand being nitpicky (that's why i don't just play D&D), and thanks for the constructive criticism.  That's what i was hoping for.

So, was there a particular race that you liked? Anything seem unbalanced? And what did you think of the Goblin towns in the Swamp? (pg. 6)

I've also uploaded two adventure modules featuring towns on the map. They are like 2nd or 3rd drafts, so they are a bit rough and lacking in detail, but should be playable. I have a third, but it is balanced for an even earlier version of the rules and needs to be updated before it is playable. All of these are good for Level 1-3 characters in a party size of about 3-5.

http://scytherpg.webs.com/apps/documents/documents

I've made a few charts i hope will help.
First, the key:

End: Endurance
Vig: Vigor (given only to show that it doesn't grow with this particular point allotment)
Vit: Vitality, base Endurance
Str: Strength, base Damage
Hits to kill: assuming 100% accuracy, this is about how many hits it would take to kill an identical character.
50% to hit: a rough estimate of the actual accuracy a fighter would have, and how many attacks it would take to kill someone, assuming half of them actually hit.
5% x2 Dmg: On a d20, you have exactly 5% of rolling a natural 20, at which point the attack is automatically a hit, and damage is multiplied by 2.
Hits to kill: how many Critical Hits it takes to kill an identical fighter.

The chart can be found here: http://amalgamroleplaysystem.webs.com/apps/documents/

EDIT: I took out the damage reduction before multiplying for Critical Damage, which is wrong, but the i don't think the end result would be much different.

I'm beginning to think damage multipliers may be too much, perhaps?
Maybe if Crit damage were a second weapon dice roll, cumulative to the first one...

EDIT: Thanks, MGuy, for what you said about Damage Increase Skills versus Flavorful Skills. That makes sense. I may still incorporate one or two such skills, but having them done in such a way that their selection becomes a matter of flavor as well as a mechanical boost.

Something along these lines:

"Weapon Master~ You've dedicated yourself to the study of a specific weapon, and when using that weapon you gain +X bonus to Damage and Accuracy. You simply cannot get better than this. Rank 5, costs 50 Coins to purchase the skill, and has a Difficulty of 5 to learn"

Learning a skill would require that you pass a Mind check (1d20 equal to or under Mind Score)
Difficulty of 5 means that 5 points are deducted from your Mind Score during the check (25% more likely to fail)
You only get one chance per day to learn a skill, and for a fighter type with "average" Mind, his starting score would only be 7 or so. With a difficulty of 5 subtracted from that, it only leaves you with a 10% chance of actually learning the skill.

The exception to this would be if the skill were chosen at character creation, at which point all Mind checks are assumed as automatically passed. But then, the Coin cost (50) would be taken out of your character's initial wealth (200 Coins for Level 1).

Does this sound balanced enough?

QuoteWow! thanks for reading it. Did it take long to get through? I know it's shorter than most RPG manuals i've seen...
Glad you liked the art, i designed it myself.
Some of the problems you've outlined i've already seen myself, and are part of the reason i'm working on a second edition.
In the new edition the Attributes are changed some:
Vit - same
Str - same
Dex - Melee accuracy instead of ranged accuracy and dmg. Also stealth related.
Perception - ranged accuracy and dmg. also searching related/anti stealth.
Mind - same, but now also Eloquence related.
Wisdom - same as Will, but now Cunning related/anti Eloquence.
As you can see, Agility is gone.
The problem of confusion between Endurance/Vigor/Vitality is something i'm hoping to rectify in the next edition. Vigor was originally Spirit, but someone pointed out that their natural assumption about Spirit wasn't what it actually was intended for.
With Skill Sets, you get everything at the rank you earn. Everything!
This is also something i'm thinking of changing however, going back to the practice of single Skill learning, but based on a mechanic vastly different from point buy, and hopefully more flexible.
In the next edition i'm thinking of having Skills be addons to the Attributes for specific tasks. For example, anyone can make a Dex check to sneak, but people who have trained a Sneak Skill get a bonus to their Dex check when sneaking.
lol! you lost me with the math for crit fails/passes, but i'll take your word for it. I'm planning on doing away with that entire mechanic in the next version.
With opposed rolls, the "person-whose-turn-it-is" (otherwise known as the attacker) always wins ties. So, if it's your turn and you are using Eloquence (attack) and you tie with someone's Cunning (defense) then you succeed (but optionally play it as though they believe you, but barely). But if you are using Cunning as a means to solve a riddle or puzzle in a dungeon that is not part of an opposed roll, then you win on a tie against the Difficulty Rating then as well.
Bashing only ignores what could be considered Flexible Armor. Basically your chainmail, scale armor, leather armor, etc... are designed, historically, to deflect blades and points, but due to their flexible nature will buckle under a crushing blow. As such, Partial and Full Plate armors resist Bashing weapons because they have no flex or weave.
I could probably turn down the exp requirement per level, but i had left it high because i only have 10 levels at the moment. I had originally planned 20 levels, but ran out of ideas for traits... (maybe it shows)
Good eye on spotting the Tri Blast. I think the assumption when i wrote that was that it would be identical to the Gas Sac from Level 6 (1d6Fire Dmg/turn). Something that needs to be stated specifically in no uncertain terms.
I understand being nitpicky (that's why i don't just play D&D), and thanks for the constructive criticism. That's what i was hoping for.
So, was there a particular race that you liked? Anything seem unbalanced? And what did you think of the Goblin towns in the Swamp? (pg. 6)

NP. An hour or so maybe, not too long? - plus another 20 mins or so in Excel fiddling around with numbers on the critical %s to satisfy my curiousity with that.
On the criticals doesn't matter much if you're ditching it, the problem was that the chance of getting 1s increase the more dice you roll. It was as I say interesting, I've tried doing combination dice pool/d20 games before except with a sort of two-tier system where you would e.g. roll d20 to see if you succeed, then roll dice pool and count successes for how well.
 
The changes you're proposing around skills adding to attribute checks sound good, and thanks for the clarifications re. opposed rolls and armour and skill sets (Everything! Bwa ha ha! ). Revised attributes also sound OK.
 
I can understand reducing the effects of armour on bashing weapons - something I do like fiddling around with is armour piercing factors for different weapons. I'm not really an expert in the area but I'd expect armour to provide some protection from bashing weapons, just not as much - a mace for instance may be spiked so while its mostly crushing, any sort of armour will at least mean you're less likely to be bleeding (externally, anyway); and chain and stuff will usually have a quilted underlayer (gambeson?) that I'd expect would absorb some of the impact. A system that handles this really well is perhaps going to get messy, though; so what you're done isn't unreasonable.
 
On balance and stuff: I like the trait system in principle - no prerequisites unlike say 3.5 D&D, so you're guaranteed to get something level-appropriate off the list instead of going back to get something balanced for 1st level when you finish climbing your feat tree. I was surprised to see teleport at 1st level, although I think the cost was also fairly high - it may be OK, its not a direct combat spell so much as changing how PCs fit into the world.
I suspect think the +1/level attribute raises may lead to problematic characters who have a single massive attribute (Str-guy or End-guy) unless you add incentives to spread raises around, or prohibit them; at higher levels since it favours offensive characters pumping up their damaging stat, and characters go from competent all-rounders at L1, to just being Melee-only, Ranged-only or Magic-only at higher levels, and losing or winning opposed checks automatically based on whether its a key-stat vs. key-stat contest.
 
No particular favourites with races - I'm always a dwarf guy so I liked the dwarves. (I think I approve of rolling gnomes into dwarves). World wise I don't mind the goblin towns particularly but didn't like Atlantis as a place, since its an Earth location (if an imaginery one) and so didn't quite fit in IMHO. Campaign world design isn't really my area, though.

An hour to read? That's not bad i guess. Not sure how long it would take me to read it if i hadn't written it.

You may have understood this perfectly, but i feel i should clarify, When you spend points on the skill sets, you get everything for the skill set you spend points on, not everything in every skill set in the game

So, for example, Sorcery Rank 1 gives you Jolt, Spark, and Synergy all at once.

I felt this was best to provide players with a large toolkit to work with, without a ridiculous point cost. Previously i had each skill bought separate and realized that most people would only have a few good skills by endgame.

Gambeson sounds right, without looking it up. You could tinker with the armor/weapon relationship to get the feel you want, but i personally was trying to avoid taking into account every bleeding cut imaginable, saving actual bleeds for special attacks. Part of this has to do with the design ethos of mimicking heroic combat in movies and TV, where the heroes get beaten black and blue and yet still seem capable of handling themselves, and any actual bleeds are minor or in the designated "good guy" zone. A bit of a trope.

This is one of the things i'm afraid of losing by lowering the Endurance in the revision.

As you say, Teleport is not a combat skill really, though it could be used tactically, that would require several laborious steps. The Conjurer would have to successfully memorize the location he wants to go to, thus forgetting any previous locations, costing Vigor and time, and erasing the one quick escape to a safe haven he might have had (at rank 1 you only get to memorize 1 location at a time). Then he has to successfully teleport there, costing more vigor and time, and once teleported, he can't do anything till next turn. Next turn the Conjurer can attack or cast another spell, but likely all element of surprise is lost and he can't teleport back to safety. So teleporting in combat is risky business.  

The +1/level attribute raise is actually waaaaaayyyy toned down! Originally it was 12 points/level to distribute, then 10, then 5, then 1. For now i'm staying at 1  

What you said about winning or losing opposed stat contests based on key stats is kinda the incentive for not specializing, as it does place you at a disadvantage against any opponent that is strong in an area you are weak at, but with some of the skills i could see how that specialization could get way out of hand. At the same time, if you generalize across all the attributes and then take the specialized skills, you won't be as powerful in one area, but fair enough in the others to survive... maybe.

I keep tinkering with the idea of using various defenses against magic. For example, a mind control spell is purely mental, so no amount of dodging will help you evade it, you must use your will, but a jolt spell could be evaded as it is a physical emanation of magic, or it could be resisted with one's "ambient magical aura" or somesuch thing. I had tried to write in all the possible counters to a spell in the spell description, but for the next edition i'm thinking of not doing that, and just letting players defend themselves any way they can think of. (i.e. Shield bonus if you stand and block, 5 foot shift if you jump out of the way, use Wisdom instead of Dexterity if you use ambient aura, cast Magic Barrier as a counter spell, etc...) Hopefully that wouldn't become too chaotic, i'm hoping it will bring some narrative play back into combat that hasn't been there before.

I understand your feelings on Atlantis, i guess it could have been named something different (more different than Atlantica), but it was actually intended as a red herring of sorts.

Spoiler

Atlantica flies, not sinks.

The goblin towns were named as a crude joke really, but also to try and capture the cultural taste of the species.

Spoiler

they grow from plant pods actually, and are the cause of the swampland.

Sorry I'll break this up for clarity since otherwise it reads badly.
 

Quote from: Amalgam;572436You may have understood this perfectly, but i feel i should clarify, When you spend points on the skill sets, you get everything for the skill set you spend points on, not everything in every skill set in the game
 
So, for example, Sorcery Rank 1 gives you Jolt, Spark, and Synergy all at once.
 
I felt this was best to provide players with a large toolkit to work with, without a ridiculous point cost. Previously i had each skill bought separate and realized that most people would only have a few good skills by endgame.

Assumed that's what you meant on the skill sets yep Having high level characters that aren't just one-trick-ponies is good. Another way to do it with less mechanics, could be to design each of the skills themselves to work in as wide a range of circumstances as possible?
 

QuoteGambeson sounds right, without looking it up. You could tinker with the armor/weapon relationship to get the feel you want, but i personally was trying to avoid taking into account every bleeding cut imaginable, saving actual bleeds for special attacks. Part of this has to do with the design ethos of mimicking heroic combat in movies and TV, where the heroes get beaten black and blue and yet still seem capable of handling themselves, and any actual bleeds are minor or in the designated "good guy" zone. A bit of a trope.
This is one of the things i'm afraid of losing by lowering the Endurance in the revision.

With armour as with all things, there's usually a tradeoff between playability on the one hand, and realism on the other.
On lowering the endurance: Player preferences seem to vary alot as to how much damage they want PCs to take. In one of the groups I've been in we did Savage Worlds for awhile, a game where all the PCs basically have 4 hit points, and one of them loved the lethality while the other wanted his massive HP total back. Also a factor in the Edition Wars and the occasional Runequest-vs.-D&D battle. So do whatever you like and some people will like it and some will hate it.
 

QuoteAs you say, Teleport is not a combat skill really, though it could be used tactically, that would require several laborious steps. The Conjurer would have to successfully memorize the location he wants to go to, thus forgetting any previous locations, costing Vigor and time, and erasing the one quick escape to a safe haven he might have had (at rank 1 you only get to memorize 1 location at a time). Then he has to successfully teleport there, costing more vigor and time, and once teleported, he can't do anything till next turn. Next turn the Conjurer can attack or cast another spell, but likely all element of surprise is lost and he can't teleport back to safety. So teleporting in combat is risky business.

Ah, OK and teleport is much more limited than I'd thought with the memorization - since at level 1 if you go somewhere, its one-way since that's your memorized location.
 

QuoteI keep tinkering with the idea of using various defenses against magic. For example, a mind control spell is purely mental, so no amount of dodging will help you evade it, you must use your will, but a jolt spell could be evaded as it is a physical emanation of magic, or it could be resisted with one's "ambient magical aura" or somesuch thing. I had tried to write in all the possible counters to a spell in the spell description, but for the next edition i'm thinking of not doing that, and just letting players defend themselves any way they can think of. (i.e. Shield bonus if you stand and block, 5 foot shift if you jump out of the way, use Wisdom instead of Dexterity if you use ambient aura, cast Magic Barrier as a counter spell, etc...) Hopefully that wouldn't become too chaotic, i'm hoping it will bring some narrative play back into combat that hasn't been there before.

A few games just assume that the PC will use whatever works best and so assign the separate Will, Reflex, or Fortitude defenses or whatever against a spell, sometimes with specific abilities that characters can learn as interrupts (shield giving a + to a given defense that a spell also targets, counter spells, etc.).
 
Goblin towns: when I saw the map I immediately thought "Spleen?!" but then guessed they were orc towns and checked the text - I think it fits, if a little bit silly. If you wanted to class it up you could rename them to [some sort of gutteral goblin word with lots of g's and u's and z's] and note that it means spleen in the text, I guess.

Spoiler

Flying is good.

Ok read it. Nice site. If I weren't so lazy I'd make my own but I'm no good at art at all so it wouldn't be interesting. Now I'm only going to point out major problems I had with it.There are a bunch of minor things but that'd take a few more readings to make sure so I'm only gonna cover the problems that jump out at me. If any of these were already covered feel free to ignore it. Also  I skipped the chapters for GM advice and basics for role playing.

Anyways here's the major problems in the order I found them.

1)Agility/Dex, Mind/Will might as well be the same thing. The way you describe them they could cover everything the other does. Agility/Dexterity is the major offender mind and will are less so. I find that mind almost seems just like concentration and seems like more of a skill then an attribute really.

2) Attacks of Opportunity being optional is not good. Since your game doesn't get far off the ground in terms of what you can do this is an important tactical option. It should be either present or not because it's a big deal.

3)Bash is the only regular damage type that's advantageous. Unless slashing and piercing are going to get special considerations I might as well get a hammer for every combat with a dagger for cutting stuff in the rare occasion that I'd want to do that.

4)XP through combat is never good ever. It encourages farming and makes murder lead to rewards directly which is not a good thing. If you need me to expand on this I can.

5) Endurance/Vitality/Vigor thing seems a bit convoluted.

6) Knapsack? Why call it that? Seems a bit gimmicky. This is a comparatively minor complaint compared to the rest but it kinda got me.

7) The racial abilities seem to drop any attempt to be balanced at level 10. Some of the level 10 ones are just fucking awesome compared to others. The humans are the best until I get to revenants which seem to have all the most interesting abilities.

Skills. First thing I have to say is Combat Skills should NOT be on the same list as outof combat skills. It's not good, and only produces bad results. If you need me to go into detail as to why I can but trust me it isn't good for your game.

9) I'm confused by innate skills. There are a lot of things people can attempt to do innately. The innate skill list should be the biggest because anybody and his cat can attempt to hide, sneak, climb, etc. First Aid is actually something that you would have to train to do.

10)Eloquence covers a lot. While lying and persuasion are close enough to be the same skill intimidation is far too different to be covered by it.

11) Surgery under survival?

12) Crafting, blacksmithing, alchemy are all one action?

13) I kind of glossed over the combat skills. Some seemed like they are way better than others but it would take me another few reads to nail them. I kid of see that you were trying to encourage different fighting styles here but from what I can tell ranged attacking is the best option.

14) Spells aren't exactly balanced. Some of the effects are oddly specific and their usefulness questionable. I think illussion magic should be a bit more freeform.

15) Summoning is straight up titties. I can't think of a reason to not shoot for them.

16) Enhancement spells are more questionable. I can see their use but their durations are short but hp scales too quickly and damage not as quickly. They give static bonuses to compensate but they don't move me to want them. The fact that they only give moar numbahs makes them kind of boring as well.

17) Exorcism feels like a yes/no button vs undead, homunculi/curses as if you have it and those things are screwed or you don't have it (though I don't know how tough that makes them without).

18) Healing completely eliminates the need for first aid.

19) Synergy is possibly game breaking.

20)weapon  wise the weapon selection isn't very inspiring.

The game is in it's infancy and I'd need another few read throughs to crack down more on it but again, these are the things I caught through the first go through.