DisastrousImpact

Impacts of MathHammer

2010-08-25T04:34:00.000-07:00

So being a bit nerdy when it comes to calculating odds and "doing the real statistics" both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k came to my attention (check out producers Website).
Well basically because I started playing 40k.

And I realize knowing the math is good & bad somehow.
If you play Eldar like myself and know you field terrible units ... there is a some hope left.
If you see how far many people go to optimize their lists and loose with better stuff cause they aren't capable of applying tactics ... thats unfortunate.

For today I'll leave it at that.

Returning to the "D10 System"

2010-03-29T13:17:00.000-07:00

So, what is that system? Well the original slogan was: "D&D 3.x in simple & done right."
Well I of course did redo how pretty much everything worked (except for the basic principle of "roll high is good"). But If I check out my dependency chart of what influences what, things get pretty messy quite soon.

I started out with: Attributes, Skills, Defenses and Feats (split into Advantages & Tricks) & Spells - no classes, no levels, but races. Character-Creation was pretty much point buy in White Wolf Fashion (basic set + buy your focus using free points).
However the whole thing had it's issues as races modify existing values (eg. granting attribute bonuses, trained skills and sometimes feats). The freedom to customize was quickly reduced a bit as it had a little issue: the potential of abuse was too high.

Character creation was damn pretty quick for me cause I could stat a character after I got a concept within 5 minutes including equipment. However the influences between the individual subsets were pretty complex and sometimes circular:

Trait-Dependencies

Race does not depend on anything.
Attributes depend on racial limitations
Skills depend on Attributes & Feats
Feats depend on Attributes, Skills (without feat bonuses), Feats
Defenses depend on Race, Attributes, Feats
# Spells depend on Feats
Magic capabilities depend on Attributes, Skills, Feats, Spells

Trait influences

Race - limits attributes, grants attribute points, automatically trained skills, grants Advantages (a type of Feats), requirement for some Feats
Attributes - grant bonuses to Skills and Defenses, requirement for some Feats. Sometimes grant offensive combat bonuses. May influences #Spells a character has available and the power of a characters spells.
Skills - some influence spellcasting & offensive capabilities. requirement for some Feats.
Defense - sometimes requirement for some Feats.
Feats (general) - There are feat-chains and some chains span over several Feat-types. Can influence pretty much anything.
Advantages (Feats) - Improve Skills, Defenses, offensive combat capabilities, allow spellcasting.
Tricks (Feats) - Allow special actions. Usually Combat related.
Spells - May grant temporary bonuses.
Gear - Modifies defenses, movement-rates.

Some other drawbacks

Well without levels HP (the D&D style) quickly became a problem. I think I need a "heroism model" like "Mook", "Dude", "normal person", "Henchman", "Hero", "Freak", "Monster", "Demi-god" to grant some sort of power level. And there it comes back: Levels ... - Or I need a significantly different way to change the damage/survivability thing.
Defenses - my defenses System was simplified "SW:SE-style" - no AC, but armor influences AC ... it does not work and is terribly complicated resulting in various IMBA chains.
Unlucky Examples: You don't hit an Elf, but if you hit one it's a dead Elf. You may hit a dwarf but a dwarf will never get wounded unless you score a critical hit ...
I need a realistic, but at least somewhat balanced concept for "one-shot" weapons (Alchemy) the old one was damn too cheap ...

Resume
Well, I think, I need to simplify how different subsystems influence each other. That will allow a better predictability and reduce some of the terrible chaos my system accidentally caused. This should also reduce the potential of IMBA-chains.

So I've been on Cat-Con XXX

2010-03-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

Well, like the title says, I've been on Cat-Con XXX.

The basics

What is Cat-Con ? Well it's a little local Convention at Cat-Cafe in Ulm, Germany.
What was up ? Well lot's of game sessions were held. I guess over 100 visitors were there and probably 20+ RPG sessions were held. Also dozens of Miniature Battles and a few local Tabletop-Tournaments were held (alphabetic order: AT-43, Warmachines, WH-40k).
Pegasus Support provides most of Pegasus portfolio on the German market as "try it out" variant. This year's special was an official SR4 GM - though I was a little bit surprised as Call of Cuthulu is part of that portfolio and the younger system (release date of the German translation).
Imp's Shop (Ulm) provided a Con-shop (RPG & TT stuff).
It seems that DSA 4 (The dark eye), Cuthulu, Shadowrun 3 & 4 are the most vital RPG-systems on that Con. There were some more exotic games (at least declared, but I cannot check everything) like Dogs in the Vineguard, Macho-Weiber-mit-dicken-Kanonen, Barbaren, Starwars D6 and others.

My activities
Well I spent most of my Saturday afternoon and evening getting used to Warmachines Mk. II and later (well so around 21:00h) on I joined a 7 hours long Starwars D6 game. Took some sleep during the early morning hours and then went on to take part in the Warmachines Tournament.

Both in Star Wars as well as in the tournament the dice weren't with me.

I mean I fried half a dozen blasters in Star Wars and caused some biohazzard stuff in that scenario. In the tournament I wasn't able to score points.

However the whole thing thought me two things:

Lucky dice are a BAD, BAD, invention.
Warmachine is far more complex then I expected. Try again & beat them. And don't get your caster knocked down because your opponent bull-rushes one of his/her own Jacks with a bigger Jack right into your caster ...

Conclusions (my D10 System)
Oh, and some of the chatting on Cat-Con inspired me to dabble again on my "old" D10 system. Well it once came into a pretty active testing-phase until I had to spend more energy on other stuff. And there are some known issues that I still remember that have to be fixed.
So expect some postings on that topic.

Simple Solutions - Lamentations & Ideas

2010-01-31T09:26:00.000-08:00

Preface
Well, this post/thread on RPG.net forums makes me remember what I dislike about the 3.x D&D, why I don't digg Pathfinder or even less 4e.
Still I like SOME ideas of 3.x even knowing that they are issues themselfs, but that's probably related to tastes or some of my interest in fiddly things (eg. when I try to simulate some things) vs. simple things (eg. when I try to run a game for many players).

Reading both of these two blog entries (again), I see people thinking along similar practical lines when it comes to running games.

Akratic Wizardy - Why I Dislike Feats
RPG Crank - Too Fiddly
For the next d20 evolutionary step (another RPG.net forums post/thread)

I've been thinkering - in my mind mostly and not on paper - about how to handle some things - especially: Special actions in combat without needlessly complicated rules.

So lets get straight to the point: Most games make actions that aren't "I attack" more difficult. However "acting smart" should not be penalized.
So what do they do, they add "ok, I can do Special-Action-X better then others" making one trick (or a few) valueable if you invest something into being able doing X pretty well.

As a side-effect this allows "snowflakes" to gain meaning. Making an interesting character becomes a game-mechanics thing, not an how-it-actually-turns-out thing.
So how-you-play-is-what-you-get becomes what-you-mechanically-play-is-what-you-get.

No question that there should be SOME mechanical-support if you (in this example a not so eloquent player) play a super great smooth-talker, but there needs to be a limit in mechanically-complexity to this whole thing.
As a flat line there should rarely be more then 2 factors affecting a single check.
To stick with the smooth-talker: Charisma and some skills should be basically enough.
What about skill-boosting-feats? - you may ask this question very well.
Well practically: What are they for?
Actually: It probably was a pretty a late discovery of D&D 3.x that 2+INT skillpoints will rarely get you anywhere beyond a certain level, so they thought "Let's stretch it a bit". However that fix is usually a really bad trade-off.
SW:SE & 4E went with a leaner base skill-progression, that helps a lot in this regard. A flat levelbased-bonus somewhat makes sense - unfortunately it also is a disconnect with reality - you don't become better at EVERYTHING just because you're generally more experienced.
So what would have been a useful Fix for 3.x ? Hand non-spellcasters 6+INT skillpoints (rogues/thiefs/bards get 12+INT) or halfing the skill list
alternatively you could have (again) automatically gained skills + skillpoints
Some again may say this is fiddly, but maybe one should consider the Modifiers of 3.X Attributes an unnecessary detail - similar to what True20 said before but maybe we should drop the modifiers instead of the original value ...

Maybe I'm going in circles during this monologue as I mentioned some of these Ideas before.
But here are some ideas

Weapon Proficiencies as Example
Well, 3.x made a real crazy thing out of weapon proficiencies as it also turned "Fighter only" Weapon Specialisation (as done in AD&D 2E) into a feat chain as well.
So 3.x has:

BAB / Level
Attribute Modifier
Not-Proficient-with-X-Penalty (-4 to attack rolls)
Weapon Proficiencies*
Feats that interact with Proficiencies*
Feats that allow Specialisation*

So it basically did split a relatively simple concept up and divided it among 2 1/2 systems (those with an *).
Well 4E did a simple solution by keeping something from 3.x (1/2 LVL as minimum BAB becomes the standard progression), being proficient with X, gives a +4 Bonus.
That is a simplification.
However if you - as I wrote above - want to stick to the 3.x System this is a bit odd once you go beyond lvl 8 - you have to rethink a lot as your Fighters will become worse and worse.
Ok, you can redefine Weapon Fokus/Specialisation Feats for them.
But on the other hand you get another problem: Your "I can use crossbows" wizard now becomes a sniper at lower levels and at higher levels (s)he will (maybe) freak out doing spell-novas.
That results in a "loose loose" situation for fighters. Your only hope is an ineffectively played caster ...

Specialisation - a different & simple way
Ok, so how do we get it ? Do you remember how 4E gave classes roles ?
Well let's simply say:

Fighters (So Fighter, Paladin, Ranger) get weapon specialisation as a class feature
Rogues (So Thiefs, Bards, Rascals) get skill specialisation as a class feature
"Plain old Fighters" get a better variant of that thing
Rangers might get both - weapon & skill specialisation (making them our Special OP dudes)
Spellcasters (well anyone having more spellcasting then Rangers or Paladins) don't get access to this subsystem

Where did I take this from: Well AD&D 2e did it, but the writeups would need a bit of cleanup/structuring.

Weapon related
Base Roll: 1d20 + 1/2 Level + Proficiency Bonus + Stat Modifier + Magic

All classes get automatic weapon training and "weapon training points" to a total depending on their level. That way

Proficiency Bonus Table
You must spend one point from your weapon-training-pool to increase one step on this table

+0 to hit for untrained attempts with a weapon
+2 to hit for Proficiency (best for spellcasters)
+4 to hit for Focus (best for rogues)
+4 to hit/+4 to damage for Specialisation (best for fighter types, requires lvl 4)
+6 to hit/+6 to damage (plain-old-fighter only, requires lvl 12)
+8 to hit/+8 to damage (plain-old-fighter only, requires lvl 16)

weapon-training-points gained
Well, every class gets some proficiencies to start with that are in addition to what this listing shows.

Magicans: 1 point per 5 levels
Rogues: 1 point per 3 levels
Fighter-types: 1 point per 2 levels
Fighter-fighters: 1 point per level

Result
We get a lean subsystem, don't need feats therefor so that we can enforce some archetypes.

Skill related
Base Roll: 1d20 + Related Attribute + Skill Bonus + Magic

Basically we can clone the Weapon System for skills. And we see that we're using the Attribute instead of the Attribute Modifier. That way Skills become a bit more fine-grained, but also there is no need for something silly such as a DC 0 Skill check ...
Additionally we eliminate a Zero-to-Hero progression that is incredibly strange when it comes to 3.x Skills and might also work for 4E Skills.

Proficiency Bonus Table
You must spend one point from your weapon-training-pool to increase one step on this table.

+0 to checks for untrained attempts, some actions cannot be performed
+2 to checks for Proficiency (best for specialists of a different field)
+5 to checks for Focus (rogues generally, some classes may have limited access to this)
+10 to checks for Mastery (rogues only)

Class Skills vs Skill Tables per Class
I think Class Skills as done in 3.x were some sort of simplification from the skills-per-class tables of AD&D, but also some sort of drawback.
So let's talk about the single-skill-list-approach

The PROs

simple Cost to train a skill (1 pt or 2 pts) vs. the complicated Tables (something like 1pt or 2pts for class skills and up to 5pts for some other skills)
one place to look up Skills

The CONs

split into Skill, Feat or automatic/choosen Class-Feature
Skills & Feats interact
Class-Features & Feats interact
Some Class-Features interact with both Skill & Feats

I think I prefer a little cleaned up variant of the multi-table-approach or a different split when it comes to Skills/Feats/Class-abilities. The bit of cost-lookup to train a certain skill (eg. riding is cheap, alchemy is pretty expensive) - if organized well - is neglectible.

Skill Tricks
Well some people like allowing "special stuff" or extra regulations. I think that's where we should provide two options

Spend a Skill Proficiency Point to gain a special Trick
Spend a Feat to gain a special Trick

Ok, now we bring Feats back in, but I think if every class has these base options to improve on their field, Feats can be used to break out of the stereotypes.

Skill-Training-Points gained
Well, every class gets some skill-training-points to start with that are in addition to what this listing shows.

Magicans: 1 general point per 4 levels plus some automatic/stereotypical skills
Rogues: 1 point per 1 level
Fighter-types: 1 point per 2 level

Well please note that these tables are assumed under for "every point in a class skill costs 1 Skill Training point, others cost 2" combined with some cleanups to the 3.x D&D skill system.

System for Winter Special 2009

2009-12-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

Ok, it seems that this game will start later then expected, but probably it's good to note down the game system & rules sooner then later so that I can do some more detailed prep work myself.

I haven't defined everything yet as the mental rules (eg. fear & horror) are something that will take some thought, but the stuff regards "doing stuff" has already been condensed by other games and can be considered worth using.

Basics
The character sheet as linked shows several sections: Attributes (Attribute), Skills (Fähigkeiten), Advantages (Vorteile) and Game Dynamics (Spiel Dynamik).

When you check if you're capable of doing/knowing/performing something it's usually: Attributes & Skills that count.
When you check if you can buy something, have the connections to the right people it's usually Advantages that counts.
Whenever you get hurt or find yourself struggling against horrors or just your own personality & flaws it's Game Dynamics
Note that if you're in pain or in a strange mental state that Health (Gesundheit) und Psyche (Psyche) will affect your capabilities both & both at the same time ...

Rolling dice
Basically you roll a number of D6 (standard 6 sided dice) equals the number of dots in the relevant trait(s). Count the dice that show a 5 or 6 as successes and put the others away. The number of successes determines how well you did.

You barely did it
You did it
You did well
You succeeded great
Stunning success

Note that many rolls use two traits, so the numbers of rolled dice falls into the range of 1 through 10 dice. On average one of three rolled dice is a success. Therefore rolling 3 successes is possible, but 4 or more successes are very uncommon even with 10 rolled dice.

To rate your own capabilities:
1 - 2 dice - poor
3 - 4 dice - normal (average 1 success)
5 - 7 dice - good (average 2 successes)
8 - 10 dice - great (average 3 successes)

Using Skills - What belongs together
Here are some examples:

Finding a book in a library is related to Perception (Wahrnehmung) and Research (Nachforschungen), so count both ratings together to find the book to roll. The rules limitation on using research makes sense: You usually cannot find a book this way if you can barely read and without instruction you'll surely be lost in any mayor library.
Regaining control of a wagon is related to Dexterity (Geschicklichkeit) and Ride (Reiten).

This list could go on, but you probably get the idea. It's intended that there is no complete list of pairs as this shall allow creativeness based on character concept (I hope I did not forget to mention that some creativity is needed to play such a game). A military man will probably rely more on his power to intimidate someone to get info while a pretty young lady might get the same info with a stunning smile.

Using Skills - Complex Checks
Note that there should be situations where a problem shall not be solved in a single roll for purposes of drama (such as chasing someone down an alley, stopping the ultimate device of doom). In that case the GM will limit the number of related rolls per player in that contest and also set a number of successes that someone has to reach.
In the case of a chase you'd use something a bit more openended and add "if the one you're chasing has 6 successes more then the best of your group, (s)he escapes because you all loose the trail".
In the case of stopping a doomsday device you're working against the time (time = number of rolls total), so you let your specialists do the job and hope that they are capable of scoring a certain amount of successes. If you have several people skilled suitable for the job, you should usually define a "chief engineer" (or whatever is situation-appropriate) and each helping team member grants as many dice extra as his/her skill rating (but not the ability score ... team work is not 100% efficient, you know).

Using Skills - Combat (Kampf)
Well there will be rules that differ from normal skill checks - they will be explained later.

Advantages
These are usually something that you don't roll with. Also this is the most player-defined section. And having traits that come from the cooperation of players & GM and that aren't set into stone requires talk. So talk about your character concept long before filling out the sheet.

Gifts & Disadvantages (Gaben & Leiden) - feature special capabilities that don't fit well under skills normally such things as bad eyesight, bad temper or such would fall under Disadvantages and Gifts would be things you're lucky about. Normally that's ambidexterity or a knack for something special.
Backgrounds (Hintergrund) - thats what you have and what you can use - often Money, Servants or Contacts & Fame. These are resources and if you roll for resources it's often bad cause you stressed one of them a bit too much and you may loose a particular one. Please note that there are Backgrounds that require you to have other backgrounds (eg. being a rich Industrial requires you usually to have money, servants, contacts. If you at least have a bit in each it's ok to dig into a suitable advanced background - let's call it Industrial Facilities.
Contacts (Kontakte) - these are the result of your interaction with the gaming world and often deserve a page on their own in longer games. Note that the amount of initial contacts depends on your Contacts background. Note that most contacts will be not so important people when it comes to influencing the world. If you want Contacts to movers & shakers your backgrounds should reflect this (money, fame, status, contacts & an advanced background - say influential contacts).

Game Dynamics (Spieldynamik)
Well, half of this section is to mark how hurt you are (Health & Psyche). What kind of attack attacks what status should be instinctively clear. Then there are Willpower, Virtue and Quirks.

Willpower - defines how hard it is to convince you and how much you can push yourself in the face of danger & fear. That's why this trait has two rows. One with dots for your willpower rating and below some square boxes for your spent willpower from your willpower pool. Your willpower pool is of the same size as your willpower rating.
So it ultimately comes up as your "power to say no".

You can spend a point from your willpower pool to make a check (considered as one success) because you as the player says that your character is cool and does this independent of what the dice said.
If an NPC tries to convince your Character in a discussion (treat it as extended skill check with a limited amount of rolls per player/NPC as described above) and the NPC scores enough successes to beat your Willpower Rating your character is convinced unless you buy down the successes of that NPC on a one for one basis with points from your willpower pool as soon as you can (that's immediately after the dice are rolled)
Note that if your willpower pool is completely consumed anything that might scare your character WILL scare your character - so be wise when to spend Willpower
One point of willpower will be regained if you sleep a whole normal night (say 6 hours or more)
Willpower may be regained by indulging a strong virtue (rating of at least 3) of your character when there is no need to do so.

Quirks - If you have one virtue with a rating of 3 or higher this leaves a mark in your behaviour that many might consider as remarkable or strange. Simply find something suitable and work it out with your GM.

Virtues - These Values represent your character moral stance. Most normal people have something like one or two dots in most virtues. There are six virtues in pairs of three: devotion (Hingabe) & Bravery (Mut), Curiosity (Neugier) & Conviction (Überzeugung) and Habgier (Greed) & Nobleness (Edelmut). Any player character will definitively have one of these rated at 3 or higher.
Virtues grant extra dice to rolls that fall under their category, but also penalizes acting against them.

Devotion - Grants you the ability to resists, to continue & stand in for your friends & beloved ones. It reflects how well you're a team player - and unless you got a 5 in that trait it does not mean you're a stupid puppy doing everything his/her friends say.
Bravery - Allows you to resist fear and great dangers, but it's often a reckless variant. So a high bravery will result in a "if it's dangerous we use this way" way of thinking.
Curiosity - Reflects your demand to discover new things. You push the research forward. However there also can be too much of that some drug dealers say ...
Conviction - In matters of faith & believe it defines how well your sanity lasts in the face of horror.
Greed - Well, can you resist making money ?
Nobleness - How much of a gentleman, so-called do-goder are you ?

So, what's left ?
Well Combat rules & Background listings. These will follow later.

So there is a system called "Mini Six"

2009-12-27T09:55:00.000-08:00

Ok, so via a link I stubled over a link to I waste the buddha with my crossbow blog and one of the first articles I read is on this system "Mini Six". It's based on the mechanics of the good old West End Games Star Wars game during the time where Star Wars only consisted of three Movies - Episode IV through VI ... well and a few books & some fan-fiction.

Well I note this here, because the PDF of Mini Six is only 8 pages long & highly condensed - PLUS Mini Six is an OGL game, so you can do what you want to do with it and do the great OGL Mix and Match to spin of you ideas as long as you're saying thanks & whose ideas you're using.

So that's enough writing about it. Check it out yourself: http://antipaladingames.com/minisix.html

Winter Special 2009 - Smoke on the Water

2009-11-18T13:10:00.001-08:00

As every year I'm planning to run a winter game. To keep all the prep stuff handy as online documents for all my players, check out the link provided below.

Concept Document: Winter Special 2009 - Smoke on the Water[DE]

Those invited shall contact me via this blog or personally (if on my list of known suspects)

On an IT note: So PHP can be combined with Apache again

2009-08-12T06:08:00.000-07:00

Well a while ago I tried to upgrade my PHP 5.0 and Apache 2.0 to PHP 5.2 and Apache 2.2. They did not work together at all or only as CGI (slow, security holes and still crashing from time to time). Well now there is a working solution: Apache 2.2.11 supports PHP 5.3 as module again.

I used official Apache for Windows builds (VS 8 based) and official PHP 5.3 for Windows build (VS9 Built as zip file on Jun 29 2009 21:52:31). Now that Apache upgraded to VS8 they are using Dot Net as well and you can rely on some performance boosts compared to the old VS6 builds.

Well these version numbers might be outdated again, but maybe someone demands a working combination and is in dire need of this info as I was pretty frustrated when I could not do "such a simple task" ...

See also:

About "Advanced Epic 8"

2009-06-29T11:29:00.001-07:00

Well I opened up a wiki for that idea a while ago. It's based on the idea of the E6 rules that were presented over at EnWorld. I'm currently on the fence if I want to continue on that project or not. The most striking question in that context is related to several musings and discussions.

The problem I have in actual play with D&D 3.x won't go away with E6 style fixes. To make a game out of 3.x you have to rewrite a lot - especially balancing things that need to be balanced (classes, feats, spells). Also I've grown fond of "styled out of the box" spellcasters - so for example a "Shadow Mage" or "Summoner" and so forth. So a lot narrower in concept then what the broad Base Classes of 3.x provide.

In addition there is the issue of the amount of magic in a gameworld. I don't mind weirdness, but I definitively don't want to have Magic-Mart in every small town.

However I don't want to give up classes as this makes my current players happy as it saves them from too detailed decissions and something like Feats and Skills will have to remain as well.
But then ... it drives me towards a different system I tested a long while ago (long before blogging anything at all) - well it did not have classes, but a lot of ideas would favor many of that games assumptions.

The Saving Throw issues

2009-06-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

Well although there are many discussions on "oh my god some classes are penalized in every way" barely anyone tries to address the mayor reason why that's the case.

At high levels the gap between good safes and bad safes is pretty wide before feats or magic items. And if you compare some classes against each other (like fighter vs. cleric) you see some additional issues. A fighter has to raise his Strength to dish out more damage and cannot spend attribute raises on his poor safes to make them any better. On the contrary a cleric will raise his Wisdom and that will stack very fortunately with his good will safe.
Ok, both will then have a bad Reflex safe, but most spells with reflex to safe against are "take half damage", not "safe or loose/die for sure".

So now, is this really an issue? Yes it is. Simply look at the numbers of DCs for Special abilities and compare it to the safes. I left out MIs as that can be individual, but you can clearly see that a bad safe simply needs a +5 to safe boosting as item - and a +5 Item even to a safe - is expensive.
Also for special abilities I left out anything you might get from Classes or Feats as goodies.

DCs of special abilities (lvl 1 /20 /difference)

(DC 14 / DC 16 / 2) - 0th lvl spell of a cleric (starts with WIS 18, max. raises)
(DC 15 / DC 25 / 10) - 9th lvl spell of a cleric (starts with WIS 18, max. raises)
(DC 12 / DC 23 / 11) - Stunning Fist of a monk (starts with WIS 14, 3 raises)

Safe Bonuses (bad /good ) at lvl 1 without items

+4/ +6 - safe on primary attribute (starts with 18 in attribute, max raises)
+2 / +4 - safe on secondary attribute (starts with 14, 3 raises)
+0 / +2 - safe on other attribute (starts with 10, no raises)

Safe Bonuses (bad /good) at lvl 20 with a +5 safe boosting item

+17 / +23 - safe on primary attribute (starts with 18 in attribute, max raises)
+14 / +20 - safe on secondary attribute (starts with 14, 3 raises)
+11 / +17 - safe on other attribute (starts with 10, no raises)

Well someone who cannot spend points on a safe attribute and has a good safe will only have a chance to be as good as one with a bad safe on his/her main attribute. You see the DCs usually raise as fast as a good safe. If you check some iconic monsters that are good spellcasters you'll get DCs in the high 20ies as well.
As the last case of safes shows if you go - and only if you go - the +5 MI route you have a chance to keep a bad safe in line with the DC of a level-appropriate Special Ability. In addition it shows what a deep impact a good stat has and what a raised or not raised stat has. It is pretty drastic.

So in my oppinion several things have to be done:

Increase the gain of safe bonuses in general
make the gap due to progression more reasonable
strongly reduce the impact of attributes on safes to bring classes that cannot afford attribute raises on safe attributes more in line with classes that favor certain safe both by progression and by attribute raise

What we need would be a bad safe that goes from +2 to +17 (if we factor in the +5 MI boosting item) and a good safe should go from +6 to +21 and this leaves us with two progressions of 1/2 lvl and 3/4 lvl - that's much closer as gap, but 25% success chance still a significant gap, but one that does not completely grant an almost automatic success to an attacker.

Attribute Modifiers on Safes
Well I toyed with the idea of lessening the impact of attribute modifiers to safes "just like in the old days". I think that would worsen the situation as it would invalidate a bit too much of the system.
The direct fix will address it well enough.

Resulting Bonus System
All Safes grow at a rate of 1/2 Level. Classes that have safe declared as good safe grant a +2 Class-Save-Bonus (CSB) to that safe and an that bonus increases by +1 for every 5 class levels up to a bonus of +5. Should multiple CSB affect a single Safe only the best of them applies.

If you multiclass into more then 3 classes and at least 2 classes grant a CSB of +3 to a single safe your CSB increases by +1 unless it already reached +5.

Fahrgrahm - a mad dark God

2009-06-16T04:55:00.000-07:00

About Fhahrgrahm
Fahrgrahm, the Angry is the god of Thunder, Revenge and Destruction. He is called the scourge of the free, the troublemaker, and the warmonger. He is considered to have a very moody and malevolent personality. Fahrgrahm seeks enjoyment by driving the Lawful into wars and corrupting the Good ones.
Fahrgrahm is not a god that demands worship, he demands fear.

Priests of Fahrgrahm
Fahrgrahm only accepts those in dispair whose fate was twisted, and whose hopes have been crushed, but are still able to stand on their own feet as his priests and priestress. This makes his priesthood a bunch of crazy fanatics in suits armor.
It seems that he personally selects his priests as there is no central organisation or even a book of his teachings, but whoever managed to meet two of his clergy will speak with surprise how similar they answer questions of faith.
A Priest of Fahrgrahm shows a cruel, selfish personality with desires to toy with others like a cat plays with its prey.

Magic of Fahrgrahm
The magic associated with Clerics of Fahrgrahm is that of Chaos, Death, Destruction and War. In addition Magic related to thunderstorms, cruelty, torture and pain are common tools as well.

Museum of Dragon Arts

2009-06-13T05:46:00.000-07:00

Well when you don't think about gaming at all, you sometimes have good ideas or meaningful names for sites. I think the Museum of Dragon Arts is something I never stumbled upon before.

I'm not sure what I wan't in it. But it can only be the most precious stuff. And probably it should (not) be stuff stolen from Dragons. Same goes for stuff from slain Dragons. They all would imply that the building would not last very long.

Well, unless there is Magic that protects it, but then you usually put a museum inside a city and then you would have to protect the city again ...

But then - Would it be art if it did not cause a clash ?

So, Welcome to the place every Thief and Dragon want to rob, plunder and/or feast upon.

Adapting SR4 Skills to a Fantasy setting

2009-06-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

If we go fantasy utilizing the Shadowrun 4 system, most of what we have to do is cut of what we don't like, but from time to time there are a few details that must be adjusted. Especially Skill Groups are an interesting tweak as they are flavor related. Additionally we have to consider the difference in the typical set of weaponary - Shadowrun books are full of guns, but here we only have old-fashioned stuff. So some skills become skillgroups as their importance goes up.

Price Tags
A Skill Group costs 10 Build Points, an Active Skill costs 4 Build Points, an Knowledge Skill costs 2 Build Points. There are also Skill Specialisations (2 BP for an active skill, 1 BP for a knowledge skill). A Skill Group consists of 3 or 4 active skills.

Skill Groups
Dropped: Bioteck, Cracking, Electronics, Firearms, Mechanics, Tasking

New
Archery (DEX) - Bows (DEX), Crossbows (DEX), Slings (DEX), Thrown Weapons (DEX)*
Melee (DEX) - Blades (DEX), Clubs (DEX), Polearms (DEX)
Martial Arts (DEX) - Monk Weapons (DEX), Unarmed (DEX), Thrown Weapons (DEX)*
Research (INT) - Investigation (INT), Rumours (INT), Streetwise (INT)
Travel (REA) - Boats (REA), Carts (REA), Ride (REA)

Unchanged
Athletics (STR/DEX) - Acrobatics (DEX), Climb (STR), Running (STR), Swimming (STR)
Influence (CHA) - Convincing (CHA), Customs (CHA), Leadership (CHA), Negotiation (CHA)
Nature (INT/WILL) - Navigation (INT), Survival (WILL), Tracking(INT)
Secrecy (INT/DEX) - Disguise (INT), Sleight of Hands (DEX), Infiltration (DEX), Observation (INT)
Sorcery (MAG) - Anit-Magic (MAG), Ritual-Magic (MAG), Spell-Magic (MAG)
Summoning (MAG) - Bannishing (MAG), Binding (MAG), Summoning (MAG)

Skills
The changes to skills themselfs are few. Remember that there are skills that do not have a corresponding skill group. This is sometimes unfortunate, but making groups with 2 skills only does not make sense unless you change the price tags for skill groups depending on the number of skills they have.

Dropped
Kybernetics, Electronic Warfare, Hacking, Matrix Combat, Computer, Data Search, Hardware, Software, Longarms, Pistols, SMG, Vehicle Mechanics, Industrial mechanics, Naval Mechanics, Decompiling, Compiling, Registering

New
Alchemy (LOG) - Well they are part of the fantasy worlds, so we need this here.
Body-Mechanics (LOG) - Replaces Kybernetics (Log)
Siege Weapons (LOG) - Well Catapults may become part of any fantasy game.

Unchanged
Combat: Evasion (REA)
Magical: Asensing (INT)
Medical: First Aid (LOG), Medicine (LOG)
Practical: Ride Exotic Mount (DEX)
Social: Teaching [CHA]
Sports: Diving [CON]
Technic Related: Alchemy (LOG), Craft (INT), Engineering (LOG), Lockpicking (DEX)

Knowledge
These times are practical times, so most practical knowlege goes to Intuition. Only the more scientific knowledge is LOG based such as Astrology, Astronomy, Engineering, Magic:
Languages[INT], Knowledge[INT], Studied Knowledge [LOG]

---
*Thrown Weapons - appears in two separate skill groups. You technically can learn both groups at once and the higher value counts for Thrown Weapons. It is assumed though that a usual character has only one of these two skill groups and therefor this works to support different archetypes.

Bits of Rules: Bennies & Personality Traits

2009-06-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

Bennies
Since a while I'm watching LordStrange / John Wick's Youtube Channel. Especially his comments on instant reward in one of his videos gave me a kick of "I want that in my games". So this is what I'm gonna try for Shadowrun.

Whenever you do something that helps/advances/enhances the game you play in above a minimum amount, your Game Master will award you with a Bennie. Bennies can be spend to improve die-rolls a little bit.

Shadowun has Karma-Pools/Edge-Pools to do stuff better, it's strong but it's also very expensive, so you only resort to it in dire situations. Bennies are like small brothers - they are weaker, but more common and even return more often then you like/need (well at least if you're a good player).

A Bennie can be spend to increase the value of a single rolled die by one (well if it shows a number below 6). You may spend as many Bennies on a single roll as you like and you can freely distribute them your rolled dice.
If you used a point of edge to get bonus dice to reroll on a 6, you can increase a value to the point that it shows a 6, but you cannot spend points to ensure successes on bonus dice that you bought with bennies.

Personality Traits
I like it if a characters personality has an mechanical impact. Not in a way that it completely controls your character, but in a way that it at least influences the way you're doing stuff.
What I'm not so fond of is if people mistake a collection of neurotic patterns for a character personality just to play a manic psychopath.
The first time I stumbled upon stuff like that was when playing Vampires:The Masquerade, but I must say that the system used there has a lot of drawbacks including "Have strong virtues so that you can go against your humanity rating without taking penalties".
Virtues have to stand for them selfs. You may have strong ones or weak ones. Later I saw a charactersheet for Vampires: The Requiem - they had one Virtue and one Vice for a character and it was centered around the seven sins and corresponding virtues.
It makes sense and suits a game that is intended to play in a pseudo-european world. So it's a good start.
So here are my bits of rules:

Every Character picks two freeform traits that define his personality. They shall be drawn from a set of virtues or vice, but not be neurotic or describing a mad person (that's what flaws are for).
In situations where one of these personality traits comes into play you gain an extra die to your dicepool if you act in favor of that trait, but if you want to act against it, you loose a die from your dicepool. If both personality traits affect a single action you may have +2, 0 or -2 dice to your pool size depending on the situation at hands.
Additional personality traits cannot be purchased by any means because these personality traits are not about hunting for bonuses.

City of Darek

2009-06-07T08:32:00.000-07:00

Darek in a Nutshell
The City of Darek is a vivid place with a glorious shiny side, but internally it is one of many contrasts. Imagine it really is build in three layers at the bottom end there are scums where all those live that are unfortunate enough to be living amongst normal citizens, at the upper end there is a glorious, but strict area for nobles and mages. In between these extremes lies the city itself, by the nobles it is called the lower city. Here the life of all normal citizens happens.

But there are places that don't fit clearly into the "harmony" of a single district, so they were separated over time as districts: Banks, Temples and the red-light district. Interestingly Darek's Redlight-District is almost a city itself as it also has three layers from the streets of urchins to the Paradise Gardens.

How the city works
In theory the whole city is run by local authorities. In Practice every level has its own actual government and a local cabal - that can be a bunch of gang leaders or nobles depending on where you are. Each of these organizations is more or less honorable (depending on what defines honorable) and more or less powerful, but usually all of them are at the brink of war with each other.

How the world works
It's a world full of magic and strange stuff. Note that there is even stuff you might consider magitec. This includes flying ships and artificial limbs, gadgets of wierdness.
In terms of magic priests, wizards, adepts (self-enhancing dudes/dudettes), alchemists and wierd nature and spirit freaks all exist in ... not exactly harmony.

What's in for players
Well in a city where everyone wants to backstab his neighbour for social advancement there is a lot of backstabbing or grave-digging for money available. Don't forget that it's an old city and a city that is build upon lesser cities. who knows what's below. So there is an options to explore and sneak around.
It's not about kicking some doors in and killing stuff. It's about doing stuff and using your brain. You want to stay alive, don't ya?

Hello World

2009-06-06T15:50:00.000-07:00

Well, after some time I decided to start a blog. The contents of this thing will be related to gaming (especially Pen & Paper RPGs - both rules & fluff), politics, visions and other stuff that is maybe worth to be posted.

The first few articles on this blog will be related to a weird/high fantasy game-setting using and twisting the Shadowrun 4 rules. The game will be suitably centered around a group of player characters trying to establish their own syndicate in a really crazy metropolis.