Quote:
Originally Posted by evileeyore
Well, you don't give it to everyone. Just the guys who need it... but I think you are better served modifying each SoD into an SoS (save-or-die to save-or-suck).
Say Flesh to Stone slowly turns them into stone in stages. Each stage could have it's own save, maybe progressively worsening. Stage 1 gives them a DX penalty say 1/5 of their DX (rounddown) and lasts 5 seconds; Stage 2 a further DX pen (another 1/5), gives DR 2, lasts 5 seconds, Stage 3 gives the final DX pen (up to 3/5 DX pen now), Slowed (one level of Decreased Time Rate), and a Perception penalty of... eh.. -4 (?)*; Stage 4 is just five more seconds of all that suck and a last Resistance cause if the enemy ain't dead by now they will be by Stage 5. Stage 5, enemy is a statue and will remain so indefinitely until the spell is broken.
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Yes, that's more or less how I plan on modifying Flesh to Stone. Maybe I'll make it in a version that the target's extremities start to turn first. Giving 5 fails to die and 1 to save would probably make it nigh impossible to turn someone, though, maybe a better approach would be that the first save has a penalty. Then, each save after that either advances or retreats a stage, but then I'd have to create some mechanism so that it doesn't go on forever.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hal
Don't take this as a dig against you, or anything of that nature, take it for what it is worth. Give the system a chance to work as written. Take notes, then make changes to the system after running it a few times. This is advice from someone who is known to create house rules without fear, but it is also from someone who has used GURPS since 1986. Ye Gads, do I feel old all of the sudden. :(
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I never see things as personal, no worries!
Your reply was very detailed and entertaining to read. I'd be laughing so hard if I was present at the moment of the two lost duels.
You see: I rarely,
rarely, create house-rules and even less so use other people's house-rules without being absolutely sure it's from a very acclaimed source and that it was praised by 90%+ of the people who used it.
That's not true for mods for virtual RPGS, tho haha. 60 is the bare minimum to play Skyrim.
However, I am
very proficient at creating them. I don't do that very often, but when I do, it's good, because I've studied game design, probability, and have been building and combo'ing things since I was 10 - when I was 12, my monk's Asura in Ragnarok Online hit
exactly how much it had to hit to kill any non-tank class, the rest I had in speed and defenses. Then I had a second set of gear to hit
exactly the necessary to kill the tanks. I don't do this kind of munchkinism in tabletop RPG, because it's not a competitive game. But this means I have a deep understanding of how game systems interact with each other.
I don't think spells in GURPS are OP, at all. I just think that save-or-die are. Maybe they're not really
that strong, but they're
broken - they're either completely useless, or completely fatal, there's no middle term. All or nothing is something I truly dislike in our everyday virtual combats.
Giving enemies MR
don't fix that, they nerf all spells and make the save-or-die tend more to useless than fatal.
Creating trinkets for the enemies to specifically counter save-or-die spells
don't fix that - they just make the spells useless. If I wanted to have them disabled, I could simply ban them. Giving everyone points to spend to counter that basically does that as well, just in a less radical way.
Playing against the players
absolutely don't fix that - be it by dropping anti-mages everywhere or dropping enemy mages with the save-or-die spells. You see, my problem doesn't lie with
players using them, it lies with
anyone using them.
Still, I
want them to exist in my world. I just want them to be on par with other spells and with the rest of the system as a whole.
But I do appreciate seeing other points of view, even if I don't agree with them. Seeing from other perspectives allow us to enhance and temper our own.