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Old 11-16-2018, 12:20 PM   #11
Anaraxes
 
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Default Re: [DF] extending Rule of 16 for high-point games

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Originally Posted by Gnome View Post
Remember, I'm talking specifically about Rule of 16 for spells, using the standard Magic system)... So that modifier from PU4 doesn't really give me the fair cost for a special advantage that essentially grants that modifier to all spells
Such a modifier would typically be applied to Magery in the standard magic system. Compare with cyclical Magery, limited Colleges, or "Easily Resisted Magery", as seen in Thaumatology.
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Old 11-16-2018, 12:37 PM   #12
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Default Re: [DF] extending Rule of 16 for high-point games

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Originally Posted by Gnome View Post
I'm somewhat confused by your answer. 20/level seems low, but for a typical wizard 10/level might be right?
My answer was "I wouldn't do it" followed by a heavily implied "but".

The reason I wouldn't do it is exactly the thing you mention: Fast paced advancement. So whatever cost I might think was fair (IE low enough to be something they'd take, not so high it would be worse than just taking the Perk) would quickly be shown to be too low.


Which is why personally I'd just stick with the Perk. Depending on how you run things, every session the Wizard is going to either be raising 3-5 spell's Rule of caps, or their favorite spell's cap by 3-5.

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We just assume people will optimize their characters and price based on that, right?
Then I'd have to count up all the spells it could possibly apply to and base it on that number... which would make it prohibitively expensive.

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Maybe 20/level is right, but it feels a bit expensive.
20/level is my knee jerk cost. It's one of those "The Wizard can buy this every four sessions" level of power increase.

You could always go with the time honored "x5 covers everything".



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Originally Posted by Mark Skarr View Post
Sorry evileeyore, but in Power-Ups 4, on pg 7, there is a Cosmic Modifier for "No Rule of 16."
Yes, but it's not really appropriate for a Dungeon Fantasy game which is why I ignored it.

Also as mentioned, Gnome just wants something for 'all spells' (they he might show horn in Bardic Abilities and other such Spells as Powers effects). And a single Perk that did that for all spells would be way too potent.
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Old 11-16-2018, 01:02 PM   #13
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Default Re: [DF] extending Rule of 16 for high-point games

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Originally Posted by Gnome View Post
Remember, I'm talking specifically about Rule of 16 for spells, using the standard Magic system (as is canonical for DF). So that modifier from PU4 doesn't really give me the fair cost for a special advantage that essentially grants that modifier to all spells (or grants it partially by raising Rule of 16 to 17, 18, etc.).
I'd say it's simply an enhancement on the Magery Advantage. Say +10% per increase (+10% for Rule of 17, +20% for Rule of 18, etc.). Not every spell has a resistance roll. Modifying the base advantage seems to be the most logical method.

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Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post
Yes, but it's not really appropriate for a Dungeon Fantasy game which is why I ignored it.
I don't see why it's not appropriate. Seems like the perfect enhancement for a DF game.

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Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post
Also as mentioned, Gnome just wants something for 'all spells' (they he might show horn in Bardic Abilities and other such Spells as Powers effects). And a single Perk that did that for all spells would be way too potent.
I would agree, it should be a modifier on whatever supplied the ability. You simply apply it to the base Magery Advantage, or the Power. That does make it more expensive for Spells as Powers, but, if you're using Spells as Powers, you already know that.
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Old 11-16-2018, 05:45 PM   #14
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Default Re: [DF] extending Rule of 16 for high-point games

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
Such a modifier would typically be applied to Magery in the standard magic system. Compare with cyclical Magery, limited Colleges, or "Easily Resisted Magery", as seen in Thaumatology.
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Originally Posted by Mark Skarr View Post
I'd say it's simply an enhancement on the Magery Advantage. Say +10% per increase (+10% for Rule of 17, +20% for Rule of 18, etc.). Not every spell has a resistance roll. Modifying the base advantage seems to be the most logical method.
Magery is a Talent, so enhancing it to enhance all the skills benefiting from that Talent (the spells) seems weird. It's true that Thaumatology does this too, but it still seems off to me, because the cost depends on your Magery level, which means it's cheaper if you're less talented. If I have Magery 0 and IQ 20 and you have Magery 6 and IQ 14, our spells are at the same level for the same number of points spent on spells, but your Magery enhancements cost a lot more. I can buy Cosmic (No Rule of 16), +50% for a mere 3 points, while it costs you 33. But we get the same game effect! If the cost is going to be based on Magery level (and I'm not sure it should be at all), surely it should somehow count IQ+Magery?

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Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post
Which is why personally I'd just stick with the Perk. Depending on how you run things, every session the Wizard is going to either be raising 3-5 spell's Rule of caps, or their favorite spell's cap by 3-5.
There is a very strict limit on the number of caster perks you can buy in standard DF, but I suppose I could lift that limit for this particular perk. That might actually make it too cheap and easy to buy a bunch of levels for your favorite spell. This is certainly a direction I could take things though.
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Old 11-17-2018, 01:10 AM   #15
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Default Re: [DF] extending Rule of 16 for high-point games

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Originally Posted by Gnome View Post
Magery is a Talent...
Which is why (if you're going this route) you figure out how much to get the Enhancement on level 6 Magery and then separate it out as it's own Advantage the way Magical Stability works (DF 11 Power-Ups)


Of course if you've got DF 11 Power-Ups, you already know about the Magical Perk 'Rule of 17'.

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There is a very strict limit on the number of caster perks you can buy in standard DF...
Eh... yes and no. Yes, there are rules about it... but how strictly you apply those rules...

But even so, at 1 Perk per 20 points in Spells* your Wizards still have a lot of wiggle room at 700+ points in their characters.

Unless they are Johnny Twenty-Spell.




* I long ago shifted it to "One Magical Perk per Spell per point spent in that spell". I did this to get the PCs to spend more than one point per spell. It worked. They tended to spend 2-3 points in a small handful of spells... and 1 point per spell for all the other spells they didn't care as much about.
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Old 11-17-2018, 03:14 AM   #16
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Default Re: [DF] extending Rule of 16 for high-point games

How about a semi rule of 16? For every two points above 16 increase max save by 1. So a wizard with 25 iq and talent 6, will have 31-16=15. 15/2=7,5 rounded down to 7. 7+16=23. So that wizard will have a rule of 23.
You could use a semi cosmic advantage to represent this. Instead of +50% an ignore rule of 16, use +25% and semi ignore rule of 16.

I also believe luck advantage is basically borked. I suggest halfing the cost of all luck advantages and applying the game time limitation as well as the normal one. So luck is limited by game time and real time both.
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Old 11-18-2018, 09:54 AM   #17
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Default Re: [DF] extending Rule of 16 for high-point games

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I'm running a high point (700+ and rising fast) DF-ish game. The game started a few years back at 130 points, so I did not necessarily anticipate everything that could happen at this level in my initial house rules.

One of the many things I failed to anticipate was that the Rule of 16 would become rather burdensome once everyone's resistance rolls started to reach 16 or higher. This is especially salient when you factor in Luck. Every character has either Extraordinary or Ridiculous Luck at this point (at this level RL is generally worth the 60 pts to be virtually immune to bad dice). So it feels like enemy mages have almost no chance of affecting a PC with a resisted spell. PCs, meanwhile, aren't going to waste energy on a spell like Entombment, which costs a lot of energy (making it a waste against the fodder) and has a strong chance of failure (against a worthy foe).

I'm searching for solutions that won't make my PCs feel that I've pulled the rug out from under them. After all, they built and advanced their characters with the assumption that Rule of 16 would be in place. So they haven't focused on those resisted spells, they've usually stopped raising Will past 16 unless there was some other compelling reason to do so, etc.

Some possibilities:
  • announce that it will become Rule of 17 soon (once they reach x points for example), then Rule of 18 at some later point, and so on
  • invent some new "power-ups," available to PCs and NPCs, that allow one to ignore or extend the rule, similar perhaps to the Rule of 17 perk but more general and leveled
  • change the nature of resistance in some more radical ways (eg. allowing "deceptive spellcasting," where the caster takes a -2 for every -1 they wish to impose on the defender's resistance)
  • make no change and deal with the fact that resisted spells just suck now--partly this bothers me because all of the other kinds of spells just seem to get better (the PCs can cast faster, spending less energy, and maintain more spells for free while still able to soak spells-on penalties--it's fairly common for the party of five+Allies to walk around with 15-20 freely maintained buffs "on": Partial Shapeshifting (Spider Arms), Flight, Missile Shield, Shield, See Secrets, Dark Vision, Mage Sight, etc.)
  • other ideas? I'm hoping some of you creative types will have some good ideas I haven't thought of, or perhaps you've dealt with the same problem in high-powered games...?
A bit of a necro, but I am curious how your player characters stats look like.
Also how do you reward cp, are you slowly giving more and more of them?
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Old 11-20-2018, 08:22 AM   #18
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Default Re: [DF] extending Rule of 16 for high-point games

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Originally Posted by Malfi View Post
A bit of a necro, but I am curious how your player characters stats look like.
They vary greatly by profession of course. The primary frontline fighter has something like:
ST 25 DX 15 IQ 9 HT 18 Will 14 Per 14 Move 11
Weapon Master, High Pain Threshold, Combat Reflexes, Ridiculous Luck, Extra Attack 2, Very Fit, DR (tough skin) 3, Supertough Sinews (this is a house advantage that delays the "reeling from wounds" to -1*HP), 2Hsword-30 ...
(this is all off the top of my head, so close to right but probably off in some details and definitely missing a whole boatload of skills like Armoury, Stealth, Climbing, Fast-Draw, etc.)
The leprechaun druid/cleric/wizard has something like
ST 6 DX 13 IQ 23 HT 20 FP 25+
PI6 (druidic), PI6 (love-god), Magery 2 (he just got started on being a wizard recently), Ridiculous Luck (he's a leprechaun, so duh), ER 20, Leprechaun Charms (Blink, Flight, Invisibility), Blocking Spell Mastery (Blink), and a whole bunch of spells and skills of course.
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Also how do you reward cp, are you slowly giving more and more of them?
I give about 5-10 CP per session, in addition to the occasional "power-up" worth 5-20 points when the characters touch an orb of power, meet a master who puts them through a training montage, lay a dragon spirit to rest, etc.
Even though we've been playing the game for years (~60 sessions so far), in game only about six months have passed (combats can take a long time to play out), and in that time they've already gone from "zero to hero." The game is strongly D&D inspired, so one of the fundamental absurd premises is that through adventuring you can radically and transformatively change in a short period of time (130 to 700+ points!).
This is similar to progressing from, say, 2nd level to 14th level in 60 sessions, which is close to the typical advancement rate when I played D&D.

Last edited by Gnome; 11-20-2018 at 08:32 AM.
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Old 11-20-2018, 01:48 PM   #19
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Default Re: [DF] extending Rule of 16 for high-point games

i 'm playing a DF campaign as DM. I'm give them 2-5 points per session.
Greatly because i don't know how to handle a 500 points players. I wish to go one step at time.

By the way, how did you handle the rules of 16 in the end?
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Old 11-20-2018, 02:11 PM   #20
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Default Re: [DF] extending Rule of 16 for high-point games

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i 'm playing a DF campaign as DM. I'm give them 2-5 points per session.
Greatly because i don't know how to handle a 500 points players. I wish to go one step at time.
Are you running mixed play (IE you might end up with 350+ experienced Characters and 250 point newbys) or 'fixed lockstep'?
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