alice-i-cecile
commented
4 years ago 8:58 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: One, which is a problem I have with 5e, is that you can do a lot of things in a turn [8:59 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: in 3.5 and earlier, while swift and immediate actions existed, there wasn't the expectation you'd always be able to use them [8:59 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: There's a lot of power delegated to minor actions [9:00 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: because of this, there aren't many cases where you aren't able to do the thing you want [9:00 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Which is what leads to tactical nuance a lot of the time [9:00 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: If the only thing a fighter can do is attack, the tactical nuance doesn't come from attacking, it comes from getting into a position where you're able to do that [9:01 PM] Alice: Right, with respect to Treat / Dash being so useful to overcome problems? [9:01 PM] Alice: Oh and Break Grapple [9:02 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Any character in the game is able to attack, and treat, and move. Every turn, they never need to give up an aspect of that [9:02 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: This leads to optimal damage/utility loops [9:02 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: since you're basically stacking a sequence [9:02 PM] Alice: nod Of course you'd take this perspective :p [9:03 PM] Alice: Not that I necessarily think that you're wrong [9:03 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: I mean, it's doable [9:03 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: it's just something that needs to be taken into consideration [9:03 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: and it makes things a lot harder [9:03 PM] Alice: But yes, there's a pretty strong rotational element to gameplay that can be hard to knock off-balance [9:04 PM] Alice: The rotations and standard gameplay patterns add a lot (nice feelings of system mastery, ease of play, satisfaction and class / character distinctions), but they come at a cost, where sticking to your rotation no matter what ends up being optimal more and more often
[6:26 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Making Powers is frustrating [6:26 PM] Alice: Yeah, what're you struggling with? [6:26 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: there's a massive gap between what would be good tactically, what makes sense thematically, and what is interesting to play with [6:27 PM] Alice: That's super valuable feedback; any examples? [6:27 PM] Alice: (I haven't touched these much, it's been Sixfold's baby) [6:28 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: I also don't want to spoil my players, because running into something new is exciting :frowning: [6:28 PM] Alice: Yeah :frowning: [6:28 PM] Alice: DM? [6:29 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: I mean, this is more an issue I'm having designing every encounter than anything specific [6:29 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: I managed to make the first boss work all around [6:29 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: and it should be exciting and tense and thematic [6:29 PM] Alice: Right [6:29 PM] Alice: What sort of interesting to play with effects are you thinking about in particular? [6:31 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Well, part of the issue is that when making encounters, it's better to have a variety of specialized units [6:31 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: which is also interesting, because the players and GM need to change their tactics [6:31 PM] Alice: Right, I agree with that design principle [6:31 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: but a motley crew is really hard to make cohesive thematically [6:31 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: and if you homogenize the mechanics, the counterplay also becomes less interesting [6:32 PM] Alice: Right, unless they're humanoid [6:32 PM] Alice: Yep, I agree there [6:32 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Everybody being a human with a different weapon isn't a good theme [6:32 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Like, it's alright sprinkled in there [6:33 PM] Alice: I had some success with an early skeleton army fihgt [6:33 PM] Alice: But I agree that it'll get stale [6:33 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: The other issue I have with powers but not affixes [6:34 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: is that it's almost always better to just dump all your essence into whatever it is you want them to do [6:35 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: just brute force the combat by spending magic points at them [6:35 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: which is lame [6:35 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Like, the actual result of the magic points can be tactically diverse [6:36 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: but the essence economy just doesn't seem to matter on the monster end except as a fire and forget feature [6:36 PM] Alice: but the essence economy just doesn't seem to matter on the monster end except as a fire and forget feature Can you expand on that? At first I thought you were talking about the 4e problem, where martial powers always felt like spells, but this seems different [6:37 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Essence is just ammo, and you just want to make something that chucks as much ammo as it's allowed to every turn [6:37 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: because they'll die anyways [6:38 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Or, if they don't die, they won [6:38 PM] Alice: Ah, right [6:38 PM] Alice: So the same phenomenon as we had before with PC classes, where it felt like not spending max essence was always a mistake [6:39 PM] Alice: Which then devalued Focus really hard [6:41 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Kind of. It's more like because essence is part of the power budget, any monster value put into it becomes the optimal route [6:42 PM] Alice: nod Right, that makes sense [6:42 PM] Alice: Sixfold has been struggling with this too, where she'll just spend all of the essence every turn and only use powers [6:46 PM] Alice: @Arseface: Simulationist Grognard how would you feel about the ability to gain passive power for an essence drain? [6:46 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: It would be a variation on the same problem [6:46 PM] Alice: Yeah? [6:47 PM] Alice: To me, a big part of the issues we've seen have been that powers become the only thing worth using [6:48 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: The issue I see, is that in many cases there's only one thing worth doing. Right now, it usually involves powers [6:48 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Going all in on doing one thing SUPER well is too good [6:49 PM] Alice: Right, because of the way that you can specialize all of your strength into that one strategy which then dominates your action economy [6:49 PM] Arseface: Simulationist Grognard: Yeah [6:50 PM] Alice: Hmm, and the problem gets worse at higher levels