Recovery roll improvements

[mrkwnzl]

I think the way recovery rolls are handled could be improved. Especially if one wants to use the Numenera system for other Cypher games, recovery rolls should be expendable without the need to roll, as there are several abilities that cost one recovery roll. There might also be abilities that let you use up your recover rolls out of order, but I’m not sure about that.

As I read the RAW, you have to spend all your points at the moment you roll them. The way in the system is that you save up your points until you need them, if you can’t spend all your points right now. They get then added to the next roll.

[SolarBear]

You're absolutely right: some abilities do cost recovery rolls and should be expandable. I'll need to address this. As for out-of-order use of recoveries, this is something that it seems a lot of GMs have house-ruled into their games and is currently on my roadmap - the sad part being that, when I started the system, this WAS how it as implemented.

As I read the RAW, you have to spend all your points at the moment you roll them. The way in the system is that you save up your points until you need them, if you can’t spend all your points right now. They get then added to the next roll.

Again, you are right. This is simply a hack I settled with back when I implemented the recovery dialog: what if a user rolls their recovery dice, starts distributing points to their pool and something unexpected happens? (disconnection, page refresh, thermonuclear war, you name it) I needed some means of not having the points go to waste. The downside is that some crafty players might stockpile those sweet points until the next time they're required...

Tell you what, here's how I could handle this more appropriately:

1. Recovery dialog opens normally, roll one or more of your recoveries
2. Something TERRIBLE happens
3. Upon reconnection, the system checks for remaining points: if there are any left over, the dialog is displayed so points can be distributed normally.
4. If the user tries to leave the dialog, they're warned that, if they DO leave, all of these sweet, sweet points will be lost... forever.

The tricky part is #3 since I'm not quite sure I can "freeze" the whole system for the user (one could simply minimize the dialog or drag it into the very corner of their screen). I could make it so some actions cannot be done while there are points left over but spreading this all over the system's code is a battle I will lose.

So, anyway... does this sound good to you?

[mrkwnzl]

To be honest, I’m not a big fan if too much automation. I’d be happy with some checkboxes, a field in which I can write down the bonus, and a button to make the roll. In other words, the checkboxes, the roll and the allocation if points are independent from each other. That way I can check boxes without rolling, check boxes out if order, and allocate points differing from the rolled result, if needed (for example, when I get a one time bonus from an ability or a major effect).

As a good principle for games like Cypher (which is a lot looser on the rules than D&D, for example) should be that if I can do it at a physical game table with real dice and paper character sheets, I should be able to do it online. And that includes house rules or rules variants. That means that there are not many automations in place and that people sometimes have to think and do it themselves, but it allows for all situations.

[SolarBear]

Agreed - but the confusing part to me is that automation is a very personal thing. Some players would seemingly love to have the system perform nearly 100% of their work for them (no offense to anyone) while others would enjoy nothing more than a decent-looking character sheet and roll with that. Finding a solution that pleases everyone while not overengineering myself into a corner isn't easy.

I could also hide of all this behind a system setting ("Enable assisted recovery rolls" or some such) but I guess introducing a setting at every corner would create its own set of problems.

[mrkwnzl]

I guess there’s a reason all the Roll20 sheet does is a very basic calculation of point costs and difficulty, which can be turned off so that you can just use it as a digital character sheet.

[mparker546]

The Strange sheet on Roll20 (both versions) is much worse and is on the other end of over-engineered.

I think that System Settings will ultimately be were a lot of these toggles live. The UX can be improved over time, and documentation can be used to not make it overwhelming, but for the full Core Cypher System, there are a lot of toggle switches.

[SolarBear]

Pretty much all fixed right