We got together for more Starmada this afternoon / evening as a break from D&D. Participants included me, Jared, Matt Britton (of the Royal Brittonic Navy), and Matt Glisson. Glisson hadn't played before, and we were curious to try a 'vanilla' game with pre-built ships and a lack of craziness, so our first game used the OGRE Starmada conversion. Matt ran an Ogre MkIII, with Jared, Glisson, and I trying to stop him from attacking our command post. We gave Glisson howitzer command (looong range, but immobile and terrible accuracy), while Jared ran a trio of missile tanks (slow as infantry, but longish range and excellent accuracy) and I got stuck with GEVs (fast fast fast, but weak weapons and terrible durability). Terrain was rolled as asteroid belt, so we ended up with a size 4 asteroid field, a size 5 asteroid field, and 11 asteroids. I like to think of them as irradiated zones within the Ogre setting; they affect targeting by interfering with sensors, and deal damage to units by owning electronics and killing folks. We placed the big asteroid field in a corner of our spawn area to keep Matt from using it, but he used the other to good effect as cover. I engaged with the GEVs, but suffered pretty horrible losses. One of Glisson's howitzers took a flight of seekers, as did one of Jared's tanks, but we dealt enough damage that the Ogre was rendered toothless about halfway across the map. Matt played well, though; he used terrain properly to hide from the howitzers, got us to split our force, and generally did a decent job. I think the large map combined with the low speeds was what did him in. I'm curious to play more 'vanilla' games on a more standard scale; I think by playing vanilla, we could take the focus off of ship design and put it more heavily on tactics. Remains to be seen.
The second game we decided to go all-out with personal ship designs, with Glisson using the Nations of Earth ships from the Grumm sourcebook. We rolled Breakout, which we hadn't played before, with Matt and I attacking, Jared and Glisson defending. Matt ran RBN carriers, I ran my most recent (and untried until today) version of Eldar, and Jared ran... something? He fielded a couple of 14-point ships, a small flotilla with some strikers, and a cruiser with repeating increased-hits weapons. Terrain was a planet and three moons. They hid behind the planet, but Matt's fighters likewise used the planet as cover to close and laid some hurt down on Turn 2 (as well as trading fighters for Jared's strikers). Turn 3 they tried to move out around the planet, bur I decloaked and hit them from the side. One of my cruisers took a pounding from their guns, but remained alive and recloaked and ran for it next turn, while my heavy cruiser (based off the Eldar Shadow Hunter line cruiser) obliterated one of Glisson's cruisers at long range, and my light cruiser took out Jared's carrier flotilla. Turn 4, most of my stuff recloaked, and Matt's bombers finished off Jared's flotillas. The only VP they scored was escaping Jared's cruiser off the map, while we destroyed everything else of theirs with no losses for us except for carried fighters. A solid win (though there was a close moment with that cruiser of mine that got mauled - they dealt 10 damage to a hull 6, and we weren't sure it was going to make it. Would've given them the win at end of Turn 3).
I left then, but apparently a third game was played with Matt and Jared vs. Glisson and Tim, who arrived late. From what I've heard, Jared fielded his cruiser again, but this time decided to shoot with it rather than running off the map, and dealt something like 40 hits from a 250-point ship in very little time, causing Glisson and Tim to cede. Regrettable...
It's been a while since I updated the standings... sadly, I've missed too many games to keep an accurate count, and the ones played without me haven't necessarily been properly reported (names, sides, scenario, terrain, results). Campaign games with terribly unbalanced forces only muck things up further. Meh. If it becomes a regular thing, might start keeping track again, possibly restarting the counts. As it stands, it seems like who wins depends mostly on amount of time spent out-of-game designing fleets, as well as how much cheese (be it small craft, flotillas, G-arc only weapons, super-repeaters, turbo engines, &c) one is willing to use. Kind of a sad state of the metagame. Calls for banning Rules Annex material are currently being fielded... I approve, actually. The shield-breaking traits in Annex (Piercing +2 and +3, Halves and Ignores Shields) have made high shields quite inviable as a defense; Alex and I both tried fielding Shields 5 ships for a game or two, and extremely effective anti-shield weapons were just too common for them to be even close to cost-effective. Likewise, the group is divided on flotillas... I think at this point only Jared uses them. They were kinda fun for a while, and I think an all-flotilla game would greatly simplify things by removing the 'rolling and applying damage' step (and removing damage ratings from weapons), but as far as the rest of the game goes, being able to pack an arbitrary number of guns in a small arc into a very fast package is quite deadly, and speed and defenses don't deteriorate with damage like on a normal ship. Such a ban would mean a serious re-design for Jared... and given the success of his repeater, I'm not sure we want to force such a re-design, lest he find more Things of Intense Effectiveness in Core. I'd also like to ban strikers, but leave seekers in, as seekers produce significantly more interesting gameplay. They can be countered more readily than strikers by terrain or interposing disposable ships, and require more forethought in target selection than strikers (you can't just dump 20 flights of seekers on the table and expect to win; you have to choose your targets carefully to make sure you get it right). Meaningful choices and planning, basically.
Basically, there is dissatisfaction with the current state of the metagame, and I'm not sure how to fix it. Until we figure that out, it will continue to be less fun than it could be for all involved.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
State of the Game
Man, it's been a while since I did an out-of-character / rules post. Tim's been running a fun Trailblazer test campaign (which was to be a one shot, but then ran long). So, some thoughts on what we've seen so far from Trailblazer, in no particular order:
Fighters: nobody's gotten to use Punishing Strike yet, which adds attack and damage on AoOs :(. Tim fielded a pile of NPC fighters during the first session, and I've been running a fighter / ranger the entire time, and AoOs just don't get provoked for movement like they used to. Another consequence of the change to AoO rules is that combatants can now circle each other, rather than standing in place. A point for realism! Expert Weapon Proficiency, though, has been wonderful; I used it to make Dwarven Waraxe a light weapon, which means I can two-weapon fight with them without penalty, which is awesome (plus Weapon Finesse, being able to use it in grapple, and being able to use it to cut my way out of Swallow Whole attempts. Not that those last two have come up yet). Tim's fighters used it to boost damage, I believe, and their attacks stung quite a bit. So: fighters aren't complete chumps anymore. And Combat Reflexes is an awesome bonus feat, because it get you more...
Combat Reactions: Also awesome. These let you do other things with your "Attacks of opportunity per turn" pool. DR from Blocking saved my hide from the black dragon in session 2 (as did a potion of bear's endurance; lacking either, I'd've been toast), and Dodge, Aid Attack, and Aid Defense have all been used to good effect as well. AoO has been used the least frequently of any of them, really, which is a nice change. Having Dodge and Block scale with BaB also helps out the fighty-classes, which I appreciate a lot (and the extra Block DR from shield bonuses also makes Sword and Board a much more viable loadout).
Bard: Tim tasked me with building and running Adam, the party bard, in combat. I was a little saddened by this, since I'm usually not a fan of bards at all, but man... bard buffs are good stuff. I enjoyed being able to time Haste and Inspire Courage when it was most useful for Fjolkir, and really miss the damage bonus from Inspire Courage. On the plus side, the fact that Inspire Courage largely overrides Heroism in combat meant that I was able to claim all the Heroism potions, which is paying off now that Adam's gone. Also, Power Chord is a really nice ability; being able to swift-cast Cat's Grace and Glitterdust was useful several times. Overall, my respect for bards has improved significantly, though I don't think I would want to play one as my only character.
Ranger: About the only things they changed here that have mattered so far were opening up bonus feat selection (I used it to get Two-Weapon Defense since I already had TWF; wouldn't've been able to do that normally), Improved Reaction (+1 Init; since I also have Improved Init and 18 Dex, I usually go first. Nice.), and spellcasting. Getting low-level spells to be able to heal myself a little and to use Longstrider, even as a multiclassed character weighted mostly towards fighter has been really useful, but improving my spellcasting is slow going; I'm not going to get 2nd-level spells until 10th level. I'm currently at Fighter 6 / Ranger 3 - I think the plan out to 12th (not that I expect the game to run that long) is Fighter 6 / Ranger 4 / Fighter 2. I'll get 2nd-level spells from the next level of Ranger (as well as Uncanny Dodge and Speak with Animals at will), then Expert Weapon Proficiency from Fighter 7 for 2d6 damage on the waraxes, and then Greater TWF at Fighter 8. Which brings us to...
Iterative Attacks: TB changed iteratives so they work like TWF, Flurry, and Rapid Shot - extra attacks at a penalty to all of them. Being able to roll a handful of d20s all at the same bonus has sped my turns up nicely. Jared (who plays Somak) has also taken advantage of it, though Dan (who plays Alonso) really hasn't yet; he keeps rolling them sequentially rather than in parallel. I had to go buy a fourth d20 to roll all of my attacks, but it was quite a pretty die, and I don't regret it. Four attacks, each at -4, has been pretty effective; I'm very very likely to hit with one of them, and usually hit with two. It's basically the D&D application of the Starmada principle that "Volume of fire is important," and it's easy on the maths. I almost with I had Power Attack so I could really benefit from the math reduction this change saves.
Skills: Being able to scatter points across class skills and get effectively four ranks for one skill point has been useful; I've been spreading mine around to get a few points each in things like Swim and Heal (which actually helped recover from the ability damage from Malevolence last session). I think I'll probably get Knowledge (Nature) next level... something I really ought to have, but I bet Somak's got me beaten on it. Being able to assist wouldn't hurt, though. Getting 4+int skills as a fighter was also really useful; I'm at max ranks in Stealth, Survival, Perception, and Search, and then I got the class bonuses from Ranger. I'm as sneaky as the rogue, have the best perception in the party (thanks for the Eyes of the Eagle, Tim), and can track a party of four humanoids across firm ground a week and eight hours of rain after they passes. Haven't gotten to use search yet, though. Anyway, being good at useful skills as a fighter is a nice change of pace.
Druid: Somak's been effective in melee, tripping with a modified guisarme (using TB's melee weapon customization rules; he reduced crit threat range and boosted base damage) and Enlarge Person from Barridan, but he has a hell of a glass jaw; at last check, Somak at 9th level had around 36 HP, while Barridan, the halfling sorcerer, had 42ish. Probably poor HP rolls on Jared's part, but it puts the druid solidly in the second line of melee behind me (for reference, I'm at 85 HP. Toughness got upgraded pretty hard in TB, and Con 16 and d10 HP are awesome). The bonus to hit prone foes in melee has really helped offset my full attack penalties, especially now that Adam's Inspire is gone. Unlike the 3.5 druid, though, the TB druid hasn't been dominating melee in wild shape (they really toned Wildshape down; it's kind of like an Astral Construct of personal buffs now); he has been succeeding wildly on his trip attempts (with the size bonus from enlarge, using a two-handed weapon, ability score buffs, and ability score boosts from Hybrid Form), but he's not an unstoppable bear with an army of bears (no animal companions, and summoned creatures are fairly weak - the dragon slew a Summoned Monster IV from him in one shot of its breath weapon). I think we're all pretty happy with the changes here.
Rogue: I think Alonso's been less than maximally effective due to poor design choices by Dan, rather than by poor design by the TB folks. This is all.
Sorcerer and/or Cleric: Barradin was initially a Cleric 4 / Sorcerer 4, but eventually realized he was basically just using sorcerer spells and leaving curing to the wands, so Tim let him switch to full Sorc. And he's been throwing fireballs like a sorc ought to be; he picked up Empower Spell at 9th, and has been using it on his Scorching Rays and Fireballs to good effect. No complaints here, though I'm sad that we didn't get to see a proper half-and-half caster in full, versatile action (they operate very similarly to a caster of full level in each class, but lose out on some bonus slots and readies from each class). I'm also sad that we didn't have a proper caster / non-caster multiclass; I guess I'm the closest, with +2 BmB from my fighter levels and +1 BmB from my ranger levels. Maybe next campaign I'll run a Barbarian / Druid or a Cleric / Monk...
Not a whole lot else to report... we haven't run into any really annoying parts of the system yet, that I can recall. Oh, Dispel Magic. We're not sure if we like the Dispel change or not... they changed it so that it got to dispel at most one effect from the target, so that you weren't stripped of all of your buffs in one go. On the one hand, this is really nice for your PCs if they like to buff and your enemies like to dispel. On the other hand, Tim's NPCs have been better buffed than we have (except for the fight against the dragon, where we drank so many potions that if we had been using the old Potion Miscibility rules, we'd've all died), and his enemies haven't been using dispel, so we've been getting the short end of the Dispel Magic stick when we go to dispel their buffs. I guess the real problem is buffs themselves; they're annoying to keep track of, and Dispel Magic just means you have to recalculate everything in the middle of combat. Tim proposed changing their durations to encounters, rather than simulationist units of in-game time; this could be justified by the fact that if you're not actively using the benefits of the buff between combats, the power of the spell isn't being expended, or it's just leaking away slowly enough that it'll evaporate over a rest period, say. It's an interesting solution, but we haven't tried it yet. I almost favor removing buffs from the game wholesale; TB's spine analysis didn't take them into account and still came out which reasonable numbers, which suggests that they could be removed without severely breaking any of the core combat numbers for the game. Alternatively, granting inherent bonuses would work nicely as well; just give me something that I can write down and add up once, and then not have to remember. Fodder for another post on another day.
Fighters: nobody's gotten to use Punishing Strike yet, which adds attack and damage on AoOs :(. Tim fielded a pile of NPC fighters during the first session, and I've been running a fighter / ranger the entire time, and AoOs just don't get provoked for movement like they used to. Another consequence of the change to AoO rules is that combatants can now circle each other, rather than standing in place. A point for realism! Expert Weapon Proficiency, though, has been wonderful; I used it to make Dwarven Waraxe a light weapon, which means I can two-weapon fight with them without penalty, which is awesome (plus Weapon Finesse, being able to use it in grapple, and being able to use it to cut my way out of Swallow Whole attempts. Not that those last two have come up yet). Tim's fighters used it to boost damage, I believe, and their attacks stung quite a bit. So: fighters aren't complete chumps anymore. And Combat Reflexes is an awesome bonus feat, because it get you more...
Combat Reactions: Also awesome. These let you do other things with your "Attacks of opportunity per turn" pool. DR from Blocking saved my hide from the black dragon in session 2 (as did a potion of bear's endurance; lacking either, I'd've been toast), and Dodge, Aid Attack, and Aid Defense have all been used to good effect as well. AoO has been used the least frequently of any of them, really, which is a nice change. Having Dodge and Block scale with BaB also helps out the fighty-classes, which I appreciate a lot (and the extra Block DR from shield bonuses also makes Sword and Board a much more viable loadout).
Bard: Tim tasked me with building and running Adam, the party bard, in combat. I was a little saddened by this, since I'm usually not a fan of bards at all, but man... bard buffs are good stuff. I enjoyed being able to time Haste and Inspire Courage when it was most useful for Fjolkir, and really miss the damage bonus from Inspire Courage. On the plus side, the fact that Inspire Courage largely overrides Heroism in combat meant that I was able to claim all the Heroism potions, which is paying off now that Adam's gone. Also, Power Chord is a really nice ability; being able to swift-cast Cat's Grace and Glitterdust was useful several times. Overall, my respect for bards has improved significantly, though I don't think I would want to play one as my only character.
Ranger: About the only things they changed here that have mattered so far were opening up bonus feat selection (I used it to get Two-Weapon Defense since I already had TWF; wouldn't've been able to do that normally), Improved Reaction (+1 Init; since I also have Improved Init and 18 Dex, I usually go first. Nice.), and spellcasting. Getting low-level spells to be able to heal myself a little and to use Longstrider, even as a multiclassed character weighted mostly towards fighter has been really useful, but improving my spellcasting is slow going; I'm not going to get 2nd-level spells until 10th level. I'm currently at Fighter 6 / Ranger 3 - I think the plan out to 12th (not that I expect the game to run that long) is Fighter 6 / Ranger 4 / Fighter 2. I'll get 2nd-level spells from the next level of Ranger (as well as Uncanny Dodge and Speak with Animals at will), then Expert Weapon Proficiency from Fighter 7 for 2d6 damage on the waraxes, and then Greater TWF at Fighter 8. Which brings us to...
Iterative Attacks: TB changed iteratives so they work like TWF, Flurry, and Rapid Shot - extra attacks at a penalty to all of them. Being able to roll a handful of d20s all at the same bonus has sped my turns up nicely. Jared (who plays Somak) has also taken advantage of it, though Dan (who plays Alonso) really hasn't yet; he keeps rolling them sequentially rather than in parallel. I had to go buy a fourth d20 to roll all of my attacks, but it was quite a pretty die, and I don't regret it. Four attacks, each at -4, has been pretty effective; I'm very very likely to hit with one of them, and usually hit with two. It's basically the D&D application of the Starmada principle that "Volume of fire is important," and it's easy on the maths. I almost with I had Power Attack so I could really benefit from the math reduction this change saves.
Skills: Being able to scatter points across class skills and get effectively four ranks for one skill point has been useful; I've been spreading mine around to get a few points each in things like Swim and Heal (which actually helped recover from the ability damage from Malevolence last session). I think I'll probably get Knowledge (Nature) next level... something I really ought to have, but I bet Somak's got me beaten on it. Being able to assist wouldn't hurt, though. Getting 4+int skills as a fighter was also really useful; I'm at max ranks in Stealth, Survival, Perception, and Search, and then I got the class bonuses from Ranger. I'm as sneaky as the rogue, have the best perception in the party (thanks for the Eyes of the Eagle, Tim), and can track a party of four humanoids across firm ground a week and eight hours of rain after they passes. Haven't gotten to use search yet, though. Anyway, being good at useful skills as a fighter is a nice change of pace.
Druid: Somak's been effective in melee, tripping with a modified guisarme (using TB's melee weapon customization rules; he reduced crit threat range and boosted base damage) and Enlarge Person from Barridan, but he has a hell of a glass jaw; at last check, Somak at 9th level had around 36 HP, while Barridan, the halfling sorcerer, had 42ish. Probably poor HP rolls on Jared's part, but it puts the druid solidly in the second line of melee behind me (for reference, I'm at 85 HP. Toughness got upgraded pretty hard in TB, and Con 16 and d10 HP are awesome). The bonus to hit prone foes in melee has really helped offset my full attack penalties, especially now that Adam's Inspire is gone. Unlike the 3.5 druid, though, the TB druid hasn't been dominating melee in wild shape (they really toned Wildshape down; it's kind of like an Astral Construct of personal buffs now); he has been succeeding wildly on his trip attempts (with the size bonus from enlarge, using a two-handed weapon, ability score buffs, and ability score boosts from Hybrid Form), but he's not an unstoppable bear with an army of bears (no animal companions, and summoned creatures are fairly weak - the dragon slew a Summoned Monster IV from him in one shot of its breath weapon). I think we're all pretty happy with the changes here.
Rogue: I think Alonso's been less than maximally effective due to poor design choices by Dan, rather than by poor design by the TB folks. This is all.
Sorcerer and/or Cleric: Barradin was initially a Cleric 4 / Sorcerer 4, but eventually realized he was basically just using sorcerer spells and leaving curing to the wands, so Tim let him switch to full Sorc. And he's been throwing fireballs like a sorc ought to be; he picked up Empower Spell at 9th, and has been using it on his Scorching Rays and Fireballs to good effect. No complaints here, though I'm sad that we didn't get to see a proper half-and-half caster in full, versatile action (they operate very similarly to a caster of full level in each class, but lose out on some bonus slots and readies from each class). I'm also sad that we didn't have a proper caster / non-caster multiclass; I guess I'm the closest, with +2 BmB from my fighter levels and +1 BmB from my ranger levels. Maybe next campaign I'll run a Barbarian / Druid or a Cleric / Monk...
Not a whole lot else to report... we haven't run into any really annoying parts of the system yet, that I can recall. Oh, Dispel Magic. We're not sure if we like the Dispel change or not... they changed it so that it got to dispel at most one effect from the target, so that you weren't stripped of all of your buffs in one go. On the one hand, this is really nice for your PCs if they like to buff and your enemies like to dispel. On the other hand, Tim's NPCs have been better buffed than we have (except for the fight against the dragon, where we drank so many potions that if we had been using the old Potion Miscibility rules, we'd've all died), and his enemies haven't been using dispel, so we've been getting the short end of the Dispel Magic stick when we go to dispel their buffs. I guess the real problem is buffs themselves; they're annoying to keep track of, and Dispel Magic just means you have to recalculate everything in the middle of combat. Tim proposed changing their durations to encounters, rather than simulationist units of in-game time; this could be justified by the fact that if you're not actively using the benefits of the buff between combats, the power of the spell isn't being expended, or it's just leaking away slowly enough that it'll evaporate over a rest period, say. It's an interesting solution, but we haven't tried it yet. I almost favor removing buffs from the game wholesale; TB's spine analysis didn't take them into account and still came out which reasonable numbers, which suggests that they could be removed without severely breaking any of the core combat numbers for the game. Alternatively, granting inherent bonuses would work nicely as well; just give me something that I can write down and add up once, and then not have to remember. Fodder for another post on another day.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Trailblazer Mages: 3/4 Base Magic Bonus?
So it looks like the group's taking a break from Starmada this weekend for a D&D one-shot while we wait for Jared to return from somewhere. I'm pretty OK with this; Starmada's fun, but we get really competitive about it, so I'm not sure it's the best thing for group cohesion. But as the games go, so go my thoughts, and so goes the blog, and so this one's about Trailblazer.
Trailblazer (henceforth TB) is a 3.5 derivative that is nominally competing with Pathfinder, though on a much lower budget and with basically no support (I hear they're coming out with a monster book soon - might have to pick that up). They did some really neat things that made 3.x significantly more fun; my favorites are their iterative attack changes (now works like Rapid Shot, Flurry, and TWF - penalty to all attacks to get an extra attack. Much easier to keep track of the Power Attack penalties), combat reactions (AoOs, Aiding Others, Dodging, and Blocking now all fall under one mechanic that scales nicely with BaB, giving the martial classes a nice boost in addition to the extra class features they already get), and the unified Base Magic Bonus progression / casting system, which eliminates the need for classes like the Mystic Theurge and makes Caster / Non-Caster multiclassing much more viable (for example, a Cleric 3 / Monk 6 casts as a 6th-level Cleric in all respects, which is still useful at 9th character level, while 3rd-level Cleric casting would not be so much). Non-casters like the Rogue, Fighter, and Barbarian get 1/3 BmB, Ranger, Paladin, and Monk get 1/2, Bard and Adept get 2/3, and full casters get +1 BmB per level. Your total BmB is indexed into a table that determines the number of slots and readied spells (CD Spirit Shaman-style) you have available from all of the class lists you have access to (with a few restrictions that I won't go into here).
Trailblazer also did a bit of class rebalancing using a numeric system developed by Craig Cochrane (author of the Immortal's Handbook). This generates a number around 1 for each class, which is the average CR gained by taking a level in that class. The non-caster classes get the short end of the stick, ending up mostly between .9 and .95, while the full casters end up around 1.2 after TB's modifications, plus or minus .03. The primary contributing factor to their higher CRs is naturally their spellcasting; they gain about .4 CR per level just from their casting. The CR from casting formula's interesting; I've reverse-engineered it to .00025 * max spell level available at 20th level * total number of spell levels per day available at 20th level (before bonus spells and whatnot). So a 3.5 Sorc ends up with about .6 CR per level of casting, while a Wizard ends up around .4 because they have fewer raw spell slots per day. I think, however, that the casters in the 1.2 range could be pulled down to around 1 by reducing their BmB from full to 3/4. At 3/4 BmB, at 20th-level caster gets 100 levels of spells per day and a maximum of 8th-level spells, for a CR per level from casting of .2. This, applied to any of the full casters, would reduce their CR per level to 1, plus or minus .3. It also raises the level at which play starts to break down from 4th-level spells like Solid Fog that hose non-magical characters unstoppably from 7th to 10th, which means that Epic 9th then becomes a viable option (for those unfamiliar, I recommend checking out Epic 6th here).
There are, however, a couple of problems with this solution, as pointed out to me by one of my caster-playing friends. The first is that at low levels, casters suck extra - you don't get 1st-level spells until 2nd level with 3/4 BmB. The second is that your caster level lags as well as your spell availability, decreasing the power of all your spells in addition to limiting your slots. The third, and perhaps most systematically serious, is that since saving throw DCs are based on spell level, by reducing spell level availability, you reduce saving throw DCs against spells across the board. My proposed solution to problem 2 is to do something similar to the Bard's Arcane Forte ability, which grants them a bonus to caster level with spells from certain schools. This lends itself beautifully to specialist wizards, and to domain-centric clerics, but I haven't found a good way to apply it to subsets of the Sorc or Druid lists yet. Problem 3 could probably be solved through careful selection of spells - those without saves, like most rays, or those with saves that you know your enemies to be weak against. I'm loathe to increase save DCs across the board, though I'm also slightly tempted by True Sorcery's approach, where all spells had a save DC equal to 10 + half caster level + relevant ability score modifier. It introduces a nice parallel to monster special ability saving throw DCs, and makes low-level spells more useful at high levels. 3.5's psionic augmentation rules might be the best way to go, though. Finally, I don't have a good solution for lack of spells at first level, except perhaps to round BmB up at first level with a 3.0 Druid Animal Companion-style caveat (for those unfamiliar, a 3.0 druid could choose an animal companion with a number of HD less than or equal to their druid level, except for 1st-level druids, who could get up to 2 HD of animal companions).
Thoughts? Nerdrage? Willing victims for playtesting? I'm hoping Tim'll let me run a TB character this weekend for the one-shot; while I ran a 10thish level TB campaign last summer, I could stand some 6th-level playtest data as well. Also, this may lead up to a Wilderlands of High Fantasy TB campaign - I found a cheap used copy of the Necromancer version of Wilderlands recently, and it looks like it would play kind of as a cross between Traveller and D&D, which would be pretty awesome...
Trailblazer (henceforth TB) is a 3.5 derivative that is nominally competing with Pathfinder, though on a much lower budget and with basically no support (I hear they're coming out with a monster book soon - might have to pick that up). They did some really neat things that made 3.x significantly more fun; my favorites are their iterative attack changes (now works like Rapid Shot, Flurry, and TWF - penalty to all attacks to get an extra attack. Much easier to keep track of the Power Attack penalties), combat reactions (AoOs, Aiding Others, Dodging, and Blocking now all fall under one mechanic that scales nicely with BaB, giving the martial classes a nice boost in addition to the extra class features they already get), and the unified Base Magic Bonus progression / casting system, which eliminates the need for classes like the Mystic Theurge and makes Caster / Non-Caster multiclassing much more viable (for example, a Cleric 3 / Monk 6 casts as a 6th-level Cleric in all respects, which is still useful at 9th character level, while 3rd-level Cleric casting would not be so much). Non-casters like the Rogue, Fighter, and Barbarian get 1/3 BmB, Ranger, Paladin, and Monk get 1/2, Bard and Adept get 2/3, and full casters get +1 BmB per level. Your total BmB is indexed into a table that determines the number of slots and readied spells (CD Spirit Shaman-style) you have available from all of the class lists you have access to (with a few restrictions that I won't go into here).
Trailblazer also did a bit of class rebalancing using a numeric system developed by Craig Cochrane (author of the Immortal's Handbook). This generates a number around 1 for each class, which is the average CR gained by taking a level in that class. The non-caster classes get the short end of the stick, ending up mostly between .9 and .95, while the full casters end up around 1.2 after TB's modifications, plus or minus .03. The primary contributing factor to their higher CRs is naturally their spellcasting; they gain about .4 CR per level just from their casting. The CR from casting formula's interesting; I've reverse-engineered it to .00025 * max spell level available at 20th level * total number of spell levels per day available at 20th level (before bonus spells and whatnot). So a 3.5 Sorc ends up with about .6 CR per level of casting, while a Wizard ends up around .4 because they have fewer raw spell slots per day. I think, however, that the casters in the 1.2 range could be pulled down to around 1 by reducing their BmB from full to 3/4. At 3/4 BmB, at 20th-level caster gets 100 levels of spells per day and a maximum of 8th-level spells, for a CR per level from casting of .2. This, applied to any of the full casters, would reduce their CR per level to 1, plus or minus .3. It also raises the level at which play starts to break down from 4th-level spells like Solid Fog that hose non-magical characters unstoppably from 7th to 10th, which means that Epic 9th then becomes a viable option (for those unfamiliar, I recommend checking out Epic 6th here).
There are, however, a couple of problems with this solution, as pointed out to me by one of my caster-playing friends. The first is that at low levels, casters suck extra - you don't get 1st-level spells until 2nd level with 3/4 BmB. The second is that your caster level lags as well as your spell availability, decreasing the power of all your spells in addition to limiting your slots. The third, and perhaps most systematically serious, is that since saving throw DCs are based on spell level, by reducing spell level availability, you reduce saving throw DCs against spells across the board. My proposed solution to problem 2 is to do something similar to the Bard's Arcane Forte ability, which grants them a bonus to caster level with spells from certain schools. This lends itself beautifully to specialist wizards, and to domain-centric clerics, but I haven't found a good way to apply it to subsets of the Sorc or Druid lists yet. Problem 3 could probably be solved through careful selection of spells - those without saves, like most rays, or those with saves that you know your enemies to be weak against. I'm loathe to increase save DCs across the board, though I'm also slightly tempted by True Sorcery's approach, where all spells had a save DC equal to 10 + half caster level + relevant ability score modifier. It introduces a nice parallel to monster special ability saving throw DCs, and makes low-level spells more useful at high levels. 3.5's psionic augmentation rules might be the best way to go, though. Finally, I don't have a good solution for lack of spells at first level, except perhaps to round BmB up at first level with a 3.0 Druid Animal Companion-style caveat (for those unfamiliar, a 3.0 druid could choose an animal companion with a number of HD less than or equal to their druid level, except for 1st-level druids, who could get up to 2 HD of animal companions).
Thoughts? Nerdrage? Willing victims for playtesting? I'm hoping Tim'll let me run a TB character this weekend for the one-shot; while I ran a 10thish level TB campaign last summer, I could stand some 6th-level playtest data as well. Also, this may lead up to a Wilderlands of High Fantasy TB campaign - I found a cheap used copy of the Necromancer version of Wilderlands recently, and it looks like it would play kind of as a cross between Traveller and D&D, which would be pretty awesome...
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Starmada Campaign Rules, Take 2
The last version of the campaign rules met with limited popularity during playtesting. The primary criticisms were as follows:
And so, without further ado, I give you our Starmada Campaign Rules, V2. It's not written up all pretty-like, but it'll do for a 'working notes' draft.
Kudos to Matt Britton, Tim Vaughan, and Jared Goerner for helping in development (we saw how well solo development worked out last time...). Tim, Matt, and I ran a first playtest turn this last weekend, but Jared was out of town, so we've put it on hold until he gets back (because we really don't want to leave his empire in stasis and have it come back only to face a single, monolithic enemy empire, or to be marginalized on the borders of two much stronger warring states. I think there'd be a lot of opportunity in such a situation, but hey, that's why I'm playing pirate). I'll post a map here post-turn 1 after Jared's run his first turn. I'm also sad to say that it seems unlikely that our other two pirate players, Mark and Alex, will be as able to play as they wished... This is part of what I'm looking to fix in the upgraded pirate rules, but I'm still not sure how I'm going to do it. Suggestions, internet?
- Random appeals meant you could get really screwed for reinforcements just by chance. Of the four total losses, each of which was followed by a reinforcements check by the loser, two of the reinforcements rolls came up 1s. Likewise, tech was simply too unlikely to be useful, as were special appeals. The arbitrary nature of special appeals rankled as well.
- Overloaded flotillas were absolute bears to kill.
- High-engine, low-cost striker carriers could launch every game and then evade enemy fire, meaning that guns were largely useless except for shooting down incoming ordinance (or against foes also using guns). That strikers were recovered for free after the game added insult to injury.
- The ability to field the same ships over and over seemed unrealistic.
- The ability to capture only one system per game, and even then only half the time, meant that expansion would be unduly slow.
- Scenarios felt somewhat contrived - the whole point of scenarios, as expressed in Starmada Core, was to give the game a little variety beyond "Last fleet standing." In a campaign system, this is unnecessary - sometimes you will want to run to conserve your forces. Basically, a campaign system does a better job of providing a context to a battle than a scenario could.
And so, without further ado, I give you our Starmada Campaign Rules, V2. It's not written up all pretty-like, but it'll do for a 'working notes' draft.
Kudos to Matt Britton, Tim Vaughan, and Jared Goerner for helping in development (we saw how well solo development worked out last time...). Tim, Matt, and I ran a first playtest turn this last weekend, but Jared was out of town, so we've put it on hold until he gets back (because we really don't want to leave his empire in stasis and have it come back only to face a single, monolithic enemy empire, or to be marginalized on the borders of two much stronger warring states. I think there'd be a lot of opportunity in such a situation, but hey, that's why I'm playing pirate). I'll post a map here post-turn 1 after Jared's run his first turn. I'm also sad to say that it seems unlikely that our other two pirate players, Mark and Alex, will be as able to play as they wished... This is part of what I'm looking to fix in the upgraded pirate rules, but I'm still not sure how I'm going to do it. Suggestions, internet?
Monday, May 23, 2011
Thought for the Evening: Starmada as Ground Combat
Last night's game with the Searchlights really got me thinking about using Starmada to simulate ground combat. There's been a previous attempt at this, converting OGRE to Starmada, but it was a little simplistic and was developed in the early days of the Admiralty Edition, before there were many supplements (whether this was good or bad is somewhat uncertain). I've been having a BattleTech / giant stompy mech game with tanks itch recently, and I've been thinking about buying Wardogs, but I don't know that I really want to buy Wardogs if Starmada can do the same thing with a little conversion work. So I think that's going to be my project in the near future, since the campaign rules are in a playtestable state (and thus are released into the wild to remain fairly static, leaving me free to create other stuff)...
Some preliminary notes:
I'm looking to make things armor-centric, whether that armor is tanks or mecha (I'm a tank guy myself, but hey, if mecha draws a larger playerbase, I'm not one to stop 'em). Movement should probably be Basic Movement, and possibly alternating rather than pre-plotted, but pre-plot would work fine, too. My thought is that most vehicles should be flotilla ships without normal SU caps (with hulled ships being reserved for big things - OGREs, superheavy tanks, titanic mechs, naval vessels, fortresses, and the like), but with some other restrictions... I guess what I need to do is build 'templates' for what is legal and what isn't. Something like the following:
Light armored vehicles: flotilla ships, max engines 6, one weapon of up to ## SU mounted in an ABCD turret, max armor 2.
Medium armored vehicles: flotilla, max engines 5, one weapon of up to ## SU mounted in an ABCD turret and a coaxial weapon of up to ## SU, also in an ABCD turret, max armor 3.
Heavy armored vehicles: flotilla, max engines 3, one weapon of up to ## SU in ABCD, one coax of up to ## SU in ABCD, up to two sponson weapons each of up to ## SU in AC and BD, respectively, max armor 4.
The purpose of these templates, naturally, is to create some degree of verisimilitude. Land vehicle design is just different from naval ship design (which is the assumed basis for starship design). Tanks covered in guns facing in all directions have been out of fashion since World War I, and G-arc tank destroyers haven't seen a whole lot of use since World War II. I think the existence of templates might help facilitate a minimally-painful transition from normal ship design practices (read: as many range-15 G weapons as you can fit in your hull and CRAT limits) to some that are slightly more believable through the lens of modern armored warfare.
Mechs are going to be a little tougher, but probably arms should map to ABC and ABD. I think shoulder-mounted weapons may be just A and just B... GH and GI feel wrong, since they shouldn't be able to fire directly left and right. Maybe just AB regardless of the shoulder mounted on. Also considering mandating Overthrusters for the torso twists, or maybe just the Grumm Pivot ability (which would match the BT fluff, where the neurohelmets enable faster reaction times).
Finally, infantry is looking like fighters. Slooow fighters and inexpensive fighters, but they do get to react, and you can carry, embark, and debark them (going to modify retrieval so that you can retrieve and then relaunch - doesn't make much sense otherwise). Not planning on using marines, boarding, teleporters, or any of that... likewise, I guess strikers and seekers could be used for guided missiles, but I'm not sure it's necessary. I've also considered using them for airstrikes - you have a HQ unit near the rear of the map with strikers. You call in an airstrike, which is launching the striker in-game, and then the enemy has a chance to shoot down the incoming aircraft before their weapons impact. So that's a thought... might also have to use seekers, but secretly designate a target hex instead of a target unit. That makes sense with calling in coordinates.
This leads into artillery. I really want to use a variant of the searchlight rules for spotting for artillery. I want to have range 30 minimum-range artillery pieces where you basically need to have spotting units (going to need some "Indirect Fire" and "Can't fire while moving" traits for those, too), and I think that can be achieved with searchlights. Terrain's going to effect this, too - that's the other tricky part of ground combat games, terrain. Something to work out tomorrow / later today / in the near future.
Some preliminary notes:
I'm looking to make things armor-centric, whether that armor is tanks or mecha (I'm a tank guy myself, but hey, if mecha draws a larger playerbase, I'm not one to stop 'em). Movement should probably be Basic Movement, and possibly alternating rather than pre-plotted, but pre-plot would work fine, too. My thought is that most vehicles should be flotilla ships without normal SU caps (with hulled ships being reserved for big things - OGREs, superheavy tanks, titanic mechs, naval vessels, fortresses, and the like), but with some other restrictions... I guess what I need to do is build 'templates' for what is legal and what isn't. Something like the following:
Light armored vehicles: flotilla ships, max engines 6, one weapon of up to ## SU mounted in an ABCD turret, max armor 2.
Medium armored vehicles: flotilla, max engines 5, one weapon of up to ## SU mounted in an ABCD turret and a coaxial weapon of up to ## SU, also in an ABCD turret, max armor 3.
Heavy armored vehicles: flotilla, max engines 3, one weapon of up to ## SU in ABCD, one coax of up to ## SU in ABCD, up to two sponson weapons each of up to ## SU in AC and BD, respectively, max armor 4.
The purpose of these templates, naturally, is to create some degree of verisimilitude. Land vehicle design is just different from naval ship design (which is the assumed basis for starship design). Tanks covered in guns facing in all directions have been out of fashion since World War I, and G-arc tank destroyers haven't seen a whole lot of use since World War II. I think the existence of templates might help facilitate a minimally-painful transition from normal ship design practices (read: as many range-15 G weapons as you can fit in your hull and CRAT limits) to some that are slightly more believable through the lens of modern armored warfare.
Mechs are going to be a little tougher, but probably arms should map to ABC and ABD. I think shoulder-mounted weapons may be just A and just B... GH and GI feel wrong, since they shouldn't be able to fire directly left and right. Maybe just AB regardless of the shoulder mounted on. Also considering mandating Overthrusters for the torso twists, or maybe just the Grumm Pivot ability (which would match the BT fluff, where the neurohelmets enable faster reaction times).
Finally, infantry is looking like fighters. Slooow fighters and inexpensive fighters, but they do get to react, and you can carry, embark, and debark them (going to modify retrieval so that you can retrieve and then relaunch - doesn't make much sense otherwise). Not planning on using marines, boarding, teleporters, or any of that... likewise, I guess strikers and seekers could be used for guided missiles, but I'm not sure it's necessary. I've also considered using them for airstrikes - you have a HQ unit near the rear of the map with strikers. You call in an airstrike, which is launching the striker in-game, and then the enemy has a chance to shoot down the incoming aircraft before their weapons impact. So that's a thought... might also have to use seekers, but secretly designate a target hex instead of a target unit. That makes sense with calling in coordinates.
This leads into artillery. I really want to use a variant of the searchlight rules for spotting for artillery. I want to have range 30 minimum-range artillery pieces where you basically need to have spotting units (going to need some "Indirect Fire" and "Can't fire while moving" traits for those, too), and I think that can be achieved with searchlights. Terrain's going to effect this, too - that's the other tricky part of ground combat games, terrain. Something to work out tomorrow / later today / in the near future.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Starmada Campaign: Week 0
The opening battles of the war for the Sakkara Sector were fought this evening, with the native Sayok (moi) defending their claim to the sector against the hive-minded Bedechnis (Jared), the time-traveling space Romans of the Mythic Legion (Tim), and the Royal Brittonic Navy (Matt). The first game saw the Sayok allied with the Legions, as the carriers of both fleets were caught trapped against a black hole known as the Maw by the combined fleets of the Bedechnis and the RBN, who hid in the dust clouds accreted around the Maw. The Legion was bolstered by unexpected reinforcements, as were the Bedechnis, while I had a poorly-chosen vendetta against a Bedechni cruiser known as Sajuk. The RBN's subplot was Surprise Attack, giving them 2 turns to win the battle... I suppose their intelligence network was responsible for the trap, perhaps. While a group of Sayok raider frigates was able to capture one Brittonic vessel, both of our carriers were destroyed by enemy small craft, and we lost (and also failed both of our subplots, while Jared and Matt both achieved theirs). This allowed Matt and Jared to extend their influence deeper into the Sector. Tim failed his appeal for reinforcements, while I managed to procure a flight of lance frigates and a flight of independent fighters. The Legion, however, took possession of the captured Brittonic vessel, as no Sayok vessels remaining on the field, precipitating a declaration of war against them as well.
In the second battle, the Battle of Dark Space (though the Bedechnis and the Legions have a different name for it - we named it for the sensor interference which greatly hindered our fighting), I allied with the RBN as the attacker on Patrol. We'd never played Patrol before, which perhaps contributed to our poor tactics. We should've hung back... but the captains of the Sayok cruisers, hungry to avenge their fallen comrades, engaged somewhat more hastily than was optimal. All four fleets rolled Extended Duty for their subplots (with odds of 1 in 1296...), leaving the Legion's capital ships nearly weaponless and inflicting light inconveniences on the other fleets. The Legion flotillas arrayed themselves in one corner of the map, while a Bedechni flotilla attacked along the south, and the Bedechni missile carrier from the first game hung back and launched missiles. The RBN ships remained behind the Sayok cruiser line and launched a huge wave of boarding pods... but the Bedechni flotilla managed to cripple two of the Sayok cruisers (though it was destroyed in turn), and the rest of the enemy fleets managed to escape, scoring them many VP. Jared and Tim were both promoted to Subsector Commander, while Matt was demoted to Battlegroup Commander, and I remained merely a commander (with Renown 2 after as many battles), and my fleet held together by duct tape and military aid (repairs) from the RBN in exchange for a non-aggression pact during our next game. And no aid from the home front, either... failed my reinforcements roll. But hey, if they take my homeworld (which Jared and Tim are poised to do in two more wins - I had last pick of systems, and the corner industrial world was looking kind of meh), then I can play Eldar pirates like I really want to. Likewise, if I hit Renown 0, the Sayok tribes may disband into leaderless raiders, prompting a similar transition to piratehood. Arrr.
So, the map:
Jared's green, I'm grey, Matt's red, and Tim's blue. Neither of our pirate players was able to play today, but I'm hoping I might be able to score a win against one of them during the week so I can grab another system for much-needed repair output (probably that civilized world as a buffer against Tim).
Other things I learned:
In the second battle, the Battle of Dark Space (though the Bedechnis and the Legions have a different name for it - we named it for the sensor interference which greatly hindered our fighting), I allied with the RBN as the attacker on Patrol. We'd never played Patrol before, which perhaps contributed to our poor tactics. We should've hung back... but the captains of the Sayok cruisers, hungry to avenge their fallen comrades, engaged somewhat more hastily than was optimal. All four fleets rolled Extended Duty for their subplots (with odds of 1 in 1296...), leaving the Legion's capital ships nearly weaponless and inflicting light inconveniences on the other fleets. The Legion flotillas arrayed themselves in one corner of the map, while a Bedechni flotilla attacked along the south, and the Bedechni missile carrier from the first game hung back and launched missiles. The RBN ships remained behind the Sayok cruiser line and launched a huge wave of boarding pods... but the Bedechni flotilla managed to cripple two of the Sayok cruisers (though it was destroyed in turn), and the rest of the enemy fleets managed to escape, scoring them many VP. Jared and Tim were both promoted to Subsector Commander, while Matt was demoted to Battlegroup Commander, and I remained merely a commander (with Renown 2 after as many battles), and my fleet held together by duct tape and military aid (repairs) from the RBN in exchange for a non-aggression pact during our next game. And no aid from the home front, either... failed my reinforcements roll. But hey, if they take my homeworld (which Jared and Tim are poised to do in two more wins - I had last pick of systems, and the corner industrial world was looking kind of meh), then I can play Eldar pirates like I really want to. Likewise, if I hit Renown 0, the Sayok tribes may disband into leaderless raiders, prompting a similar transition to piratehood. Arrr.
So, the map:
Other things I learned:
- Man, flotillas. More forward firepower than a cruiser, faster than fighters, and more searchlights than you can shake a flaregun at. Part of why I really wish I were playing Eldar; easy enough to get behind a flotilla with cloaked Eldar, and then you can open up on them from relative safety. Especially annoying because my long-range guns are No Hull Damage, for a -1 penalty to shooting against flotillas. Basically I need to build high-IMP weapons to deal with them.
- I think we're going to see a lot of "Stand off and let the fighters do the talking", especially with the higher-CRAT games we've started playing. This makes me sad, because my only carrier was destroyed in the Battle of the Maw, so now I'm stuck with fairly expensive independent fighters and mediocre long-range firepower (especially against Tim's Stealth fleet). On the other hand, they're a lot better than my carrier fighters were, so meh. I am also disappointed that I bought Extra Shield Damage, since nobody else is actually using capital ships or shields much (Jared's got screens, while most of Tim's stuff seems to have Shields 3, and Matt's running mostly Shields 1 from what I've seen). Failed to read the metagame correctly, I guess.
- Searchlights and localized dust clouds were actually really interesting, terrain wise, though I like planets better. The localized dust clouds provided an area of cover where you had basically had to be in the cloud to shoot other things in the cloud - most of the battle took place there. I guess it was kind of the equivalent of forest or town hexes in some of the older SPI games I've read, where you want to hold it because it's hard to shoot through. Searchlights were interesting because it provided a decent simulation of sensors that weren't of infinite power. It also prompted the notion of using flotillas as spotters; they get so many searchlights that you could build a flotilla of high speed, with a bunch of defensive specials and like one teleporter for a little ORAT so they're not free, and then buy them in huge numbers. Then use them to light up enemies, since they have a ton of searchlights, so they'll make the range rolls eventually (or just run them up to within 10 of the enemy and have them auto-light for not very many points). I might actually have to keep some flots designed like that around for that purpose. I think it might be interesting to make searchlights kind of a standard rule - it does nicely cut down the long range factor (unless one side has many many more searchlights than the other, as happened to us). Also interesting would be to add a modification where a ship that fires is automatically illuminated for the next turn's shooting phase (the old counter-battery fire trick).
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Starmada: Campaign Begins
I finally finished hammering out a set of campaign rules that I'm reasonably satisfied with, available for download here. We also have a map:
The letters in each system represent the type of the system's primary world; Industrial, Civilized, Mining, Farming, Penal, or Uninhabited. Each player may choose a color, and the systems that each player holds will be updated to their color.
The goal is to start the campaign this coming Saturday. Alex, Matt, Tim, Jared, Mark, and I are all confirmed players, and I'm pretty sure Ethan will play as well.
Let the fleetbuilding commence!
Edit / Update 20 May:
We've made a few rules updates by popular demand, and I think most of us have fleets now as well. Ethan's out, but the rest of us are still good to play, so Saturday's looking promising.
The letters in each system represent the type of the system's primary world; Industrial, Civilized, Mining, Farming, Penal, or Uninhabited. Each player may choose a color, and the systems that each player holds will be updated to their color.
The goal is to start the campaign this coming Saturday. Alex, Matt, Tim, Jared, Mark, and I are all confirmed players, and I'm pretty sure Ethan will play as well.
Let the fleetbuilding commence!
Edit / Update 20 May:
We've made a few rules updates by popular demand, and I think most of us have fleets now as well. Ethan's out, but the rest of us are still good to play, so Saturday's looking promising.
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